The Psychological Dangers of Unemployment Essay Example for Free

The Psychological Dangers of Unemployment Essay Work is inexplicably bound to human existence. Since the dawn of time, human beings had to live by the sweat of their brows in order to ensure their survival. The advent of technology did not change this reality – the former only diversified work, as well as made it faster and more convenient. So closely linked is work to human existence that entire schools of thought were actually built around this association. The Prussian philosopher and political economist Karl Marx (1818-1883), for instance, argued that an individual’s identity was based on what he or she did for a living (Sayers 39). A person’s occupation supposedly reflected his or her faculties. The loss of work would therefore have an adverse effect on all aspects of a person’s life. In his article The Consequences – Undoing Sanity (2006) Louis Uchitelle argued that unemployment translates to more than just the loss of an occupation. When an individual becomes unemployed, he or she loses not just economic security but also his or her self-esteem (Uchitelle 299). This observation is very much true in the United States, a country whose culture strongly emphasized independence and individual achievement. Since its institution, the US has created an image of itself as an egalitarian society. Every American, regardless of race, creed or social status, had to work for their own survival. Consequently, when meeting someone for the first time, the question â€Å"What do you do? † is not far from the American’s lips. In American culture, a person’s job provides other people an idea about his or her personal background – educational attainment, upbringing, tastes, gender preference, etc. (Seguin 14) Furthermore, American culture associates work with personal accomplishment (Seguin 14). The egalitarian nature of American culture brought about the latter’s philosophy that diligence and industry are the tickets to better times. It is therefore not unusual for the average American to hold two or three jobs at the same time. Most Americans were first exposed to work through part-time jobs during their teenage years. Globalization, however, shattered the aforementioned ideals. Eager to cut down on operational expenses, many US enterprises resorted to downsizing. Minor operations, such as telemarketing and customer assistance, were transferred to Third World countries. For these companies, downsizing made good business sense – the Third World was a source of cheap but highly-skilled labor. But the American workers did not share the same belief. For them, downsizing meant the closure of firms and massive layoffs. Employees who faithfully served a company for many years suddenly found themselves out of work. Worse, they were unable to find a new job. Simply put, downsizing spelled poverty – decreased household expenditures, searching for a cheaper place to live, selling of properties that took many years to obtain just to make ends meet. Numerous studies have already been conducted on the damaging effects of joblessness, particularly on unemployment brought about by layoffs – decrease in family cohesion, a rise in the divorce rate, the unwinding of communities and guilty feelings among employees who dodged a layoff. But Uchitelle pointed out that the layoff in itself is already a very damaging blow (Uchitelle 301). Most employees who have been laid off often attribute their misfortune to their â€Å"mediocre† performance as workers (Uchitelle 301) – they were fired probably because they always reported late for work, they called in sick even if they really were not, their employers were not satisfied at their outputs, etc. Others, meanwhile, convince themselves that it is the company who has the problem and not them (Uchitelle 301). They may rationalize that the company is having financial trouble, hence the need to reduce the number of hands that it had to pay. Or maybe layoffs were simply commonplace, given the dismal state of the economy. Despite these elaborate justifications, the feelings of diminishment would still surface (Uchitelle 301). How come they were fired, while their co-workers were not? This sense of diminishment, in turn, has very destructive psychological effects. Despite encouragement from friends and family members, those who have been laid off may no longer feel any enthusiasm about pursuing a new job. This lack of interest has two sources – low self-esteem and the fear of failure (Uchitelle 302). A person who lost his or her job because of a layoff may feel that he or she is too incompetent for any kind of work. Such self-pity, consecutively, generates the fear that they will end up getting fired from the next job that they will avail themselves of. Layoffs can be more psychologically damaging for men, who are still traditionally expected to become the breadwinners of their respective families. One of Uchitelle’s respondents, Stacey Brown, was very much distressed over the negative personality changes in her husband, Erin, after he was laid off from his job as a mechanic in United Airlines. Prior to the layoff, Erin was a hardworking, ambitious man who was devoted to his job and had many future plans for his family (Uchitelle 299). But according to Stacey, he was unable to pick up his life after he became unemployed. She believed that â€Å"the layoff destroyed (her husband’s) self-esteem† (Uchitelle 299). Since Erin lost his job, he no longer had the self-confidence to look for a new job or pursue any other endeavor. His wife had to prod him into applying for a job as a technical specialist in a Rolls-Royce engine plant in Indianapolis. Erin, however, did not get hired. Stacey sensed that this incident made him averse to work of any kind (Uchitelle 303). For one, he described the plant’s human resources manager in a resentful and insulting manner. According to Erin, â€Å"I was well-qualified and I went through a lot of effort to get (the job)†¦and it turns out the guy who was doing the hiring had not bothered to understand the nature of the job he was in charge of filling† (Uchitelle 303). In addition, he was no longer interested in fulfilling his former plans of opening his own business. In order to lift his spirits after getting laid off, Stacey insisted on purchasing a rundown three-bedroom house located near their residence (Uchitelle 300). She hoped that in buying the house, she would be able to help him fulfill his dream of renovating and reselling rundown houses (Uchitelle 300). It proved to be a false hope. Although Erin started construction work on the house, he completed only the exterior part. Despite his excuses such as having to take care of their son, Kyle, Stacey knew the real reason behind his inability to finish reconstructing the house – he was afraid of another failure. According to Stacey, â€Å"(He) did not want to take the risk of actually finishing the (house) and then somehow (losing it like his former occupation)† (Uchitelle 304). No amount of support and understanding from Stacey helped Erin. Although he had just completed a two-evening-a-week course in air condition repair, he did so for the wrong reasons. â€Å"I know that I will be overqualified for the next position that I take,† Erin said (Uchitelle 305). Simply put, the layoff made him feel that he was too incompetent for any gainful employment. Thus, he contented himself with low-paying, dead-end jobs, such as air condition repair. Aversion towards work is another common response among those who experienced a layoff. Getting fired despite dedication to a particular job and or company may make them disillusioned with the point of working for a living (Barling, Kelloway and Frone 291). For them, working no longer makes any sense – they would probably get fired anyway. Losing a job is indeed very tragic, as the absence of livelihood would definitely spell poverty for a person or a family. But the tragedy associated with a layoff is even worse. An employee who gets laid off from work ends up losing not only his or her economic security, but also his or her self-esteem. He or she would most likely think that his or her incompetence led to the loss of his or her job. But wallowing in self-pity will not get anyone anywhere. After a period of mourning over loss, an individual will have no other choice but to move on with his or her life. Time, after all, never waited for anyone.Furthermore, a person who is down has no other way to go to but up. Works Cited Barling, Julian, E. Kevin Kelloway, and Michael Robert Frone. Handbook of Work Stress. London: SAGE, 2004. Sayers, Sean. Marxism and Human Nature. New York: Routledge, 1998. Seguin, Robert. Around Quitting Time: Work and Middle-Class Fantasy in American Fiction. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. Uchitelle, Louis. The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences. New York: Knopf, 2006.

Abortion Essay -- essays research papers

Abortion is defined as the termination of a pregnancy before the fetus is capable of independent life. Abortions must be conducted before the end of six months or the fetus will leave the womb and it would be considered premature birth. If the fetus weighs less than 18 ounces or is less than 20 weeks into pregnancy, it is usually considered an abortion. There are two types of abortions. One is spontaneous and the other is induced. Spontaneous abortions are known y another name, miscarriages. The second form of abortion is an induced abortion. This is the deliberate termination of the fetus.Many have pondered upon the meaning of abortion. The argument because every child born should be wanted, and others who believe that every child conceived should be born. This has been a controversial topic for years. Many people want to be able to decide the destiny of others. Everyone in the United States is covered under the United States Constitution, and under the 14th Amendment, women have been given the choice of abortion. Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion. Although these people have been given the right, the case is not closed. Pro-life activists carry a strong argument, and continue to push their beliefs. They feel intensely strong about these beliefs that violence has broken out in some known instances. Pro-choice activists; on the other hand, also carry very strong points. They believe that the child inside the mother is her property and its life does not begin until birth. Although many believe that abortion is a woman's choice, abortion should be banned because it is immoral and life begins at conception.Abortion is the choice of a woman in whether or not she wants to receive one. The right to choose to have an abortion is personal and essential to a woman's life. The state can not interfere in the private lives of a citizen. With the right to choose abortion, women are able to enjoy, like men, the rights to fully use the powers of their minds and bodies. A man can withdraw from a relationship as soon as he finds out about pregnancy. There is no question of his involvement after that; he has made his choice. It is only fair to say that women should be given the same choice. If one does not want to hold the responsibilities of a child then she should be able to have the choice of abortion in her options. Because contraceptives fail, and because they are ... ...e if they were not conceived.In summary, a woman's right to choose can justify abortion, but it should be banned because it is immoral and life begins at conception. Women have been given the right to have an abortion under the United States Constitution, but the people that fight for the unborn child's rights are still protesting this right. Pro-life activists claim that it is immoral because it is simply defined as murder. Life begins a conception is another strong point brought up by pro-life activists. Before a child is born it is given all its necessities to survive. Notice the operative word is before. Before birth, the child's heart beats, the gastric juices flow in the stomach, and all its necessary organs have been made present. This child thinks, dreams, and feels pain. Yes, some women may look at having an abortion to solve her problems, but in all, women are abandoning the abortion because it weakens their great strengths: creation, compassion, and the ability to look beneath the surface of the appearance of things. Maybe soon the abortion issue will reverse, and people will see the rights of the unborn as greater importance than that of a personal right or choice.

The Rhymes in Christina Rossetti’s Echo

In the three-stanza lyric poem â€Å"Echo,† Christina Rossetti uses rhyme as a way of saying that one might regain in dreams a love that is lost in realit. As the dream of love is to the real love, so is an echo to an original sound. From the comparison comes the title of the poem and also Rossetti’s unique use of rhyme. Aspects of her rhyme are the lyric pattern, the forms and qualities of the rhymng words, and the special use of repetition. The rhyme pattern is simple, and, like rhyme generally, it may be thought of as a pattern of echoes. Each stanza contains four lines of alternating rhymes concluded by a couplet: a b a b c c. There are nine separate rhymes throughout the poem, three in each stanza. Only two words are used for each rhyme; no rhyme is used twice. Of the eighteen rhyming words, sixteen — almost all — are of one syllable. The remaining two words consist of two and three syllables. With such a great number of single-syllable words, the rhymes are all rising ones, on the accented halves of iambic feet, and the end-of-line emphasis is on simple words. The grammatical forms and positions of the rhyming words lend support to the inward, introspective subject matter. Although there is variety, more than half the rhyming words are nouns. There are ten in all, and eight are placed as the objects of prepositions. Such enclosure helps the speaker emphasize her yearning to relive her love within dreams. Also, the repeated verb â€Å"come† in stanzas 1 and 3 is in the form of commands to the absent lover. A careful study shows that most of the verbal energy in the stanzas is in the first parts of the lines, leaving the rhymes to occur in elements modifying the verbs, as in these lines: Come to me in the silence of the niqht (1) Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live (13) My very life again though cold in death; (14) Most of the other rhymes are also in such internalized positions. The free rhyming verbs occur in subordinate clauses, and the nouns that are not the objects of prepositions are the subject (10) and object (11) of the same subordinate clause. The qualities of the rhyming words are also consistent with the poem’ emphasis on the speaker’s internal life. Most of the words are impressionistic. Even the concrete words — stream, tears, eyes, door, and breath — reflect the speaker’s mental condition rather than describe reality. In this regard, the rhyming words of 1 and 3 are effective. These are night and bright which contrast the bleakness of the speaker’s condition, on the one hand, with the vitality of her inner life, on the other. Another effective contrast is in 14 and 16, where death and breath are rhymed. This rhyme may be taken to illustrate the sad fact that even though the speaker’s love is past, it can yet live in present memory just as an echo continues to sound. It is in emphasizing how memory echoes experience that Rossetti creates the special use of rhyming words. There is an ingenious but not obtrusive repetition of a number of words — echoes. The major echoing word is of course the verb come, which appears six times at the beginnings of lines in stanzas 1 and 3. But rhyming words, stressing as they do the ends of lines, are also repeated systematically. The most notable is dream, the rhyming word in 2. Rossetti repeats the word in 7 and uses the plural in 13 and 15. In 7 the rhyming word sweet is the third use of the word, a climax of â€Å"how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet.† Concluding the poem, Rossetti repeats breath (16), low (17), and the phrase long ago (18). This special use of repetition justifies the title â€Å"Echo,† and it also stresses the major idea that it is only in one’s memory that past experience has reality, even if dreams are no more than echoes. Thus rhyme is not just ornamental in â€Å"Echo,† but integral. The skill of Rossetti here is the same as in her half-serious, half-mocking poem â€Å"Eve,† even though the two poems are totally different. In â€Å"Eve,† she uses very plain rhyming words together with comically intended double rhymes. In â€Å"Echo,† her subject might be called fanciful and maybe even morbid, but the easiness of the rhyming words, like the diction of the poem generally, keeps the focus on regret and yearning rather than self-indulgence. As in all rhyming poems, Rossetti’s rhymes emphasize the conclusions of her lines. The rhymes go beyond this effect, however, because of the internal repetition — echoes — of the rhyming words, â€Å"Echo† is a poem in which rhyme is inseparable from meaning.

The Failed Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in...

The ERA was introduced in every Congress since 1923, and yet it still failed to gain ratification. The ERA was the Equal Rights Amendment, which means that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. I believe it was never passed because of many reasons. One reason was because some ERA supports got offended by other supports who were very obnoxious, which was a backlash on feminist tactics. (Doc. E F) Another is that men and women might switch places, and it would be a threat to traditional roles.(Doc. J M) My last reason for why the ERA was defeated is because since men and women would have equal rights, the women could also be drafted and serve the country.†¦show more content†¦E) Another group of supporters in 1982 put their hands in a triangle shape (which is the symbol for the ERA), chained their selves to each other and kneeled on the ground in front of a public entrance. (Doc. F) This was so extreme that many people cropped the photo because of the men laughing in the background, meaning they didn’t take this seriously at all. This could have been a possibility of the ERA was defeated because some conservative women got offended as well as other ERA supporters that didn’t feel the need to participate in some of these unbearable tactics. They might have gone to the other side, the anti-ERA, not wanting to be thought as a member of these obnoxious supporters. Men back then thought they needed to be working, and when they came home a nice meal should be already prepared and waiting for them. They thought if the ERA was passed, that the men and women would switch roles having the men spend more time in the kitchen and with the children. In 1974, a man had his photo taken who had plenty of signs on him saying things like â€Å"No meals prepared†, â€Å"Child Abandonment†, and â€Å"Sour Wife?† (Doc. M) A consensus of men voted against the ERA thinking that they might become the wife and the wife become the husband. This could be a possibility of why the ERA wasn’t passed because almost all of men voted against the ERA, hoping that this would keep them from doing a few of their wives’ jobs and continue being the leader of the house. My last reason isShow MoreRelatedConstitutional Amendment Essay1170 Words   |  5 Pages(which takes a two-thirds majority vote in both the Senate and the House of Representatives), or a constitutional convention (which takes two-thirds of the State legislatures) want to propose an amendment, they give it to the National Archives and Records Administration. The Congress proposes the amendment as a joint resolution to the National Archives and Records Administrations Office of the Federal Register for the publication process. 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