Eleanor Marx :: Economist Writers Literature Essays

Eleanor Marx Eleanor Marx has not been remembered as an economist. Her life, though more so her death, has captured the imaginations and curiosities of novelists and biographers and her existence has been cast into the role of the â€Å"tragic socialist.† Yet, as the daughter of Karl Marx, she was a prominent writer and activist for socialist reform. She edited Marx’s unpublished texts after his death and contributed several articles of her own on economic topics. Similarly, in her daily interactions, she worked for social reform that was fundamentally economic in nature and associated with a wide range of feminist and socialist activists. Many of these people themselves have been classified, or perhaps reclassified in recent years, as economists themselves. Yet Eleanor has by and large been overlooked by historians and economists. She has been relegated to the role of tragic heroine at best and a curiosity at worst. This paper will argue that both in her written legacy and in the way she conducted her personal life, Eleanor Marx was first and foremost an economist. An Economist in Writing Eleanor Marx’s essay, â€Å"The Woman Question,† clearly delineates her role as an economist and her dedication to feminism at the same time. The text was written and published with her common law husband, Edward Aveling. As Kapp points out in her extensive biography, this text was the first of Eleanor’s writings â€Å"to bear the imprint of a commercial publisher† (Kapp II, 1972, 83). While Aveling certainly was involved in producing the final document, in Kapp’s analysis at least, the majority of the underlying argument was Eleanor’s (83). Thus, we can reasonably say that this document, framed as a review of Bebel’s Woman-Past, Present, and Future, is indicative of Eleanor’s intellectual processes. The text of â€Å"The Woman Question† is ardent in its defense of economics and women. For Eleanor, the only way to improve the status of women was to tie it to the class movement. â€Å"The question is one of economics. The position of women rests, as everything in our complex modern society rests, on an economic basis† (Marx 1886). With the phrase, â€Å"everything in our complex modern society,† Eleanor not only casts herself as an economist, but establishes that any venture, be it social or academic, is fundamentally economic in nature. Thus, once she establishes that feminism is inherently an economic issue, the connection between her father’s socialist theories and her own feminism becomes clear.

Illegal and Prescription Drug Abuse; How Do We Prevent It? Essay

Drug abuse is a psychological or physical dependency with a mind altering substance1. There is continued drug use even though a person knows that the drug causes harm. Physical dependency is the result of the body building up a tolerance to the drug and needing to increase its dosage to have the effect desired and to prevent symptoms of withdrawal. Psychological dependence has something to do with the mental and emotional make up of the person; some people may also have a genetically linked tendency to addiction. Early signs and symptoms of drug addiction involve building up of tolerance to the present dosage. Late signs of drug overuse may show mood swings and irritability, and physical symptoms like craving. Having the right knowledge about drug abuse can help people prevent addiction. The three types of widely abused prescription drugs are CNS depressants, CNS stimulants, and narcotic analgesics. CNS depressants like barbiturates, methaqualone and benzodiazepines can slow down the normal functioning of the brain and can cause uncoordination. CNS stimulants like nicotine, amphetamine, cocaine and caffeine on the other hand enhance the brain’s activity to increase energy and alertness. This may cause an increased heart rate and blood pressure. Narcotic analgesics like opiates (eg. Morphin and Demerol) are used for pain. On the year 2006, the abuse of painkillers ranked 2nd, while marijuana is the first, as the community’s most common illicit drug problem2. Most drugs being prescribed by doctors are opiate based and therefore can be very addictive. One drug called Oxycontin is a pain reliever that has a strong opiate base and causes people to be addicted to it. Other specific drugs that are widely abused are Heroin, Crack Cocaine and Marijuana. Normal college students have been noted to use drugs that are for patients with disorders. Many students take Adderall, a drug for individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which helps heighten their concentration for studying for an examination3. This imposes danger to many students using this and has caused death in about 5 people per 1 million individuals taking it. Even though some drugs can be addictive, there are drugs that can substitute for them 4. Dexamphetamine is shown to help with CNS stimulant addiction 5 and clomethiazole can help in managing alcohol addiction 6. For cocaine addiction, desipramine and bromocriptine is effective 7. A psychoactive drug that can interrupt addictive rersponses for nicotine, cocaine, SSRI, and heroin addicts that’s being studied is Ibogaine 8. There are many studied physiologic mechanisms involved in drug addiction. Acute use of a certain drug can release and prolong serotonin and dopamine’s action in the reward circuit. Almost all addictive drugs increase the reward circuit or mesolimbic pathway’s dopamine release which in turn activates the feeling of pleasure 9. The more one engages in a pleasurable act, the more one wants to repeat it. To add to the reward circuit, it is also studied that stress mechanisms may have a function in promoting the sequence of acquiring addiction.  µ-opioid receptor system, is acted on by enkephalin and influences the reward system 10. A behavioral operant conditioning is also showed in addicts, being able to link a behavior or an action to seek the reward, which is the drug’s effect 11. One enters into a fresh allostatic state as he progresses into being an addict. A person taking a drug for a long period of time may also develop sensitization and a psychological tolerance to the drug. Taking the same dose doesn’t seem to have any effect and leaves one feeling dissatisfied and depressed, therefore he turns to the drug for the pleasure with an increased or more than maximum dosage 7. One must know how to recognize a drug addiction to prevent it. This happens when an individual seems to have an inability to withdraw from the drug. The first step is to know the signs and symptoms experienced by an addict. The second step is evaluating the risk of being addicted as various kinds of drugs are further expected to be abused than others. In addition, having a family member with a history of drug addiction may put an individual at a higher risk of abusing medications. Consulting with a medical professional with this issue may lower the chances of becoming addicted. The third step involves religiously sticking to one’s prescription, taking only the prescribed amount at the recommended times. A person must contact his/her doctor if the drug doesn’t seem to have any effect. The fourth step is considering the drug type one is taking and the length of time he/she has been using the drug because using a drug for long terms may add to the possibility of being dependent on it. Step five is making a plan that will help one in gradually getting out of his/her prescription. Being prescribed with an addictive drug requires one to slowly reduce it’s dosage before eliminating it. The sixth step requires one to consult a medical professional once he feels that he may already be drug dependent. This is possible when one is experiencing the early signs and symptoms of addiction. The seventh step is disposing of drugs that aren’t needed. This can remove the tempting effects of taking the drug. Eighth is contacting a drug abuse treatment center or a doctor for specialized and professional advice and prevention. And lastly, take note of having the late signs of drug abuse. To break the series of constant drug use, individuals that are drug-dependent must build vital changes in their attitudes and life styles. Psychosocial and behavioral treatments are the foundation of services accessible to assist drug abusers to attain and carry on important periods of abstinence. The other illegal use of drugs, especially cocaine, is frequently a main target of behavioral managements. There are current studies for the treatment for cocaine and opiate, including tobacco smoke abusers. For the treatment of ones who abuse opiates, new studies have exposed that counseling for drug abuse with procedures of abstinence incentive and psychosocial services access is an active element in its treatment. 90 – 100% amongst patients in the VA methadone maintenance sample who received incentive procedures and psychosocial services were abstinent from cocaine and heroin for as long as eight weeks; merely 30% of individuals who received methadone with no other services were abstinent 12. Management is most important for cocaine abusers. It relies completely on psychosocial and behavioral therapies since there have been no successful medications revealed to date. Relapse prevention therapy however, which teaches abusers to distinguish high-risk situations for the use of drugs and to apply coping techniques, has also revealed assurance for management of cocaine abusers 12. For the treatment of tobacco smokers, studies show that nicotine replacement with gum or patch and behavioral therapy is the most effective. Moreover, smokers who have a history of depression experience a hard time with quitting 12. On the other hand, research efforts in this significant region have remained quite inactive in relation to the speed of studies on molecular and biological bases of medications development and drug dependence. Bibliography 1. Brittanica Concise Encyclopedia. 2. Pat Moore Foundation. Prescription Drug Abuse – As Addictive and Dangerous as Illegal Street Drugs. Get the Facts. Orange County, California. 3. Izzo, T. Social functioning and emotional regulation in the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder subtypes Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology. 2000;29: 30 – 42. 4. Johnson RE, Chutuape MA, Strain EC, Walsh SL, Stitzer ML, Bigelow GE. A comparison of levomethadyl acetate, buprenorphine, and methadone for opioid dependence. N. Engl. J. Med. 2000; 343: 1290–7. 5. White R. Dexamphetamine substitution in the treatment of amphetamine abuse: an initial investigation. Addiction. 2000; 95: 229–38. 6. Majumdar SK. Chlormethiazole: current status in the treatment of the acute ethanol withdrawal syndrome. Drug Alcohol Depend. 1991; 27: 201–7. 7. Giannini,AJ. and Billet, TA. Bromocriptine-desipramine protocol in cocaine detoxification. Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 1987; 27:549-554. 8. Alper KR, Lotsof HS, Kaplan CD. The ibogaine medical subculture. J Ethnopharmacol. 2008;115 : 9–24. 9. Nutt D, King LA, Saulsbury W, Blakemore C. Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse. Lance . 2007; 369 (9566): 1047–53. 10. Koob G, Kreek MJ. Stress, dysregulation of drug reward pathways, and the transition to drug dependence. Am J Psychiatry. 2007; 164 (8): 1149–59 11. Jones S, Bonci A. Synaptic plasticity and drug addiction. Curr Opin Pharmacol 2005; 5 (1): 20–5. 12. The College on Problems of Drug Abuse. â€Å"Behavioral & Psychosocial Treatments for Drug Abuse. 2007.

Outline and Evaluate Factors Influencing Eye Witness Testimony Essay

The term ‘eye witness testimony’ refers to an area of research into the accuracy of memory concerning significant events, it is legally considered to be a reliable account of events. However, research into eye witness testimony has found that it can be affected by many psychological factors such as, anxiety and stress, reconstructive memory, selective attention and leading questions. Anxiety and stress can be associated with many factors such as, violence and crime. Clifford and Scott (1978) found that participants who saw a film of a violent event remembered less of the information than a control group who saw a less stressful version. However, Yuile and Cutshall (1986) found that witnesses of a real event had accurate memories of what happened. The police interviewed witnesses and thirteen of them were interviewed five months later. Recall was found to be accurate, even after a long period of time. One weakness of this study was that the witnesses who experienced the highest levels of stress where actually present at the event, instead of watching second hand from a film, and this may have helped with the accuracy of their memory recall. Selective attention is when the witness is able to describe one detail, giving them less time to pay attention to other details. It can also be because the witness is more likely to focus on a detail with more emotional significance, such as a weapon. Loftus et al. (1987) showed participants a series of slides of a customer at a restaurant. In on version the customer was holding a gun, in the other the customer held a chequebook. Participants who had been shown the version with the gun present tended to focus on the gun itself and not much else. As a result they were less likely to identify the customer as appose to those who had seen the chequebook version. Bartlett (1932) showed that memory is not just a factual recording of what has occurred, but that we make â€Å"effort after meaning†. By this, Bartlett meant that we try to fit what we remember with what we really know and understand. As a result, we quite often change our memories so they become more sensible to us. He had participants play ‘Chinese Whispers’ and when asked to recall the detail of the story, each person seemed to tell it in their own individual way. With repeating telling, the passages became shorter, puzzling ideas were rationalised or forgotten altogether and details changed to become more familiar or conventional. For this research Bartlett concluded, â€Å"memory is not exact and is distorted by existing preconceptions. It seems, therefore, that each of us ‘reconstructs’ our memories to conform to our personal beliefs about the world. † This clearly indicates that our memories are anything but reliable records of events. They are individual recollections, which have been shaped and constructed according to our stereotypes, beliefs, expectations etc. Loftus and Palmer (1974) tested their hypothesis that the language used in eye witness testimony can alter and change memory. They aimed to show that leading questions could distort eye witness testimony accounts, as the account would become distorted by reminders provided in the question. To test this, they asked people to estimate the speed of motor vehicles using different forms of questions. Participants were shown slides of a car accident involving a number of cars and asked to describe what had happened as if they were eye witnesses. They were then asked specific questions, including the question â€Å"About how fast were the cars going when they (hit/smashed/collided/ bumped/contacted) each other? The estimated speed was affected by the verb used. The verb implied information about the speed, which affected the participants’ memory of the accident. Participants who were asked the â€Å"smashed† question thought the cars were going faster than those who were asked the â€Å"hit† question. When people were asked a week after viewing the film whether they saw any broken glass at the scene (there was none), people in the smashed group were more likely to say yes. Therefore, a leading question that encouraged them to remember the vehicles going faster also encouraged them to remember that they saw non-existent broken glass. This suggests that memory is easily distorted by questioning technique and information acquired after the event can merge with original memory causing inaccurate memory. The addition of false details to a memory of an event is referred to as confabulation. This has important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eye witnesses. In conclusion, eye witness testimony can be influenced by a number of factors, including, anxiety and stress, selective attention, reconstructive memory and leading questions. They all have a large effect on eye witness testimony and affected the results in many different ways.