Good Will Hunting Biopsychological Approach Essay Example for Free

Good Will Hunting Biopsychological Approach Essay The biopshychological approach to Wills behavior would suggest that he is like he is because of his brain chemistry. The chemicals in his brain cause him to respond violently to pressure. The make up of his genetics cause him to be the way he is and he would be this way no matter how he was raised. This approach would also suggest that he could be changed by drugs to balance the chemicals in his brain. Behavioral Approach: The behavioral approach would imply that all of Wills behavior is learned and he is a product of his environment. He is violent because he was probably beaten as a child and as he grew up he learned to handle his problems through violence. He kept up this behavior because he was never punished severely enough to get him to stop. He learned that he could go to court and talk his way out of his situations which did not give him any reason to stop doing what he was doing. He also learned not to get to close to anybody or open up to them. This was learned because some of the people in his life who were supposed to love him had abandoned him. Psychoanalitic Approach: The psychoanalitic approach would indicate that Wills behavior was from his subconscious mind and were impulses from childhood experiences. For example, Will was beaten up in kindergarten by a bully, later on in his life he sees the bully and starts a fight with him. His decision to fight was made subconsciously from an impulse from a childhood experience. When he was a child he was also abused by his parents. Later in Wills life, he often resorts to violence subconsciously due to his childhood beatings. Humanistic Approach: The humanistic approach would state that Will makes his decisions based on free will and is basically a good person. Will is how he is because that is how he wants to be. Will does not realize until later in life that he has to much potential to waste his life. Will is an overall good person. This is shown in his in his actions throughout the movie, for example, when he decided to keep working construction instead of taking a job with mil itary intelligence because he would rather help people by making housing than get people killed. Cognitive Approach: The cognitive approach would suggest Will is how he is because that is how he sees himself. Will is a well educated man but for most of the movie Will sees himself as a nobody who will work for cheap and stay in the ghetto. Once his intelligence is noticed realizes that he has the opportunity to use his knowledge and make something of himself. Sociocultural Approach: The sociocultural approach would say that Will is how he is because of influences from society. Society usually views people from the ghetto as people who will never make something of themselves so he feels the same way about himself. Society expects people from the ghetto to resort to violence to solve their problems. This is why Will usually resorts to violence in tough situations. Society also does not allow for men to open up and share their feeling freely. This is the reason why it is so hard for will to open up and get emotional.

Internet Addicts in Danger Essay -- Technology Computers Communication

Internet Addicts in Danger Internet chat rooms have become a devastating disadvantage to the social interaction and growth of people in the world. More and more of the world’s youth are becoming addicted to Internet chat rooms. Not only are Internet chat room relationships leading to impersonal contact of people hiding flaws behind anonymity, they are leading to the abduction of many underage individuals. In an article published in The Age, a magazine in Melbourne, Australia, Doctor Mubarak Rahamathulla has researched teenagers that have become "pathologically addicted" to Internet chat rooms. Rahamathulla argues that this addiction could damage their social skills as well as their ability to form intimate relationships. Rahamathulla says that "The young people who are introverts who are having difficulties establishing a rapport with others are going to go deeper into these kinds of forums to interact with others, that will further shrink their social network." In Rahamathulla’s research he found that while Internet chat rooms are not the ideal form of communication for most of these "addicted" teens, it is better than no interaction at all. The research revealed that these teens are lonely, usually unpopular and that chat rooms contribute to some teenagers fearing one on one situations. Internet chat rooms do not seem like they are targeting this specific demographic, when it is considered that there are chat rooms for basically every interest any human in the world could think of. So, if Internet chat rooms are not targeting lonely, unpopular teenagers, but those are for the most part the people becoming "addicted" to these chat rooms, are these chat rooms making the people who are interested in them addicted and lonely ... ...there is no immediate solution for the problem that is at hand. But it is a problem that needs to be addressed. Internet chat rooms are making the worlds youth into anti-social, lonely people. Internet chat rooms are enticing children to go out and meet much older people that they should not be associating with and no one is stopping them. Parents and Internet companies both need to make drastic changes for the benefit of the world’s youth. Works Cited Barr, Elizabeth "Face the Music". 17 January. 2003 BCT Reporter "Should there be tighter laws governing the Internet?". UK Newsweek Regional Press. 25 July. 2003 Bruce, Iain "Fishnet Stalking; from the erotic to the pornographic, sex on the Internet is booming". The Sunday Herald. 8 December. 2002 Nader, Carol "Introvert Internet Addicts and ‘Social Risk’". The Age. 2 October. 2003 Statistics

Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun Essay

In the tradition of passions plays of a century ago that illustrated the age-old inequalities of unchallenged intrinsic power wielded by a single entity. This is the story of absolute authority and how well earned past loyalties have elapsed and betrayed by fear and replaced with paranoia.   Burnt by the Sun, a 1994 film by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov, the long film even with a tendency to meander,   carries the distinction of being the first noteworthy anti-Stalin film produce in post-Communist Russia. While the subject of matter of post revolution in Russia is not a new platform for addressing the thesis of Stalin’s dictatorial regime, what is interesting and original is the ability and opportunity for Mikhalkov to openly criticize the past without apparent fear of reprisal. The antagonistic and customary undiscriminating maltreatment launched at the history of the Soviet era has served to strengthen the political movement in late 19th-century Russia that sought to bring about a just new society by destroying the existing one through acts of terrorism and assassination. The obvious resentment of modern Russian film-makers toward the concept of socialism has not prevented them from producing a considerable number of films about Russia’s past during the past decade. For the most part, the directors of these films have sought to outdo one another in depicting the agonies of Soviet history. The tale of the films begins in 1936 Russia, slightly less than two decades following the Communist Revolution.   This point in time is seated in the midst of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee Joseph Stalin’s era murderous dictatorship.   The main characters; a well heeled and socially content Colonel Sergueiv Kotov, a military hero of the Bolshevik revolution,   his young beautiful wife Maroussia and their six-year old daughter Nadia are established in peaceful yet sheltered existence from the rest of post revolutionary Russia.   Their surroundings are idyllic and rustic, all expected from yearly sabbatical. However, the untroubled setting is soon disrupted by the untimely entrance of Dimitri; an old love of Kotov’s wife Maroussia, a young entertainer of a man, grew up with Kotov’s wife’s family.   Ironically, 10 years ago, Dimitri served under Kotov and hence was ordered away on duty.   The motives of such decision was suspect to say the least, but now Dimitri, of unknown means and purpose, has returned with a tacit mission.   Even while pleasantries were exchanged, adolescent amusements offer and lover’s memories revisited, Dimitri had assumed the task of arresting Kotov for espionage under order from Stalin.   Rather paradoxical since Kotov was openly very patriotic, dedicated to the State of the Soviet Union to the extent of carrying a photograph with him of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. The tale ends as it presents Kotov slowly and tactfully being removed from his relaxed and filled with humor semi-retirement. Obviously, this story being about Stalinist Russia, the closing stages will not reach a cheerful finish. The film has effectively taught us just how brutal those murderous years were and the insanity on which it was all based. The audience is presented with the beauty of happy, content lives crushed by the demands of Joseph Stalin.   Directly, in the conclusion, we are shown Kotov, a heroic courageous, dedicated and loyal soldier of Russia who, having devoted a lifetime to serving his motherland, is ultimately destroyed by a fellow soldier. Despite Kotov’s threats to contact Stalin directly, witnesses are shot, he is badly beaten and eventually executed.   Whether a deeper plot envisioned by Stalin existed or not, the plan took the lives two loyalist, from grief, Dimitri commits suicide. Unlike most depictions of this time period that display the horrors in surfeit, Burnt by the Sun has clearly focused on presenting a genuine sharp critique of Stalinism.   Much of the command of this film is due to the restrained manner in which Mikhalkov integrates a forbidding significance into the script.   His clear offering of allowing all the humanity of the characters develop first, in complete humor and visual beauty, before letting them fall prey to their fate. Symbolism plays a key part in Burnt by the Sun. Some of it, while images are subtle and obscure, imagery is left up to the viewer to determine how literally to take several instances of magic realism. Mikhalkov ensure that his central thesis is so strong and conveyed in such a manner that it’s impossible to overlook or be misunderstood for another point. Director Nikita Mikhalkov is candid about the definitive meaning of his film by dedicating it to â€Å"everyone who was burnt by the sun of the Revolution.† (Bulavka, 1997, p139) This movie is very much an attack on the policies and paranoia of Stalin. The chilling final scenes emphasize the theme as we come to realize just how far-reaching the dictator’s grasp was, and how insecure even the most loyal patriots were. One result, however it was intended, has been that both Russian audiences and the film-makers communities have tended to grow weary of the traditional national cinema preoccupation with its themes and obsessions. All the reason more Burnt by the Sun., was met with an enthusiastic reception not only in Russia but also in the West, (eventually receiving an Oscar.) Burnt by the Sun uses the medium of film to pose social questions and explore social relationships with some attempts to combine opposing segments of radically different style and presentation. In many ways, Burnt by the Sun is presented by Mikhalkov as an intense pathos that rivals any cinematic present day effort. The film presents a challenge to the main trends in post-Soviet Russian cinema. Traditionally, film-making in Russia is dominated by the realism in the democratic classification therefore advancing tired themes.   Clearly, the Russian audiences have suffered for a realistic candid character that deals with the important dilemma of the moral duality of man.   If not with the times in which he is currently living but all times that follow. However, the only criticism of the production is the over-emphasized methodical process of reaching the main point of the story. The overall finale primarily impacts the audience due to the beginning of the film is subdued, therefore setting up a climatic end. The crux is essential yet distant for it takes an extremely long time for it to be enjoyed by the audience.

Christopher Columbus Setting the Record Straight

Few stories in American history are as monolithic as the story of Columbuss discovery of America, and American children grow up believing a tale that is largely a fanciful fabrication characterized by uncertainty if not deliberate untruths. But history is always a matter of perspective, dependent upon who is doing the telling and for what reason, existing within the context of national culture. Far from being a heroic tale of a wayward explorer who happens upon lands previously unknown to other civilizations, the Columbus narrative usually leaves out some very troubling details which are very well documented but usually ignored. In reality, the story reveals a far darker side of Euro-American settlement and Americas project to promote national pride at the expense of exposing the truth of the brutality of its founding leads to whitewashed, sanitized versions of the Columbus story. For Native Americans and all indigenous peoples in the New World, this is a record that needs to be set straight. Columbus Was Not the First Discoverer The term discoverer is itself highly problematic because it implies something previously unknown to the world in general. But the so-called primitive people and lands which Christopher Columbus theoretically discovered had ancient histories known obviously to them, and in fact, had civilizations that rivaled and in some ways surpassed those of Europe. Additionally, there is a plethora of evidence pointing to numerous pre-Columbian expeditions to what we now call the Americas dating back hundreds and thousands of years before Columbus. This busts the myth that in the Middle Ages Europeans were the only ones with technology advanced enough to cross oceans. The most striking examples of this evidence can be found in Central America. The existence of massive Negroid and Caucasoid stone statues constructed by the Olmec civilization strongly suggests contact with Afro-Phoenician peoples between 1000 BC and 300 A.D. (simultaneously raising questions about the kind of advanced technology such construction required). It is also well known that Norse explorers had penetrated deep into the North American continent around 1000 A.D. Other interesting evidence includes a map found in Turkey in 1513 which is thought to be based on material from the library of Alexander the Great, showing coastline details of South America and Antarctica. Ancient Roman coins have also been found by archaeologists all over the Americas leading to conclusions that Roman seafarers visited numerous times. The Malevolent Nature of Columbuss Expedition The conventional Columbus narrative has us believe that Christopher Columbus was an Italian navigator with no agenda other than to expand his knowledge of the world. However, while there is some evidence that he was from Genoa, there is also evidence that he wasnt, and as James Loewen notes, he doesnt seem to have been able to write in Italian. He wrote in Portuguese-influenced Spanish and Latin, even when he wrote to Italian friends.   But more to the point, Columbuss journeys took place within the larger context of extremely violent European expansionism (by then underway for hundreds of years) aided by an arms race based on ever-advancing weapons technology. The goal was the amassing of wealth, especially land and gold, at a time when the newly emerging nation-states were controlled by the Roman Catholic Church, to whom Isabella and Ferdinand were beholden. By 1436 the church was already in the process of claiming lands not even yet discovered in Africa and dividing them among the European powers, especially Portugal and Spain, declared by a church edict called the Romanus Pontifex. By the time Columbus had contracted with the church-backed Spanish crown, it was already understood that he was claiming new lands for Spain. The afterword of Columbuss discovery of the New World reached Europe, in 1493 the church issued a series of Papal Bulls confirming Columbuss discoveries in the Indies. The notorious bull Inter C aetera, a document that not only granted all of the New World to Spain, laid the groundwork for justifying the subjugation of indigenous inhabitants to the church (which would later define the doctrine of discovery, a legal precept still in use today in federal Indian law). Far from being an innocent journey of exploration seeking spices and new trade routes, Columbuss voyages turned out to be little more than pirating expeditions with the intent to plunder other peoples lands under the self-granted authority of the Roman Catholic Church. By the time Columbus set sail on his second voyage, he was well armed technologically and legally for a full-scale assault on indigenous peoples. Columbus the Slave-Trader What we know about Columbuss voyages is taken largely from his journals and those of Bartolome de Las Casas, a Catholic priest who was with Columbus on his third journey, and who wrote vividly detailed accounts of what happened. Thus, to say that the transatlantic slave trade began with Columbuss voyages is not based on speculation but on the piecing together of well-documented events. The greed of the wealth-building European powers needed a workforce to support it. The Romanus Pontifex of 1436 provided the needed justification for the colonization of the Canary Islands, whose inhabitants were in the process of being exterminated and enslaved by the Spanish at the time of Columbuss first voyage. Columbus would simply continue the project that had already begun for developing a transoceanic slave trade. On his first voyage, Columbus set up base at what he named Hispaniola (todays Haiti/Dominican Republic) and kidnapped between 10 and 25 Indians, with only seven or eight of them arriving in Europe alive. On his second voyage in 1493, he was equipped with seventeen heavily armed ships (and attack dogs) and 1,200 to 1,500 men. After arriving back on the island of Hispaniola, the subjugation and extermination of the Arawak people began with a vengeance. Under Columbuss leadership, the Arawaks were forced under the encomienda system (a system of forced labor that sidestepped the word slavery) to mine for gold and produce cotton. When gold was not found, the irate Columbus oversaw the hunting of Indians for sport and dog food. Women and girls as young as nine or 10 were used as sex slaves for the Spanish. So many Indians died under the encomienda slave system that Indians from neighboring Caribbean islands were imported, and eventually from Africa. After Columbuss first kidnapping of Indians, he is believed to have sent as many as 5,000 Indian slaves across the Atlantic, more than any other individual. Estimates for the pre-Columbus population of Hispaniola range between 1.1 million and 8 million Arawaks. By 1542 Las Casas recorded fewer than 200, and by 1555 they were all gone. Hence, the uncensored legacy of Columbus is not only the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade but the first recorded instance of full-scale genocide of an indigenous people. Columbus never set foot on the North American continent. References Getches, Wilkinson and Williams. Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law, Fifth Edition. Thomson West Publishers, 2005.Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Simon Schuster, 1995, First Edition.Zinn, Howard. A Peoples history of the United States. New York: Harper Perennial, 2003.