Review Of Brzezinskis The Grand Chessboard Politics Essay

Review Of Brzezinskis The Grand Chessboard Politics Essay The Grand Chessboard was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and was published in 1997. It is a progressive book on American foreign policy of the 1990s and after. It looks candidly at reasons for Americas policy of aggression towards Afghanistan and conciliation towards Pakistan. It also spells out the need for Americas policy of toleration towards Saudi Arabia and its carrot and stick attitude towards China. It throws light on the growing problem of religious fundamentalism and the need for America to stay ahead as the only superpower in order to control Eurasian politics. The book is divided into seven chapters and runs into 220 pages. Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski was born March on 28, 1928 in Warsaw, Poland. He is an eminent American political scientist, foreign policy advisor and statesman who was National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981 and continues to be President Barrack Obamas mentor and foreign policy advisor. He is Professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins Universitys School of Advanced International Studies. He is also a scholar of great repute at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a valuable member of various governmental and non-governmental boards and councils. Brzezinski belonged to the Polish nobility and his family bore the Traby Coat of Arms insignia. They originally came from the town of Brzezany in Galicia which is said to be the source of his family name. Brzezinskis father was a Polish diplomat who was posted in Germany prior to World War II. Brzezinski spent some of his earliest years witnessing the rise of the Nazis and this may have some bearing on his anti-Semitic and anti-Israel leanings. He went to Harvard University to work on a PhD that focused on the Soviet Union. His research led him to trace the connections between the Russian Revolution, Lenins position in Russian politics and the proceedings during Stalins reign. He received his doctorate degree in 1953 and later collaborated with German-American Professor and political scientist, Carl J. Friedrich to develop the concept of totalitarianism and apply its principles to the Soviet Union of 1956. Brzezinski dedicated the book to his students and in Brzezinskis words it is For my students- to help them shape tomorrows world. Hence all students of politics and international relations will benefit from reading this book. It is also a worthy guideline for political scientists and diplomats who would want to get an in-depth knowledge of American foreign policy and rationale behind the changing strategies to stay ahead and on top of global geo-politics. Brzezinski writes in the introduction to this book, The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geo-strategy is therefore the purpose of this book (Brzezinski 1997). In his book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski has discussed his most significant contribution to post-Cold War geo-strategy. He emphasizes the need for America to be the global leader and continue to be the arbiter of Eurasian geopolitics. His theory simply put is for American hegemony to continue and for America to dominate the economic and political arenas by minimizing the risk of other potential super powers from Eurasia to gain ascendency in world politics. He has divided Eurasia into four distinct regions and has discussed ways in which the US should charter its foreign policy towards these regions in order to maintain its global dominance. Brzezinski lays claims to the United States being the only comprehensive superpower after the fall of the Soviet Union: America is now Eurasias arbiter, with no major Eurasian issue soluble without Americas participation or contrary to Americas interests (Brzezinski 194). In The Grand Chessboard Brzezinski gives the audience a complete and candid elucidation of American international strategy since 1992. He explains that what this strategy aims at is absolute global dominance by America. Appreciating Brzezinskis argument requires looking at Americas Cold-War strategy through a new lens. (By Zbigniew K. Brzezinski Basic Books) The geo-strategy takes a close look at world affairs during the last decade of the twentieth century. It attempts to decipher the tectonic shift in world affairs and scrutinizes the role America needs to play as the emergent superpower in a uni-polar world. Brzezinski points out that for the first time in history a non- Eurasian power has surfaced as a major negotiator of Eurasian power dealings and also as the worlds paramount power(Brzezinski xiii). The disintegration and collapse of the Soviet Union gave the United States a key foothold in its rapid ascendance as the actual and exclusive global superpower. The source of Americas growing geopolitical ambitions was provided by the rapid growth of the countrys economy through industrialization. The significant economic development was promoted by a culture and environment that encouraged experimentation and modernization. Americas open and democratic political institutions and free market financial system created unique opportunities for wealthy investors to expand the countrys economy and boost its international reputation. The American way of life was congenial to economic growth and the development of national power. The book deals with some major issues of world politics and spells out Brzezinskis take on the design of US foreign policies in dealing with these issues. The rising threat from Islamic fundamentalism to American primacy is described as a possible issue that might prove challenging. Maintaining control over the unstable west Asian region in the absence of a stable and dominant Islamic state could be part of the Middle Eastern problem. Brzezinski argues that even though the Cold War is over and America has emerged as the single most dominant superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is still necessary to maintain American hegemony to prevent the emergence of a dangerous multi-polar world of independent great powers scrambling for predominance and political advantage. He describes the three grand imperatives, of Americas strategy, its mechanisms and purposes are to help prevent conspiracy against American interests; to ensure the dependence of the less secure nations and pledge their loyalty by providing them security against fundamentalist forces and to keep the underlings pliant and protected in order to prevent other potential powers from taking over these regions. The manuscript provides insights into the thinking behind the 1992 planning document issued by the Pentagon, which maintained that the United States must continue to control the international system by not allowing other advanced and industrialized nations to challenge American leadership or try to assume a larger regional or global role. Americas leadership role, as Brzezinski advocates, meant that not only should the United States dominate its allies, the wealthy and technologically developed states in Europe and East Asia, but also that it must lead the way in fostering peace and stability by dealing with such irritants as Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, and Kim Jong II of North Korea so that there is no scope for potential super powers like Germany or Japan to acquire the means to resolve regional problems by themselves and gain supremacy in the region. The growth of Islamic fundamentalism could exploit the religious sentiments against the Americans and take advantage of the Arab-Israel conflict to undermine and destabilize the authority of several pro-American Middle Eastern states and jeopardize the regional interests of America in the Persian Gulf region. Brzezinski, however, points out that without political unity and in the absence of a single indisputable influential Islamic state, a challenge from Islamic fundamentalism would lack a geopolitical core and would thus be more likely to express itself through diffuse violence (Brzezinski 53). The book also contains other references to the steadily growing problem of Muslim fundamentalism and its impact on global security. The real thrust of Americas foreign policy since the start of the Cold War, according to Brzezinski, was not to thwart or overcome the Soviet menace, but the successful effort to impose an ambitious vision on a confused and disorganized global scenario. The basic idea was to provide for the security of the Eurasian potential super powers and by engage them in such a manner that their military and foreign policies would encourage them to form alliances that America dominated and keep its erstwhile enemies contained. It also sought to prevent its partners from embarking upon independent foreign and military policies that might jeopardize American interests and supremacy at the global level. This policy would help to stabilized relationships among the states of Western Europe and East Asia, and reassure their neighboring states that these powerful partners would remain appeased and loyal. With America leading from the front the West European and East Asian nations would be free from fea rs and mutual competitions and would be able to cooperate politically and economically. This in turn would create stability and harmony in the world and would enhance prosperity and international order that would aid the advanced industrialized countries to forge ahead and maintain economic growth and development. Brzezinski elucidates his point by citing the example of how encouraging Korea to become a unified democratic entity would not be in Americas interests as this development would endanger Americas global control strategy. A rejuvenated and unified Korea would minimize the apparent need for U.S. troops on the peninsula; and would lead to a U.S. pullback from East Asia. This, in turn, would lead to Japan becoming more self-sufficient and secure militarily; that would show the way for military, political and economic rivalry and bickering amongst the nations in the Far East. Japan would gain dominance and could become a potential threat to American supremacy in that region. Hence, the best solution was to maintain the status quo in Korea, which allowed U.S. forces to be stationed there indefinitely and keep vigilance in the area. The ultimate objective of American foreign policy should be benevolent and farsighted in keeping with American ideals and the fundamental interests of human kind. But in so doing the policy must ensure that no Eurasian power be allowed to emerge as a potential challenger to Americas position as the world leader. It must stay ahead in the race and neutralize through effective alliances and policies any scope for a unified Europe or an individual developed nation capable of dominating Eurasian economy and politics and eliminate potential challenge for America. The book gives us an in-depth insight into policies and policy making but it leave some questions unanswered. It discloses the logic that has motivated the American national security strategy ever since the Cold War but it also highlights the fact that this logic predictably involves a massive project that is necessarily open-ended and long lasting. To maintain status quo in an effort to preserve political, economic and strategic dominance America must continue the policy of maintaining troops in the unstable regions of Islamic fundamentalism. The price of such aggressive posturing can be high in the changing climate of world politics and the new vision of a harmonious and peaceful world. So the question remains, according to Brzezinskis logic, how do you pull out troops from the different regions and encourage self governance and at the same time follow the policy of global leadership where the troops must always remain? Brzezinskis theory of global adult-super vision strategy means that American expenditure on its military and security is nearly as much as, perhaps, the rest of the world combined. However, he argues that in order to maintain its control over the Black Sea oil it must deal with Turkey and Iran carefully. To maintain its hegemony over this region might mean sending more troops to stabilize the region. That American interests were firmly planted in the region is apparent: The momentum of Asias economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea. (Brzezinski 125). Brzezinski freely admits that executing a policy of global dominance is difficult, absorbing, and costly, and offers a solution which is a bit contradictory. Although in keeping with the short and midterm interests continued U.S. preponderance is an absolute necessity, Brzezinski argues that in the long-term the United States can share leadership with regional powers. Multilateral projects, beginning from international adjudicators to U.N. police procedures, all of these require a strong leader. Brzezinskis main argument relies on the claim that American hegemony remains the indispensable foundation for world cooperation and the integration of advanced countries towards world peace and balance of power. To support his argument Brzezinski outlines the possibility of an eventual trilateral division of leadership among the United States, Europe, and Japan. Even then he makes it quite apparent that Europe and Japan would remain junior partners to a predominant America with a larger share of the expenses with no greater authority and independence. The partner nations have never agreed to this formula and have consistently said that if the United States wanted to lead, it would have to pay the expenses and incur the hazards that accompanied leadership. Thus, to say that America can never let go of its supremacy because of the political, economic, and military ramifications is stretching the point a bit far. Cooperation among the great powers ensures stability and peace and that it can only be garnered under American supervision is somewhat self-defeating. According to Brzezinski, stability in Western Europe and East Asia could be guaranteed by American predominance alone, was the prerequisite for cooperation and stability. There is no reason to believe that, without this guarantor, stability will not be achieved. Americas dominant position should foster stability and create a geopolitical core of peaceful global management and shared responsibility.

Carpe Diem Seizing the Day Essay example -- essays research papers

Live a Full Life or Not, the Choice is Yours Some 2000 years ago a Roman poet was talking with his vampy friend, Vladimir Longtoothski about his bizarre phengophobia. â€Å"Vlad,† Horace the Geek began, â€Å"I realize you’re a creature of the night but you need to catch some rays, man. You’ve been looking a little pale lately, you need to get your blood boiling and get some color in your cheeks.† Exasperated with Vlad’s nightowl existence, Horace the Geek uttered, â€Å"Seize the day, Vlad!† â€Å"Bloody good prompt,† responded the incisive Vlad. And for the next 2000 years, teachers everywhere encouraged their students to write about the importance of seizing the day if you want to live each day to the fullest. So check out the following seizures. The year: 1959. The place: Welton Academy. It’s a strict prep school run with military precision almost like Harlingen’s Marine Military Academy or the La Joya ROTC program. Passionate to the extreme, maverick English teacher John Keating urges his students to break the rules, to break with tradition, to break up their routine life, and dre...

Peter Brook Essay -- essays research papers fc

It is noted in many books that near the start of his career, Peter Brook was attracted to both plays and techniques that expressed human contradiction. He often wondered, though, whether there were any modern playwrights who could possibly equal the richness and complexity of Shakespearean verse, and often complained about the improbability of ever finding material to work on or to produce as stimulating as that of Shakespeare. When, in 1964, Brook received a play entitled The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Marat/Sade), by German playwright Peter Weiss, it is also noted that Brook felt he had finally encountered the challenge of Shakespearean theater he was looking for. Not only was Marat/Sade an incredibly well written and unique approach to theater as a whole, its incorporation of music and movement, song and montage, and naturalism and surrealism within the text created the perfect passage, for Brook, from his commercial past to his experimental present, as well as a way for both the playwright and the director to deal with the concept of theater as therapy; a rather ironic, yet at the same time clever, idea seeing as how the play itself is conducted within the confines of an asylum, with the inmates themselves as the stars. One of the most complex aspects of presenting Marat/Sade was its large and eclectic cast of characters and also its incorporation of a play within a play. On stage, these points were, looking at the opinions of a majority of both the audiences and the critics, presented successfully by Brook and the cast he worked with. From the prison guards who loomed in the background, clothed in butcher aprons and armed with clubs, to the half-naked Marat, slouched in a tub and covered in wet rags, forever scratching and writing, to the small group of singers, dressed and painted up as clowns, to the narcoleptic but murderous Charlotte Corday, Weiss and Brook offered a stage production that both engaged and amazed the audience, while at the same time forced them to question their role as the audience; no better exemplified than at the very end of the play, where the inmates, standing menacingly at the edge of the stage, actually begin to applaud the very people who applaud their performance, aggravating and confusing some, but forcing most t... ...m, though they are quite safe behind a large facade of iron bars. This technique corresponds to the menacing way that the characters address the camera throughout the performance, and creates the necessary feeling, for the viewers, that no such barrier is available to protect them as they are drawn in uncomfortably closer to the inmates by Brook’s camerawork. We begin to question whether or not the soliloquies, spoken directly into the camera instead of to the protected aristocrats who originally played our ‘part’ of the audience, are still merely just a theater convention, or if the insanity of the performers is used as a catalyst for we, ourselves, to feel threatened directly by what is spoken. We also begin to question whether or not the inmate is even looking at the camera to address the audience, or is simply insane, and addressing the air around them, adding yet another layer to such complex characters. Creating such questions within the audience’ s mind also seems to create, for most, the aura of discomfort and skepticism that Brook was aiming to achieve, and reached quite successfully. Bibliography Lunatics, Lovers, and Poets by Margaret Croyden

Digital Fortress Chapter 63-65

Chapter 63 Becker's newly purchased Vespa motorcycle struggled up the entry road to Aeropuerto de Sevilla. His knuckles had been white the whole way. His watch read just after 2:00 a.m. local time. As he approached the main terminal, he rode up on the sidewalk and jumped off the bike while it was still moving. It clattered to the pavement and sputtered to a stop. Becker dashed on rubbery legs through the revolving door. Never again, he swore to himself. The terminal was sterile and starkly lit. Except for a janitor buffing the floor, the place was deserted. Across the concourse, a ticket agent was closing down the Iberia Airlines counter. Becker took it as a bad sign. He ran over. â€Å"El vuelo a los Estados Unidos?† The attractive Andalusian woman behind the counter looked up and smiled apologetically. â€Å"Acaba de salir. You just missed it.† Her words hung in the air for a long moment. I missed it. Becker's shoulders slumped. â€Å"Was there standby room on the flight?† â€Å"Plenty,† the woman smiled. â€Å"Almost empty. But tomorrow's eight a.m. also has-â€Å" â€Å"I need to know if a friend of mine made that flight. She was flying standby.† The woman frowned. â€Å"I'm sorry, sir. There were several standby passengers tonight, but our privacy clause states-â€Å" â€Å"It's very important,† Becker urged. â€Å"I just need to know if she made the flight. That's all.† The woman gave a sympathetic nod. â€Å"Lovers' quarrel?† Becker thought a moment. Then he gave her a sheepish grin. â€Å"It's that obvious?† She gave him a wink. â€Å"What's her name?† â€Å"Megan,† he replied sadly. The agent smiled. â€Å"Does your lady friend have a last name?† Becker exhaled slowly. Yes, but I don't know it!† Actually, it's kind of a complicated situation. You said the plane was almost empty. Maybe you could-â€Å" â€Å"Without a last name I really can't†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Actually,† Becker interrupted, having another idea. â€Å"Have you been on all night?† The woman nodded. â€Å"Seven to seven.† â€Å"Then maybe you saw her. She's a young girl. Maybe fifteen or sixteen? Her hair was-† Before the words left his mouth, Becker realized his mistake. The agent's eyes narrowed. â€Å"Your lover is fifteen years old?† â€Å"No!† Becker gasped. â€Å"I mean†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Shit. â€Å"If you could just help me, it's very important.† â€Å"I'm sorry,† the woman said coldly. â€Å"It's not the way it sounds. If you could just-â€Å" â€Å"Good night, sir.† The woman yanked the metal grate down over the counter and disappeared into a back room. Becker groaned and stared skyward. Smooth, David. Very smooth. He scanned the open concourse. Nothing. She must have sold the ring and made the flight. He headed for the custodian. â€Å"Has visto a una nina?† he called over the sound of the tile buffer. â€Å"Have you seen a girl?† The old man reached down and killed the machine. â€Å"Eh?† â€Å"Una nina?† Becker repeated. â€Å"Pelo rojo, azul, y blanco. Red white and blue hair.† The custodian laughed. â€Å"Que fea. Sounds ugly.† He shook his head and went back to work. David Becker stood in the middle of the deserted airport concourse and wondered what to do next. The evening had been a comedy of errors. Strathmore's words pounded in his head: Don't call until you have the ring. A profound exhaustion settled over him. If Megan sold the ring and made the flight, there was no telling who had the ring now. Becker closed his eyes and tried to focus. What's my next move? He decided to consider it in a moment. First, he needed to make a long-overdue trip to a rest room. Chapter 64 Susan stood alone in the dimly lit silence of Node 3. The task at hand was simple: Access Hale's terminal, locate his key, and then delete all of his communication with Tankado. There could be no hint of Digital Fortress anywhere. Susan's initial fears of saving the key and unlocking Digital Fortress were nagging at her again. She felt uneasy tempting fate; they'd been lucky so far. North Dakota had miraculously appeared right under their noses and been trapped. The only remaining question was David; he had to find the other pass-key. Susan hoped he was making progress. As she made her way deeper into Node 3, Susan tried to clear her mind. It was odd that she felt uneasy in such a familiar space. Everything in Node 3 seemed foreign in the dark. But there was something else. Susan felt a momentary hesitation and glanced back at the inoperable doors. There was no escape. Twenty minutes, she thought. As she turned toward Hale's terminal, she noticed a strange, musky odor-it was definitely not a Node 3 smell. She wondered if maybe the deionizer was malfunctioning. The smell was vaguely familiar, and with it came an unsettling chill. She pictured Hale locked below in his enormous steaming cell. Did he set something on fire? She looked up at the vents and sniffed. But the odor seemed to be coming from nearby. Susan glanced toward the latticed doors of the kitchenette. And in an instant she recognized the smell. It was cologne†¦ and sweat. She recoiled instinctively, not prepared for what she saw. From behind the lattice slats of the kitchenette, two eyes stared out at her. It only took an instant for the horrifying truth to hit her. Greg Hale was not locked on the sublevels-he was in Node 3! He'd slipped upstairs before Strathmore closed the trapdoor. He'd been strong enough to open the doors all by himself. Susan had once heard that raw terror was paralyzing-she now knew that was a myth. In the same instant her brain grasped what was happening, she was in motion-stumbling backward through the dark with a single thought in mind: escape. The crash behind her was instantaneous. Hale had been sitting silently on the stove and extended his legs like two battering rams. The doors exploded off their hinges. Hale launched himself into the room and thundered after her with powerful strides. Susan knocked over a lamp behind her, attempting to trip Hale as he moved toward her. She sensed him vault it effortlessly. Hale was gaining quickly. When his right arm circled her waist from behind, it felt like she'd hit a steel bar. She gasped in pain as the wind went out of her. His biceps flexed against her rib cage. Susan resisted and began twisting wildly. Somehow her elbow struck cartilage. Hale released his grip, his hands clutching his nose. He fell to his knees, hands cupped over his face. â€Å"Son of a-† He screamed in pain. Susan dashed onto the door's pressure plates saying a fruitless prayer that Strathmore would in that instant restore power and the doors would spring open. Instead, she found herself pounding against the glass. Hale lumbered toward her, his nose covered with blood. In an instant, his hands were around her again-one of them clamped firmly on her left breast and the other on her midsection. He yanked her away from the door. She screamed, her hand outstretched in futile attempt to stop him. He pulled her backward, his belt buckle digging into her spine. Susan couldn't believe his strength. He dragged her back across the carpet, and her shoes came off. In one fluid motion, Hale lifted her and dumped her on the floor next to his terminal. Susan was suddenly on her back, her skirt bunched high on her hips. The top button of her blouse had released, and her chest was heaving in the bluish light. She stared up in terror as Hale straddled her, pinning her down. She couldn't decipher the look in his eyes. It looked like fear. Or was it anger? His eyes bore into her body. She felt a new wave of panic. Hale sat firmly on her midsection, staring down at her with an icy glare. Everything Susan had ever learned about self-defense was suddenly racing through her mind. She tried to fight, but her body did not respond. She was numb. She closed her eyes. Oh, please, God. No! Chapter 65 Brinkerhoff paced Midge's office. â€Å"Nobody bypasses Gauntlet. It's impossible!† â€Å"Wrong,† she fired back. â€Å"I just talked to Jabba. He said he installed a bypass switch last year.† The PA looked doubtful. â€Å"I never heard that.† â€Å"Nobody did. It was hush-hush.† â€Å"Midge,† Brinkerhoff argued, â€Å"Jabba's compulsive about security! He would never put in a switch to bypass-â€Å" â€Å"Strathmore made him do it,† she interrupted. Brinkerhoff could almost hear her mind clicking. â€Å"Remember last year,† she asked, â€Å"when Strathmore was working on that anti-Semitic terrorist ring in California?† Brinkerhoff nodded. It had been one of Strathmore's major coups last year. Using TRANSLTR to decrypt an intercepted code, he had uncovered a plot to bomb a Hebrew school in Los Angeles. He decrypted the terrorist's message only twelve minutes before the bomb went off, and using some fast phone work, he saved three hundred schoolchildren. â€Å"Get this,† Midge said, lowering her voice unnecessarily. â€Å"Jabba said Strathmore intercepted that terrorist code six hours before that bomb went off.† Brinkerhoff's jaw dropped. â€Å"But†¦ then why did he wait-â€Å" â€Å"Because he couldn't get TRANSLTR to decrypt the file. He tried, but Gauntlet kept rejecting it. It was encrypted with some new public key algorithm that the filters hadn't seen yet. It took Jabba almost six hours to adjust them.† Brinkerhoff looked stunned. â€Å"Strathmore was furious. He made Jabba install a bypass switch in Gauntlet in case it ever happened again.† â€Å"Jesus.† Brinkerhoff whistled. â€Å"I had no idea.† Then his eyes narrowed. â€Å"So what's your point?† â€Å"I think Strathmore used the switch today†¦ to process a file that Gauntlet rejected.† â€Å"So? That's what the switch is for, right?† Midge shook her head. â€Å"Not if the file in question is a virus.† Brinkerhoff jumped. â€Å"A virus? Who said anything about a virus!† â€Å"It's the only explanation,† she said. â€Å"Jabba said a virus is the only thing that could keep TRANSLTR running this long, so-â€Å" â€Å"Wait a minute!† Brinkerhoff flashed her the time-out sign. â€Å"Strathmore said everything's fine!† â€Å"He's lying.† Brinkerhoff was lost. â€Å"You're saying Strathmore intentionally let a virus into TRANSLTR?† â€Å"No,† she snapped. â€Å"I don't think he knew it was a virus. I think he was tricked.† Brinkerhoff was speechless. Midge Milken was definitely losing it. â€Å"It explains a lot,† she insisted. â€Å"It explains what he's been doing in there all night.† â€Å"Planting viruses in his own computer?† â€Å"No,† she said, annoyed. â€Å"Trying to cover up his mistake! And now he can't abort TRANSLTR and get aux power back because the virus has the processors locked down!† Brinkerhoff rolled his eyes. Midge had gone nuts in the past, but never like this. He tried to calm her. â€Å"Jabba doesn't seem to be too worried.† â€Å"Jabba's a fool,† she hissed. Brinkerhoff looked surprised. Nobody had ever called Jabba a fool-a pig maybe, but never a fool. â€Å"You're trusting feminine intuition over Jabba's advanced degrees in anti-invasive programming?† She eyed him harshly. Brinkerhoff held up his hands in surrender. â€Å"Never mind. I take it back.† He didn't need to be reminded of Midge's uncanny ability to sense disaster. â€Å"Midge,† he begged. â€Å"I know you hate Strathmore, but-â€Å" â€Å"This has nothing to do with Strathmore!† Midge was in overdrive. â€Å"The first thing we need to do is confirm Strathmore bypassed Gauntlet. Then we call the director.† â€Å"Great.† Brinkerhoff moaned. â€Å"I'll call Strathmore and ask him to send us a signed statement.† â€Å"No,† she replied, ignoring his sarcasm. â€Å"Strathmore's lied to us once already today.† She glanced up, her eyes probing his. â€Å"Do you have keys to Fontaine's office? â€Å"Of course. I'm his PA.† â€Å"I need them.† Brinkerhoff stared in disbelief. â€Å"Midge, there's no way in hell I'm letting you into Fontaine's office.† â€Å"You have to!† she demanded. Midge turned and started typing on Big Brother's keyboard. â€Å"I'm requesting a TRANSLTR queue list. If Strathmore manually bypassed Gauntlet, it'll show up on the printout.† â€Å"What does that have to do with Fontaine's office?† She spun and glared at him. â€Å"The queue list only prints to Fontaine's printer. You know that!† â€Å"That's because it's classified, Midge!† â€Å"This is an emergency. I need to see that list.† Brinkerhoff put his hands on her shoulders. â€Å"Midge, please settle down. You know I can't-â€Å" She huffed loudly and spun back to her keyboard. â€Å"I'm printing a queue list. I'm going to walk in, pick it up, and walk out. Now give me the key.† â€Å"Midge†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She finished typing and spun back to him. â€Å"Chad, the report prints in thirty seconds. Here's the deal. You give me the key. If Strathmore bypassed, we call security. If I'm wrong, I leave, and you can go smear marmalade all over Carmen Huerta.† She gave him a malicious glare and held out her hands for the keys. â€Å"I'm waiting.† Brinkerhoff groaned, regretting that he had called her back to check the Crypto report. He eyed her outstretched hand. â€Å"You're talking about classified information inside the director's private quarters. Do you have any idea what would happen if we got caught?† â€Å"The director is in South America.† â€Å"I'm sorry. I just can't.† Brinkerhoff crossed his arms and walked out. Midge stared after him, her gray eyes smoldering. â€Å"Oh, yes you can,† she whispered. Then she turned back to Big Brother and called up the video archives. Midge'll get over it, Brinkerhoff told himself as he settled in at his desk and started going over the rest of his reports. He couldn't be expected to hand out the director's keys whenever Midge got paranoid. He had just begun checking the COMSEC breakdowns when his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices coming from the other room. He set down his work and walked to his doorway. The main suite was dark-all except a dim shaft of grayish light from Midge's half-open door. He listened. The voices continued. They sounded excited. â€Å"Midge?† No response. He strode through the darkness to her workspace. The voices were vaguely familiar. He pushed the door open. The room was empty. Midge's chair was empty. The sound was coming from overhead. Brinkerhoff looked up at the video monitors and instantly felt ill. The same image was playing on each one of the twelve screens-a kind of perversely choreographed ballet. Brinkerhoff steadied himself on the back of Midge's chair and watched in horror. â€Å"Chad?† The voice was behind him. He spun and squinted into the darkness. Midge was standing kitty-corner across the main suite's reception area in front of the director's double doors. Her palm was outstretched. â€Å"The key, Chad.† Brinkerhoff flushed. He turned back to the monitors. He tried to block out the images overhead, but it was no use. He was everywhere, groaning with pleasure and eagerly fondling Carmen Huerta's small, honey-covered breasts.

Different Biomes

Our family always looks forward every vacation time because of so many places we visited and how we learned a lot from it.   It’s just like an educational tour.   As we traveled along we learned of different biomes in the world.   The world contains different kinds of Biomes.   Biome is a kind of large ecosystem where animals, insects, plants and human beings live in certain type of climate.   The following are some of the places we visited: 1.   Northern Alaska. In Northern Alaska, you will find their frosty biome called the Arctic Tundra.   The earth’s coldest Biome.   The Arctic tundra is a cold, vast, treeless area of low, swampy plains in the north around the Arctic Ocean.   An example of tundra is the Alpine Tundra that is at the tops of high mountains.   The type of climate affects plants and animals living on that area because of the availability of food supplies.   Examples of animals are the polar bears, arctic foxes and caribou.   Plants include the cushion plants, small shrubs and the lichen. 2.   Asia Tropical rainforests are found in Asia particularly along the equator.   It receives rains each year, approximately 70 inches.   Most of the species of plants and animals are found in this type of biome.   Many of its plants are used in medicines.   However, rainforests are considered an endangered biome because of the rapid growth of people who have cut the trees and contributed to the so called global warming.   Some of the animals of the tropical rainforest are the anteater, jaguar, brocket deer, lemur, orangutan, marmoset, macaw, parrot, sloth, and toucan. Among the many plant species are bamboo, banana trees, rubber trees, and cassava. 3.   Russia Taiga is the name of biome found in Russia.   It is a land dominated by conifers, like spruces and firs.   It has a limited variety of animals and plants compared to the temperate deciduous forest. References http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0769052.html                                             

Observation of a Toddler (Lifespan) Essay

Abstract I observed Harper, a 23 month old little girl that is full of energy. Also participating in the interaction with Harper was her mother and five year old sister, Mya. Harper is very friendly and outgoing. She is very interested â€Å"reading books† and loves to be read to. She enjoys helping her mother clean and do simple tasks. She seems to be very confident with and without her mother in her sight. Harper’s father is not actively involved in her life because he lives in another state. Observation of a Toddler 1. Harper is a 23 month old little girl. She is 34 inches tall and weighs approximately 27 pounds. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and a very pretty smile. 2. Harper’s gross motor skills are normative. She is able to walk, squat and run with ease. She can go up and down stairs one at a time all by herself and according to her mother she is â€Å"reasonably bowel trained† although she has nighttime accidents. Harper’s fine motor skills are also normative. She can throw a ball overhand, handle a spoon well, turns pages in her book and washes her hands. The skills Harper has are normative because they are in sync with other toddlers her age. Our book states â€Å"By 18-24 months, toddlers can walk quickly or run stiffly for short distance, walk backward without losing their balance, stand and kick a ball without falling, stand and throw a ball and jump in place†(Santrock, 2011, p. 129). a. Harper ZPD was in the upper limit. She had to be told to pull down her pants when she went to potty; but didn’t need to be told to wipe and pull her pants up. Her mother scaffolded by telling her what to do initially and letting her figure the rest out for herself. 3. Harper has mastered five substages. She is currently in Piaget’s sixth substage of sensorimotor development, Internalization of schemes. She loves to play with her kitchen and pretends to do dishes. She has learned this from watching her mother. She also engages in imaginative play with her sister. 4. Harper is very vocal and expresses herself very well. She has trouble with the L phenome and pronounces the letter L as a W. Example: She says wap instead of lap. She likes to listen to stories and responds with â€Å"what’s that?† and â€Å"Why†. She uses syntax. She understands the meaning of most words. Example: Her mother said â€Å"do you love mommy† and Haper replied â€Å"yes† the mother asked â€Å"how much† and Harper replied â€Å"sixty dollars†. 5. Harper had an easy temperament. She was very happy and easy to please. She was also easily redirected when her sister took her toy. 6. Harper was gender type was supported because she loves to wear dresses, play with dolls, loves the color pink, and loves princesses. While Harper is quite the girly girl she also likes to get dirty and kick the ball with her neighbor. 7. I would describe Harper as a securely attached child. When her mother left to run to the store to give me some alone time with her she seemed a little scared and wanted to go with her mother. Her mother was gone for approximately 15 minutes and Harper was fine after her mother was out of sight and didn’t seem to notice much when her mother returned. She continued to play with her toys and barely looked up. 8. When Harper hit her sister Harper’s mother used negative punishment to discipline her. She made her sit in a time out for two minutes and she was unable to play with her sister or her toys. She was also told if she hit her sister again she would have to go to bed immediately and would not be able to play with her sister for the rest of the night. Harper’s mother also used positive punishment by telling Harper that only mean girls hit and that she was being bad. At first, Harper responded by crying. However, she displayed compliance by sitting her in time out chair by herself and staying there until her mother told her that is was okay for her to get up. This combination of negative and positive punishment seemed to work as there no more episodes of bad behavior during my observation. 9. Harper is currently in the stage of Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. In this stage â€Å"The child is developing physically and becoming more mobile. Between the ages of one and three, children begin to assert their independence, by walking away from their mother, picking which toy to play with, and making choices about what they like to wear, to eat, etc†(McLeod, 2008, para. 4). Harper likes to pick out her own clothes and expresses that she likes dolls and the color pink and that she does not like to eat beans. She is on her way to achieving the virtue of will by expressing her likes and dislikes. Harper has mastered the previous stage of Trust vs. Mistrust and has achieved the virtue of hope. She is very comfortable with her surroundings and a very easy child. She does not appear to have a heightened anxiety or agitation even when her mother in out of her sight. She easily warms up to others and has a very sunny disposition. References McLeod, S. A. (2008). Psychosocial stages. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html Santrock, J. W. (2011). Life-Span development (13th ed.). Ny, Ny: McGraw-Hill.

A Comparative Study of Norman Holland and David Bleich Essay

Reader Response criticism is a general term that refers to different approaches of modern criticism and literary theory that focuses on the responses of readers and their reactions to the literary text. It also, in M.H Abrams’ words, â€Å"does not designate any one critical theory, but a focus on the process of reading a literary text that is shared by many of the critical modes†(268). Reader Response criticism is described as a group of approaches to understanding literature that explicitly emphasize the reader’s role in creating the meaning an experience of a literary work. It refers to a group of critics who study, not a literary work, but readers or audiences responding to that literary work. It has no single starting point. They seriously challenge the dominancy of the text-oriented theories such as New Criticism and Formalism. Reader Response theory holds that the reader is a necessary third part in the author-text-reader relationship that constitutes the literary work. The relationship between readers and text is highly evaluated. The text does not exist without a reader; they are complementary to each other. A text sitting on a shelf does nothing. It does not come alive until the reader conceives it. Reader Response criticism encompasses various approaches or types. Of theses types is the ‘Subjectivist’ Reader Response criticism, which embraces critics such as David Bleich, Norman Holland, who are my focus in this paper, and Robert Crossman. Those critics view the reader’s response not as one guided by text but as one motivated by a deep-seated, personal psychological needs. They also are called ‘Individualists’. As they think that the reader’s response is guided by his psychological needs, therefore some of them, like Norman Holland, have a psychoanalytic view of that response. In the psychoanalytic view the reader responses to the literary work in a highly personal way. The real meaning of the text is the meaning created by the individual’s psyche. Lawrence Shaffer defines Psychoanalytic Criticism as â€Å"an approach to literary criticism, influenced by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, which views a literary work as an expression of the unconscious- of the individual psyche of its author or of the collective unconscious of a society or of the whole human race† (44). Reader Response critics have applied the psychoanalytical view to their analysis of the experience of reading a work. Namely; they focus on the psyche of the reader. Prominent among those who applied the psychoanalytical view is the American critic Norman Holland. Born in Manhattan in1927, Holland is an American literary critic and theorist who has focused on human responses to literature, film, and other arts. He is known for his work in Psychoanalytic criticism and Reader Response criticism. Holland began his Psychoanalytic writings with Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare (1966). In which he made a survey of what psychoanalytic writers has said about Shakespeare. He urged psychoanalytic critics to study real people, the audience and readers of literature, rather than imaginary characters. His contribution to Reader Response criticism was great. He has written about† the way self (reader) interacts with world (text) in four books: The Dynamics of Literary Response (1968), Poems in Persons (1973), 5 Readers Reading (1979), and Laughing: A Psychology of Humor (1982)† (Berg 266). According to Holland there are three explanation-models in Reader Response Theory. First, ‘text-active’ model, in which â€Å"the text defines the response†. The second model he calls â€Å"reader-active†, in which readers create meanings, and undergo the reading experience by exploring the text and all its items. â€Å"Word forms, word meanings, syntax, grammar, on up to complex individual ideas about character, plot, genre, themes, or values†(Holland). Thus the reader explores and interprets the text. Most who pioneered this view like Holland are Americans such as David Bleich, Stanley Fish, and Louise Rosenblatt. The third model is a compromise, and Holland calls it ‘bi-active’, in which the text causes part of the response and the reader the rest. Holland thinks that a ‘reader-active’ model is right. He believes that it explains likeness and difference in reading. â€Å"Similarities come from similar hypotheses formed by gender, class, education, race, age, or ‘interpretive community'† (Holland). While the difference come from differing hypotheses that result from individual beliefs, opinions and values, i.e. one’s ‘identity’. Holland considers a ‘test-active’ model is wrong, and therefore a ‘bi-active’ model is also wrong as it is half wrong and consequently all wrong. Holland suggests that â€Å"when we interpret a text, we unconsciously † react to our identity themes. To defend ourselves against our † fears and wishes, we transform the work in order to relieve psychic pressures† (Shaffer 48). Literature allows us to recreate our identities and to know ourselves as Holland deduced after the ‘Delphi seminar’, in which he worked at the State University of New York at Buffalo with other critics such as Robert Rogers, David Willbern and others. The ‘ Delphi seminar’ was designed to get students know themselves. The reader’s re-creation of his identity could happen when he transact with the text in four ways: â€Å"defense, expectation, fantasy, and transformation, which Holland reduces to the acronym ‘DEFT’ † (Newton, Interpreting Text 144). Defenses are ways of copying with inner and outer reality, particularly conflicts between different psychic agencies and reality. Holland thinks that we defend in many ways; we repress our fears and our painful thoughts or feelings, we deny sensory evidence or we isolate one emotion or idea from another. Expectations are our fears and wishes.Fantacies is what the individual puts out from himself into the outside world. In the ‘Delphi seminar’ Holland and the rest of critics â€Å"help[ed] students discover how they each bring a personal style (identity) to reading, writing, learning, and teaching† (Newton, Twentieth-Century 208). The seminar discussed the texts and also their associations, but focused on the associations. Students mastered the subject matter, and also saw how people re-create or develop a personal ‘identity’. Each student had great insight to himself, and his characteristic ways with text and people. Holland thinks that † just as the existence of a child constitutes the existence of a mother and the existence of a mother constitutes the existence of a child, so, in identity theory, all selves and objects constitute one another† (Newton, Twentieth-Century 208). So, I think the existence of a text constitutes the existence of a reader and vice versa, and the understanding of the text constitutes an understanding of self as well. In The Dynamics of Literary Response (1968), Holland was interested in the fact that texts embody fantasies. Later on, his thinking about texts reversed and he inferred that it is the reader who makes fantasies which [s]he transforms or projects onto the literary text. â€Å"People internalize differently because they internalize †¦ according to a core identity theme† (Berg 267). In Poems in Persons (1973), Holland explains that readers create the text, and he also questions the objectivity of the text. In this book Holland suggests that a poem â€Å"is nothing but specks of carbon black on dried wood pulp†, and suggests that these specks have nothing to do with people, yet â€Å"people who do thing to these specks† (Berg 267). When we â€Å"introject literary work we create in ourselves a psychological transformation†, where we feel as if it were within the text or the work yet it is not. This takes us to Holland’s ‘transactional’ model in which the reader initiates and creates the response. Holland saw that reading is a ‘transactional’ process in which the reader and the text mesh together. And it is a â€Å"personal transaction of the reader with the text in which there is no fundamental division between the text’s role and the reader’s role† (Newton, Interpreting Text 142), so the roles of the text dovetails with that of the reader. Holland has hired a group of students for an experiment. They read short stories and discussed them with him in interviews in which he asked questions and elicited associations. Their responses showed a more variety than he could explain. â€Å"Different readers might interpret a poem or a story differently at the level of meaning, morals, or aesthetic value. The text itself, however, was a fixed entity that elicited fairly fixed responses† (Holland). He regards the text as an objective entity and has no role in the process of interpretation. But in his next book 5 Readers Reading (1979) he gives more evidence of the subjective creation of the reader. He tried his model on actual readers. Five readers read ‘A Rose for Emily’ by Faulkner, and in the process of reading they create very different stories, â€Å"stories which inevitably reflect the identity themes of their creators† (Berg 267). When he listened to their understandings of a given character or event or phrase, he found them invariably different. Their emotional responses were diverse. So, the idea that there is a fixed or appropriate response was an illusion. Holland deduces that fantasies, structures, and forms do not exist in a literary work as he previously conceived, but they exist in the individual reader’s re-creation of the text. Holland thinks that â€Å"each person reads differently, and this difference stems from personality† (Newton, Twentieth-Century 204). Holland found that he could understand the reader’s differing responses by reading their identities. And he could explain their different reactions to the poem or short story by looking to their identity themes, as their patters of defences, expectations, fantasies, and transformations will help. The transformational model of his Dynamics was correct, but it was the reader who does the transformation and not the text. The text was only a raw material. So Holland arrives at the deduction that people who have fantasies after his previous assumption that text embody fantasies. Holland’s thinking about texts reversed after David Bleich’s proddi ng who insisted that texts do not have fantasies, people do. To understand a literary work, Holland claims that you should perceive it through the lens of some human perception, either your own experience, or someone else, or even a critic’s analysis of the work. These perceptions vary from individual to individual, from community to community, and from culture to culture. He thinks that one cannot perceive the raw, naked text, as he can only perceive it through some one else’s process of perception. Thus Holland claims that â€Å"if readers’ free responses to texts are collected they [will] have virtually nothing in common† (Newton, Interpreting Text 143). According to Holland the relation between the ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ is undifferentiated and can not be separated. For there is a ‘transactional’ process of interpretation where the roles of the reader and the text are intertwined, and the line dividing them blurs and dissolves. He thinks that readers should accept interpretation as a ‘transaction’ between the reader’s unique ‘identity’ and the text. Holland, however, does not want to take the side of the objective or that of the subjective, yet he is looking for a vanishing point between them, and wants to make both text and reader meet at an intersection of interpretation. David Bleich (1936-) is a Jewish critic, a son of a rabbi, a professor of Talmud, and a Subjectivist Reader Response critic. In Subjective Reader Response, the text is subordinated to the individual reader. The subject becomes the individual reader as he reacts to the text and reveals himself in the act of reading. For example, when a reader is addressed with a story of a father who ignores his child, then the intensity of that reader’s reaction may lay it his/her conflicted relation with his own father. Subjective criticism has been attacked as being too relativistic. Defenders of this approach point out that literature must work on a personal, emotional level to move us powerfully. David Bleich takes an approach differs from Holland’s. H is primary concern in his book Readings and Feelings is pedagogy rather than psychology. He thinks that â€Å"reading is a wholly subjective process†(Rabinowitz 86), and that the different or competing interpretation can be negotiated and settled. He examines the ways in which meanings or interpretations are constructed in a class room community, â€Å"with particular emphasis on the ways in which a group can negotiate among competing interpretations†(86). In Readings and Feelings, Bleich presents† a detailed account of his teaching techniques during a typical semester†(Berg 269). That’s why he is concerned with pedagogy and not psychology. He introduces himself to his class and discusses the way he wants his students to look at literature. The first preliminary sessions were designed to help students be acquainted with their subjective feelings, and how to depict them. Even the â€Å"idiosyncratic personal responses† of the students are accepted and discussed sympathetically. With the students Bleich plunges into different literary genres including poetry, short story, and novel. Yet before discussing these genres, â€Å"Bleich wants his students to be as personal as possible when they discuss poetry. He wants their affective responses, their free associations, any anecdotal material that occurs to them† (Berg 269). Bleich focuses on questions such as what is â€Å"the most important word, the most important passage, or the most important aspect of a story† (269). Thus, he believes that his students move from the personal to the interpersonal and then to the social. The cause of these movements is not â€Å"the change in genre†¦; but the tenor of the questions Bleich asks†(269) is what guides the movement. Shaffer says that â€Å"In Subjective Criticism (1978), Bleich assumes that ‘each person’s most urgent motivations are to understand himself’ and that all ‘objective’ interpretations are derived ultimately from subjective responses† (Shaffer 48). Like Norman Holland, Bleich focuses on the subconscious responses of the readers to the text, including his â€Å"emotional responses, our infantile, adolescent, or simply ‘gut’ responses† (Berg 268). According to Bleich the interpretation of texts or the personal responses to texts are in a way or another motivated. Namely; we are motivated by certain things to make a certain interpretation or response to a literary work in particular or a work of art in general. Our interpretations are a motivated activities, and â€Å"any act of interpretation, or meaning-conferring activity is motivated, and†¦it is important for us to understand the motives behind our interpretations†(270). Bleich suggests that only way to figure out and determine these motivations behind our interpretations of texts is to â€Å"took our subjective responses to texts †¦where each reader’s response receives the same respect†(270). A sheer desire to self-understanding and self-knowledge is what motivates us as readers. We interpret in order to gain â€Å"some kind of knowledge which will resolve some difficulty†, or we do it to â€Å"explain something that was puzzling us†(270). Bleich goes further and says that â€Å"if a certain set or school of interpretation prevails; it is not because it is closer to an objective truth about art†(Newton, Twentieth-Century 234). If a community of students agreed upon certain interpretation to a given text, then â€Å"the standard truth†¦can only devolve upon the community of students†(234). So, when students come up with a consensus reading of a certain text, and agree unanimously upon its interpretation, then their subjective feeling and values are the same. Thus the literary text â€Å"must come under the control of subjectivity; either an individual’s subjectivity or the collective subjectivity of a group†(233). The group comes up with a consensus after discussing their personal responses with each other and negotiates ideas and individual responses. This idea of negotiation that Bleich introduces helps the group weighs and discusses each one’s own responses â€Å"in order to come to a group decision†(Berg 271). Then Bleich says that† critics and their audiences assume interpretive knowledge to be†¦as objective as formulaic knowledge†(Newton 232). The assumption of the objectivity of a text is almost â€Å"a game played by critics (232). Critics know the fallacy of the objectivity of a text, and believe in critical pluralism, namely; allowing multiple interpretations of the same work. Bleich does not ignore or deny the objectivity of the text or a work of literature. But text is an object that is different from other objects as it is a ‘symbolic’ object. A text is not just a group o words written in ink on a sheet of paper. It, unlike other objects, has no function in its material existence. For example, an apple is an object that its existence does not depend on whether someone eats it or sees it, however, a text’s or a book’s existence â€Å"does depend on whether someone writes it and reads it† (Newton 233). The work of literature is a response to the author’s life experience, and the interpretation of the reader the response to his reading experience. The reader’s subjective interpretation creates an understanding to the text. Through this transaction between the reader and the text, I think we can come across with an understanding of literature and of people as well. This artistic transaction helps to blur and dissolve the dividing line between the subjective and objective. It is idle as Bleich found â€Å"to imagine that we can avoid the entanglements of subjective reactions and motives†(Newton, Twentieth-Century 235). As our motive in our subjective interpretations is our desire to self-knowledge and self-understanding, then the study of ourselves and the study of the literary work are ultimately a single enterprise. Though Holland and Bleich are Individualist Reader Response critics, they have different views in particular issues. Norman Holland thinks that in order to understand a student’s or a reader’s interpretation of a text he should examine his psyche and uncover his ‘identity theme’. Bleich takes a different position. He is concerned with pedagogy rather that psychology, therefore he examines the ways in which meanings are constructed, and how a group of readers could negotiate interpretations. Holland suggests that the reader’s role is intermingling with that of the text. The reader re-creates the text influenced by his/her subjective responses and introjects his/her fantasies on the literary work. Through this transaction with the text we re-create our identities, and our identity themes provide individual differences in interpretations, and the result is a wide array of interpretations that allow us to explore many responses. Bleich denies Holland’s ‘identity theme’. He thinks that interpretations are not an outcome of our differing identity themes, but they are a result of our motives, feelings, and preoccupations. Holland’s Delphi seminar helped students or readers know their selves and discover that each one of them can bring a personal style (identity) to reading. So, the issue of self-discovery or self-knowledge is agreed upon by Holland and Bleich as well, however their ways of achieving it differ. Holland does not side with either the subjective or the objective split, yet he is looking for a vanishing point between them. In his Dynamics he used to consider the text as an objective reality, or a raw material. Yet the role of the reader combines that of the text in a transactional process of reading and interpretation. Thus there is no fundamental division between the roles of both the reader and the text, they dovetail with each other. For Bleich, the text is a ‘symbolic object’ that has no function in its material existence. The existence of text depends on whether someone writes it or reads it. So, the existence of the text and the existence of the reader is interdependent. Holland holds the same view when he says that the existence of a mother constitutes the existence of a child and vice versa, also the existence of selves constitutes the existence of objects. Thereby, the dividing line between the objective and subjective blurs and dissolves. This constitutes that we cannot ignore the entanglements of subjective reactions and motives to the objective text or to be accurate, the text which is a ‘symbolic’ object. Both critics agree on the idea of the transactional process of reading, whether by Holland’s identity themes which help reader interpret the text and understand himself, or by Bleich’s desire to self-knowledge that motivates reader to interpret the text and understand it. Both apply a transaction that leads to an understanding and interpretation of a text along with the reader’s own self. This aim of gaining knowledge and this study of ourselves and of art are ultimately a single enterprise. I think that Holland does not agree that there could be a consensus interpretation which is agreed upon by a group of readers. He thinks that each reader has his own personality or identity theme, and thereby interpretations will be multiple and diverse. While Bleich’s idea of ‘negotiation’ among readers can lead to a unanimous decision about the meaning of the literary work. The negotiation among readers enable them to express their personal feelings freely and depict their responses without the fear of being rejected. For instance, in David Bleich’s class, there is a democracy. Each reader’s response receives the same respect, and there is no underestimation of their idiosyncrasies. This helped them develop from the personal to the interpersonal and then to the social. While in Holland’s view, there can be no unanimous interpretation of a given work of art. For each reader is influenced by his/her identity theme. Also, â€Å"Holland’s subjects report their responses in terms of ‘the clichà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s of the various subcultures and cultural discourses work to constitute the consciousness of American college students’†¦. [Holland concludes that not] the individuality of his students but†¦the way their ‘individuality’ is in fact a’ product’ of their cultural situation†(Rabinowitz 86). In conclusion, â€Å"Holland and Bleich did not [in a way or another] negotiate a consensus; rather, by some irritated leap, Holland becomes convinced of what Bleich had to tell him†(Berg 271). Works Cited Abrams, M.H. â€Å"Reader-Response Criticism.† Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th Ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993. Berg, Temma F. â€Å"Psychologies of Reading.† Tracing Literary Theory. Ed. Joseph Natoli. Urbana and Chicago: Illinois UP, 1987. 248-274. Holland, Norman N. â€Å"Reader-Response already is Cognitive Criticism.† Bridging the Gap. 8 Apr. 1995. Stanford University. 26 Dec. 2007 . —, â€Å"The Story of a Psychoanalytic Critic.† An Intellectual. 26 Dec. 2007 . Laga, Barry. â€Å"Reading with an Eye on Reading: An Introduction to Reader-Response.† Reader Response. 1999. 23 Dec. 2007 . Newton, K. M. â€Å"Reader Response Criticism.† Interpreting the Text: A Critical Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Literary Interpretation. Great Britain: Billing and Sons, 1990. 141-153. —, ed. â€Å"Norman Holland: Reading and Identity: A Psychoanalytic Revolution.† Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. London: Macmillan, 1989. 204-209. —, â€Å"David Bleich: The Subjective Character of The Critical Interpretation.† Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. London: Macmillan, 1989. 231-235. Rabinowitz, Peter J. â€Å"Whirl without End: Audience-Oriented Criticism.† Contemporary Literary Theory. Ed. G. Douglas Atkins and Laura Morrow. USA: Macmillan UP, 1989. 81-85. Shaffer, Lawrence. â€Å"Psychoanalytic Criticism.† Literary Criticism. 1sted. New Delhi: IVY Publishing House, 2001. 44-48.