Power and Truth
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Despite its position as the world's leading democracy based on principles like equality, freedom, and opportunity, the U.S. is a society that is rigidly defined along class lines based on power, wealth, and status. No longer a nation that offers all individuals from all classes of society an opportunity for upward mobility, the gulf between rich (i.e. powerful) and poor (i.e. weak) in U.S. society continues to widen. Despite the unique writings provided, the materials from James C. Scott, Franz De Waal and Malcolm Gladwell all reinforce the notion that the distribution of power, wealth, and status has an impact on the nature of "truth" that evolves in societies. From control by the wealthy of the media to enormous influence of special interest groups over legislators, the distribution of power, wealth, and status in the U.S. has a significant affect on truth that narrows it and presents it so that what is disseminated and reinforced is what reinforces the power, wealth, and status of the status quo. The way in which truth is presented in society is a direct product of the distribution of wealth, power, and status in society. The wealthy control the media, maintain the highest positions of power in business, politics, and other social institutions; and have the most influence and control over the criminal justice system. This unequal distribution of wealth, power and status in society provides elites with the power to shape and disseminate truth - reinfo
. . .
nitor each other. There is a power struggle that goes on between powerful and dominant groups that tends to hide the real truth of intentions for each. Scott (523) argues "the dialectic of disguise and surveillance pervades relations between the weak and the strong." For example, slaves act obedient and silent when they are really trying to figure out the intentions of masters; whereas masters act powerful and in control as they try to monitor the intentions behind the performance or public transcript of slaves. This shows that "truth" is influence by the domination of those in power. New York City officials cracked down on minor crimes because they believed the larger crimes being committed stemmed from their lack of enforcement of minor offenses. Minor offenders continued to commit crimes, perpetuating more serious crimes, because they did not believe in the intentions of officials. When Bratton and Giuliani maintained that "Minor, seemingly insignificant quality-of-life crimes were Tipping Points for violent crime," intentions on both sides began to change in ways that had concealed the truth formerly (Gladwell 185). In many ways the struggle between the wealthy and powerful and subordinate groups may stem from on the o
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
De Waal, Bernhard Goetz', York City, Malcolm Gladwell, Bush Administration, White House, , Chinese Spielberg's, De Waal's, Bratton Giuliani, public transcript, public transcripts, york city, de waal, power status, wealth status, power status society, wealthy powerful, law enforcement, status society, wealth power, power wealth status, wealth power status, humanities reader york, houghton mifflin 2006,
Approximate Word count = 1752
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Power and Truth
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
