Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How media shape public perceptions
How do media affect cultural globalization
Influence of media on culture
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: How media shape public perceptions
Internal forces can have great effects on human behavior, but how do the external forces influence human behavior? One could be influenced by internal forces such as morals and values, on the contrary, the external forces of society can also influence and shape human behavior in distinct ways. In “Homo Religiosus” by Karen Armstrong, the essay tries to show the relation of myth, religion, and art, and how they have changed over time with society. In “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” by Ethan Watters, the essay talks about how pharmaceutical companies are trying to establish the disease of the depression in Japan, but they are not doing it for the needs of the others but rather for the benefit of themselves. In today’s technologically …show more content…
These companies made it seem like they were there to help. That is one thing that both Armstrong and Watters share in common; the fact that in both cases the stories would bring a sense of hope to people. Although they share this conventional idea, the sense of hope given deviates between arguments. Armstrong’s argument brings about a good sense of hope allowing boys to believe in their religion and their greater Being. Adversely, Watters argument is more like what the new does when they try to spread hope, with the intent to deceive the people. In Watters argument, the pharmaceutical companies do not care about giving the Japanese people hope, but rather just selling their medicine and making money for themselves. The news on the other hand, can take into account both what Armstrong and Watters say. The news can spread a good sense of hope sometimes, but most of the time the news tends to fall in line with what GlaxoSmithKline is doing to the Japanese people. Armstrong and Watters share common-ground on certain ideas, although they have two different meanings; conversely, the news can mean both ideas, but it tends to take the meaning of a false sense of hope in order to make money or sell a …show more content…
Armstrong states, “today people who no longer find it in a religious setting resort to other outlets: music, dance, art, sex, drugs, or sports” (Armstrong 7). Armstrong suggests that people today do not find the need nor the ability to use the traditional means of religion,but instead they rely on other outlets to suffice this sense of religious meaning. For example, the news can not just tell the people the news anymore. They have to twist the truth just to sell the story instead of telling the people what actually happened. Watters states, “The American market, with it’s the brand recognition, high rates of prescriptions… and free market pricing, was seen as the most modern and advanced of markets. Japan was fifteen years behind the United States, executives would say. Or China was five years behind Japan” (Watters 528). Watters insinuates that GlaxoSmithKline is trying to impose the dominance of the American market on the Japanese people because they are so technologically deprived. Although the United States is technologically advanced, it can sometimes be harmful and the Japanese and Chinese are better off technically deprived. China and Japan are both at least fifteen years behind the United States, but yet they are still dominant powers considering their so-called lack of technological advancements. The news should have stayed back in the technologically deprived
More than forty-five thousand years ago, there have existed two types of bipedal humans, the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, but only one has survived. The survivors were the humans who we are comprised out of and still breathing and living today the Homo sapiens. Some scientist say that the lack of imagination was the key factor to the Neanderthals demise, while the Homo sapiens with a broader imagination lived on. In Karen Armstrong’s essay “Homo religiosus” she describes her time in the caverns of Lascaux, while she explains the painting on the walls as part of the ancient civilization’s rituals. The painting tells us a story of their daily lives and the myths in which they believe in, that keeps them in a peace of mind. As there were many
Dr. John Abramson’s book Overdosed America debunks the myths about the excellence of American medicine. Abramson backs up this claim by closely examining research about medicine, closely examining the unpublished details submitted by drug manufacturers to the FDA, and discovering that the unpublished data does not coincide with the claims made about the safety and effectiveness of commonly used medicines. Abramsons purpose is to point out the flaws of the pharmaceutical industry in order to warn the readers about the credibility of the drugs they are buying. Given the critical yet technical language of the book, Abramson is writing to an audience that may include academic physicians as well as those who want to learn about the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.
Be denying the importance of nature God’s creation Christians are participating in a form of blasphemy
One’s thoughts and actions are direct responses to what one has absorbed from who they label as experts. Watters affirms, “One of the chilling things about these events, whether a puzzle or a scandal, is how a very few people in key positions can determine the course of events and shape the consciousness of a generation,” (513). Individuals allow themselves to be influenced by exerts so much so that they blindly permit, “These companies upending long-held cultural beliefs about the meaning of illness and healing,” (519). The individuals in Japanese culture subsequently allow these experts to take “long-held cultural beliefs” and standards and transform these beliefs into uniform diagnostic “three minute surveys”. Not only do individuals rely on who they regard as experts, but manufactures do as well. Watters states, “When I asked Applbaum why they were so forthcoming, he told me it was simple: because of his business school credentials and his extensive experience in the Japanese market, they thought he might be able to give them some free advice,” (523). GlaxoSmithKline also take who they consider an expert and confide in their
In Melody Peterson’s “Our Daily Meds” , the history of marketing and advertising in the pharmaceutical industry is explored. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Creating disease”, focuses on how major pharmaceutical companies successfully create new ailments that members of the public believe exist. According to Peterson, the success that these drug manufacturers have experienced can be attributed to the malleability of disease, the use of influencial people to promote new drugs, the marketing behind pills, and the use of media outlets.
Therefore, the Japanese culture admired the melancholic personality type and saw sadness as an enlightened state. The reality of depression in their culture wasn’t as serious as the western culture because depression was seen as an inevitable characteristic of life. The Japanese actually praised these traits because they “associated it with orderliness and high achievement and that a sadness-prone personality was something not to be feared but aspired to.” (Watters 520) Though the reality of a culture is shaped through behavior and language, it’s also important to take into consideration that the realities of these eastern cultures are being modified through the influence of western cultures.
The theme of spirituality takes place in many novels that we have read this semester. Natives has used spiritual guidance as a means of connecting with their past and honoring their ancestors. To Natives, spirits have always played an important role in their culture and everyday lives. When Natives were forced to convert to Christianity and over time have their beliefs sucked out of them, the spiritual connection was broken as generations passed. One novel that particularly spoke to me on this subject was Monkey Beach, by Eden Robinson. The main character, Lisa, is struggling to fins herself after being blessed with the gift of being a shaman. In this novel, the author exploits how the European or western “white” culture has destroyed the native culture so immensely, that the younger generation cannot identify a spiritual connection without society calling them mentally unstable. Lisa suffers to accept the gift she has been given, and instead fights it by numbing herself with drugs and alcohol, which also being in another major theme of alcoholism in native culture, due to the suppression of the Native American race.
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication. In some instances, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States misleads both the public and medical professionals by participating in acts of both deceptive marketing practices and bribery, and therefore does not act within the best interests of the consumers.
The world is filled with many different types of societies and cultures. This is due to the fact that many people share dissimilar beliefs and ideas, as well as diverse ways of life. People lived under different circumstances and stipulations, therefore forming cultures and societies with ideas they formulated, themselves. These two factors, society and culture, are what motivate people to execute the things that they do. Many times, however, society and culture can cause downgrading effects to an assemblage if ever it is corrupt or prejudiced. Society and culture not only influences the emotions individuals have toward things like age differences, religion, power, and equality but also the actions they perform as a result.
As children, we are often told stories, some of which may have practical value in the sense of providing young minds with lessons and morals for the future, whereas some stories create a notion of creativity and imagination in the child. In Karen Armstrong’s piece, “Homo Religiosus”, a discussion of something similar to the topic of storytelling could translate to the realm of religion. Armstrong defines religion as a, “matter of doing rather than thinking” (17) which she describes using an example in which adolescent boys in ancient religions, who were not given the time to “find themselves” but rather forced into hunting animals which ultimately prepares these boys to be able to die for their people, were made into men by the process of doing.
3Walker, Hugh: Market Power and Price levels in the Ethical Drug Industry; Indiana University Press, 1971, P 25.
My father has always reminded me that religion plays a big role in one’s morals. Of course that only applies if a person is religious and has a religious background. There are a lot of religious people in this world, and if one were to ask them where their morals came from, they would say that it is based on their religion. So what is it that makes these two things so similar and distinct? Iris Murdoch, author of “Morality and Religion,” discusses how morals and religion need each other in order to work. Morals without religion is nearly impossible because; religion influences our morals, religion allows to set better morals for one’s self, and ideally morality is essentially religious.
It is the profits rather than the need of the world that drives the market, as Cahill points out. She laments that while in the 1960-1970 's theologic bioethicists influenced the field of bioethics, nowadays the ethical discourse involving Christian narrative gets" thinner and thinner," shifting away toward more secular and liberal views. As theologians are welcomed to partake in the ethical debates, their voices and opinions are rarely considered in policy making. Such situation causes the current trend amongst health care institutions,medical-surgical companies, and research labs, to focus on financial gain rather than ways to deliver health care to those who needed it the most. It is the consumers with the most "buying power" that have at their disposal the latest medical treatment, equipment, technologies, and medications while millions around the world lack the most basics of needs, such as clean water, food, shelter, education as well as the basic health care. Cahill fears that medical companies seeking profits will neglect or stop altogether to produce medications that are bringing low profits. Medications that are necessary to treat prevalent in the third- world countries or if you prefer the developing countries diseases, such as Dysentery, Cholera, Malaria, Rabies, Typhoid Fever, Yellow Fever, even warms, to name a
Today in society, people follow these “cultural myths”, which tells us what is and what is not acceptable in life because these morals have been instilled in us since childhood. People created cultural myths as a set of social norms they expected people to follow. In Kenneth A. Gould’s and Tammy L. Lewis’s article, The Sociological Imagination, they talk about society and the way or how it affects us. It examines the relationship between an individual and society. Everything we do and how we do it is affected by society and others around us. Everything that happens with society in turn affects us and those around us. The way we live and we respond to society can have a major impact on the rest of the world.
Karen Armstrong’s A History of God is an extremely thorough and comprehensive piece of work which explores the complexities of how human beings have perceived God historically and presently. Karen Armstrong, a British journalist, is well-known for her published works, which include Through the Narrow Gate and The Spiral Staircase, typically concerning comparative religion. As a former nun, Armstrong is able to reflect not only about her experiences, but also her spiritual awakening in which she discovers and relates the intricate fundamentals of the three major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The purpose of this review is to provide an elaborate analysis of how effectively Karen Armstrong was able to demonstrate her