The Connotations for Western & Eastern Audiences of Swastika

The Swastika symbol has been used for thousands of years already in almost all human civilizations as a sign for good luck, protection, as a materialization of life and the changing seasons of the year. The word 'SWASTIKA' is taken from the Sanskrit's 'SVASTIKAH', an ancient Indian language. In Sanskrit the word means 'being happy'.

Swastika symbol is found in numerous and diverse cultures around the world, including the cultures of Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. It has been prominently used and seen in India, Japan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and many other countries.

Speaking of connotative meaning, Swastika is a symbol of prosperity and good fortune for the Eastern people. Specially for Hinduism and Buddhism. They think it represents the revolving sun, power, fire, life and good luck so they use that symbol at their temples, house, school, shop and anywhere possible where they wish to have good fortune. It has been like that for thousands of years. All in all the eastern audiences took Swastika as a sign of peace. Then came the Nazis...

In the year of 1920, Adolf Hitler's Nazi adopted the Swastika symbol at the Slazburg Congress in August 7th for World War II. The Nazis used the symbol to murder millions of people, Hitler then became a villain to the western civilization. From then the people of Europe and sub-continents know the Swastika as a symbol of murder, violence, death and hatred. The connotative meaning of Swastika represents fear and all the horror moments from world war II. Virtually the Nazis gave that ancient symbol a new worst meaning possible.

The swastika existed as a symbol of good fortune thousands of years before the Nazis even existed. The eastern people still thinks the symbol as a positive meaning but the Western side of the world knows Swastika as the logo of the evil. The better thing is people didn't forgot the symbol yet. Many countries like India, Greece, Germany, China, Japan, United Kingdom, Argentina, France and Sri Lanka is still using the Swastika symbol for many different purposes.

I personally find the fact very amazing that the same symbol represents completely opposite connotations to the Eastern and the Western civilization.


References: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika) & (http://www.swastika-info.com)

The Social Construction of Reality From "WAG THE DOG"

We are the people of our society, what we see and hear in our world, major amount of the people believe that, this is real for them. Therefore, what we see and what we hear around is reality to us.

I have figured that when the entire society is observing or forced to observe and believe that observation completely, that is the social construction of our reality. A very strong pillar of that construction is based upon the media.

In the Oscar nominated film "Wag the Dog" the director Barry Levinson wants to state the fact that, media is the biggest constructor of our reality. Media is capable of creating a war and they even can make a war which is not happening. There is no war but people will believe when media is showing that.

Our society is changing and getting practical day by day. It wasn't like this before but slowly we were sinking into the media's pond, and now we are totally depend on it. We are now bound to believe what media is saying and there also have no other option left.

Media is something what we see and hear everyday, so what we see and hear in our daily life and life goes on like this that is our social construction of reality.

This is a statement of my very own perspective.

What Is Real ?

We have been asked three questions in class. in our perspective What is Real ? Who told you Its real ? How do you know its real ?

I believe ghost is real because I've some real life experience with it. My elder cousins used to tell me ghosts stories in my childhood, I never believe those stories then but till now I've faced couple of supernatural incidents by myself. So I'm quite sure ghost is real.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY

The Social Construction of Reality is a book about the sociology of knowledge written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann and published in 1966.


1.Q: What do you understand the term renaissance to mean ?

Ans: I've Understand the term renaissance means "rebirth". The idea of rebirth originated in the belief that Europeans had rediscovered the superiority of Greek and Roman culture after many centuries of what they considered intellectual and cultural decline.

It describes the intellectual and economic changes that occurred in Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries.

It was the reformation of many old ideas and the formation of many new, this was called the Renaissance. It was a time of fun and enjoying life, and it brought many changes to Europe. The economy rose as a result of all the new explorations. The flourishing economy helped to inspire new developments in art and literature, and new ways of thinking were formed.

Science was another change due to renaissance. People began to put their ideas to use. Astronomy, geography, medicine, natural science, and Greek mathematics emerged significantly. People began to think intellectually.

2.Q: Who was Nicola Machiavelli?

Ans: Nicola Machiavelli was a great political interpreter. He was born on May 3, 1469, who lived in Florence. He worked as a diplomat and grew up to be a lawyer and politician. As he grew up, he took office until the Medici took power and pushed him out of office. In 1512 to 1527, he was kicked out of office again and this led to his in-depth view of the politics at that time. When he wrote The Prince he was determined to regain the favors of the Medici Family and to help other rulers keep their power. This was intended to help only the rulers and not the lower classes.

Machiavelli was a great political interpreter during the Renaissance. However, as time moved on, many different types of governments such as democracy and communism sprung up. What Machiavelli failed to interpret were the types of governments ancient civilization had. Therefore, as time moved on, some governments chose to branch off from ancient civilization rather than Machiavelli's interpretation of politics.

3.Q: Who Was Edmund Burke?

Ans: Edmund Burke (12 January 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party.

He is mainly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George III and Great Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. The latter made Burke one of the leading figures within the conservative faction of the Whig party (which he dubbed the "Old Whigs"), in opposition to the pro-French-Revolution "New Whigs", led by Charles James Fox.

Burke also published a philosophical work where he attempted to define Emotions and Passions as well as how they are triggered in a person. Burke worked on aesthetics and founded the Annual Register, a political review. He is often regarded by conservatives as the philosophical founder of Anglo-American conservatism.

4.Q: What does the term 'doctrinaire radicalism' mean?

Ans: The term 'doctrinaire radicalism' refers to socio-cultural reforming or revolutionary activities which doesn’t even care whether human lives or certain happiness is harmfully affected for itself or not. It is certainly a devastating way of reforming human thoughts, e.g. the activities of revolutionaries had tried to do in The French Revolution in 1789.

5.Q: From reading this, how would you define the term 'socially constructed'?

Ans: Yet to publish

6.Q: What Does 'a priori' mean?

Ans: I've searched some dictionary to figure the meaning of 'a priori'

Thats what i got

a priori

Translation

1. derived by logic

Adjective

1. (law, Latinate) Known ahead of time.
2. (logic) Based on hypothesis rather than experiment.

   a priori knowledge

3. Self-evident, intuitively obvious

Adverb

1. (logic) Derived by logic.

In Philosophy the word ‘A priori’ is used to distinguish between deductive and inductive way of thinking. A person can study over his social errors caused by inductive thinking and must get some Notions from its research. As its impact the notion can totally change the point of view/the way of thinking from experiential to logical. Thus the new notion got from the experimental process is called 'A priori'.