American Heros in Tom Wolfes The Right Stuff Essay examples -- Righ

American Heros in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff depicts the lives of some of America's hottest pilots and its first astronauts. These men include Pete Conrad, Chuck Yeager, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Shirra, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter and Deke Sleyton. Some of these men were hotshot test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base, and some flew cargo planes. Some had impeccable service records, while others hadn't flown in a real dog fight for even a second. Despite these differences in backgrounds and credentials, Tom Wolfe turns each of these nine men into a separate and individualized hero. Chuck Yeager and John Glenn are probably the most memorable of the nine pilots in The Right Stuff. Chuck Yeager was a hillbilly from West Virginia, who by the age of 22 had 13 1/2 "kills" in World War II. Yeager made a name for himself by being the first man to reach Mach 1, the speed of sound. John Glenn was an all-American Marine pilot. Glenn was a religious family man who was ready to do anything he could for his country. He became the poster boy for America's Mercury Project. Yeager and Glenn are two fine examples of American heroes of the 1950's and 1960's. In The Right Stuff, Wolfe presents these men in such a way that the excitement they started is rekindled. Wolfe uses many tools in his recreation of these real-life heroes, including entertaining anecdotes, the characters' own words and thoughts, and the opinions of others. In several instances, Wolfe uses anecdotes to reveal parts of a character's personality or to show his influence upon others. One example of this occurs when Wolfe mentions that the voices of airline pilots are modeled after the voice of Chuck Yeager. Wo... ...nks to himself, "What the hell was he talking about. I don't think any of us could really go on with something like this...What possible difference could a wife's attitude make about the opportunity for a giant step up the great ziggurat" (95). This thought again shows the other six astronauts' perception of Glenn as an outsider. He didn't follow the rules of those who had the right stuff; he was stealing the show and directing the attention away from them. Tom Wolfe is a master of recreating the people and events of the Mercury Project. In The Right Stuff he brings out all the excitement that each astronaut produced during the era. He uses anecdotes, the characters's own words, and the opinions of others to separate the characters and present each as an individual hero. Works Cited: Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979.

Preamble: United States Constitution Essay

The Preamble was placed in the Constitution more or less as an afterthought. It was not proposed or discussed on the floor of the Constitutional Convention. Rather, Gouverneur Morris, a delegate from Pennsylvania who as a member of the Committee of Style actually drafted the near-final text of the Constitution, composed it at the last moment. It was Morris who gave the considered purposes of the Constitution coherent shape, and the Preamble was the capstone of his expository gift. The Preamble did not, in itself, have any substantive legal meaning. The understanding at the time was that preambles are merely declaratory and are not to be read as granting or limiting power—a view sustained by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905). Nevertheless, the Preamble has considerable potency by virtue of its specification of the purposes for which the Constitution exists. It distills the underlying values that moved the Framers during their long debates in Philadelphia. As Justice Joseph Story put it in his celebrated Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, â€Å"its true office is to expound the nature and extent and application of the powers actually conferred by the Constitution.† Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist No. 84, went so far as to assert that the words â€Å"secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity† were â€Å"a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms, which make the principal figure in several of our state bills of rights.† An appreciation of the Preamble begins with a comparison of it to its counterpart in the compact the Constitution replaced, the Articles of Confederation. There, the states joined in â€Å"a firm league of friendship, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare† and bound themselves to assist one another â€Å"against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.† The agreement was among states, not people, and the military protection and the liberties to be secured were of the states as such. The very opening words of the Constitution mark a radical departure: â€Å"We the People of the United States.† That language was at striking variance with the norm, for in earlier documents, including the 1778 treaty of alliance with France, the Articles of Confederation, and the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognizing American independence, the word â€Å"People† was not used, and the phrase â€Å"the United States† was followed immediately by a listing of the states (â€Å"viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,† and so on down to Georgia). The new phraseology was necessary, given the circumstances. The Constitutional Convention had provided that whenever the popularly elected ratifying conventions of nine states approved the Constitution, it would go into effect for those nine, irrespective of whether any of the remaining states ratified. In as much as no one could know which states would and which would not ratify, the Convention could not list all thirteen. Moreover, names could scarcely be added to the Preamble retroactively as they were admitted. Even so, the phrase set off howls of protest from a number of opponents of ratification, notably Patrick Henry. Henry charged that the failure to follow the usual form indicated an intention to create a â€Å"consolidated† national government instead of the system that James Madison described in The Federalist No. 39 as being â€Å"neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.† Henry’s assertion was made in the Virginia ratifying convention and was promptly and devastatingly rebutted by Governor Edmund Randolph: â€Å"The government is for the people; and the misfortune was, that the people had no agency in the government before†¦.If the government is to be binding on the people, are not the people the proper persons to examine its merits or defects?†

Property Dualism - 1389 Words

This essay assesses property dualism, a theory of mind. It proclaims the existence of a single, physical substance (unlike Cartesian dualism), but argues that this single substance has two potential properties: physical and mental states that are not reducible. The idea that mental states are non-reducible properties of brain states is the central tenant of a theory of mind called property dualism. However, before we can assess the theory we must be aware that the question assumes the existence of mental states and as such we cannot answer this question from some perspectives (e.g. eliminative materialism) Property dualism proclaims the existence of a single, physical substance (unlike Cartesian dualism), but argues that this single†¦show more content†¦A more damaging attack is to question whether property dualism does indeed solve the problem of location associated with substance dualism. Just because mental properties supervene physical properties does not explain where they are, just how they interact with physical properties. Furthermore if mental states are properties of physical matter in the same way that physical states are, then how is it so that we can scientifically measure physical properties, but not the mental sates that they give rise to? It seems highly problematic for property dualism to claim that there are facts that cannot be measured scientifically; and this issue also renders the theory unfalsifiable. To continue this thread, what is different between physical properties in my brain that supposedly give rise to mental states and the physical properties in my washing machine that apparently do not? In response to this issue, complexity has been invoked as this can give rise to emergent properties. However, if complexity is used as differentiating property between systems with and without mental states, can we not point to other systems with complexity rivalling that of the human mind and ask if they experience mental states? Maybe the internet experiences mental states, or weather systems? In addition we must be entitled to ask at what point a biological system becomes sufficiently complex to experience mental states. Would this make aShow MoreRelatedDualism And Dualism970 Words   |  4 Pagesbe making my own argument for a dualist and supply the physicalist response to the argument and its validity. Understanding the difference between dualism and physicalism is beneficial to the mind and body problem. Descartes was a substance dualist. He believed that there were two kinds of substance: matter and mind. The broad definition of dualism is a view in which the body and mind are completely separate entities constructed with different kinds of things. The mind is made of an immaterial substanceRead MoreEssay The Mind-Brain Problem Concerning Dualism and Materialism830 Words   |  4 PagesMind-Brain Problem Concerning Dualism and Materialism I am faced with the philosophical task of defending either dualism or materialism, depending on which one is most attractive to me. So either I support the theory of dualism, which is the belief that there is both a physical and a spiritual state, or I believe in materialism, which is the belief that everything that exists is material or physical. Although I believe materialism to be easier to prove, I find dualism more attractive to believeRead MoreDualism And Belief That The Mind And Brain Essay1201 Words   |  5 PagesMoreland in his argument for dualism, he states that humans are composed of both an immaterial substance and a physical substance. Moreland notes that there are contrasting differences between the minds and the brains and that they are ultimately separate entities. By defending dualism, Moreland seeks to make nonbelievers believe in immaterial souls, while discrediting materialism. We can look at the arguments in which Moreland uses to support the argument of d ualism and belief that the mind andRead MoreArgument of Dualism1036 Words   |  5 PagesArguments of Dualism Dualism is the theory that mind and matter are two distinct things. The main argument for dualism is that facts about the objective external world of particles and fields of force, as revealed by modern physical science, are not facts about how things appear from any particular point of view, whereas facts about subjective experience are precisely about how things are from the point of view of individual conscious subjects. They have to be described in the first person asRead MoreDescartes Teachings On Dualism977 Words   |  4 Pages To understand how the dualist commits a category mistake, one must first understand Descartes’ teachings on dualism from the Meditations on First Philosophy. Firstly, Descartes sees the mind as an immaterial, non-physical soul. He believes that his thoughts can be altered but he can never be tricked into the thinking that he is thinking when he is not. While he has complete faith in the existence of his mind, he doubts the existence of his body and the existence of other people s minds. The reasonRead MoreRelationship Between Mind And The Brain1270 Words   |  6 Pagescentury. The mind-body problem contains a variety of approaches that normally fall under dualism or monism. The dualist maintains a distinct separation between the mind and body. The two main forms of dualism are property dualism and substance dualism. 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By assuming that, Plato comes to the conclusion that souls are immortal, but if the soul does not exist, how would immortality happen? Plato puts forward no theory for if there is no such thing as a soul. Dualism is also put forward by Descartes who said that the mind and body are totally separate entities and that human life is a â€Å"union of a mind and a physical body, which are causally interconnected† (Zelinski â€Å"Cartesian†). Descartes made this claim withRead MoreThe Strengths and Weaknesses of Dualism4580 Words   |  19 PagesDualism is the belief that reality consists of two different, separate substances: that of the mental a nd that of the physical. In philosophy of mind, the belief that the mental and physical are deeply different in kind: thus the mental is at least not identical with the physical. It directly opposes materialism, as dualism dictates that the mind is unidentifiable to the body, as opposed to stating that the mind and body exist as one. The concept of dualism is not only fundamental in philosophyRead MoreDualism: Concerns and Issues Essay2086 Words   |  9 Pages Dualism is a broad term that can encompass many areas within philosophy itself. In aspect to metaphysics, it classifies the types of entities in the world into two subcategories, physical and non physical substance. While this may appear to be a very wide and ambiguous opinion, it becomes very specific in regards to our own existence. Paul Churchland puts it very explicitly in his book Matter and Consciousness, and defines dualism as the idea that, â€Å"the essential nature of conscious