It’s Time to Stop the Madness :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

It’s Time to Stop the Madness The more one hears about all the things one's ancestors believed in, the more one can be inclined to distrust much of what is said that is not backed by hard evidence. And yet, even many former "facts" of the world that have been backed by what was deemed in other times as hard-enough evidence are now seen a laughable light. The sun is no longer popularly perceived to revolve around the Earth; the world is understood to be (mostly) round, etc. But how do we know what we take as evidence for showing us the way things are and how they work is indeed enough? How close are we to the truth concerning our existence and purpose, or what everything else has to do with us (i.e., our surroundings, or our co-inhabitants of this planet whether living or inert)? Perhaps this is such a big question that many people have simply put it on hold in the recesses of their minds, or else throwing it completely from the mind so as to concentrate on the day-today tasks at hand. Perhaps it is long past the time when we should consider such things with renewed interest and contemplation. The problem is that in looking at our human nature, we can be quite blinded by ourselves, to the extent that the results we find in our studies can be very biased, often without our being able to see exactly how. Perhaps the most logical way of dealing with this dilemma is also claimed by mystics to be the oldest: to strive with much will and discipline to shed oneself of all that might cloud our perception, effectively becoming a person who in some way has transcended beyond a state of being that is constantly worrying about the self, its image, its survival, its transgressions. If it sounds difficult, that is because it is, at least for those who have already picked up the excess baggage of culture from society. Moreover, those who have managed to break through all self delusions do not necessarily become recognizable as having done such a thing. It would be their veil that is lifted, not that of their observer. One could possibly walk down the street right past someone who sees th ings in an entirely different way and not know it. Things are not as they seem, and this applies to everything.

Enron’s Collapse Essay

Enron’s Collapse In the case of Enron’s collapse, many would blame the external auditor’s collusion with the management, the aggressive accounting policy it had adopted to manipulate its earnings or the Special Purpose Entity (SPE) it had created as a sham to conceal its debts. However, everything began from an internal environment with weak controls. The internal environment is the capstone of all other components within an organization’s ERM framework, influencing strategy formulation, objective setting, as well as risk management. The internal environment is largely shaped by the tone at he top. And in the case of Enron, its failure was primarily attributable to the board and management’s failure to take responsibility for the risks inherent in the company’s business plan and strategy. Various elements of the internal environment had contributed to Enron’s failure. Risk Management Philosophy and Risk Appetite Enron had a huge risk appetite which can be seen from its speculative trading activities as well as the use of â€Å"mark-to-market† accounting and SPE to manipulate earnings and conceal debts. The source of revenue was vague and highly volatile. It was almost like Enron was engaged in gambling. However, well knowing the nature of income, the management still continued to carry out such activities. Management’s huge risk appetite reassured the employees that Enron could easily handle these risks. Hence, everyone in Enron became risk-seeking. Board of Directors’ Attitudes One of the core principles of Anglo-American corporate governance is that â€Å"the board should maintain a sound system of internal control to safeguard shareholders’ investment and the company’s assets†. Enron’s board had defended itself by laiming that they had no idea about the unethical conducts Enron’s management was involved with. However, the board had, in the first place, failed to make an appropriate assessment of the risks to which the company was exposed of. And it did not put in place the procedures by which it could obtain the information needed to oversee and monitor the management. Moreover, the independence of the board was also questionable as they allowed own conflict of interest to get in the way of their monitoring role. The board members received substantial payments for consultancy service apart from their directors’ fees. In addition, they were indirectly compensated by receiving gifts made by Enron to their universities and hospitals. As a result, the failure of board’s monitoring role further weakened the internal control of Enron. Integrity and Ethical Values Integrity and standards of behavior are required for the organization to achieve an internal environment with strong controls. There should be a strong corporate Enron’s corporate culture was usually described as arrogant, where everyone in the company, employees, managers or directors, believed that they could handle ncreasingly toxic risk without danger of going bust. Besides the arrogance, greed was as well evident across the organization. Top executives made use of â€Å"mark-to- market† accounting and SPE to manipulate earnings and conceal debts in order to further enrich their compensation which was tied to the performance of the company. Top executive’s actions of striving to enrich personal wealth rather than generate profits for shareholders had set the tone at the top which in turn led to employees’ efforts of maximizing individual wealth instead of creating value for the ompany as a whole. Assignments of Authority and Responsibility Corporate officers owe fiduciary duties to the organization, hence they must act in the best interest of the company and avoid incidences where conflicts of interest would arise. Although this is not enforced by legislation, it is normally set out in the organization’s own code of conduct. A strong code of conduct is a critical element of assignments of authority and responsibility, not only in form but in substance as well. And Enron indeed had such code of conduct, explicitly restraining self-dealing. FastoWs involvement in LJM SPE’s management would amount to self-dealing, which was a clear breach of Enron’s code of conduct. However, the board had waived it under Ken Lays advice. Therefore, it can be seen that the tone at the top made Enron’s code of conduct form over substance, which as well contributed to the failure Human Resource Standards Jeffery Skilling was usually credited with creating a system of forced rankings for employees, under which the bottom 20% was regularly dismissed on the basis of performance rankings drawn up by peers and superiors. Whereas those remained ere rewarded with stock options and performance-based increments. Thus employees attempted to crush not Just outsiders but also each other. And it is not surprising that they would keep silent even that they well knew about the unethical behavior of management. As a result, the ranking policy contributed to the diminishing of the organization’s transparency and a widening communication gap between the board and the rest of the organization, making it even harder for the board to effectively carry out the monitoring role.

A Doll’s House Essay - 1511 Words

The enforcement of specific gender roles by societal standards in 19th century married life proved to be suffocating. Women were objects to perform those duties for which their gender was thought to have been created: to remain complacent, readily accept any chore and complete it â€Å"gracefully† (Ibsen 213). Contrarily, men were the absolute monarchs over their respective homes and all that dwelled within. In Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, Nora is subjected to moral degradation through her familial role, the consistent patronization of her husband and her own assumed subordinance. Ibsen belittles the role of the housewife through means of stage direction, diminutive pet names and through Nora’s interaction with her morally ultimate†¦show more content†¦Ibsen utilizes the boundaries of the â€Å"inexpensively furnished† (147) room to create Nora’s symbolic cage displaying how she is physically unable to leave the confines of t he room and the role in which every 19th century wife must play. In Act I, Nora plays her faà §ade of the frivolous â€Å"funny little spendthrift† (150) in an effort to seem as defenseless as the woodland creatures Torvald finds so endearing and subsequently patronizing. Nora’s quarantine is enhanced as she is called a â€Å"squirrel†¦skylark, and little bird† (150) by Torvald, infantilizing her character and consequently solidifying her inability to escape the confines of her assumed womanly role. Nora readily assumes the position of a subordinate and feeble woman to protect the illusion she perceives as a complete home in addition to avoid â€Å"[being] completely alone† (154). This absolute isolation in adherence to the role in which she has been nurtured to conform to is slowly deteriorating her character, which is displayed in the increased sporadic nature of â€Å"poor little Nora’s† (152) actions and her lack of ability to focu s as the play progresses. Nora’s childlike behaviors steadily become more obvious as her fixated birdcage becomes increasingly suffocating, the discomfort with her current isolation grows and as her mask of perfection slowly disintegrates.Show MoreRelatedA Dolls House1069 Words   |  5 PagesA Doll’s House takes place in 19th century Norway and Ibsen provides the audience a view of the societal shackles of the era that would imprison women in their own houses. Ibsen introduces Mrs. Linde at early stage of the play as Nora’s old school friend with whom Nora could share her secret and this serves as a way of letting the audience know about Nora’s struggles. Mrs. Linde is an independent woman whose character serves as a foil to Nora’s character in the play. Throughout the play, A Doll’sRead MoreDolls House996 Words   |  4 Pagesstresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason. Humanism is n ot just about males or just about females; its about humans living as one. In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, humanism is shown through every single word and every single detail. A Doll’s House centers on humanism because it demonstrates the search for identity, living up to societal standards, and believing that men and women are equal. Throughout the entire play, each character searches forRead MoreAn Analysis of a Dolls House1535 Words   |  7 PagesA Doll’s House 1. DRAMATIC STRUCTURE ‘A Doll’s House’ is widely considered by many to be Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s magnum opus. The play is tightly structured with 3 acts that take place over a short span of three days. Each act contains just one long scene. The scenes are primarily two person scenes that are interleaved with temporary entrances and quick exits by the other characters in the play. Furthermore, the play has a strong sense of unity of action, in the sense that events inRead MoreSymbolism of a Dolls House2840 Words   |  12 Pagesï » ¿Alex Simonton Research Paper Third Period April 15, 2015 Symbolism of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is perhaps one of the most hotly debated plays to come out of the 19th century.   The eighteen hundreds continued the process of the demystification that began with the Enlightenment.   Because of the discoveries of the Enlightenment, humans could no longer be sure about their place in the universe.   This, of course, had an impact on the theater.   The movement towardRead MoreHenrik Ibsens A Dolls House1489 Words   |  6 Pageswith many other types of literature, drama relies on several separate components all working together to tell a story. These components serve to draw an audience in, create a believable situation, and illicit a particular response. The play â€Å"A Doll’s House† by Henrik Ibsen provides an excellent example for analysis, with each component strongly supported. Often the first, and most obvious, component that can be observed when reading drama is the point of view that it is written from. PointRead MoreDoll’s House by Henrik Ibsen1126 Words   |  4 PagesHenrik Ibsen wrote the book, Doll’s House, in the late 1870s about the life of the common woman in Norway during the 1870s. The book gave society an inside of look of the life women in general. Woman during this time were oppressed and men were contemptuous towards women. Women that opposed their husband were considered mentally insane and sent to a mental institution. The book is about a domesticated woman named Nora. Nora lives in a house with her husband and their three kids. Nora main job toRead MoreThe Yellow Wallpaper and A Doll’s House900 Words   |  4 PagesEra, women were very accommodating to fit the â€Å"house wife† stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper and Henry Isben’s play A Dolls House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† bothRead MoreA Critics Opinion of a Dolls House1743 Words   |  7 PagesDestiny Maxfield Mrs. Collar Engl. 1302 19 November 2012 A Critic’s Opinion of A Doll’s House In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House many views could be seen from both sides of the gender world. Critics will argue about the true meaning of the story and why Ibsen wrote the story. The main points of the play that critics discuss are sexuality i.e. feminism, the wrong doing of the father figure, and spiritual revolution. I believe these critics are each right in their own way from my understanding of theRead MoreTheme Of Feminism In A Dolls House1268 Words   |  6 PagesHenrik Ibsen explores the feminist movement of his time throughout A Dolls House. He shows the feminist movement in all acts by many of the characters. The feminist movement is the movement to have women and men treated equally across all aspects of life. A Dolls House follows Nora as she deals with the effect of a decision she made years ago about borrowing money. Nora must find a way to change the perceptions others have about her actions. Ibsen uses figures to make the audience understand theirRead More A Dolls House Essay1148 Words   |  5 PagesA Doll House Essay Ibsen said that his mission in life was to â€Å"Inspire individuals to freedom and independence† which was shown throughout the play A Doll House. Since he wrote modern theatre, the characters were real and audiences could relate to them. He particularly questioned the role of men and women during his time. Ibsen used A Doll House to motivate women so they would seek more power and freedom in their relationships. Audiences could then look up to characters such as Nora and