Free Essays on Ellen Foster Vs. The Puritans

Ellen Foster vs. The Puritans This novel Ellen Foster is a very unique piece of literature that conveys meaning and peace to people’s hearts. It is a very tasteful novel, if you like the sentimental way of life, and all the trials that this little girl went through. The author, Kaye Gibbons, is a very unique, well, creative person. I can tell that just by reading her work. She feels that there is a message that someone can get out of her novels, so I think that it so great that she produces novels and then see publicize them. The Puritans are very similar to Ellen Foster, because of the way that their religion brought them up. In this essay I will tell the ways of the Puritan life style tie into Ellen Foster. Ellen Foster is a little girl that is being abused by her father mentally and physical, but through it all she has faith that someone will come along and save her from this monster that she called a father. The Puritan life style is very religious based, because with everything in the 18th century (including the major historical thing that happened, the migration to the â€Å"new world† known now as America). They had faith, no matter what the situation was they would hold to their beliefs. Ellen was a girl that had very little friends and her family was really didn’t care that much for her since her mother had died and she was being raised by her father. Her grandmother talked down on everything that Ellen tried to do all, because of the hatred that she had for Ellen’s father. Regardless of the all that bitterness that she was enduring from her family, she never gave up hope. The Puritans are similar in various ways, but one way really stands out. This is their belief of predestination of your afterlife destination, meaning that your destination of heaven or hell is already known before you were born. This also came with the terms of purifying Anglicanism. The novel Ellen Foster is a great way to analyze your life or... Free Essays on Ellen Foster Vs. The Puritans Free Essays on Ellen Foster Vs. The Puritans Ellen Foster vs. The Puritans This novel Ellen Foster is a very unique piece of literature that conveys meaning and peace to people’s hearts. It is a very tasteful novel, if you like the sentimental way of life, and all the trials that this little girl went through. The author, Kaye Gibbons, is a very unique, well, creative person. I can tell that just by reading her work. She feels that there is a message that someone can get out of her novels, so I think that it so great that she produces novels and then see publicize them. The Puritans are very similar to Ellen Foster, because of the way that their religion brought them up. In this essay I will tell the ways of the Puritan life style tie into Ellen Foster. Ellen Foster is a little girl that is being abused by her father mentally and physical, but through it all she has faith that someone will come along and save her from this monster that she called a father. The Puritan life style is very religious based, because with everything in the 18th century (including the major historical thing that happened, the migration to the â€Å"new world† known now as America). They had faith, no matter what the situation was they would hold to their beliefs. Ellen was a girl that had very little friends and her family was really didn’t care that much for her since her mother had died and she was being raised by her father. Her grandmother talked down on everything that Ellen tried to do all, because of the hatred that she had for Ellen’s father. Regardless of the all that bitterness that she was enduring from her family, she never gave up hope. The Puritans are similar in various ways, but one way really stands out. This is their belief of predestination of your afterlife destination, meaning that your destination of heaven or hell is already known before you were born. This also came with the terms of purifying Anglicanism. The novel Ellen Foster is a great way to analyze your life or...

Iron Cage - Max Webers Theory of Rationality

Iron Cage - Max Webers Theory of Rationality One of the theoretical concepts that Max Weber, founding sociologist, is most well known for is the iron cage. Weber first presented this theory in his important and widely taught work,  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, however, he  wrote in German, so never actually used the phrase himself. It was American sociologist Talcott Parsons who coined it, in his original translation of Webers book, published in 1930. In the original work, Weber referred to a  stahlhartes Gehuse, which literally translated means housing hard as steel. Parsons translation into iron cage, though, is largely accepted as an accurate rendering of the metaphor offered by Weber. Understanding Webers Iron Cage In  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber presented a carefully researched historical account of how a strong Protestant work ethic and belief in living frugally helped foster the development of the capitalist economic system in the Western world. Weber explained that as the force of Protestantism decreased in social life over time, the system of capitalism remained, as did the social structure and principles of bureaucracy that had evolved along with it. This bureaucratic social structure, and the values, beliefs, and worldviews that supported and sustained it, became central to shaping social life. It was this very phenomenon that Weber conceived of as an iron cage. The reference to this concept comes on page 181 of Parsons translation. It reads: The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominant worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. Simply put, Weber suggests that the technological and economic relationships that organized and grew out of capitalist production became themselves fundamental forces in society. Thus, if you are born into a society organized this way, with the division of labor and hierarchical social structure that comes with it, you cant help but live within this system. As such, ones life and worldview are shaped by it to such an extent that one probably cant even imagine what an alternative way of life would look like. So, those born into the cage live out its dictates, and in doing so, reproduce the cage in perpetuity. For this reason, Weber considered the iron cage a massive hindrance to freedom. Why Sociologists Embrace Webers Iron Cage This concept proved very useful to social theorists and researchers who followed Weber. Most notably, the  critical theorists associated with the Frankfurt School  in Germany, who were active during the middle of the twentieth century, elaborated on this concept. They witnessed further technological developments and their impact on capitalist production and culture  and saw that these only intensified the ability of the iron cage to shape and constrain our behavior and thought. Webers concept remains important to sociologists today because the iron cage of techno-rational thought, practices, relations, and capitalism   now a global system   shows no signs of disintegrating anytime soon. The influence of this iron cage leads to some very serious problems that social scientists and others are now working to solve. For example, how can we overcome the force of the iron cage to address the threats of climate change, produced by the very cage itself? And, how can we convince people that the system within the cage is  not  working in their best interest, evidenced by the shocking wealth inequality that divides many Western nations?