Leadership Ethics Essay

When the decision is made to become a nurse, there is a code of ethics in place that they agree to abide by (ANA, 2001). The Registered Nurse who demonstrates leadership and ethics places their own personal and religious beliefs aside to do what is truly best for the outcomes of those they serve. As a school nurse, the obligation to keep the students safe and healthy should and often does come first and foremost. Counseling abstinence, though necessary, will not stop teens from having sexual intercourse and it will not teach them to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. Those entrusted with the health and welfare of our young people must teach them how to utilize condoms to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancies and contacting sexually transmitted diseases, (STDs). It is well known that Catholics do not use birth control in any way shape or form; this includes the use of condoms. STD’s and unplanned pregnancies are viewed as consequences to one’s sins. When the school nurse is also a devout Catholic, issues surrounding teens, sex, and birth control can cause moral distress and make the nurse question the actions they have taken. It was learned in week 4 that â€Å"Actions are only ethical if motivated by a duty to do the right thing† (CCN, 2013). What IS the right thing to do? Teens, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, & Abstinence There are nineteen million new cases of bacterial and viral cases of sexually transmitted diseases diagnosed in the United States each year and 50% of these cases are diagnosed in adolescent males and females and most case studies focus on abstinence or on the use of condoms (Akers, Gold, Coyne-Beasley, & Corbie-Smith, 2012). â€Å"It is estimated that by the end of  high school, nearly two thirds of American youth are sexually active, and one in five has had four or more sexual partners† (Starkman & Rajani, 2002 p. 313). Sex education should include the worth and benefits of abstinence but there is little evidence that abstinence only programs work. Teens who participate in these programs may not refrain from sexual intercourse longer or become sexually active sooner than those who participate in programs that promote the use of condoms. There is no evidence that those who do participate in abstinence only programs are less sexually active but there is evidence that those w ho do participate in all-inclusive program practice safer sex when they do become sexually active (Starkman & Rajani, 2002). Catholicism & the Use of Condoms Cardinal Jaime Sin issued a pastoral exhortation in 2001 stating that â€Å"the condom corrupts and weakens people, destroys families and individuals, and also spreads promiscuity† (Arie, 2005 p. 926). The Catholic church’s negative stance on condoms in that they murder sperm and promote immoral behavior in spite of the fact that Catholic organizations care for 25% of all those that are afflicted with HIV/AIDS (Arie, 2005), causes great moral distress for Catholic nurses who have an obligation to practice using the Code of Ethics outlined by the ANA. Non-Catholic teenagers are more likely to use and know about condom usage than Catholic teens (Kinsman, Nakiyingi, Kamali, & Whitworth, 2001) even with those who are higher up in the Catholic organization voicing opinions and recognizing that there is power in condoms saving lives, and the Catholic church refuses to endorse their use and educate their members (Arie,2005). Conclusion There is over whelming evidence that the use of condoms is beneficial in preventing the transmission of STD’s among adolescents. With over half of all sexually transmitted diseases being reported among young people, it is of upmost importance that those working with teenagers, where it concerns sexuality, be prepared to teach them about the importance of protecting themselves from STD’s by promoting the use of condoms as counseling abstinence will not stop teens from having sexual intercourse. The Catholic Church refuses to promote the use of condoms. Therefore, it is even more important, when looking at the imperial evidence and outcomes from  statistics when condoms are used as a preventative measure for STD’s, for the Catholic nurse to put aside her own religious and moral beliefs in favor of teaching the significance of using condoms for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. Furthermore, it is of this author’s opi nion that no nurse who has protected a young person by preventing pregnancy or an STD, through comprehensive sex education and counseling that teenager to use condoms, should ever feel any moral distress or be persecuted by her congregation for doing the right thing. References American Nurses Association. (2001). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. New York: Author. Akers, A. Y., Gold, M. A., Coyne-Beasley, T., & Corbie-Smith, G. (2012). A Qualitative Study of Rural Black Adolescents’ Perspectives on Primary STD Prevention Strategies. Perspectives On Sexual & Reproductive Health, 44(2), 92-99. doi:10.1363/4409212 Arie, S. (2005). Crusading for change. BMJ: British Medical Journal (International Edition), 330(7497), 926. Chamberlain College of Nursing. (2013). NR504 Leadership and nursing practice: role development: Week 4 lesson. St. Louis, MO: Online Publication. Kinsman, J. J., Nakiyingi, J. J., Kamali, A. A., & Whitworth, J. J. (2001). Condom awareness and intended use: gender and religious contrasts among school pupils in rural Masaka, Uganda. AIDS Care, 13(2), 215-220. doi:10.1080/09540120020027387 Porter-O’Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2011). Quantum leadership: Advancing innovation, transforming health care (3rd ed.). S udbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett. Starkman, N., & Rajani, N. (2002). The Case for Comprehensive Sex Education. AIDS Patient Care & Stds, 16(7), 313-318. doi:10.1089/108729102320231144

How to Resolve Awkward Identifying Descriptions

How to Resolve Awkward Identifying Descriptions How to Resolve Awkward Identifying Descriptions How to Resolve Awkward Identifying Descriptions By Mark Nichol Writers often fail to note that a phrase they have constructed to describe a person, place, or thing- one that involves two parallel components, or one component subordinate to another, in sequence- can result in unwieldy strings of nouns functioning as adjectives leading up to a key noun. In each of the following sentences, following a discussion of the problem, such a train of stacked adjectives is uncoupled and rearranged for improved readability in one or more revisions. 1. â€Å"Our idea and concept was to build a small place to entertain our friends and to have some foodies and chef friends around to create new and imaginative dishes,† co-owner chef Stefan Stiller said in a statement. The conjunction and should separate two disparate identifying words or phrases associated with a person’s name: â€Å"‘Our idea and concept was to build a small place to entertain our friends and to have some foodies and chef friends around to create new and imaginative dishes,’ co-owner and chef Stefan Stiller said in a statement.† (A solidus, or slash, could be inserted to separate the terms, but this symbol should be avoided in formal writing.) An alternative is to use the person’s name to divide the identifying terms: â€Å"‘Our idea and concept was to build a small place to entertain our friends and to have some foodies and chef friends around to create new and imaginative dishes,’ co-owner Stefan Stiller, a chef, said in a statement,† However, it would be more appropriate to identify the speaker first as a chef and then as a co-owner. 2. FBI Criminal Investigation Division Deputy Assistant Director John Smith emphasized the potential for both the industry and regulators to benefit by improving collaboration. When a name is preceded by a cumbersome job title, and especially if that is preceded by a reference to the entity by which the person is employed, the information is easier to read if it follows the name and the train of terms is relaxed by beginning with the job title, followed by â€Å"of the† and the entity’s name: â€Å"John Smith, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, emphasized the potential for both the industry and regulators to benefit by improving collaboration.† (Note that the job title is not capitalized when it does not precede the person’s name.) 3. The Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists Fifteenth Annual Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crime Conference begins on April 1. The same approach is appropriate when the name of a component of an entity or an event presented by an entity is combined with the name of the entity: â€Å"The fifteenth annual Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crime Conference of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists begins on April 1.† (Note that a reference to how many of these events have been held at regular intervals, such as â€Å"fifteenth annual,† is seldom part of an event’s official designation and therefore is usually not capitalized.) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Words for Facial ExpressionsUsed To vs. Use ToWriting a Thank You Note

A Moment that Lasts Forever Essay Example for Free

A Moment that Lasts Forever Essay ? I turn around to see the audience cheering their lungs out for me. Even though I’ve been through so many competitions before, none of the competitions could even compare to the contrasting feelings I was having at the moment. Although at the time, I still did not know who won in the finals of one of the biggest competitions in California, nor did I know what the judges thought of me, I knew that I had successfully completed a memory that would have a big impact on my life. I knew that I had worked hard and tried my best, and even if I ended up not even winning a place, I would have earned something from this extreme event. My teacher had been trying to decide what piece to give me for my next competition: MTAC, the Music Teacher’s Association of California. What does that mean? It means that I will be competing in one of the biggest, and hardest competition in California again. It would be the 3rd time in this competition for me, after failing the first time, and barely achieving ‘Honorable Mention’ the second time. I knew that this was my chance, my chance to finally show all the critics, all the people that believed I was just a talentless girl with extremely well-known teachers, that I actually was able to play the piano. â€Å"Oh! How about this piece?† my mentor suggested.   I looked up to see my teacher, a young boy stuck in a old man’s body, look at me, so happy and excited about something that he was almost bouncing off the floor. I see him holding a green book, and I see as he opens the book to the 5th page, the words â€Å"Abegg Variations† by Schumann. I nearly fainted right there and then. â€Å"How did this teacher expect me to play this super hard piece that even Lang Lang made mistakes in when he played, when I couldn’t even play my Mendelssohn well?† I thought to myself, â€Å"but I probably can’t do anything about it, especially not with my mom looking like a dog that just managed to get its owner to give it a thousand bones, also.† The first big obstacle came quick enough. My mom announced that I was going to play at her student’s recital, only a few months after I first got the piece. I nearly fainted after all the screaming, crying, yelling I did. â€Å"It would be a good experience and excellent practice for your competition† she said. â€Å"But I’m not ready!† I replied back trying to use imploring eyes to achieve a change of mind. â€Å"You are playing, and that’s final!† she answered. I knew there was absolutely no point in arguing anymore, and that all I could do was practice. Turns out, I was completely right about one fact: I was not ready for this recital at all. I messed up, and I didn’t mess up small, I messed up humongous, huge, extreme, terrifyingly big. As I disembarked from the stage, I could just see how much practicing I would have to do to prepare for my second obstacle: my piano teacher’s recital. Apparently, all the practicing I did before this next recital was not enough, because I managed to embarrass myself at my piano teacher’s recital also. My fate was inevitable, and I knew by then that I was going to be practicing like crazy now, if I didn’t before. I also knew how furious my mom was going to be at me. My prediction was completely correct, as I was told to practice so much that my fingers were about to fall off. To be exact, I practiced sixty times for each variation, and Abegg Variations has multiple variations. T hough it took more than 4 hours every day, I stayed persistent, and slowly and steadily I improved. As I was about to go into a room for the first round of the competition, all I could think was†¦ â€Å"What if I mess up, what if I mess up†¦ I’m going to mess up, I’m going to mess up, I’M GOING TO MESS UP!!! GAHH~~!!!† The door holder called out, â€Å"Anna Yang†, and it was my turn. I went in, and was surprised to find three judges, different from the previous year. My face literally turned as bright as the sun when I did not see the judge that absolutely detests my teacher, *a*c* *e*s*n (for privacy reasons, I will exclude her name from this essay). I turned as hyper as a kid could become, and I was about to scream from happiness right then. Every single time I am in a competition, and she’s a judge, she always marks me down. Luckily, she was not here this time, and instead, sitting in her place, was a nice, friendly looking old lady, a not very skinny lady who’s facial expressions seemed a bit like the evil stepmother from Cinderella, and a Jasmine look-a-like lady who’s only difference from Jasmine was that she looked like she was about to poison me with a poisonous apple. As I bowed to them, I became more relaxed at the smile of the nice, friendly looking old lady. Although I was still frightened at the prospect of messing up, I was shaking a considerably less amount than I was before. I made a mistake, but I was lucky. Right when I made the mistake, the nice, friendly looking judge dropped her cushion from her chair, and everyone rushed to help her pick it up. My mistake had gone by unnoticed by the crowd. By that time, I was so ecstatic that my smile was about to reach the sky. The results of the first round came out soon enough. As I went on the MTAC website on my phone, I could hear both my mom’s heartbeat, and also my heartbeat beating as fast as a hare would beat while being chased by a extremely furious tiger. The page finally finished loading, and I scrolled down to see: Grand Prize: Anna Yang. I celebrated for about 2 minutes thinking about how all that practice had actually been beneficial, and then I realized what that meant†¦ I was going to have to compete one more time, this time against the winner of the Southern California group. I scrolled down to see who exactly I had to compete against during the final, and I went ballistic when I saw. Sherry Tang was the winner of Southern California. I was going to play against THE Sherry Tang, the girl who was on From the Top and won against college kids. The girl who won a national competition. By that time, I was already dead cast against the fact that I would never win, but my mom calmed me down with her comforting words, telling me that I should not give up, even if there is almost no chance of winning. I did not give up. I continued playing and practicing every day, and I ended up not regretting it. A few months later, a judge called out Sherry’s name before they called my name. As I heard the words â€Å"1st place, Anna Yang†, I walked towards the auditorium stage. As I walked on stage, I did not cry. I could only smile. Who wouldn’t? Why would you be unhappy about the fact that you had just won one of the biggest competitions in California? Though I do not practice as much anymore, I still always have a certain self-confidence while playing piano. I also learned that as long as I put in effort and I have fun, the audience and judges will also have fun, and they will feel the effort I have put in. A Moment that Lasts Forever. (2016, Dec 13).

How is the internet and social media changing the way we learn in work Coursework

How is the internet and social media changing the way we learn in work place - Coursework Example The advent of internet and social media has drastically changed the way we interact with people and the way we gather information. The gradual rise of internet usage has made it easier for us to have access to critical information, which otherwise would take much longer to gather (Vitez, 2015). The internet and social media has also influenced our work culture and workplace learning. The research question pertaining to this research work is stated below. The aims and objectives concerning this research work are to unearth the influence of internet and social media on work place learning. This research work also try and find out the determining factors behind the changing trend of organizational behaviour under the influence of internet and social media along with the future trends of the work culture relating to internet and social media. It will also find out how the employees respond to the changing trend of learning in work place and whether or not there are any changes that need to be made within the organizational practices. The aims also include providing a generic recommendation for the firms on how to redirect the usage of internet and social media in favour of the organization and its employees. According to the reports of Internet World Stats (2015), the global internet usage has increased drastically over the last decade. This as a result has changed the way people used to access information and connect to peers. The way we interact with others has also been influenced largely by the advent of the internet and social media. It has virtually reduced the distance between people and has made the world a more open place. These evolutions in technology have also influenced the way we work. Internet has drastically changed the organizational policies and the way the activities are conducted. According to (Manyika and Charles Roxburgh, 2011), the internet is widely used among almost all the

Specail education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 10500 words

Specail education - Essay Example for the Pastoral Care of International Students formed under the education act of 1989.Because of this St Patrick’s School should comply with the standards of enrolling international students and to provide and include English as a curriculum as a base for education for international students. The Primary School focuses on the prime necessities like accommodation and welfare of the students and offers suitable and simple support programs on language to ensure better understanding of the concepts and improve the thought process. The School has integrated primary school for years 1 to 8 .The schools has a Decile rating as 8/10 and has been rated one of the good schools in the locality. The total number of students will be around 210 including international students who are meagre in the numbers. The School has a gender composition of 57% of boys and 43% of girls. The school is populated by 73% of New Zealand European/PÄ kehÄ  and 13% of Maori sub division and only 7% of other ethnic groups. The type of Management Structure is Top to bottom approach .The primary school comprises of team of qualified educated and experienced people to facilitate and contribute ideas and works towards the achievement of school’s strategic goals and actions. The broad categories of members are Parent representatives for providing input related to child’s perspective and critically respond on any intolerance behaviour happening in the school premises.Mr.Steve Banks is the overall in charge of the parent representative’s team and will coordinate and decide on the selection of members for the committee. Finance committee is responsible for the monitoring and reviewing the profit and loss, investment and expenses and validate the same using appropriate reports. The chair person of the Finance committee is Mrs. Louise Bishop, Mrs. David Smithson, and Mrs.Melanie Ratcliffe. The Key metrics focussed as Vision of the St.Patrick’ s primary school are Faith ,Knowledge and

Interracial relationships within teammates in sports Essay

Interracial relationships within teammates in sports - Essay Example In the arena of sports, this is especially true and of especial importance. The various factors that form this list in the arena of teamwork and relationships on and off the field have been discussed in this paper so as to pose relevant questions regarding the quality of these relationships. To be more specific, this paper discusses the area of interracial relationships and the quality of the same within and outside the field. To begin with, let us define sports. The term 'sports' signifies the act of playing a game according to rules so as to declare a winner and a loser. But the very concoction of word sport will demonstrate that no one really loses. The very fact that a person or a team has stood on the field and performed so as to uphold the game and its rules, is enough to make any person a winner for life. In context of the above mentioned factors and discussion of sports, it may be asserted that there is a strong play of motivation in the conduct of sports and that of sportsmen. The basic motivational factor that is being studied in this paper is a combination of all the factors discussed above with a focus on interracial relationships and how these affect the relationships shared within team-mates on the field and off of it. (Eig, 2007) The motivation based on racial factors mirrors the fact that there is a lot yet to be learnt in terms of the factors that actually shape the psyche of the sportsman and affect his performance in the process. It may also be noted that despite the progress made by the world in terms of phenomena like globalisation, there is still a lot left to achieve as far as one on one relationships between people of various races is concerned. This adheres to various spheres and not just sports. Since a sport is all about teamwork more than anything else, it is easy to see these flaws and take stock of the same. McConley, Pg 3 (2008) In this regard, the foremost question that needs to be asked is whether or not the motivational factors for team mates depends on the friendships and bonds formed on the basis of colour and race. For example, let us look at the case of Jackie Robinson. A baseball player par excellence, who played for the Dodgers starting with the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs in 145, he went on to lead the international batting average with .349 average. Yet, there was constant heckling that he had to face once he got down on the field. The person who stood up and supported him openly was Dodgers captain, Pee Wee Reese. Also, Robinson found strong support in the person who had faced similar discrimination - team mate and Jewish baseball star Hank Greenburg. (Eig, 2007) So the question that comes up here is whether or not like attracts like. Is this a case of the discriminated standing up for the discriminated, or a White person standing up for a minority no matter what. The question that needs to be asked is whether or not the recognition of talent should be the greatest motivation rather than the

Democracy According To Karl Popper

Democracy According To Karl Popper Karl Popper (1902-1994) was one of the most provocative philosophers and thinkers of the twentieth century. Born in Vienna, he grew up in a city witnessing great intellectual ferment and cultural excitement. One of his most celebrated and well-known books, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, appeared in Germany in 1934; it marked Poppers decisive break with the philosophers who formed the prestigious Vienna Circle and exposed many of his most influential arguments and ideas, above all we should remember his theory on the growth of scientific knowledge. On the eve of World War Two, Poppers life took a dramatic turn: because of the threat of German invasion, in 1937 he was urged to leave his own country and he emigrated to New Zealand where, reflecting on the tyranny that was sweeping around Europe, he wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies, published in 1945. This work is undeniably a classic, Karl Popper decided to write it in March 1938, when the Nazis invaded Austria. This personal background says a lot about Poppers motivation for writing The Open Society, and about its main theme as well. In this book as well as in The Poverty of Historicism, he attacks totalitarianism and its intellectual supports: the attempt to impose a large-scale planning on the lives of human beings in the light of holistic and historicist considerations. In order to analyze Poppers idea of democracy we shall sets out key tenets of his social and political thought, as well as a few of problems with them. The paper will try to underline Poppers conception of human nature and show how this provides a framework for his theory of history, his critique of historicism and his conception of the open society and democracy. After considering Poppers central political values of freedom and reason, well go through the political programmes of democracy and piecemeal social engineering; after these considerations it will be possible to conclude that Popper can not sustain an exhaustive anti-dogmatism and, contrary to the philosphers own declaration, his political ideas can not be classified as liberal in any honest way. Historical and Intellectual Background Even if Popper rejected Marxism in 1919, he claimed to be a socialist till 1932; it was the socialistic ethic and its idea of justice to which he retained adherence, not its political strategies. Awareness of the growth of authoritarianism in the Soviet Union and what he saw as deficiencies in the Marxist theory and practice of Austrian social democracy pressed him to revise further his political views. Both the idea and the experience of violence were catalytic. Social democracy, by holding to their threat of achieving their objectives by violent means, were implicitly provoking state authorities to a ruthless response, Popper then adopted a more traditional, liberal political stance: deciding that freedom was more important than equality he reaffirmed his rejection of violence. The central core of Poppers social and political theory resides in The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies, regarded by the author as his war effort: they were intended as a defense of freedom against the obvious impulse towards totalitarianism and authoritarianism. Poppers further espousal of the values of reason, toleration, peaceful discussion and respect for the individual all find their predecessors in Kants moral and political philosophy. The Austrian thinker extends Kants ethical precept of criticism and self-criticism providing a foundation for his philosophy of critical rationalism and joins Kants optimistic idea and hope in the possibility of obtaining social reform and peaceful relations within and between nations. Human Nature To explain human behaviour and history Popper refuses the utility of a general theory of human nature; his conception of human nature may be found in his knowledge of biology and psychology since he considers human beings similar to any organism, in that they have inborn needs or expectations. According to the author, people tend to hold on to the uniformities they discover, become afraid of change and even wish to dominate others; so if this occurs, the failure of a regularity provokes social disorder and also encourages people to create traditions and taboos. Even though the attachment to regularities is a source of dogmatism and intolerance (attitudes which are anathema to him), Popper advocates social regularities, like social traditions, more favourably than would many other liberals. He suggests that the maintenance of traditions (by which he seems to mean culture or settled ways of thinking and acting) brings order and predictability into our lives and even provides the founda tion of social structures: the important political task is to discriminate between valuable and harmful traditions. This conception of human nature has direct implications for the sort of society he wants to promote and the principles by which it is to be guided. He suggests a slow, gradual reform because this kind of change will not suddenly remove the traditions to which people have become accustomed and thereby create anxiety, terror and violence. There are many contradictions between Poppers advocacy of boldness, novelty and revolution in intellectual but not in social life: I think they might be explained more with reference to his theory of human nature than to his epistemology, even if he justifies the distinction in epistemological terms, it becomes clear that objective knowledge is preferable because of the constraints it exercises over subjective fears and impulses. This account of Poppers conception of human nature demonstrates his concern for the practical impact of ideas upon the social life of human beings, here we may notice a conservative tone in his political thought. Epistemology and History Poppers social and political thought includes a more general, speculative philosophy of history which indicates the character of historical progress. For the author, ideas are the main influences upon whether or not human progress is maintained: all social changes and conflicts, wars and revolutions can be seen as the result of conflict between opposing ideas and ideologies. Even with these conclusions, he shares with the historicists, whom he so vehemently attacks, a belief that there exists a direction to human history given by the growth of knowledge. He claims that the growth of knowledge, and thus the history of science, is the heart of all history. The social dilemmas produced by the most crucial episodes in the evolutionary history still remain; for the author these are best exemplified in the evolution of the different social arrangements that have arisen from the exercise of different human facilities. So the open and the close societies represent ideal types of two differen t stages of social and cultural evolution. According to the author where the lower biological needs are dominant, the social structure has the character of a closed society in which all social life is guided by myths and rigid taboos. A kind of magical attitude prevails, in the closed society there is no scope for self doubt and personal moral responsibility; changes in these kind of societies come about more by the introduction of new magical taboos than by ration attempts to improve social conditions. Popper affirms that the breakdown of the closed society began in Greece around 600 B.C., when new intellectual values, methods and ideas of acquiring knowledge arose together with an original style of politics. The Ionian School inaugurated a new tradition of critical thought: its innovation was to question and discuss dogmas and traditions instead of merely accepting them. Within this historical and philosophical transition, according to Popper, we can trace the emergence of a scien tific method. The ideas of criticism and democratic practice allowed human beings to commence their entrance into the open society where they could become aware of the importance of personal decisions and individual moral responsibility. Where biological and physical bonds became weaker more abstract relations, like exchange and cooperation, linked together people and groups. Democracy and the Open Society One of Poppers most striking contributions to contemporary political thought maybe found in his conception of democracy and of what he defines as open society. The idea of the open society operates both as a minimalist ideal to be sought after and as a celebration of the achievement of modern rationality and liberal democracy. Much of its appeals lies in its apparent capacity to limit the impact of our inevitable errors and to contain potentially harmful social tendencies. The open society, which is basically identified by the author as his idea of democracy, aims to promote criticism and diversity without succumbing either to violence or irreconcilable social division. This adventure in a creative and critical thougth produces conflict, but such problems are resolved by peaceful means; the values of freedom of thought and speech, toleration and individualism operate as both a motivation for, and a constraint upon, individual behavior. Those more substantial differences are to be channelled into the democratic process whereby governments can be replaced by free and regular elections. Popper recognizes the presence of certain dangers in the historical evolution of the open society: he suggests that it could become an abstract society in which social relations might become too rational but, although Popper acknowledges that modern industrial societies exhibit many such features, he denies that the process of abstraction or rationalization will actually complete itself. According to the philosopher there will always be emotional needs which human beings can not satisfy in an abstract society; in this view we see the distinction made between the private and the public sphere. The familiar function of the private sphere provides emotional and biological regeneration for authentic life in the public sphere; though Poppers neglect of the problems of unequal power and authority within family and personal life places him clearly in the mainstream of patriarchal political thought. Even though he knows, and admits, that such democracies fall short of his ideal, he is quite optimistic about their potential. Anyway we must recognize that the transition to the open society remains incomplete and its achievements are always and constantly under threat. On the one hand, biological needs, old traditions but especially the difficulties of living with rationality and personal responsibility all combine to challenge the new society; the passions of our lower nature are always liable to rise up and overthrow the controls instituted by self critical scientific rationality. On the other hand the open society may be inherently self-destructive because critical thought continually erodes those older closed traditions that sustain social institutions. Democracy performs a vital function for both politics and epistemology. I tprovides a peaceful means for reform and change pf government, while ensuring the freedom of thought and speech necessary for intellectual progress. This process encourages a pluralism of ideas and groups, it is the necessary precondition for the working out of political meaningn and aims, and is vital for the processes of critical through and the goal of emancipation through knowledge. Poppers theory of democracy typically grows out of his criticism of other approaches to government, initially Platos than Marxs. Our philosopher denies that the guiding principles of politics should be determined by answers given to the question Who should rule?, instead we should ask How can we so organize political institutions that bad and incompetent rulers can be prevents from doing too much damage? which is followed by an other essential question How can we get rid of those rulers without bloodshed and violence?. In responses, Popper argues that democracy should be founded upon a theory of check and balances: basically we are assuming that even the best rulers might fail, so this theory relies on institutional means for curbing their power. The major check is provided by periodic elections that enable people to oust their government without using violent means: this shows the difference between democracy and its opposite, tyranny which consists if governments which the ruled can not get rid of except by way of a successful revolution. He denies any true meaning or essence of democracy, but he asserts it doesnt mean the rule of people or even that the majority should rule, if only because this is impossible in any practical way. Democracy relies upon the political methods of general elections and representative government and Popper considers that these are always open to improvement; so in such a system individuals are allowed both to criticize the majoritys decisions and, within the law, to revise them. Actually Popper provides little details on the practical aspects, like the methods of representation, size and nature of electorates, and length of terms of office. He does reject proportional representation because of its origins in dubious theories of sovereignty and also because of its propensity to produce unstable coalition governments; in Poppers view, two party government is preferable if only because it allows for more serious internal self-criticism after elections defeats: his view of democracy is, in this sense, a relatively conventional elaboration of liberal pluralist principles. But on their own these principles may not guarantee the survival of liberal democracy: issues of representation, size, nature of electorates and so on all have a bearing upon weather citizens would consider themselves to be member of a legitimate democracy. A pluralist system of checks and balances may be so restrictive as to prevent a duly elected government and business to manipulate public opinion there may be little pressure at all upon those in office in order to change their policies. Assuming that the mass of people can not govern,Poppers theory of democracy may be reduced to a theory of competing elites; for this reason his procedural arguments lie within the tradition of realist and revisionist democratic theory that gives priority to competitive elites and argues for democracy as a method for choosing governments. But Popper departs from realist democratic theory because he recognizes that control over government is not all there is to creating a democratic state and society; his solution, however, is not to encourage widespread political participation but to require that the state protect democracy in two ways. First, since democracies must always be open to new ideas, protection must be given and assured to minorities, except to those who violate law and especially those who incite others to the violent overthrow of the democracy, so we must exclude just those violent changes that could put the democracy in dangerous. Second, because Popper is concerned to avoid the misuse of political power and economic power, he exhortes democratic states to engage in social and economic reforms; he strongly affirms the need of institutions to be constructed in order to protect the economically weak against the economically strong. So he sees the necessity of some sort of economic interventionism as well as some social reforms, the necessity of reforms are essential ingredients for a democratic order: the democratic system should work step by step in order to safeguard freedom form exploitation. Although such strategies create greater possibilities for increased state power and bureaucracy, these may be diminished by strengthening democratic institutions and by following the principles of piecemeal social engineering. This kind of policy is not as restrictive as it is commonly thought, but it odes rule out the nationalization and socialization of the entire private industry of a country. A separate point in favo r of piecemeal social engineering is thought to be its scientific character. Popper considers it methodologically superior to holisitc and revolutionary programmes, in part because social engineers accept the limitations of their knowledge. By reformulating key questions about democracy, Popper sidesteps some of the more usual difficulties of universalist democratic theory. By requiring state action to remedy certain kinds of social and economic problems, he offers more of a policy substance that the usual realist and proceduralist forms of democratic theory. His goal is to avoid or at least minimize the violent conflict that he sees inevitably arising from arguments over the good society. Whereas we may not be able to agree on abstract universal values, the shape of an ideal society or the ultimate good of people, we can generally reach agreement on concrete social and economic evils such as poverty and disease; Popper doesnt develop any universal values but he doesnt abandoned the m. I think a major advantage of Popper commitment to non-violence, public-criticism and freedom of speech is that allows us to retain a critical perspective upon all kinds of governments. His idea of minimal proceduralism and gradualism, for example, may accommodate democratic aspirations less developed or developing countries without subscribing to wholesale westernization and modernization. Poppers substantive policy proposals reject the radicalism of laissez-faire economics and offer the social benefits of gradualism, stability and security. Their negative utilitarianism encourages governments to ameliorate the worst aspects of individualism and capitalism, and allows a legitimate role for state intervention in society and economy. Popper combines ethical proceduralism with a requirement for state-initiated reform, his theory advances somewhat beyond the usual forms of democratic elitism and revisionism. Poppers social and political thought comprises elements which may be designed as liberal, social democratic and conservative. He deeply respects individual freedom and emphasizes the power of ideas in promoting progress while critical rationalism lies primarily within the mainstream of the liberal tradition. Nevertheless his conception of human nature is a combination of liberal and conservative assumptions, which sets out both an optimistic view of human potential and a largely pessimistic account of human needs. Poppers social vision, however, is a liberal rationalist one: an open society in which the values of freedom, reason, toleration and non-violence prevail; he suggests institutional guidelines for building and maintaining democracy, advocating policies such as piecemeal social engineering, oriented towards protecting individuals form the ravages of the market. But for a liberal philosopher, however, the guiding values of liberty, rationality, toleration and non-violence of t he open society are relatively undeveloped. Poppers conservativism is most evident in his political realism and his uncritical attitude towards contemporary liberal democracies. Underlying his stress upon the need for creative and revolutionary thought there is the fear that this will bring social disorder. Hence, such intellectual processes need to be contained within firm traditions whose overthrow cannot be countenanced except to establish a democracy. I believe we might see his political project as an attempt to provide more suitable tradtions or controls upon human thought and action; but I still find an unavoidable conflict between his liberal rationalist values and his perception of the perverse and intractable nature of individuals even if his ethical individualism and cosmopolitism differentiate him form most conservatives. Popper sees totalitarianism of all stripes as essentially tribal, as a closed society, a rebellion against the strain of civilization. He assaults it by using his philosophy of science (which greatly emphasizes falsification, i.e. the refutation of statements and theories) to criticize the doctrines of those whom Popper takes to be behind modern totalitarianism, namely Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Marx. Brian Magee ably summarizes Poppers reasons for defending the Open Society: Because he regards living as first and foremost a process of problem-solving he wants societies which are conducive to problem-solving. And because problem-solving calls for the bold propounding of trial solutions which are then subjected to criticism and error elimination, he wants forms of society which permit of the untramelled assertion of different proposals, followed by criticism, followed by the genuine possibility of change in the light of criticism. Regardless of any moral considerations he believes that a society organized on such lines will be more effective at solving its problems, and therefore more successful in achieving the aims of its members, than if it were organized on other lines. Such a society is what Popper takes to be social democracy, entailing the prob lem-solving of piecemeal social engineering. This social democracy may indeed have once inspired the intellectual elite of the West, seeking (as many were) alternatives to fascism and communism, but today it inspires hardly anyone. And for good reason, for what else is democratic social reconstruction but that postwar system of fine-tuning the economy, the reign of countless redistributive social programs designed by politicians and social scientists to meet those alleged social needs that a host of interest groups are pressing upon the political systems of the West as non-negotiable demands? Since the Second World War, most of the Western democracies have followed Poppers advice about piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, and it has gotten them into a grand mess. Intervention has been piled upon intervention; regulations have been continually modified in unpredictable ways (Popper advocates such revisions in the light of experience); taxation has increased dras tically to finance social welfare programs (as has inflation, with its resulting economic fluctuations); and the unhampered market economy, so forcefully defended by Poppers close friend F. A. Hayek, has been reformed out of existence. Interventionism, piecemeal or not, has worked its inevitable way, and has led to precisely those consequences that Mises, Hayek, Rothbard and others had predicted: economic stagnation and political conflict. Democratic institutions themselves are threatened by those whose vested interests are entwined with the State apparatus. Dime store tinkering, even with freedom of criticism and revision, is leading to the closed society that Popper so fears. There is indeed nothing new in this warning; it is the theme of both Ludwig von Mises Socialism and F. A. Hayeks The Road to Serfdom. In short, the Open Society is not enough. If the Open Society is equivalent to a society in which everything and anything is open to democratic revision except the basic institutions that make democratic revision possible then Popper is only focusing on one need of human beings (that a dubious collective need), not the broader need for liberty that is implied in the outline of his argument as stated by Magee. Popper makes a great deal of noise about individualism, but nevertheless only applies the structure of that argument to collective processes of hypothesis, testing (action) and revision in the light of experience; the argument would apply to individuals as well, since they are the sole constituents of society. By focusing on this collective democratic character of the Open Society, Popper ignores the more basic need for individual liberty in art, business, science, and all other areas as well.The arguments for democracy that Popper presents, then, are in principle identical to arguments for individual liberty. It is the principle of non-aggression, the first principle of liberty, that properly limits the domain of democracy. If Poppers arguments for democracy (as opposed to his advocacy of democracy itself) are valid, then it is not the rigidity of a technology of social engineering that we should seek, but an unhampered market economy, where people can constantly act on their own judgment and can continually revise their plans in accordance with the new information brought by change. This brings us not to social democracy, but to the doctrine of libertarianism. Far more important than the principle of democracy, then, even by Poppers own arguments, is the principle of individual liberty. Liberty is paramount, democracy at best secondary: democracy is important only insofar as it is the servant of and means to the end of liberty. Thus, in following the logical implications of Poppers views (which are not, after all, that original), we move from the open society to the Free Society, and find ourselves agreeing with Michael Polanyis claim, contra Popper, that the Free Society is not an Open Society, but a society committed to a very definite set of rules. In Poppers Open Society, the principle of democracy is regarded as fixed, as not being open to revision. In the Free Society, it is the far more fundamental principle of individual liberty and non-aggression that is not open to revision (though its implications may be refined with growing knowledge). Poppers reasoning is, by and large, correct, but it is individuals who must solve problems to survive, not societies, and therefore individuals who must be free to think and act to achieve values and to revise mistaken plans and impressions in the light of experience or more critical thought. Why is it important to consider The Open Society and Its Enemies after all these years? Very simply, because these are the times when totalitarianism is on the rise, and Western democracies are in the midst of crises that are threatening the stability of their basic institutions, and perhaps even their very survival. In this battle against totalitarianism todays right-wing social democrats the neo-conservatives such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell are once again raising the banner of social democracy against tyranny. But this is pointless, for such democracy combined with social engineering and statist reforms is inherently unstable and is unjust as well. No mere democratic machinery, no mere procedure, is enough to oppose fascism or communism, not in a world of those real social dynamics that are set in motion by interventionism. Only liberty can fully oppose closed societies, and only if liberty is seen as something that is not to be bargained away or a bandoned through as series of insignificant piecemeal reforms. Liberty must be regarded as the ultimate political end, foremost among those political values held dear by reasonable men and women, the highest and most noble political form possible to human beings. I do not wish to leave the impression that The Open Society is worthless. It is indeed a heuristic work, tossing off suggestive arguments and insights on nearly every page, and the criticisms of Plato, Hegel and Marx are always pregnant ones. Popper is a great and forceful advocate of reason, science and progess, and his passionate idealism shines forth continually from the pages of this work. But so too does nearly every moth-eaten philosophical cliche around, e.g., the attack on certainty, the fact/value dichotomy, and the Humean assault on induction. Moreover, Popper is unnerving in his treatment of capitalism. Opponents of the Open Society who see it as being too coercive are slighted by Poppers astonishing smears of laissez faire, his continual granting of Marxist historical points against capitalism, and his cheerful parading before us of those democratic reforms that have all but obliterated the unhampered free market economy. Social democracy, the Open Society, has been tried and found wanting. The question that faces us now is simply whether those lovers of experiment and flexibility are experimental and flexible enough to advocate that liberty be given a chance. If it is not given that chance, there may be no tu rning back, and we may yet arrive in an era when we shall look back at the totalitarianism of the 1930s as a veritable golden age. But in one sense, at least, Popper is right: the future is ours to shape. Liberty has never been fully tried. It is the task of readers of this journal to remedy that unfortunate situation; if we do not, no one else will.