Consider the relationships between culture and social identity in Essay

Consider the relationships between culture and social identity in Pygmalion and Educating Rita - Essay Example The ‘Pygmalion myth’ was a favourite subject for the Victorian play wrights where Shaw was not an exception. Will Russell’s ‘Educating Rita’ is, to a certain extent, thematically similar to Shaw’s play ‘Pygmalion.’ The central figure of this play is Susan, who calls herself as Rita, hairdresser from Liverpool who has decided to get an education, not to seek for s new job but to explore an entirely new world which she has never experienced before. She selects an Open University English Literature course and joins the world of Professor Frank, an alcoholic. Though she was determined and completed her studies, she could not either receive or reject her new state. A comparison of both the plays unveils that both the dramatists have effectively used culture and social identity as a means to makes the readers aware of the ill-effects of class distinctions and certain other factors. The play [Educating Rita] is a searing assault on our ri gid class distinctions, and culture of ignorance and misunderstanding, aggravated by inequalities in wealth and education (Educating Rita, 2010). â€Å"In retrospect, Educating Rita is a personal success story and one of hope, at least at the time it was written† (Aguilar, C. M J p.29). One can see a similar theme in ‘Pygmalion’ where Eliza is in search of her personal identity and it advocates the decisive role of culture in moulding one’s identity. The proposed study is conducted on the grounds that culture has a predominant role in forming one’s social identity or social milieu. Culture and social identity have a reciprocal relation akin to the relation between individuality and social identity. It is common knowledge that the seeds of one’s individuality lay in one’s culture, that is, the social set up figures out a person’s individuality. This is crystal clear when observing the first

What's Your Dangerous Idea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

What's Your Dangerous Idea - Essay Example Most of the thoughts that echo in the modern world are dangerous not only because they are believed to be false, but because they may become true. It is a provocative question to ask â€Å"what is your dangerous idea?† John Brockman edited this anthology of essays from a number of the best thinkers. The edge foundation inspired this effort and it had the consent to endorse inquiry and discussion of literary, artistic, philosophical and intellectual issues and also work with the social and intellectual achievement of society. I will mention several ideas that may evoke dangers in the society, but I will dwell mostly on the issue of religion and science. There are some dangerous ideas that exist in the society. For example reducing the population of the human race globally to approximately one billion and maintaining it at that number. Another dangerous idea is taking the biological yearning of people to play fathers and mothers and redirecting it to responsible stewardship of t he world. These ideas sound quite draconian. Another dangerous idea is imposing taxes on mosques and churches. Another is idea is decriminalizing the use of street drug. None of the esteemed contributors of John Brockman raised anything that seemed risky, perhaps because the risk of such ideas occurs instantly to the person who applies the ideas. Psychiatrist Randolph offers some direction on why those ideas are not being tackled in the book. For example when an individual’s business is attempting to handle a savvy competitor, it may mean that they may have a superior product because they are smarter. David Lykken believes that parents ought to acquire licenses for parenting their children and also act as proof that they are over twenty one years old and married. Jordan Pollack encourages people to embrace that are based on faith. He argues that physics may sing the songs that continuous motion may solve the energy calamity. He also adds that scientists ought to put God on th eir side to revoke the second thermodynamics law. One of the ideas that may turn out to be extremely dangerous is the idea of religion versus science. Religion believes that science tries to destroy it or to eliminate it. Science is also against religion because in science there is nothing like belief in a spirit. Science only gets answers through experiments that produce real results and not things that require belief in something (Coon and John 23). For example scientists have theories that attempt to explain the origin of the universe. Theories like big bang argue that the beginning of the universe came up after the big bang. However, this theory does not make sense at some point in explaining how living things came to exist within the universe. It fails to explain how animals, plants, human race, the skies and other natural occurrences came to existence. Charles Darwin also gives the theory of evolution that attempts to explain how human beings evolved from being primitive to be ing the intelligent modern man. All these science theories have their weaknesses because they fail to convince people at some point. Religion also has its theories of the origin of the universe and the human race. The popular religious explanation of the origin of the universe comes from the Christian Bible. The Bible states that God created everything in the universe with his own hands within seven days. After creating everything in the universe, he made man in his own image and the first man that he made was Adam whom he later created his partner, Eve. This theory also has its weakness because it fails to convince people the origin of God (Coon and John 31). It plainly states that God (whose origin is withheld) came from nowhere and designed the universe. Christians insist that no one