Denying the Truth and Passing the Blame - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 906 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/04/01 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Truth Essay Did you like this example? The truth is hard to admit, especially to ourselves. The way we as humans deal with it, is by blaming others and finding scapegoats with or without reason. Whether it is blaming our parents for ruining our weekend and not letting us go out because we havent cleaned our room in a month, or a manager blaming his or her their employees team members because they lost the million dollar contract due to the managers lack of communication, these are common aspects of our lives in which we let our fear of criticism blame others. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Denying the Truth and Passing the Blame" essay for you Create order Sophocles play, Oedipus the King, embodies this exact mindset within the main character Oedipus. The play revolves around the mystery of the murder of the previous king of Thebes, Laius. While Oedipus, the new king of Thebes, is trying to find the murderer of King Laius, he uncovers that the person he is searching for is himself. Throughout the play, Oedipus displays hubris. After talking to the blind prophet, Tiresias, he is told that the murderer is himself. In denial, he accuses his brother-in-law Creon, the man who met with the prophet earlier. Confronting Creon, he is repeatedly found ignoring Creons explanations of the situations and blaming him without cognizance. Creon notices Oedipus disregard and comments, if he thinks, stubbornness without sense is a good gift [he is] not wise (Sophocles 140). Creon explains that for Oedipus to think he is justified to make such a grave accusation without any proof or reason, is foolish. Even so, Creon still gives him the benefit of the doubt and advises him in answer to [his] words hear a fair replay, and then judge for [himself] on knowledge (Sophocles 140). No innocent person would blame his brother in law of treason without evidence, but Oedipus was refuting the truth. Towards the end of the play, Oedipus begins to confront the truth. The herdsman is on the dre aded brink of speech while he tells Oedipus the truth. Oedipus responds, and I am of hearing; yet must I hear (Sophocles 157). At this point, Oedipus has finally agreed to listen to the truth no matter what it maybe: in opposition towards him or for him. Denying the truth and blaming others was wrong; either way he was forced to confront the truth. He was still burdened and tormented by it to the point where he blinded himself due to his incapability of looking at his wrongdoings. This aspect of the play has even occured in my own life and has the same foolishness to it. My family was about to leave from vacation, and my sister could not find her Beats headphones, after claiming that she has checked everywhere. She persisted that she had left the headphones on the bed side table before the housekeeping ladies came and that they must have stolen it. After reporting a lost item, the hotel security came in to talk to us and take a final check of our luggage as a part of their protocol. Ironically enough, the headphones were hidden between the clothes in her messy suitcase. Similar to Oedipus, my sister was stubborn and believed she could not possibly be wrong. She assumed someone had stolen her headphones without any proof and did not thoroughly look through her suitcase. All the commotion could have been avoided if she had just been more mindful of her headphones and less stubborn to think she may have been the problem. Within social media, everyone knows the name Jake Paul. He is a Youtuber, and his channel consists of doing crazy things that you wouldnt see any normal person doing for views: losing a $100,000 watch, getting arrested, destroying his neighbors and his own house. His audience being between the ages of 8 to 16 are definitely influenced by him and his antics. He believes that his content on Youtube inspires kids to stand up to their bullies and think positively about negative situations, but contrarily tells them that teachers are bad and conveys that his viewers should force their parents to buy them his merchandise. Jake Pauls denial of his deceitful power and influence over his millions of subscribers is wrong and to tell skeptical parents that they dont necessarily understand his movement if they havent really looked into and researched what [he] is doing and just kinda reading headlines, is far from the truth. Obviously, the headlines is what people pay attention to and not so muc h to the hidden positive messages in the videos. The kids who watch his video want to be him and if doing exactly what he tells them to do is what it takes that is what will happen. To blame the parents for not understanding their movement is just a cover up for what his videos actually mean. Just as Oedipus blames Creon for his mistakes, Jake Paul blames the parents of his views for not understanding his videos. Confronting the truth is something we all have to do during our lives. No matter how much better we feel after transferring the blame onto someone else, ultimately it wont help us learn from the ramifications of our mistakes. Oedipus denied the truth, blamed Creon without any proof and seemed foolish because of it. In the end he was forced to face the truth and dealt with the consequences. Ironically, Oedipus trying to pass the blame onto Creon for wanting the throne, gave it to him anyway after being banished.

Ww2 and Its Influences in the Bosnian Genocide - 4761 Words

Extended Essay in History World War II and the Bosnian Genocide of 1992-1995 Research Question: To what extent did the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia influence the Bosnian Genocide of 1992-1995? Name: Topias Hokkanen Candidate number: 03939051 Session: May 2012 School: Coppell High School Supervisor: Michael Cook Word count: 3,847 Abstract This extended essay deals with the Bosnian Genocide from 1992-1995, where the Bosnian Serb army committed various acts of war crimes towards Bosnian Muslims. It carries out a historical investigation of the causes of the war crimes, trying to make clear how the Bosnian Serbs could kill neighbors just because of their religion or where they resided. In more†¦show more content†¦Even though tensions between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks were prevalent before the Second World War, it is certain that their ideological perceptions of each other changed with the new ideologies and institutions introduced by the Axis powers. Even after the Axis powers’ left the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, both groups never managed to transcend the horrors and ideologies fixed upon them from World War II. The author of this investigation will therefore argue to some extent that the Bosnian Genocide was influenced by the Axis occupation. 1.The origins of Different Identities in the Region In order to determine the significance of the Axis occupation as a cause of the Bosnian Genocide, the investigation will first examine the origins of different races, religions and groups in the region. The Bosnian and Herzegovinian population consists of three major ethnic groups: the Bosniaks, the Serbs, and the Croats. 1.1 Theories There is no definite historical evidence that provides the exact details of the origins of the Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. However there are theories that suggest plausible explanations of their origins which became the basis of carrying out the Bosnian genocide. There are very few racially homogeneous provinces in the Balkan region, and only a few individuals could claim a racially pure ancestry for themselves (Malcolm 1). And yet, many times during the last

Capital Markets and Market Efficiency Free Essays

Part 1 The Efficient market hypothesis states that all financial markets are efficient in their use of information to determine prices. This means that investors cannot expect to achieve excess profits that are more than the average market profits with similar risk factors, given all available information at the current time of investment, aside from through some form of luck. In part 1 of this report we will discuss the three different forms of market efficiency that Eugene Fama identified in her 1970 report. We will write a custom essay sample on Capital Markets and Market Efficiency or any similar topic only for you Order Now These can be explained as follows: 1) Weak form efficiency Fama (1970) observes that a market is efficient in weak form if past returns cannot be used to predict current stock price changes. It also assumes that prices on assets that are traded publicly already have and use all available information on the stock at any moment in time. It therefore stands to reason that the weak form of the market efficiency hypothesis means that past returns on stock are uncorrelated with future returns on the same stock. Future prices cannot be predicted by studying carefully the past prices of the stock. Excess returns cannot be earned over an extended period of time by using investment strategies that are based only upon the historical prices of shares or differing forms of historical analysis. This means that this style of technical analysis will not be able to produce high levels of returns on a consistent basis for investors. Overall one cannot expect future price changes to be predicted by using the past stock prices. Simply put weak form efficiency a ssumes that historical analysis on past stock data is of no use in predicting future price changes on stocks. 2) Semi-strong efficiency The semi-strong market efficiency form progresses from the aforementioned weak form market efficiency by stating that markets can adjust easily and very quickly to new information that is provided about various stocks. Fama (1970: 383) cites semi- strong efficiency as â€Å"whether prices efficiently adjust to other information that is publicly available. e.g. announcements of stock splits, etc†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Here it is assumed that asset prices fully reflect all of the publicly available information on the stocks meaning that only those investors who manage to possess additional unique information about the stocks could have an advantage over the market to make large gains. This form also asserts that any price outliers are found quickly and on this basis the stock market manages to adjust. In a semi-strong form efficiency share prices are able to react quickly to new information made available publicly in a quick manner so that no large returns can be gained from using the recent information. This leads us to imply that neither fundamental analysis or technical analysis will be able to produce consistent excess returns. Strong-form efficiency Strong-form efficiency assumes that prices reflect completely any type of new information about the market be that public or private information. Fama (1970: 383) says that strong form tests are concerned with â€Å"whether given investors or groups have monopolistic access to any information relevant for formation†, however Fama claims that the efficient hypothesis model still stands up well. The strong form claims the market price also includes different forms of insider information and not solely public information, and this is how it differs from the semi-strong form. The implications of this is that no one at all can therefore have any kind of advantage over the market in prediction of the stock prices as no possible additional data exists which would provide additional value to any investor. However, if any legal barriers exist which prevents the spread of useful information, such as insider trading laws for example, then this form of market efficiency is not possible. Part 2 The Efficient Markets Hypothesis was introduced by Eugene Fama in 1970. The main idea of the Efficient Market Hypothesis is predominantly that market prices must take into account all available information at any given point. Therefore meaning that no one can outperform the market by using readily available public information aside from through luck. A market is said to be efficient if the price fully reflects information about that market, for example if the price of the stock would be unaffected if all information surrounding it was revealed to all stakeholders in that market. Part two of this report will be critically discussing the evidence for and against the Efficient Market Hypothesis and whether it is possible to exploit market inefficiencies. The implications for investors and companies of the Efficient Markey Hypothesis will also be considered. Arguments For the Efficient Market Hypothesis To begin with following the birth of the efficient market hypothesis the theory was widely accepted, and it was widely assumed that the markets were very efficient in taking this information into account (Malkiel, 2003). It was accepted that when information came to the fore this would spread rapidly and would then be incorporated almost instantaneously into the share prices without hesitation. This meant that technical analysis, study of prior stock prices, nor any analysis of relevent information of a financial sense would lead an investment to achieve more successful returns than holding random stocks which have a comparable risk factor. Dimson and Mussavian (1998) observe that the evidence accumulated during the 1960s and 1970s was consistent with the Efficient Market Hypothesis view. There was a substantial backing for the weak and semi strong Efficient Market Hypothesis forms. Even though more recent times have seen an attack against the Efficient Market Hypothesis, Roll (1994) still observes that it remains incredibly difficult to make a high level of profit on a consistent basis even with the wildest variants of stock market efficiency. These violations of market efficiency are often sporadic events that do not last for a period of time. This can be seen by looking at the fact that on the whole profitable investment successes are referred to on a consistent basis as outliers (Dimson and Mussavian, 1998). Malkiel (2005: 2) says that: the strongest evidence suggesting that markets are generally quite efficient is that professional investors do not beat the market. Indeed, the evidence accumulated over the past 30-plus years makes me more convinced than ever that our stock markets are remarkably efficient at adjusting correctly to new information. This is showing that the markets must be efficient due to the fact that professional investors do not on the whole beat the market, and therefore all available information must be taken into account by the market prices and thus there is no gain to be had by any investors by using past prices, or publicly or privately readily available information. Arguments against the Efficient Market Hypothesis Malkiel (2003: 60) observes that by the beginning of the twenty first century â€Å"the intellectual dominance of the efficient market hypothesis had become far less universal† and academics were starting to question the premise and were not accepting it as they had done previously. Shiller (2003 ; 83) states that, â€Å"[contained in the EMH is] the idea that speculative asset prices such as stock prices always incorporate the best information about fundamental values and that prices change only because of good, sensible information.† However he then moves on to discuss how not all information is sensible and not all actors are rational, this would conflict with the efficient market hypothesis which relies on information having a large impact on the prices of stock. As well as this several recent reports have shown a range of empirical evidence which suggests that stock returns can actually possess components of a predictable nature, therefore also rejecting parts of the efficient market hypothesis which profess that looking at past trends do not allow for excess gains when investing on the stocks against the market. Keim and Stambaugh (1986) state that using forecasts based on a number of factors can find statistically significant predictability in a range of different stock prices. Lo and MacKinlay (1988) reject the random walk hypothesis, which is so often considered with the efficient market hypothesis theory, and show that it is not at all consistent with the stochastic nature of weekly returns. Empirical evidence of return behaviour which has been anomalous in the form of variables such as price to earnings ratio (Fama and French, 1992) has defied any kind of usual rational explanation and has resulted in a great number of researchers cons idering their views and opinions of market efficiency. Evaluation and Implications for Investors In conclusion, it is clear to see that market prices are not always predictable and that the markets have made large errors at certain points in time, for example at the recent dotcom internet bubble. Here it was obviously possible to exploit the market inefficiency to make money for investors. In the short run it may be possible to exploit these sporadic inefficiencies, but in the long term true value will always come to the fore. As long as these markets do exist, due to it being reliant on the judgement of investors, there will occasionally be errors made and some participants In the market are likely to behave in a less than rational manner, as is inherent in human nature. As well as this all information will not necessarily be sensible and investors are not likely to necessarily use it rationally. Thus irregular pricing or predictable patterns on stocks can appear and be exploited from time to time. In terms of the implications for investors in terms of the efficient market hypothesis, it is plain to see that all markets cannot be one hundred percent efficient all of the time or there would not be an incentive for people who are professionals in the field to discover different facets of information that is often quickly reflected by market prices (Grossman and Stiglitz, 1980). However, things such as the 1999 dot com bubble are exceptions rather than the rule to providing investors with extraordinary returns on their investments to exploit market inefficiencies. Therefore one could assume that the markets are efficient more often than not, and Fama (1970) is on the whole correct. This could lead to the conclusion in agreeing with Ellis (1998) and the overall idea that active equity management is indeed a ‘loser’s game’. Malkiel (2005) further advises on Ellis’ claim and professes that indexing is likely to produce higher rates of return than active por tfolio management. This is becoming more and more likely to impact investors as markets become more and more efficient, as Toth and Kertesz (2006) show in their examination of an increase in efficiency of the New York stock exchange. Therefore investors are required to question if it is indeed possible or feasible to exploit market inefficiencies using strategies the efficient market hypothesis calls into question. Bibliography Dimson, E. and Mussavian, M. (1998). ‘A Brief History of Market Efficiency’. European Financial Management. 4(1): 91-103. Ellis, C. (1998). Winning the Loser’s Game, McGraw-Hill: New York. Fama. E.G, (1970). ‘Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work’. The Journal of Finance. 25(2): 383-417 Fama, E. and French, K. (1988) ‘Dividend yields and expected stock returns’. Journal of Financial Economics.(22): 3-25. Fama, E. and French, K. (1992). ‘Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds’. Journal of Financial Economics. (33): 3-56. Grossman, S. and J, Stiglitz. (1980). ‘On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets.’ American Economic Review. 70(3). 393-408. Keim and Stambaugh (1986). ‘Predicting returns In the Stock and Bond Markets’. Journal of Financial Economics. 357-290. Lo and MacKinlay. (1988) ‘Stock Market prices do not follow random walks : Evidence from a simple specification test’. Review of Financial Studies. (1): 41-66. Malkiel, B. (2003). ‘The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics Authors’. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(1): 59-82 Malkiel, B. (2005). ‘Reflections on the Efficient Market Hypothesis: 30 Years Later’. The Financial Review (40):1-9 Shiller, R. (2003). ‘From Efficient Markets Theory to Behavioral Finance’. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 17(1) : 83-104. Toth, B. and Kertesz, J. (2006). ‘Increasing market efficiency: Evolution of cross-correlations of stock returns’. Physica 360(2): 505–515. How to cite Capital Markets and Market Efficiency, Essay examples

Media Communication Business Conceptual Art

Question: Describe about the Media Communication for Business Conceptual Art. Answer: The idea about creativity I have investigated is Eccentricity as a form of Art. The article by Deborah Stone is a rather interesting one on the issue of creativity. A major idea that has been presented in this particular article is how todays artists are going the extra mile to appreciate art that could be termed by normal individuals as weird (Maes, 2010; p.124). Stone has used the illustration of the popular music icon, Lady Gaga to determine that artists too can be judged, and not the art itself. Following a number of experiments using both fake and real artists, it was revealed that individuals are more likely to assess art positively when they were told something unusual about the artists appearance of behavior (Goldie Schellekens, 2007; p. 35). It was obvious that weirdness is used as a rule-of-thumb for those who are unsure about art to determine that the art is actually genuine and professional. Stone cites that creativity can be the eccentricity of a given artist, such as what is seen with Lady Gaga. This is how the article defines creativity. In one o f the experiments, Van Goghs Sunflowers were assessed more positively when audiences were told about him chopping off his left ear lobe (Davies, 2004; p. 51). Furthermore, Lady Gagas music was more welcomed when she was depicted as extremely strange. The idea of eccentricity as a form of art is best explained in a speech by artist Dustin Yellin titled, A Journey through the Mind of an Artist on ted.com (Corris 2004; p. 97). Yellin makes attention-grabbing artwork that tells complicated, myth-inspired narratives. In the speech, he describes his idiosyncratic way of perceiving things and thinking. A childhood attraction with boxes and what they contained led Yellin to construct his own boxes of wood-and-resin, then glass with 3-dimensioanl collages dangled within (Osborne, 2002; p.78). To ordinary individuals, this may seem as child play but other artists appreciate this as an innovative and eccentric art. One would also not expect an adult to still play with wooden boxes. This is a good illustration of amazing innovation and challenge. A dangerous idea can be defined as a form of conceptual art in the sense that it values ideas over the visual or official elements of art works (Maes, 2010; p.135). Conceptualists are considered to be extreme artists who are bold enough to go out of the norm. Conceptual artists have managed to redefine the idea of a work of art to the extent that their endeavors are widely welcomed as art by museum curators, gallerists, and collectors. This concept is also considered to be extreme. My exemplar is a dangerous idea because Yellin has made art not to look or appear like a conventional work of art, or even take any physical form at all (Goldie Schellekens, 2007; p. 40). A dangerous idea challenges normal art and pushes its limits by utilizing the least materials and texts. It also aims at leaving a lasting and memorable impression on an audiences mind about what they see. A dangerous idea is compared to conceptualism in the sense that it is said to exist, but only as an idea in the mind. Dangerous ideas are often kept secret up until the person having them reveals them or makes them come to life. Deborah Stone also identifies eccentricity behavior, which can also be compared to a dangerous idea as a deviation from norms. Such deviations can assist with the generation of creative ideas and dangerous ones thus making eccentricity subject to a form of confirmation bias in which individuals expect an unusual artist to be professional since that conforms to their stere otyped image of creative individuals (Davies, 2004; p. 54). The most fundamentally revisionary character of conceptual art is the manner by which it announces itself to be an art of the mind rather than of the senses. Creativity, eccentricity and dangerous ideas tend to reject conventional artistic media since it places the artwork at the level of idea compared to that of objects. However, it should be noted that the pressure of todays artists to be eccentric or unusual is actually a pressure to conform to a stereotype. Weirdness is stereotypically linked to unconventional and high value art (Corris 2004; p. 101). References Corris, M. (ed.). (2004). Conceptual art: Theory, myth, and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, D. (2004). Art as performance. Oxford: Blackwells. Goldie, P., Schellekens, E. (eds.) (2007). Philosophy and conceptual art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maes, H. (2010). Intention, interpretation, and contemporary visual art. British Journal of Aesthetics, 50. Pp. 121 138. Osborne, P. (eds.). (2002). Conceptual art: Themes and movements. London: Phaidon Press.