Sunday, January 26, 2020

Net Neutrality and Freedom on the Internet

Net Neutrality and Freedom on the Internet Net Neutrality: The end of internet freedom The internet has been one of the greatest technological advances ever seen in the last 40 years. It has opened the doors to many new advances in many other fields and has changed the way the world works today. Now, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and the government have decided that they need to regulate it. In theory, the regulation they would like to put in place seems like a good idea. The regulation they are putting in place is called net neutrality and it is supposed to do three things. The three things that net neutrality aims to do is no blocking, no throttling, and no paid prioritization. These all seem like good ideas and they are, the only problem is what must be sacrificed in order for the government to ensure these regulations are enforced. Net Neutrality laws should be removed so the internet can continue to grow. The first new rule of Net Neutrality is no blocking. According to CNET, this means that the ISP (Internet Service Provider) cannot block access of any legal content, services, or applications. The key here is what does the government consider legal. People would be surprised how much of what they view online each day may not be considered legal by the government. Another problem with the government blocking access to these certain website and services is that in order for them to block someone from visiting an illegal site or service, they must be monitoring them all the time. If someone is not being monitored, they could just as easily visit that site or service as they could before. So, by making strict new rules to block any illegal content, the FCC will always be monitoring everything that everyone is doing online. This will give the government a whole new level of access to peoples’ personal lives and nothing will be completely private anymore. Another common happening to day is networks and systems being hacked (Science Alert). This requires very fast implementation of new security methods and protocols to prevent mass hacking. So, what happens when the government is going to be involved with the ISP’s? Every time an ISP needs to do a network update, it will likely need to be approved by the government first in order to make sure that it is still complying with the no blocking rules. That way, an ISP could not secretly start blocking a service without the FCC being aware of it. As can be demonstrated by how fast and efficient a post office works, the government is not very fast in what it does, this means that if a new network vulnerability is found, it is possible that in the time it takes for the government to look over and approve the update, a hacker or group of hackers could have already hacked into the network and start stealing information from millions of people. How could this be improved? The answer is no blocking, period. ISPâ€⠄¢s simply do not need to block any content of any kind unless their own system detects that it is a threat. Using this method, it would allow all content to be available to everyone just as most people are used to now. However, with an automated threat detector, it would make the internet safer as well and less vulnerable to viruses and other hacking threats. This is basically how the internet works right now. Essentially, the government does not need to fix what is not broken already. Nonetheless, the government does not want things to be that simple. The reasoning behind their no blocking policy is not to protect people from the big evil internet service providers, but rather it is so that no one is downloading or viewing anything illegal (Wired). Otherwise, the government would have little interest in the no blocking policy. This is simply a way for them to get their foot in the door to block people from doing anything they determine to be illegal on the internet. Here are some examples of illegal things that most people do every day on the internet and dont even realize its illegal. For examples, it is illegal to fake a name online, it is illegal to use ad blocking software, and it is illegal to save pictures from the internet because they are someone elses property. People view lots of illegal content on YouTube all the time and one of the more ridiculous things that is illegal to do online is to post anyone singing happy birthday because it is a copyrighted s ong. If this rule of Net Neutrality were to be kept, many of the freedoms that people are able to experience online today would be gone. No more happy birthday videos on YouTube. The next rule that Net Neutrality will enforce is no throttling. This means that ISP’s cannot slow down or speed up certain services as long as they are legal (USA Today). This comes back again to the issue of what does the government consider legal on the internet. The real point here, though, is that an ISP should not be able to slow down a certain service because they use a lot of bandwidth or if they are providing content that the ISP does not agree with. An example of this throttling happening is if someone were trying to view content on a competitor of the ISP that someone is currently subscribed to. So, if someone on Comcast’s network was trying to view a news story on a website other than NBC (Comcast owns NBC), it is possible that Comcast could throttle them because they are viewing content on a competing news network site. This is where the idea of no throttling is a very good idea, it is not right for one company to throttle data to impair access to a competi tor. However, there is one perspective of throttling that the government does not take into consideration. In some instances, throttling ensures that many people are not impeded by the usage of the few. In other words, a few people could be hogging tons of available bandwidth to access a media intensive site or service while everyone else ends up with reduced speeds and network reliability while they try and do less bandwidth intensive tasks. This has been becoming less of an issue as ISP’s continue to invest in their infrastructure and try to improve total available bandwidth so that more people can be accessing more content at the same time. An example of throttling being necessary, however, was demonstrated when an app on Android became very popular and everyone was using it to communicate, which caused a massive bandwidth problem over the T-Mobile network. In order to keep the network stable so that everyone could still use it in some capacity, T-Mobile had to throttle th e users who were using the communication app. In this case, the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. It’s cases like these where throttling can be a necessity in order to maintain network integrity. Netflix has often been the victim of throttling. Almost one third of the internet traffic, today, is from people streaming Netflix (Time). Most networks now have the capability to allow for that. However, a few years ago, when Netflix was starting to become big, this was quite a strain on the current networks and in many cases people would get stuck with buffering because the ISP’s were having to throttle Netflix in order to keep the network in working order. Throttling is a self-solving problem in many ways. If people complain that a service they like is being throttled, then the ISP will have to make improvements to handle the additional traffic and this leads to network improvements and an overall better service. The part that can be an issue is when an ISP tries to throttle a competitor, which is when Net Neutrality could be good. However, this problem as well can be self-solving. If someone is trying to view something from a competitor of the ISP and they keep getting throttled, they will either complain or they will switch ISP’s. This will then force the ISP to stop throttling that site or they will lose customers. So, once again, the problem solves itself without the government needing to intervene. The third rule of Net Neutrality is no paid prioritization. This is meant to prevent any ISP from favoring some legal traffic over other legal traffic that has paid them (Wired). This is often referred to as â€Å"no fast lanes.† The best way to look at this is to think of a highway. Say there are eight lanes to this highway and the speed limit is the same for six of the lanes. However, two of the lanes have a higher speed limit and have less traffic, but they require a toll to use them. This is basically what some ISPs have been doing. They will charge certain companies to use these faster and less congested lanes so that their service is better. The idea behind this third rule of Net Neutrality is that no one gets access to fast lanes and everyone has equal access to everything. In theory, this is a great idea, but the problem here is similar to the problem with the second Net Neutrality rule. If one service is using most of the bandwidth, they should have to pay a premium t o be a drain on the network. When a massive bandwidth using company like Netflix is being used on a network, it is a huge drain on the network and it requires often expensive upgrades to be made in order to handle that new bandwidth demand. These upgrade costs are partly due to the fact that the bandwidth hog is impeding the networks performance, so they should have to pay a premium for a fast lane so that it can offset the cost of network upgrades. This also allows the network to advance and overall advance the way the internet is used. When a new company comes around and starts putting a strain on the network, this makes it so the network needs to be upgraded in order to handle it which leads to an overall better network. If there is no paid prioritization, then ISP’s may not be able to justify the costs associated with making network improvements and then that will lead to an even worse service overall. Thus, the third rule of Net neutrality is also a bad idea as it will c ause the US to fall even farther behind in average internet speeds around the globe. Those were the three main points that the government highlights about Net Neutrality and about how great it is, but what are they hiding? One key detail that they never want to mention to anyone is the fact that they will have control over how the internet is run. They are trying to stop ISP’s from regulating the internet by regulating it themselves. The government isnt exactly well known for providing great regulations, generally they are tedious and time consuming and ultimately pointless. Why should the internet have to move at the same pace as the government? It has cost taxpayers over two billion dollars so far to make the government run healthcare website work, and it still doesnt work properly. From the beginning to the very end of the enrollment period for the healthcare website, it was having tons of problems. Constantly freezing and glutting and kicking people off the server. The same people that developed this system now want to be in charge of how the internet is r egulated and run. It would be only a matter of time before the government wants to further tighten its grip on how the internet is regulated and run. Before too long, they may end up being completely in charge of how the internet works and that will lead to disaster. The internet today is by no means perfect. However, the last thing it needs is a bunch of incompetent politicians in charge of how it works. These are all things that the Net Neutrality bill will secretly allow. Therefore, it was enacted without a proper vote even being taken, it was just suddenly put into place, a bill that as over 300 pages was put into place without anyone even having time to read it. Essentially, it was put into action without anyone even knowing what it all really entailed. A huge right that will be infringed upon by Net Neutrality is everyone’s own right to privacy. Part of the Net Neutrality act allows the government to monitor internet activity. The NSA is a part of the government which allows the NSA to view every bit of activity from everyone on the internet. No one will have any privacy from the government anymore. Any time someone looks at anything on the internet, the NSA can find out about it. This is a huge infringement on a right to privacy from the government. The government knows enough about the citizens of the United States, they dont need to know what size cloths someone wears or that somebody is very interested in funny cat videos. This is just giving the government more control over what people do every day and not allowing them to feel like what they are doing is somewhat private. The argument to this is that once something is on the internet, it never goes away, and anyone can have access to it. That is true, however, with the government monitoring everyone’s activity, it makes it just that much easier for them to keep tabs on people. The other fact is that while what someone posts to the internet is no secret, what they are doing on the internet can still be unknown to many. With the government able to monitor activity through ISP’s, nothing that is done over the internet anymore is private. The government could start monitoring if someone is selling lots of their things on Craigslist and could then audit them if they did not report their profits on their taxes. Technically, profit made even from selling items can be taxed. This will simply reduce the freedom on the internet even more. It’s all just a step closer to complete government control over what everyone does everywhere. In the end, the government is ultimately enacting these new Net Neutrality rules, so they can gain more control over people on the internet. It will give them a whole new level of access and control over everything that everyone is doing. The no blocking policy allows them to control what is displayed on the internet by not blocking things that are legal, but making sure anything they consider illegal is blocked. The no throttling policy will make it so that everyone has an equal playing ground. This will make sure that things people want to be faster are not simply in order to make it equal for everyone. Lastly, not having the paid prioritization could cause the ISP’s to not get enough money to continue making important network improvements that make the internet an overall better place. The government is going to end up holding back the internet and will slow down its evolution. If the government had been in charge of the internet from the beginning, it would be nowhere near as powerful as it is today. E-Mail probably never would have come into existence because it would compete with the Post Office, making the Post Office less profitable. The way the very world today works could have been changed if the government had been in charge from the beginning. Hopefully, in the future, the Net Neutrality laws will be repealed to help the internet grow, not the government. So far, seven ISP’s have filed lawsuits against it, so it is likely that more ISP’s will join together to help ensure that the internet will not become crippled by the government. The government needs the internet, the internet does not need the government. Works Cited Babcock, Grant. Net Neutrality And Obamas Scheme for the Internet Are Lousy Ideas.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reason.com. Reason Foundation, 12 Nov. 2014. Web. Apr. 2015. Beck, Glenn. Tell The FCC To Stay Away From The Internet. Glenn Beck. MERCURY RADIO ARTS, 16 Feb. 2015. Web. Apr. 2015. Berkman, Fran. Net Neutrality Jargon Explained. The Daily Dot. N.p., 25 May 2014. Web.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Apr. 2015. Cobb, Kelly W. Why Net Neutrality and Open Internet Mandates Are Bad for Consumers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Americans for Tax Reforms. Braynard Group, 21 Oct. 2010. Web. Apr. 2015. Dorfman, Jeffrey. Net Neutrality Is A Bad Idea Supported By Poor Analogies. Forbes. Forbes   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Magazine, 13 Nov. 2014. Web. Apr. 2015. Gillula, Jeremy. The FCC Is Keeping an Eye on Interconnection, But More Clarity Is Needed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Electronic Frontier Foundation. EFF, 13 Apr. 2015. Web. Apr. 2015. Gross, Grant. Thousands Call on Congress to Overturn Net Neutrality Rules. PCWorld. IDG   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Consumer & SMB, 31 Mar. 2015. Web. Apr. 2015. May, Randolph. Why Net Neutrality Is Incompatible with Internet Freedom CNET. CNET.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   CBS Interactive Inc., 03 Sept. 2012. Web. Apr. 2015. McSherry, Corynne. The FCCs Latest Net Neutrality Proposal: Pros, Cons, and Question   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Marks. Electronic Frontier Foundation. EFF, 13 Feb. 2015. Web. Apr. 2015. Skorup, Brent, and Berin Szoka. Killing Net Neutrality Helps Underdogs Succeed | WIRED.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 17 Feb. 14. Web. Apr. 2015. Steimle, Joshua. Am I The Only Techie Against Net Neutrality? Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 14   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   May 2014. Web. Apr. 2015. Walker, Bruce E. Net Neutrality Is a Bad Marriage of Government, Internet. Net Neutrality Is a Bad Marriage of Government, Internet. The Heartland Institute, n.d. Web. Apr. 2015.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Lacan, Foucault, Sedgwick, Binary Essay

The world consists of a collection of dual concepts. Things either are or they are not, especially at the level of conception. One is either alive or dead; there are no in-betweens with this notion. In the essay, â€Å"The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as revealed in Psychoanalytical Experience,† Jacques Lacan describes a certain binary that takes place, and interacts, within a child as soon as they learn to recognize their own image. Lacan’s recognition of this initial dualism that takes place in an infant, leads to the recognition of several other dualisms. Michel Foucault speaks of a binary when speaking of sex and sexuality in chapter one of â€Å"The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, an Introduction. † In the second Axiom from â€Å"Epistemology of the Closet,† Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick discusses the heterosexual and homosexual dichotomy. Lacan believes that after eighteen months, a child discovers its libidinal dynamism (1286). Libidinal means psychic and emotional energy associated with instinctual biological drives. Dynamism means active and interactive movement. Through action and interaction with its psychic and emotional energy, instinctual biological drives in a child’s mind. It is through this dual and cooperative interaction between the physical and metaphysical, in the mirror, that a child begins to form identification with itself and its reflection. Via this reflection, the child will see its body as â€Å"Gesalt,† a collection of parts of the whole (Lacan 1286). The child views the sum of its biological, physical, and psychological bodies as an entire unit; being made up of several different parts, and at the same time just a singular object. The child recognizes and views its reflection in relation to its surroundings, i. e. urniture, itself, its mother, yet this realization that unites the child’s parts to form a singular I. This mental permanence, meaning the child will permanently see itself as I, is what will alienate others due its large singular view of itself, and not a view as part of a whole. With the child’s actualization of its image and that it can be seen and interpreted, it shall then recognize a binary of physical reality and dream reality. The dream realm is a reality of sorts, in the sense that it is real because it is experienced. That dream realm is then filled with not nly the child’s own image, but the image of the physical world it inhabits while awake. This I image is thus residing in the spectrums of this binary where its realities exist both in the physical world and in the mental world. The mirror stage itself is an entire dualistic concept. On one hand, it marks the initial conception of self-actualization, while on the other, maps the libidinal normalization process. Foucault outlines the history of sex in terms of children, how they communicate it, who discusses it, and where it resides in the binary. Children have for many years had a â€Å"freedom of language† with their mentors in relation to sex (Foucault 1654). This is to say that there was less shame in the attitude towards sex. It was a very openly discussed topic outside the realm of perversion and deviance. It was not until the seventeenth century that the French bourgeoisie placed a censorship on all speech that was of sexual manner. Children, across all social classes, gradually became more silent in regards to their sexuality (Foucault 1654). This notion of silence is where duality comes into to play, or lack thereof. Foucault defines silence as â€Å"the things one declines to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers,† (1654). Foucault views silence as a non-passive action, even if it may appear to be doing nothing. One can convey a message just as effectively, and arguably more, by remaining silent than actually speaking. Silence is something that functions alongside speech in such a way that it becomes difficult to differentiate the two in terms of the outcomes they produce. Foucault acknowledges this lack of binary by stating that there is â€Å"no division to be made between what one says and what one does not say† (1654). In terms of the government enforced censorship on sexuality and speech during the 1600’s, this silence surrounding sexuality spoke volumes more than explicit dialogue about it. During this time another binary became prevalent, the public and the private. While the people remained relatively silent in public, they were conversing greatly privately. In the 1700’s this silence â€Å"multiplied the forms of discourse† on the subject of sex (Foucault 1655). The topic of children sex exploded with many participants partaking in the discussion. There was a great market for this discourse on sex that included the realms of medicine and politics, often interweaving the two. The topic of sex was forced out of the private realm into the public. Foucault says that sex has become something society cannot speak enough about, that â€Å"[society] convinced [itself] that [they] have never said enough on the subject,† throwing society onto a perpetual search for answers (1657). The sexual realm does not reside in the binary of public and private, of being secret or outspoken, yet resides in both. It is because of this need for secrecy that sex has taken such a firm place outside of being a secret. Foucault says society teeters on the middle of the binary system of public and private, that society has â€Å"consigned sex to a shadow existence, but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret† (1658). The history of sex is a prime example of a concept being able to reside in the realms of the public and private binaries, and at the same time residing in neither. Sedgwick claims that sexuality lies in a realm separate than that of gender. She defines chromosomal sex as that of biology that follows the strict XX and XY chromosome pattern of distinction among Homo Sapiens (Sedgwick 2439). She defines gender as an elaborate and rigid social production that strictly serves the binary of only male and female (Sedgwick 2439). She then defines sexuality as an array of acts, expectations, narratives, pleasures, identity-formations, and knowledge, in both women and men that focus on genital sensations, but not adequately defined by them (Sedgwick 2440). She states that gender is only one dimension of sexual choice and that sexuality strictly deals with how the individual feels and has no relation to, or effect on, procreation. Whereas chromosomal sex is strictly based on procreative purposes since it lies in the realm of biology, where a sexed male and a sexed female are the only sexes that can reproduce with each other. This notion thus makes sexuality the polar opposite of chromosomal sex, rather than gender being its opposite, in the binaries. She states that both gender and sexuality are concepts to be chosen. The differences between them are that gender serves the binary of male and female, while sexuality, contingent on the individual, are not limited by such a simple binary. This binaries construction was only to serve the male identity. Sedgwick says that any system with gender at its focus will have an inherent heterosexist bias, meaning that the female gender is constructed as a supplement to the male identity (2442). That the binary by which gender is trapped only exists because it required being a binary, the female gender only exists because the male gender required a counterpart. The binary of heterosexual and homosexual fits a deconstructive template more so than the binary of male and female, thus rendering sexual orientation and gender different. All people at birth are publicly assigned to one of two genders and because of this are forever unalterable. Sexual orientation, on the other hand, is often times rearrangeable, ambiguous, and has a doubleness quality to it that allows for easy alterations (Sedgwick 2444). Sedgwick does not find the gender binary to be one of complexity, but of a rather simple and unchallengeable one. She states the essentialism of sexual orientation is less easy to maintain, incoherent, stressed and challenged (Sedgwick 2444). There is a contradictoriness to Sedgwick’s claim that sexual orientation is easy to alter and rearrangeable, yet at the same time less easy to maintain. It is, however, this seemingly contradictoriness that makes sexual orientation different from the gender binary. It is this complexity and fluidity that gives sexual orientation its ability to make leaps and bounds across its multinary systems. The most important aspect of the difference between gender and sexual orientation is the fact that one can choose their sexuality, but not their gender. Lacan, Foucault, and Sedgwick all deal with historical values. That is to say, they deal with issues and topics that occur at the early stages of young life, thus making these dealings at the conception level of thought. Lacan’s mirror stage describes a child’s actualization of self. Foucault deals with the history of sex and the history of children’s conception of sex. Sedgwick discusses the differences of sex, sexuality, and gender. The uniqueness of Sedgwick’s notion is that gender is assigned at birth and can never be altered. This ties into Lacan’s mirror stage where once a child realizes its image, and the placement of that image in the world it lives in, it can never un-see that image, and moreover, can never remove that image from its surroundings. Foucault greatly discusses children in his chapter, however he does not delve deeper as to what about children relate to their sex. Sedgwick supplies contextual substance to Foucault’s article that deals mainly with the history of sex and not the sex itself. Lacan’s concept of self-actualization of the I, can be coupled with Sedgwick’s gender assignment at birth, that the I is gendered, and will effect, and often dictate, the child’s asymptomatic journey to reach it. Lacan’s concept of the binary of physical and metaphysical realization of self-image, is the basis for a binary discussion, something either is or is not physically here. Foucault discusses the history of sex and how a binary of speaking about sex or remaining silent does not exist. Sedgwick deals with the gender binary. This theory of dualism, binaries, dichotomy, lays foundation for these authors, and philosophers, and their works.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Communication and Visual Literacy Essay

Brian Kennedy’s lecture on visual literacy was very interesting. I’ve never really thought about visual literacy that way. You really don’t realize how you would perceive things in the world if you couldn’t see anything. He says that we learn everything visual first. Then the others things come after that. The more I think about it, the more I believe what he is saying. In our book the definition of visual literacy is the competent creation and consumption of visual messages (Ryan, 2012). Which is a vague fairly vague definition compared to what Kennedy said. Kennedy really dives deep into the subject and drives home the importance of visual literacy. He has you close your eyes and then he asks you to name off some things that are in the room. I honestly couldn’t remember any of these things. It just goes to show you how important it is for us to see things. When we see things we generate assumptions about them, try to interpret them, and we add text to them. So visual literacy can go a long way for us. Visual literacy is definitely a universal language. Kennedy talks about this a little bit in his lecture. There are all kinds of different things we do visually that translate in any culture. Kennedy’s example was a simple wink. When we see someone wink we interpret what it means. It could mean a lot of different things though as well. Hand signals and numbers don’t really change either. I was just in the Dominican Republic and a lot of the locals didn’t speak English. I had to resort to using hand signals to get things I wanted or communicate with them. Most of the time it worked to. It was easier for me to communicate with them visually and basically the only means  of communication I had. So I agree when someone says visual literacy is a universal language. I think visual literacy can impact communication and global understanding. I gave an example in my previous paragraph of how visual literacy impacts communication. That example works here really well too. It impacts communication because we see things first and then we interpret the text, such as body language or hand gestures. They can change how you interpret what someone is saying. It helps with a global understanding because visual literacy is universal. I stated earlier that I though visual literacy was a universal language. When you can’t communicate with some verbally you always turn to visual things like hand gestures. I think this gives us a way to communicate when we can speak through words. Visual literacy is very important to us as a country and throughout the world. References Ryan, W. (2012). Visual literacy: learning to see. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. TedTalk: Brian Kennedy: Visual Literacy and Why We Need It (http://tedxtalks. ted. com/video/TEDxDartmouth-Brian-Kennedy-Vis;search%3Abrian%20kennedy).

Thursday, January 2, 2020

The Culture of Islam Essay example - 1549 Words

Islam is more than a religion, it’s a culture, and as such has an effect on political, social, and economic aspects of life—this is especially true outside of the Western world. Followers of Islam believe in full submission to God and this submission is practiced in the secular realm (Taha, 114). Of the five pillars of Islam, one (the zakat) has a direct affect on economic policy and ethics. The culture of Islam has shaped economic and business guidelines In the Islamic World and continues to do so. Cultural ideals attributed to the Qur’an or the Prophet Muhammad, have been a vital source for economic and business practices that have helped to shape the history of many Islamic nations, and are guiding the creation of policies†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Islam’s original principle is the common or joint possession of property amongst the slaves of God, so that each one takes according to his needs, the basic needs of a traveler (passing throug h this life to the next true and lasting life)† (Taha, 138), it is also important to note that this statement is made in a section titled â€Å"Capitalism Is Not An Original Precept In Islam†. Taha references Muslims as ‘slaves of God’, or submitters, who should have their needs met and then contribute to the needs of others. Much of this communal nature is attributed to the tribal history of many Islamic peoples, and the descendants of these people still have an egalitarian outlook on the world in which they live (Kanna, 109). Muslims are not allowed to make money in ways that require little or no work, the Qur’an states: â€Å"They ask thee concerning wine and gambling. Say: In them is great sin, and some profit for men; but the sin is greater than the profit†, gambling is usually illegal and frowned upon in Islamic societies because it is too easy to attain wealth through it (Williams and Zinkin, 523). Work is important in the Islamic culture, not necessarily for economic purposes in the Western sense, but because it allows for prosperity for everyone and is an example of activities rewarded for in the after-life that are ‘secular’ (William and Zinkin, 521). The idea of mutualShow MoreRelatedIslam Culture Versus Islam Religion The Western Perception of Islam1969 Words   |  8 PagesIslam Culture Versus Islam Religion The Western Perception of Islam Throughout this course we have learned several different aspects of Islam as a culture and as a religion we have also been able to put to rest several myths that have plagued Islam in the eyes of the Western World. In this paper I will discuss the significant difference of Islam as a religion versus Islam as a culture as seen through the eyes of a Malay Muslim. I will then go on to discuss how the WesternRead MoreEssay on Islam: A Religion and Culture1630 Words   |  7 PagesIslam: A Religion and Culture Islam is one of the oldest religions in history dating back to about 600 AD. It began when a man named Muhammad heard a voice from the heavens instructing him to proclaim the word of god. Currently there are over 800 million followers of the Muslim religion. 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