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Reflection on Mary Calkins Major Issues Facing Women
VII Reflection Paper
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Reflection on Mary Calkins Major Issues Facing Women
I imagine if I could be Mary Calkins to reflect on the major issues facing women/minorities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Being a pioneer, Mary Calkins broke obstacles for women in the area of psychology. She had quite a few writing comprehensively about women’s inequality, even further researching its outcomes. Being a psychologist at the period when women were deprived of the right to vote, she talked at a number of women’s suffrage conventions. According to her theory, she believed that the self ought to be the basic study in psychology. Mary Calkins disputed that the self is encompassed of a few different characteristics, including consciousness and uniqueness (Johnston & Johnson, 2018). Calkins felt that it was significant for psychologists to study the self’s connection to its environment. She is an extraordinary woman who attempted to bring gender equality and additional issues to the front.
Women and the minority faced and continue facing major issues in the 19th and 20th centuries. They are well-thought-out as a minority group since they do not share the similar privileges, power, opportunities, and rights as men. Although women have made significant advances in attaining access to education and employment, to this day, they continue to face great difficulties that men largely do not confront. For instance, at the time in which Mary Calkins was trying to get her education, she faced many setbacks since she was a woman. The experiences she got shaped many of her perceptions of women’s rights and made her somewhat of an advocate (Rutherford & Milar, 2017). It is significant to note that in recent studies, findings indicate that women go through racialized and gendered forms of sexual harassment that result in isolation and lead to exclusion from leadership opportunities. Women’s economic history illustrates how for centuries, gender has inscribed a continuing unfairness into the system of labor markets that political and civil rights have moderated but not eradicated.
The self-psychology theory of Mary Calkins, which discards Freudian philosophy of the role sexual drives play in the psyche structure, centers on the growth of empathy toward an individual in treatment and the exploration of important elements of growth and healthy development. Discrimination against women and the minority is evident in several different spheres of society. During the 19th century, women were prohibited from voting and were normally required to surrender control of their properties to their husbands upon marriage. Men and women were not equal during that period in a way that women were seen as the weaker sex. Today, women are subjected to high rates of gender-based violence and harassment, including intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Just like Calkins, I would oppose the area of differentiation to the right to vote on women. In 1902, Calkins and three other women who had finished studying at Harvard were not eligible for a degree based on their gender. However, they were recommended by Radcliffe and ratified by Harvard as candidates for the degree of Ph.D. from Radcliffe. Up to the current day, Harvard has not issued any degree in honor of Mary Calkins.
If I could be Mary Calkins, I could see the major issues facing women and address them the same way she did. For instance, women are going through inequalities in employment and earnings, gender bias in the distribution of education and health, ownership disparity, gender inequity in freedom expression, and gender disparity in respect of violence and victimization. Gender inequality destroys the psychological and physical wellbeing of millions of women and girls all over different places through the numerous tangible benefits it gives men through power, resources, authority, and control.
Reference
Johnston, E., & Johnson, A. (2018). Reimagining the history of the psychology of women.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0000059-001
Rutherford, A., & Milar, K. (2017). “The difference being a woman made” Untold Lives in personal and intellectual context.
https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.21860
Views of Happiness
Views of Happiness
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Introduction
Philosophers attribute happiness to two subject matters; a state of mind and a life that is going on well according to the person leading it. Aristotle describes happiness as the purpose and meaning of life, the whole purpose, and the end of human existence. Happiness is dependent on us. People have different views of happiness. Some people attribute happiness to spirituality, virtuosity, and reverence while others see it as the joy and inner peace that comes from within, and others associate happiness with personal environments including rewarding hobbies and careers. All in all, psychologists have suggested that happiness comprises three elements namely the good life, the pleasant life, and the meaningful life. The purpose of this essay is to probe various views of happiness particularly Hedonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Buddhism. The text further discusses the mot life-denying and life-affirming level of happiness and provides reasoning for each case.
Hedonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Buddhism Explained
Hedonism is a Greek word meaning pleasure. It is a theory that explains what is good for people, how they are expected to behave, and the motivations behind these behaviors. Hedonism maintains that the predominance of pleasure over pain is the recipe for happiness. In essence, it holds that fulfilling a certain desire leads to a person’s happiness regardless of the pleasure or displeasure they get from it. Hedonistic theories point to pain and pleasure as they only significant elements and this makes the theory philosophically interesting and distinctive (Biswas-Diener, & Wiese, 2018). On the other hand, Epicureanism held that the most pleasant life requires abstaining from unnecessary desires and achieving tranquility from being satisfied with simple things, and selecting the pleasure philosophical conversations over the pursuit of pleasures that are physical like drinks, sex, and food. Epicureanism stressed more on thoughts of pleasure, lifestyle, and desire among others in achieving happiness. Furthermore, Stoicism was based on the notion that the key to a happy and good life is having an excellent state of mind, an aspect which Stoics associated with being rational and virtuous. In this viewpoint, an ideal life exists harmoniously with nature and exhibits a calm attitude towards external events. Finally, to pursue happiness Buddhism uses practice and knowledge to attain mental equanimity. Hence by attaining a mental state where one can detach themselves from the needs, passions, and wants of life, one frees themselves and attains a transcendent state of well-being. Buddhists believe that peace of mind, also referred to as equanimity is attained by disassociating yourself with the craving cycle which produces mental suffering (dukkha).
Hedonism as a Life-denying View of Happiness
Among the four theories of happiness, hedonism is the most life-denying approach to defining happiness for various reasons. Hedonism stresses that a happy life is one that seeks to minimize pain and maximizes feelings relating to pleasure. However, this notion has been criticized on moral grounds because it is non-beneficial to long-term happiness. There have been various mechanisms of this paradox that have been explained and examples of pleasure seekers that ended in despair particularly in behaviors of use of stimulants and frequent sex. Sometimes pleasure can too much and there is no way of determining how much is too much pleasure. This viewpoint of happiness can be termed as life-denying because the proponents are seen to justify drug abuse as an act that gives its users pleasure. The pleasure is however short-lived. Further, drug abuse only serves to make a person a spendthrift as opposed to making him save for the future. Hedonism fails to recognize that financial and health prudence gives a person long-term happiness but at the expense of discomfort which is experienced short term (Joshanloo, & Jarden 2016). In this case, the theory of hedonists applies to the marginal utility law which warrants drug users to continue using if they want to get the same amount of pleasure. Notably, this consumerism eventually leads to overexploitation of natural resources which negates environmental and sustainable resources. In essence, the hedonist standpoint of happiness warrants seeking pleasure constantly, and it is not guaranteed that it will produce the most pleasure both in the short-run and long-run as pursuing pleasure constantly interferes with the process of experiencing it.
Stoicism as a Life-affirming View of Happiness
Among the four mentioned theories of happiness, stoicism is the most life-affirming. The viewpoint is all about how humans can live in harmony with nature. Unlike other animals, human beings possess reason which helps them alter how they view themselves and their true good. Stoicism is life-affirming because it stresses on a love for all. Proponents of the theory viewed this theory as a philosophy of love and showed concern not only for themselves but also for friends, nature, and nature itself. This theory is interested in improving welfare for humanity. Another reason why the Stoics viewpoint is life-affirming is that it maintains that human beings should do their best to control what they can and let go of what they cannot control (Robertson, 2018). Stoics made it clear that the things which we can control are our attitudes and thoughts; everything thing else outside of this category cannot be controlled. This viewpoint of happiness achieving an excellent state of mind comes from concentrating on things one can control instead of wasting emotional energy on things we cannot control. Additionally, Stoicism holds that human beings act in accordance with their goals and interests including wealth and health. We do our best to navigate through life’s challenges and relate to the interests of other people.
Conclusion
Happiness is attributed to a state of mind and a life that is going on well according to the person leading it. Happiness is dependent on us and people have different views of happiness. Hedonism places emphasis on pleasure over pain. Epicureanism urges us to let go of unnecessary pleasures and to be satisfied with simple things, Further Stoicism holds that being in an excellent state of mind is the key to happiness while Buddhism uses knowledge and practices in equanimity to pursue happiness. Among the four theories of happiness, hedonism is the most life-denying approach to defining happiness while Stoicism is the most life-affirming approach to happiness.
References
Biswas-Diener, R., & Wiese, C. W. (2018). Optimal levels of happiness. Handbook of well-being. Salt Lake City, UT: DEF Publishers.
Joshanloo, M., & Jarden, A. (2016). Individualism as the moderator of the relationship between hedonism and happiness: A study in 19 nations. Personality and Individual Differences, 94, 149-152.
Robertson, D. (2018). Stoicism and the Art of Happiness: Practical wisdom for everyday life: embrace perseverance, strength, and happiness with stoic philosophy. Hachette UK.
Video Game Film Adaptation Differences between Video games and Films
Video Game Film Adaptation: Differences between Video games and Films
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Video Game Film Adaptation: Differences between Video games and Films
Introduction
In reality, video games and movies appear to be quite comparable mediums to one another. Both use graphics and audio heavily, and both are capable of engaging in speculative fiction. There is also a good number of inspirations and material exchange between the two. This, nevertheless, does not imply that effective adaptations from one form to next will be fruitful. Even though video game adaptations are well-known for being dreadful, minimal academic consideration has been devoted to the reasons why such adaptations have proven to be so disastrous in virtually every aspect of their production, including audience acceptance, critical reception, and investment rewards. This is a problem that arises because of inherent variations in the media used. Games are fundamentally founded on rules and objectives, and the inevitability of predictability and dependability in the rules does not lend itself to fascinating adaptations in the game world. Aside from this, games position the gamer at the core of the procedure in making meaning, a rank that appears nearly fortunate when contrasted with the more voyeuristic place of the cinema viewer. I agree that the differences between films and video games makes it practically impossible to create excellent video game film adaptation. In order to avoid becoming another casualty of the video game movie plague, filmmakers must adjust their work with an increased awareness of the underlying contrasts between different media.
Video Games to Films: Good or Bad?
To argue that something is awry with video game adaption may be an underestimate of the situation. Video game movies have received poor reviews from reviewers on two of the most popular film review platforms, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively (Stobbart, 2018). On Rotten Tomatoes, video game movies typically receive rating of 25 percent and a Metacritic score of slightly more than 3/10. These films do well from the perspective of the general public. On Rotten Tomatoes, the average rating is 31 percent, and on Metacritic, the average rating is 3.7/10. Judging on these figures, it is clear that video game movies do not fare well, despite the fact that they are developing. It remains a mystery as to why. This question has not been satisfactorily addressed in a formal academic setting (Crawford, Garry and Gosling, 2009). In addition to academic research, various film and videogame journalists have undertaken to investigate this topic.
Despite the fact that certain video game movies earn well financially, Mathieu Chin-Quee of Shifter claims that no film has met the expectations of both film lovers and those attached to the original material, in this case a video game. While acknowledging that amazing stories may be delivered through the format of video games, Chin-Quee (2017) refers to titles such as Warcraft, Uncharted, The Witcher, and The Elder Scrolls as examples and instances of excellent story telling in a video game. If one wants to make a video game movie that is successful, Chin-Quee (2017) suggests that one does not make it solely for game enthusiasts, no emphasis on crew and cast, and approach it a business.
Video Game Films
In a post for Screenrant, Gordon (2018) issues that there are several notable achievements in film adaptation of video games genre citing the success of Mortal Kombat and Silent Hill among the films that lived up to expectations. Yet, while most other video game films are entertaining, they fall short of being considered “excellent.” According to Gordon, there are several guilty pleasures among them are Resident Evil, Need for Speed, Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia movies. In Gordon’s opinion, the medium of video games is to blame for the current dry spell: Video games are conceptually distinct from other forms of media, and as a result, there is little to no association between them and other forms of media with regards to adaptation (Dong & Mangiron, 2018).
Differences between Video Games and Films
Autonomy
Among the major difference between movies and video games is autonomy. When it comes to games, there is a tendency to provide room for gamer autonomy, which consequently leads to the emergence of gap in protagonists and narratives for the gamer to fill in. In a few of the notable games in the history of video games, the gamer is either treated as an empty canvas or as if he or she has no personality at all. Gordon cites Gordon Freeman, the game’s protagonist, as an illustration of this idea in practice; absolutely mute and completely reliant on the gamer for all activities, Gordon Freeman is a “vacuum without a personality,” created particularly for the player to enter. This is hardly the type of subject that lends itself to effortless adaptation into a movie (Shute, Ke, & Wang, 2017). On the other hand, Gordon (2018) contends that even the process of creating an original character might result in changes with regard to content. Introducing a new protagonist who is at conflict with the story’s original driving force can make the plot lose its flexibility, while committing to a certain character can make the plot lose its flexibility. The film Doom illustrates this, where the creation of a certain protagonist resulted in the movie lacking the same reaction.
Control
During a game, gamers have complete influence over the storyline; they can direct the activities of other players, as well as the direction of the story itself in some games. The same way, Gordon (2018) says that video games provide satisfaction because of occasions that cannot be replicated in movies. Bogost (2017) offers that worldbuilding in video games is unusual in that it can be undertaken entirely at the player’s discretion. The game Mass Effect, for example, allows players to contribute to worldbuilding through providing information, giving opportunity for dialogue and life in a virtual world. Gamers have the choice of participating or not participating in this optional material. It is the opinion of Gordon that video game films flop since video games are essentially not possible to translate into a film format.
Cultural Differences
There also exist a cultural difference between video games and films. Across the academic world, video game adaptation has received minimal attention than it deserves. Editors Joseph Michael Sommers and Gretchen Papazian highlight two concerns that are critical to the subject of adaptation in their book Game On, Hollywood. According to Papazian and Sommers, the gamer has now taken up residence in the central place of the artistic work. Video games, in contrast to other ways of perspective previously adopted by other forms of media, puts the gamer in the position of a creative director (Bontchev, 2016). The game is not about a certain protagonist, but rather about the gamer themselves. This concept deals more explicitly with the subject of adaptability than the previous one. Adaptations are component of a “currently underway vortex of intertextual references and transitions,” according to another critic, Robert Stam. He claims that there exists no such thing as an original manuscript in the context of adaptation. The development of media takes on the appearance of an organic process, becoming increasingly complex as branches interweave and grow altogether.
Purpose and Intention
Another difference that exists between the two mediums is that they serve a distinct purpose. Games and movies cater to a variety of various requirements and wants. Unlike movies, where audiences can immerse themselves in a rich imagined scenario, games are not typically able to achieve the same level of immersion (Kokonis, 2015). Movies are fabricated observations of the world. Every element of the scene, every person, and every phrase has been meticulously created to create a cohesive experience. When compared to video games, the entire experience in a movie is tailored by the production crew, rather than the audience. Games offer a radically distinct experience, as they are not directed by a director, but rather by the rules that have been written into the game itself (Katsaridou, 2017). Players can accomplish tasks in a variety of ways, including failing and trying again or skipping sections of the game. When compared to a movie, there is reduced control over how individuals perceive video games, since control is found in the association between the gamer and the rules. As proposed in Game On, Hollywood, video games introduce a new perspective: the fourth person perspective. This, in turn, highlights a fundamental characteristic of video games that movies do not have (Parkin 154-155). Storytelling is done by audiences, whereas gaming is done by players.
Converting Video Games to Films
When translating video games to movie, it is indeed necessary to consider what the viewers may miss out on as a result of the transformation. The gamer no longer has the capacity to act on the writing in the very same, interactive manner; instead of having to interact with the text on a physical level, directing another gamer, or directing the virtual environment itself, the gamer now only has authority over their own understanding of a movie, instead of the text itself (Konzack, 2002). To the point made by Stobbart, games that depend on adventure, such as Super Mario Bros., relinquish control over that discovery to directors and cinematographers. For watchers, this transition of authority can be a source of frustration.
Hutcheon (2004) points out that the joy of viewing adaptations is fuelled by a sense of familiarity. However, it is also clear that awareness and recollection play a role in the masochistic anxiety induced by adaptations, which is a very genuine phenomenon”. According to Hutcheon (2004), recognising characters and narrative lines is part of the enjoyment. For example, being able to watch an actress portray a character that did not represent their own view of the original content became an object of resentment for lovers of Harry Potter (Bailey, 2017). It can also happen in video games when an individual who formerly held a significant amount of power in a plot is abruptly reduced to the role of a voyeur, watching other, more powerful characters win in a game environment that was once centred on the player.
Conclusion
Indeed, as thoroughly discussed above, the differences between films and video games makes it practically impossible to create excellent video game film adaptation. Beyond the purely mechanical, this centrality has ramifications. The gamer does have a separate role in the play spaces, which is true despite the fact that games cannot physically operate without the gamer there. Gamer characters are frequently offered a privileged place in the tale; not only are they the protagonist, but they are also a hero of monumental proportions in many games. Keeping the distinction between the mechanical advantage a gamer persona is provided in a storyline, in which they are the focal point of events, and the moral advantage a gamer character may have is critical when developing a player character. Player-characters are frequently the movie’s heroes, both literally and figuratively. In order to save humanity, the player must kill monsters, battle nefarious organizations, protect the defenceless, and defeat malicious institutions. Players are seldom invited to take on the role of the evil guy, and if they are, it is often as a last resort after exhausting all other more morally acceptable options.
References
“About Rotten Tomatoes.” Rotten Tomatoes,
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/about#whatisthetomatometer
Bailey, Dustin. “Gaming videos are bigger than HBO, Netflix, and Hulu combined.”
PcGamesn, 20 Oct 2017, https://www.pcgamesn.com/twitch-youtube-netflix-subscribers.
Bogost, Ian. “Video Games Are Better Without Stories.” The Atlantic, 25 April 2017,
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/.
Bontchev, B. (2016, April). Holistic player modelling for controlling adaptation in video
games. In Proc. of 14th int. conf. e-society, Vilamoura, Portugal (pp. 11-18).
Chin-Quee, Mathieu. “Why Video Game Movies Suck and How to Fix Them.” Shifter
Magazine, 14 April 2017, https://shiftermagazine.com/film/why-video-game-movies-suck.
Crawford, Garry and Victoria K. Gosling. “More Than a Game: Sports-Themed Video
Games and Player Narratives.” Sociology of Sport Journal, vol. 26, pp. 50-66, 2009.
Dong, L., & Mangiron, C. (2018). Journey to the East: Cultural adaptation of video games for
the Chinese market. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 29, 149-168.
Elliot, Kamilla. “The Theory of BADaptation.” The Routledge Companion to Adaptation,
edited by Dennis R. Cutchins, Katja Krebs, and Eckart Voigts, pp. 18-27, Routledge, 2018.
Gordon, Rob. “Why Video Game Movies Suck.” ScreenRant, 18 Mar 2018.
Hutcheon, Linda. “On the Art of Adaptation.” Daedalus, vol. 133, no. 2, 2004, pp. 108–11.
JSTOR.
Katsaridou, M. (2017). Adaptation of video games into films: The adventures of the
narrative. TICS, 1290.
Kokonis, Michalis. “Intermediality between Games and Fiction: The “Ludology vs.
Narratology” Debate in Computer Game Studies: A Response to Gonzalo Frasca.” Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 2015
Konzack, Lars. “Computer Game Criticism: A Method for Computer Game Analysis.”
Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings, vol. 1, pp. 89-100, 2002
Papazian, Gretchen and Joseph Michael Sommers. Game On, Hollywood! McFarland &
Company, Inc., 2013.
Shute, V., Ke, F., & Wang, L. (2017). Assessment and adaptation in games. In Instructional
techniques to facilitate learning and motivation of serious games (pp. 59-78). Springer, Cham.
Stobbart, Dawn. “Adaptation and New Media: Establishing the Video Game as an Adaptive
Medium.” The Routledge Companion to Adaptation, edited by Dennis R. Cutchins, Katja Krebs, and Eckart Voigts, Routledge, 2018.