Shops and Shopping in Victorian England
As the population of London grew during the nineteenth century, the means of production and distribution would need to change to meet the needs of the increasing masses. Prior to this period goods and products for the most part were gotten at markets or fairs. "From a country which had been predominantly agricultural and self-sufficient in essential commodities, England became a great manufacturing centre. The industrial towns of the North and Midlands developed and England was the workshop of the world, the markets for her products being assured by the growing needs of the pioneers of her Empire" (Borer 253). Not only was the growing Empire a vast market for England's goods; but within England, London in particular, we can see perceptions about products and people's shopping practices begin to evolve.
It is at this point in history that Raymond Williams in his work, Culture and Society: 1780-1950, marks the shift in the meaning of the word "industry." "Industry, before this period, was a name for a particular human attribute, which could be paraphrased as 'skill, assiduity, perseverance, diligence'. . . . industry came also to mean something else; a collective word for our manufacturing and productive institutions, and for their general activities" (xi). With this shift we can begin to see a stronger emphasis on Industry and production in Victorian England. The end result of a greater concentration on production is a vast increase in goods. This change in thinking, coupled with England's neglect of its agricultural pursuits, would force hundreds of thousands of people off the land and into industry. Fairs and markets could no longer meet the needs of the English public and shops began to crop up as a new way to distribute the goods of this mechanism of mass production.
Within this window of opportunity we can begin to see the development a new breed of businessmen, the middleman. Middlemen performed a unique function in an economy that had earlier depended on labor-based products. The middlemen would make their money off the sweat of others and their services consisted of reaping rewards with minimal physical exertion. These new breed of merchants made their livelihood by buying and selling for himself or others on commission; speculating; dealing in money and credit; and insuring goods and ships transporting goods. In the literature of the time we can see the depictions of these parasitic, venture capitalists in not the most flattering terms.
The pawnbroker had “trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and invites observation.”Dickens described...
In the nineteenth century, various inventions like the steam engine stimulated demand for products, thus introducing factories and workshops to manufacture those commodities. The popularization of Manchester initiated assorted reactions towards the industrialization of the cities surrounding Great Britain. While the industrial revolution ensued, numerous concerns occurred which all contemplated the affects of factories and industries engaged by the working division of society. As industry began to evolve for the operational lower classes, the positive, negative, and mutual reactions are denoted by various speakers whom were among the diverse social classes of society.
In today’s society, video games have played a huge part in the children and teen demographic. Revolutionizing the future, popular titles have implemented realistic values and experiences to players all around the world. As the quality of graphics improve and the plot thickens, so does the violence, gore, and bloodshed. Individuals who devote countless hours staring at the television screen trying to triumph the top high score and levels do not realize the amount damage and violent acts they are causing whether it is secluded in a virtual world or to their brains. Simulating unarmed fist fights, gun shootings, and war could lead to aggression and actual real-life violent conduct. Violent actions and behaviors in these titles could also desensitize
From a sociological understanding, deviance is any behavior or physical appearance that is condemned from social standards because it defies social norms or social expectations. Sociological understanding of deviance is not always associated with a negative outcome, but can have positive effects for the individual or soceity. With the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was seen deviant for sitting at the front of a bus and refusing to move when a white male came on board. This act of civil rights not only made a stance for improving African American rights, but also helped change social norms.. From an everyday understanding, deviance is any behavior or physical appearance that is seen with a bad or negative outlook. An example of an everyday understanding of deviant behavior can be seen as an individual having tattoos all over his or her body. Some individuals would consider tattoos covering someone’s entire body are bad or a negative appearance, even if the tattoos had significant meaning to that specific individual.
The Industrial Revolution was a fundamental change in the production of goods that altered the life of the working class. Similar to most other historical turning points, it had skeptics, or people that doubted the change, and fanatics, people who saw the value in the change being made. The Industrial Revolution and the period that followed shortly after highlight these varying opinions, as people were more conflicted than ever about the costs of industrialization. While industrialization started in England as an attempt to capitalize on the good fortune they had struck, it quickly developed into a widespread phenomenon that made the production of goods more exact and controlled by higher level people. Many industries, such as the cotton and textile businesses, were previously run through organizations called “cottage industries”.
ProCon. "Historical Timeline." Euthanasia - ProCon.org. ProCon.org, 28 Sept. 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. .
Scott, D. The Effect of Video Games on Feelings of Aggression. The Journal of Psychology. March 1995 v129 n2 p121-132.
Deviant behavior is sociologically defined as, when someone departs from the “norms”. Most of the time when someone says deviance they think against the law or acting out in a negative behavior. To sociologists it can be both positive and negative. While most crimes are deviant, they are not always. Norms can be classified into two categories, mores and folkways. Mores are informal rules that are not written; when mores are broken, they can have serious punishments and sanctions. Folkways are informal rules that are just expected to be followed, but have no real repercussions.
In the book “Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy,” the authors relay the general information concerning the history of violence in video games as well as the beginning of the issue of violence in video games (Anderson, Gentile, and Buckley 2007). They state that it was “during the 1990s that violent games truly
The allegation that videogames cause violent behavior in children has been present as long as videogames themselves. Some researchers said that the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, was one intense gamer. “Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech Shooter was seen by his roomates as odd because he never joined them in video games.”(Beresin) This debate will continue to go on in this country as long as there are horrific crimes that occur. There is much written in the research regarding this issue, and many differing views. The research that is presented in the next few paragraphs supports the theory that it is not the graphic video games that produce aggressive behavior, but other factors in a child’s life that create violent actions.
O'Brien, Patrick, and Roland Quinault, eds. The Industrial Revolution and British Society. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.
Hammond, J.L and Hammond, B (1937). The rise of modern industry. London: Methuen & Co . 162.
There is no absolute way of defining deviating acts. Deviance can only be defined in a relation to certain norms, but no standards are permanent. Norms can involve being within stereotypical viewpoints. Counter-stereotypical behavior may be viewed as acts of deviance; Phelan and Rudman defined backlash effects as “social and economic penalties for counter-stereotypical behavior” (2008). Phelan and Rudman concluded “When stereotypes are violated, people take notice.” I have seen people take notice of two men holding hands. Phelan, J. E., and Rudman, L. A. provided a few examples of the effects of deviance. A particular female puffing on a cylindrical roll of tobacco sticks out like a sore thumb in a gathering. The testosterone-infused male crying in a food market can hold the eyes of the shoppers. Our curiosity is poked whenever people stray from social norms, subsequently, becoming the center of attention is not the only result (2010). Proven by researchers, Deviators can go through punishment, social and economic. Punishment refers to positive or negative sanctions that follow deviating behavior such as a reward, being put on trial, death and so forth.
"In sum, by deviance I mean one thing and one thing only: behavior or characteristics that some people in a society find offensive or reprehensible and that generates--or would generate if discovered--in these people disapproval, punishment, condemnation of, or hostility toward, the actor or possessor....What we have to know is, deviant to whom?" (Goode, 1994, page 29)
Looking back into history, the Greeks were the first to put forward the idea that planet Earth was a sphere (now known as an oblate ellipsoid). Then around 340 BC, a Greek philosopher named Aristotle made the discovery of a few of our most influential and fundamental theories that helped to further prove this idea. Aristotle first proposed that one always witnesses the sails of a ship approaching past the horizon first and then its framework. This suggested that the surface of the ocean must be curved and not flat as it was once thought to be. Secondly, Aristotle discovered that the eclipses of the moon were generated by the shadow that Earth casted on it. This further proved the point that if the Earth was flat, the shadow it casted upon the Moon would not app...