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Role of women in traditional sociéty and sociéty
Role of women in traditional sociéty and sociéty
Role of women in traditional sociéty and sociéty
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In the story The Red Lotus of Charity written by Somadeva () , Devasmita, a female character who lives in a caste-based society of ancient India, is facing the conspiracy of the four sons of a local merchant, who want to seduce her during her husband’s absence for a business trip. Throughout the story, the concept of virtuous is controversial: the content defines Devasmita as a wise and virtuous wife, who is able to stays faithful to her husband under any circumstance; meanwhile, Devasmita shows her violent and cruel when punishing those who want to conspirate her. These traits of Devasmita: her cunning and ruthless, however, will be regarded as unethical traits instead of virtue in many cultures. Any theory of justification of virtuous that seeks to explain The Red Lotus of Charity must be able to explain the ambiguity over the virtuous of the character Devasmita. A theory from The Prince, written by Niccolo Machiavelli (), an Italian writer of a political philosophy, claims that in order to maintain power, a prince must be as cunning as a fox to recognize traps and also be as curled as a lion to frighten his enemies; this idea comes close to being able to explain Somadeva ambiguous concept of virtuous. By applying …show more content…
Through Machiavelli’s perspective, the lion cannot protect herself from traps, and the fox cannot defend herself from wolves. Wherefore, Devasmita would likely be either falls into the deception, or receive revenge upon her family if she shows only to be cruel and cunning. By reading the Red Lotus of Charity through the perspective of Machiavelli, one would better understand the concept of virtuous in the two literature, in which both emphasize that the greatest virtue of individual is the ability to evaluate the circumstances and correspondingly make the correct decision to manage
In regards to use the use of mercy and cruelty, Machiavelli states that a ruler should "desire to be held merciful and not cruel", but also "should not care about the infamy of cruelty, because with very few examples he will be more merciful" than those who show too much mercy to their subjects, and not enough cruelty (The Prince, 65). In other words, the ideal Machiavellian ruler must know how to use cruelty and mercy well.
In the text “Seeing Red: American Indian Women Speaking about their Religious and Cultural Perspectives” by Inés Talamantez, the author discusses the role of ceremonies and ancestral spirituality in various Native American cultures, and elaborates on the injustices native women face because of their oppressors.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a story of science, religion and the life of the Henrietta Lacks herself. It has won many awards and was on the New York Best Seller list for over three years. To summarize it briefly, the book is based on the cells of Henrietta Lacks who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Sometime before she died, some of her tissue was sampled and used for research without her permission. They used the cells form her body to experiment on which led to many breakthrough discoveries in the scientific world. The cells were later named HeLa cells. No one in her family knew about this until years after her death, so they felt like she was just being used as an experiment from which they got nothing. When looking at the book as a whole, it is easy to see why so many people hold it in such high regards; however it appealed to me in a different way.
The bravery and strength of the lion will not be enough to empower the ruler to escape the snares set by his enemies for and the slyness of the fox is also needed. “The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” (The Prince) It is not possible for the citizens to love and fear a prince, but being feared is much safer than being loved.“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved” (The Prince) Everything a prince says must be filled with these five qualities: being merciful,being trustworthy, religious,kind, honest. Machiavelli defines virtues as qualities that are praised by others, such as generosity, compassion, and piety. He argues that a prince should always try to appear virtuous, but it is more important for the prince to be practical than it is for him to be morally good. The government that is built of this foundation it
Machiavelli discusses human free will especially in its relation to God, or more specifically, fortune. He chooses to focus on Fortune though, leaving God out of the equation for the most part which he does in most of his writing, as he believes his writing is on politics which is separate from religion. He argues that the general belief is that Fortune and God govern human affairs and that it is easy for humans to...
...such that individuals disregard the desires of others, even those who are supposedly close to them, in order to advance their own goals. The combination of subthemes allows her to easily juxtapose Velutha with those who aim to ruin his life. Roy also emphasizes the importance of caste and maintaining social status through her depiction of Velutha’s father’s reaction to his son’s affair with a woman of a higher social class. Roy’s political beliefs can be seen interspersed throughout the story and she repeatedly comments on the post-colonial situation in India through the actions of her characters. The amalgamation of Roy’s views on the moral quality of human beings and the political character of 20th century India come together to support her assertion that those who are overly selfless and spend no time trying to get ahead in life ultimately lose in the long-term.
The most astounding aspect of The Prince is Machiavelli’s view that princes may indeed, be cruel and dishonest if their ultimate aim is for the good of the state. It is not only acceptable but necessary to lie, to use torture, and to walk over other states and cities. Machiavellianism is defined as “A political doctrine of Machiavelli, which denies the relevance of morality in political affairs and holds that craft and deceit are justified in pursuing and maintaining political power (Def.)” This implies that in the conquest for power, the ends justify the means. This is the basis of Machiavellianism. The priority for the power holder is to keep the security of the state regardless of the morality of the means. He accepts that these things are in and of themselves morally wrong, but he points out that the consequences of failure, the ruin of states and the destruction of cities, can be far worse. Machiavelli strongly emphasizes that princes should not hesitate to use immoral methods to achieve power, if power is necessary for security and survival.
Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince is a book of philosophy that suggests or condemns various methods to ascend as a prince and ways to rule newly acquired principalities. In order to convince the readers, Machiavelli integrates different forms of logical arguments, including syllogism and enthymeme.
The Prince, written by Machiavelli is concerned with the issues politics, ruling a state and how a ruler or a leader should be. The key properties of a ruler are represented by Machiavelli in details and the inner and outer effects of the success in ruling are mentioned. One of the most important topics in The Prince is about the relationship of skillfulness (virtù) of the ruler and his good or bad chance (fortune) and their effects on gaining and keeping the power. Virtù, which has the present meaning of manliness, is used by Machiavelli as having skills, strength, intelligence and prudence of a ruler. It is the inner ability to gain the power and not to lose it easily. Fortuna, with the present use, fortune is explained as the word of God and the luck and opportunity that is given to the ruler. A ruler by fortune is dependent
Machiavelli disagrees with the classical definition of virtue. He makes a distinction between what he calls ‘virtu’ and ordinary goodness; a separation between private and public morality. Virtue literarily means manliness, and he equates it to skillful self-advancement. Virtue implies physical and mental capacity-intelligence, skill, courage, vigor; everything that is necessary for attainment of one’s own ends. Additionally, virtue is the ability to be flexible and adjust in any given situation. Pizan, on the other hand, attributes loyalty, prudence, intellect, imagination, moral strength and insight to virtue. Although their definitions of virtue are not necessarily the same, the historical, mythical, and biblical examples Pizan and Machiavelli utilize are aimed at proving the same point, that glory is the goal of acting virtuously.
Dystopias are full of dissatisfying issues and often unsettling worlds. Parable of the Sower, being a classic dystopian novel, is no different. Throughout the book, readers are engaged into a world where death is normalized and atrocity is average. The main character, Lauren’s connection to this world allows her to develop personally and spiritually. Lauren uses both connections to other people as well as connections between other people to express her feelings about the world around her. In Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Lauren’s interest and connection to the female astronaut influences her religion, Earthseed, and uses the astronaut to mimic and express her dissatisfaction with the world she lives in.
The bond of love is one which men, the wretched creatures they are, break when it is to their advantage to do so; ?? fear is held together by a dread of punishment which will never abandon you?(649). Machiavelli suggests that the key to being a good ? prince,? is deception. ? It is necessary to know how to disguise this nature well and to be a great hypocrite and a liar: and men are so simple-minded and so controlled by their present necessities that one who deceives will always find another who will allow himself to be deceived?
Although Machiavelli gives numerous points on what it takes to excel as a prince, he also shows some raw examples of how he feels a prince should act in order to achieve maximum supremacy. First, when he says, "ought to hold of little account a reputation for being mean, for it is one of those vices which will enable him to govern" proves Machiavelli feels mighty adamant about his view that being mean will help a prince achieve success (332). It is absurd to imagine the meanest prince as the most successful. Also, when Machiavelli states, "our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft" revealing his attitude to manipulate people into fearing and respecting the prince (335). Also, Machiavelli shows that for a prince to be successful, he must not think about good faith.
Insistence upon the rank of the tragic hero, or the so-called nobility of his character, is re...
It shows us that he is a realist who believes that we cannot be good all the time and if we try to study the ideal instead of focusing on reality, it will ruin us as he says “A great many men have imagined states and princedoms such as nobody ever saw or knew in the real world, and there’s such a difference between the way we ought to live and the man who neglects the real to study the ideal will learn how to accomplish his ruin” (Machiavelli 42). He is saying the prince cannot let his emotions get in the way or he will be ruined and not do his job of protecting his country well, however, he says that being bad is inevitable and that the prince ought to use this to gain authority as he says “ a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn not to be good, and use that knowledge, …, as necessity requires” (Machiavelli 42). Machiavelli tells us that he prince should steer clear of vices to the best of his ability and to practice virtue, but knows that practicing all these virtues is not possible due to the human condition, and that it is still acceptable to practice