Here's an interesting question...

What are possible consequences of people structuring their identity around commercial products and initiatives?

Now life is a journey, a pursuit and an adventure, and the goal for many at the end of all, is to obtain happiness. Now, one way in which happiness manifests itself in our lives, is though our knowledge of our identity and who we are. However, in an increasingly materialistic world many achieve this by structuring their identity around commercial products and initiatives, and this can bear dire repercussions.

For one, our modern society idolizes speed and temporal satisfaction and as a result the concept of evanescence has come to define our lives and priorities. As history has shown us, new products and trends have on many occasions captured the rave and attention of millions across the globe. However, regardless of all the hype they may receive they are ultimately destined to disappear from the public eye and be replaced. Therefore, when people begin to build their identity and image around such temporal objects and initiatives they do so at the risk of having their whole world disappear beneath their feet. For that reason, no person can expect to obtain a lasting happiness from something as fleeting as commercial products and initiatives, which are here one day and gone the next.

That being the case, people should root their identity and image not in material possessions and appearances but in their deeds, acts, and relationships, for those are the things that will truly stand the test of time and leave a lasting impression.

Live the Life: A Critique of Coldplay’s ‘Viva la Vida’

Debuting to the acclaim of critics and fans worldwide, Coldplay’s ‘Viva la Vida,” was an international success, forever immortalizing itself as one of the greatest anthems of the modern era.

The song’s Spanish title, borrowed from a portrait by 20^th century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, acts as a stark reminder of the satire nature of life, and the worries and sufferings were all are subject to.  

The track opens against a blurry, warped version of Eugène Delacroix's painting ‘La Liberté guidant le peuple’ and a sweeping string arrangement, sonically detailing the hero’s fall from grace. The chime of bells and orchestral swells riddle the chorus and lyrically, the pain of the protagonist is evident. However the sweep of words in relation to Jerusalem’s bells, Roman cavalries, and Saint Peter proffer, 'Viva La Vida' an air of intelligence rare amidst today's most popular songs.

Riddled with Biblical references, the song’s lyrics shed light on the social groups represented in the song and those marginalized. At the outset, "pillars of sand" makes allusion to the biblical parable given by Jesus about the fool who built his house upon sand, and the wise man who built it upon stone, while "pillars of salt" acts as a reference to Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt. The lyrics 'Be my mirror, my sword and shield' allude to Ephesians 6:17 and James 1:23 while, "I know Saint Peter won't call my name" refers to the popular tradition of St. Peter guarding the gates of Heaven. Furthermore St. Peter is traditionally depicted as the holder of the book of life, reading off the names of those individuals who had believed in Jesus Christ and therefore eligible to enter Paradise. More obviously the church bells and background vocals are given away in the chorus' first two lines "I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing" and "Roman Cavalry choirs are singing", respectively. The protagonist's lament of St. Peter not calling his name because "there never was an honest word" when he "ruled the world" is suggestive of the popular belief that all wrongdoers will be condemned to eternity in hell.

Despite the heavy religious connotations the lyrics advocates, the song has continued to inspire a great deal of debate in regards to its true meaning.

In an interview with Q magazine, Chris Martine expounded on the song lyric, “I know Saint Peter won't call my name."

He stated: "It's about ... not being on the list. It's always fascinated me that idea of finishing your life and then being analyzed on it. And this idea runs throughout most religions…I always feel like saying; just join a band ... That is the most frightening thing you could possibly say to somebody. Eternal damnation. I know about this stuff because I studied it. I was into it all. I know it. It's still mildly terrifying to me. And this is serious.

When asked about the song, bass guitarist Guy Berryman commented: "It's a story about a king who's lost his kingdom, and all the album's artwork is based on the idea of revolutionaries and guerrillas.”

Regardless of the anti-authoritarian or religious views it may pose, 'Viva La Vida,’ ultimately stands as a metaphor of mankind’s existence. As humans we are physical, emotion driven creatures, destined to rise and fall. Despite this we are to endure whatever life may throw our way and live everyday to it’s fullest, hence the spirit and the title of the song, 'Viva La Vida’…‘Live the life.’

The Chick Magnet

A seemingly straightforward promotion, Daihatsu’s Hijet MPV ad, acts as the epitome of modern advertising: bold, concise, humorous and riddled with sexual undertones.

Advertisements act as a notice or announcement in a public medium with the goal of promoting a certain product. In order to effectively market their products, advertising firms must successfully cater and indulge the needs and values of their targeted audience and society as a whole. In doing so, advertisements acts as a reflection of society and life, in the given time period.

Returning to the advertisement, from its arrangement and layout one can deduce that it is targeted audience at a young male demographic. This is evident through the use of language and imagery incorporated throughout the advertisement.

For one, the ad’s very opening statement, “Pick up five times more woman than a Lamborghini,” requires the viewer to have a prior interest in women and therefore the desire to ‘pick’ them up, an urge that would undoubtedly relate with most men. Furthermore the mention of ‘Lamborghini,’ a super car brand, synonymous with wealth and appeal, is once more something extremely relatable to a male audience, who take a high interest in fast cars, due to the presumed attention they receive from the opposite sex.

All in all, this culminates in an advertisement aimed at empowering men, claiming to satisfy a need that one might have not normally associated a minivan being capable of, ‘picking up women.’

While this far-fetched claim might entice a number of men it does so at the risk of marginalizing its female audience. By portraying women on the grounds of their physical attraction and as a tool to allure men, the ad excludes them from being a viable customer of the product. Furthermore one can argue that the ad objectifies women, depicting them to be a sort of prize or trophy a man may obtain by purchasing the minivan, in question.

Sadly in a society and culture where ads that do not make use of this type of sexual propagation are a rarity, one must truly consider the true values and characteristics are society holds high.

Ebola in Town

With all the panic surrounding Ebola over recent months, particularly in the U.S, one must ask is Ebola really a threat to the worlds leading power?

Over the past week alone, numerous reports have sprung up from across the nation in response to fears of Ebola. In Mississippi, a family had their their children removed from the local middle school on the grounds that its principal had recently traveled to Zambia—a nation in Africa, but not one to be affected by Ebola. Furthermore, certain colleges across the nation have sent rejection notices to a number of applicants originating from Nigeria on the basis that the institutions did not want to accept “international students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases.” However with less than 20 cases having been reported in the nation, the outbreak is effectively over for all intensive purposes.

Now one cannot solely blame the American public in regards to their bad case of Ebola hysteria, as they’re merely following the precedent of their leaders. Earlier this month New York Governor Andrew Cuomo raised his view that the U.S should “seriously consider” a travel ban on all West African countries hit by Ebola, while some of his less politically inclined colleagues went as far to raise the far-fetched proposition of an unknown terrorist group intentionally sending Ebola-infected refugees into the U.S. Frankly it’s hardly a surprise that a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that two-thirds of the American populous are concerned about a potential Ebola outbreak in the U.S.

In reality however they have no reason to be and two occurrences that took place earlier this week show why. On Monday WHO officials declared Nigeria to officially be “Ebola-free.” Meanwhile in Dallas, the first wave of patients being monitored having had come in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient in the U.S., were also declared to be free of the disease.

As Africa’s most populous nation-home to 160 million people, news of Nigeria’s complete treatment was met with global exuberance. Nigeria’s public health system is far from the best in the world and epidemiologists had feared the worst in regards to Ebola spreading unchecked through large cities such as Lagos. Nevertheless, following the first few cases the nation was able to quell the endemic through sound preparedness, a quick move to declare a state of emergency, and an effective management of public anxiety. If a nation with a per-capita GDP of $2,700 proved itself more than capable of handling Ebola, how much more a nation possessing 19 times the GDP?

Nigeria’s success is also a reminder of the reality that if caught at the onset, Ebola is effectively quite simple to control, this being largely due to the fact that the disease remains extremely hard to circulate outside a hospital. For all the panic surrounding Ebola in the U.S, one must recognize that there has not yet been a single case transmitted from within the community. Those who might argue, that the nurses who contracted the disease from Duncan would stand as the exception would be wrong, as their exposure to the disease only highlights a flaw within the treatment protocol carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and this was fact was admitted by it’s director Dr. Tom Frieden. However as U.S. health officials now better understand the threat before them, there should be minimal of further infection.

The likelihood of a future case like Duncan’s remains extremely slim. With all the hype to ban commercial flight to and from West Africa, one must first recognize that the region is already barely connected to the U.S. With only 150 people arriving from the region to the U.S. everyday, this number has further reduced as many airlines have already begun suspending flights.

None of this in anyway should diminish the severity and scale of the challenge faced by the governments of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the disease runs rampant and all efforts to stop it seem to fall short. However, besides Nigeria, Senegal acts as the only other nation to have succumb to the outbreak but was declared Ebola-free this week. Nevertheless, Western Africa is where our efforts and concerns should lie, not in the U.S, where Ebola thankfully remains something people don’t have to care about.

Paper 1 – Text 1:

Analysis

Judging from the characteristics of the text: direct narration, hindsight wisdom and dialogue, one can deduce that it is none other than an autobiography. Withal, the patent statement at the bottom of the text further corroborates this claim. Through her reflection author, Mary Seacole educates the reader on the inherency and commonplace of death. Nonetheless, Seacole renders the occurrence in a positive light, inviting the reader to neither fear or be ashamed of it’s inevitably but embrace it, robbing it of its victory and “making their death a triumph”. The intended audience of this text would not be those solely interested in this particular aspect of the author’s life. Rather, as this excerpt represents a mere section of her autobiography, they would be drawn in by her life experiences as a whole. 

The account enumerates the author’s experiences in Jamaica in the year 1853, highlighting the various struggles she encountered amidst her eight-month endeavour against the yellow fever endemic in the region. The author graphically reflects on the severity of the cases she dealt with, many of which resulted in death. She continues to reveal, that how we bear death wholly depends on or constitutions. Building of the notion, she draws a stark contrast between the two approaches one may adopt when confronted with enteral rest. The first, the seemingly more honourable of the two is that of a brave man, who despite having ‘smiled at the cruelest amputation’ died ‘trembling like a child.’ The latter, is that of an individual who despite his cowardice life, drew upon his ‘last painful breath’ like a hero, striking at his foe (death) to the last. The importance of this compassion is that it recognises that an individuals passing does not always act as a reflection of their life and that for some, there might in fact be redemption through the grave. In addition the author conveys a personal anecdotal from her life, relating the loss of a man she loved and the lessons she gleaned from his life in regards to the fear of death and the religious feelings tied to it.

The narrative adopts a somewhat morbid and doleful mood and this evident through the expressions Seacole employs to depict her story: “suffering and gloom,” “house fall of sufferers,” “distressing struggle with a grim foe,” and “Valley of the Shadow of Death” to name a few. Howbeit, this can be expected, as the narrative’s very source martial, acts as the epitome of the above statements. Despite this, the author’s tone is ultimately uplifting and through the attitude of her piece, depicts a light at the end of the tunnel. This notion is most apparent in her closing statement, “He repeated this many times, until the Heaven he obeyed sent him in its mercy forgetfulness,” substantiating the certainty that one might in fact experience a fitting and tranquil end. 

As mentioned before the account follows the author’s exploits during her stay in Jamaica. As such its views on the subject of death and the sufferings of the native and expatriate populous are largely objective, based of real life experience and exposure. On the subject of death, the authors adheres to the traditional, ideological viewpoint, “Death is always terrible.” However rather than restricting her efforts to mere criticism, Seacole offers an alternate perspective on how to confront the matter and to face death like a hero, robbing it of its victory while making your own demise a triumph. In terms style and structure, the narrative makes use of direct narration and pronouns, the author retelling the various events that transpired from a first person perspective.In doing so she captivates her audience’s attention as they relive her tale just as she would have experienced it. The primary sentence structure the author makes use of is declarative. Refraining from mere technical jargon and abstraction, Seacole relates her story in an easy to understand manner and in doing so stresses the imperatively and severity of her experiences. In addition, Seacole musters vivid imagery and this is illustrated throughout the narrative through her use of evocative descriptions, “his poor hands tremblingly penning the last few words” and “the tears I could not repress, rolling down my brown cheeks,” transporting the reader into her world. By the same token, her reflective somewhat resigned register further contributes to the visage, highlighting the brevity and transient nature of life on earth, a subject that resonates with all. 

Written Task 1

Rationale Opinion columns, act as an avenue for, ‘advocacy, denunciation, controversy and astonishment;’ offering readers an alternate perspective on affairs. As such they serve as the ideal platform to reflect on a subject as controversial as lingual bigotry. A subject close to my heart, the purpose of my response will be to educate readers on the continued existence of accentual bigotry and the widely held preconceptions concerning it. Doing so, I hope to stimulate community discussion and ultimately a solution to the matter.

As with any opinionated piece, I intend to explicitly state my viewpoint on the matter in an articulate and timely fashion.

An opinion column is reliant on the credibility of its author and source material. As such, the standpoint of my article will be that of an expert whose native tongue is not English. By adopting this guise, I immediately draw a parallel between myself, and those whom the subject would most resonate with.

I have chosen to release my article as an independent source rather than under the banner of an established publisher, as it ultimately allows circulation to a larger audience. Nonetheless to ground my work, my fancied audience shall be that of a well-educated individual concerned with the matter of lingual conventionalism. The column shall make reference to an experiment carried out by the University of Chicago titled, ‘Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility’ and an article released by the Copenhagen Business School titled, ‘The Power of Accents.’ 

An Opinion Column

A Social Experiment...

Having spent a majority of my life beyond the confines and security of my native home, I have had the fortune of experiencing little lingual prejudice and bigotry. However not all share the favor of my charmed life, and this a major concern.

With all that man has accomplished over the last century, the human rights movement, fall of the Berlin wall and the dawn of the information age, one might expect stereotypes and preconceptions to be all but non-existent, remnants of a bygone era. Sadly this is not the case, and the subject of stereotypes faced by non-native English speakers acts as a prevalent theme in our modern society. And the hackneyed idea I would like to touch upon in particular would be accents…

For the sake of perspicuity, ‘accent’ is defined as the “distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, esp. one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class.” Accents manifestly act as the verbal presentation of one’s roots and background; but they also reflect where a person has been. Countless individuals espouse new accents after having lived abroad or moved to a different area of their country.

In her article, ‘The Power of Accents,’ author Sofie Roslind airs an interesting query. Building of the latter assumption, Roslind puts forth the postulation that accents not only act as a reflection of our heritage and experiences but also a precursor of where we want to be and the people we wish to become. Dr. McGettigan, a researcher at the department of Psychology at the University of London, further corroborates this claim by stating, “The voice is a powerful channel for the expression of our identity – it conveys information such as gender, age and place of birth, but crucially, it also expresses who we want to be.”

From my own experiences, I have come to the illation, that most people posses fixed preconceptions in regards to what differing accents might indicate. Inhabiting a society where appearance is key, people live in a constant fray to best adapt themselves in order to be adjudged in the most positive manner. One may then draw similarities between how people choose to speak and the way they might choose to take on or throw away other things in life. This precedent raises the debate whether the usage of accents and their disposal is as commonplace as one might treat habitual trends such as fashion. If so, one could argue that if there exists such a standard to judge a person’s clothes as unsuitable or unfashionable in a given context, there then exists, subconsciously, such a guideline to class one’s accent as being inferior or more suitable in a similar scenario. Despite the harshness of this supposition, one must come to terms with the stark reality we live in, even with the countless advances we have made in the fields of equity and equality.

In 2010, two students from the University of Chicago conducted a social experiment centered on the influence of accent on credibility. Below, is an extract from their report that I found of particular interest:

“Most people do not know how many hours a night an ant typically sleeps, but if someone tells them that ants don't sleep, they may believe it, even if that person is not a zoologist. But people also doubt and routinely evaluate new information (Ferguson & Zayas, 2009). Such judgments of credibility could depend on how reasonable the information sounds, how credible the source appears how the person says it (e.g., Miller & Hewgill, 1964)…”

Their assessment continued to reveal the reasoning behind their postulation.

Firstly, accents, acts as a signal, and secondly, for lack of a better term they can ‘distort’ speech, making it harder to understand. The report went on to state the reasoning behind the first statement, however the second reason, the far more critical of the two, was purely objective possessing no hard evidence.

Native speakers of any language, not limited English alone, are typically very responsive to accented speech of foreign descents, and are in turn quick to draw conclusions based of those signals, casting the speaker as an outsider and foreigner. If left unchecked these signals produce preconceptions about the outsider that might not be necessarily true, but act as an advocate of prejudice, ultimately impacting the credibility of the speaker. Hence when a foreigner speaks, not only does their accent play a part in impacting their credibility but also the prejudice tied to it.   

This evaluation and the respective insights brought forth from the prior articles provide an interesting perspective regarding the credo behind the stereotypes targeting non-native English speakers, especially those pertaining to accent.  Though these findings are among a myriad of others that agree with this conclusion, nothing is ever set in stone. Recognizing the problem and educating others about its existence is the first step towards change.