Seeing Nature :: Natural Nature Marketing Essays

Seeing Nature In the economical market, competition is harsh. There are a myriad of companies that have one common purpose: to sell to the public their products, commoditites or services. Attracting the largest number of customers is their common goal. Advertisements are extensively used as a persuasive means of making their products appeal to a targeted population of consumers. Effective techniques are therefore employed in the creation of these advertisements. Such a technique, one might argue, is the use of nature, of a connection between the products and "natural" elements. These advertisements draw on our attitudes about nature, attitudes that are largely shaped by the history and culture we are a part of. Such an advertisement, in which nature is used to elicit feelings and past experiences within people that would lead them to desire to consume a specific product, is the Milano one. Through this advertisement, the Milano company wishes to sell wheel hubcaps for automobiles. In the picture, the shiny hubcap reflects a beautiful scenery of an Italian countryside. The reference domain includes the presentation of nature as beautiful, sunny, healthy, productive, comforting, relaxing, uplifting, clean, accessible to man, passive, and welcoming. The absent elements are pain, mud, clouds, wilderness, potential of harm, danger. The offer that is held out to the reader if they purchase the product is to be taken to a quiet, peaceful place in the countryside, away from the hectic urban life their company name (Milano) implies, a place where they can live in harmony with nature. The link between the reference domain and the offer is visible. The hubcap represents a "window" to nature, through w hich we can observe it and make contact with. The hubcap is the technological device that is able to accurately reflect nature, to blend in with it in a "homogenous" way, without disturbing or destroying it. Man and nature coexist harmoniously. The ad implies that people do not need to conquer nature, but instead, they should allow technology - the hubcap - to take them to nature and submerge them within it. Therefore, this technological device represents the bridge between nature and man, a way through which man can reach nature. Because man is not perceived as required to conquer nature, this ad expresses a biocentric view in which nature is romanticized and admired just for what it is and for how it can make us feel. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson share this view in their writings, and they believe that nature exists "in and for itself".

Comparison Essay

Schools of Thought Comparison By: Amanda Szyszkowski There are three main types of schools of thought that are noted in the field of philosophy. The three schools are continental, pragmatic, and analytic philosophies. We are going to take a look at all three of theses and compare them, and see which one most appeals to me and why. The first school is continental philosophy. Continental philosophy is a general term that is associated with the philosophical views that originated on the continental England in the 20th century (dictionary. om staff, 2012). It contains many theories such as critical theory, deconstruction, existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and structuralism (dictionary. com staff, 2012). The two schools of thought linked to continental that are the most important are existentailism and phenomenology (Moore & Bruder, 2011). The most influencial philosophers related to continental philosophy are Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre (Moore & Bruder, 2011).Some th emes of existentailism are traditional and academic philosophies are sterile from the concerns of real life, the world is irrational, and the world is absurd in the sense that there are not explanations that can be given for the way that it is. The above are not all the themes for this school of thought but there are the most compelling (Moore & Bruder, 2011). The second type philosophy is known is pragmatic. Pragmatic philosophy is a type of philosophy that rejects the idea that there is a such a thing as absolute truth (Moore & Bruder, 2011).Instead in this philosophy they think the truth is realtive to time, place, purpose, and is ever changing in the light of new data (Moore & Bruder, 2011). Pragmatism roots primarily are located in the United States. It is also know as American pragmatism. The main school of thought for pragmatism is that there is no absolute or fixed truth. The founding fathers of this type of philosophy are C. S. Pierce and William James. James however would not take the credit for the invention of pragmatism that starting in philosophy clubs that the two men set up. He gives all the credit to Pierce.The final type of philosophy that I am going to cover is analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy is the learning through experience. The mind of a person catorgorizes experiences. The main school of though for analytic philosophy is that the only thing that we know for certain is that we learn through experience (Moore & Bruder, 2011). Analytic philosophy has ties to both England and America, but it is mostly is used in America. The main philosopher for this type of philosophy is Russell. Russell and his wife set up many schools in England and America that proposed a new way of learning philosophy (Moore & Bruder, 2011).All three types of philosophy have strong and valid points and strong ideals. Which one do you think is the strongest one? References 1. Dictionary. com Staff. (2012) â€Å"Continental Philosophy† retrieved from http ://dictionary. reference. com/browse/continental-philosophy on September 2, 2012. 2. Moore, B. N. , & Bruder, K. (2011)  Philosophy: The Power Of Ideas. (8th  ed. ). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. 3. Farlex. (2012) â€Å"Pragmaticism† retrieved from http://www. thefreedictionary. com/pragmatism on September 2, 2012. 4.

Your Study Guide to Italo Calvinos Invisible Cities

Published in Italian in 1972, Italo Calvinos Invisible Cities consists of a sequence of imaginary dialogues between the Venetian traveler Marco Polo and the Tartar emperor Kublai Khan. In the course of these discussions, the young Polo describes a series of metropolises, each of which bears a womans name, and each of which is radically different from all the others (and from any real-world city). The descriptions of these cities are arranged in eleven groups in Calvinos text: Cities and Memory, Cities and Desire, Cities and Signs, Thin Cities, Trading Cities, Cities and Eyes, Cities and Names, Cities and the Dead, Cities and the Sky, Continuous Cities, and Hidden Cities. Although Calvino uses historical personages for his main characters, this dreamlike novel does not really belong to the historical fiction genre. And even though some of the cities that Polo evokes for the aging Kublai are futuristic communities or physical impossibilities, it is equally difficult to argue that Invisible Cities is a typical work of fantasy, science fiction, or even magical realism. Calvino scholar Peter Washington maintains that Invisible Cities is impossible to classify in formal terms. But the novel can be loosely described as an exploration—sometimes playful, sometimes melancholy—of the powers of the imagination, of the fate of human culture, and of the elusive nature of storytelling itself. As Kublai speculates, perhaps this dialogue of ours is taking place between two beggars named Kublai Khan and Marco Polo; as they sift through a rubbish heap, piling up rusted flotsam, scraps of cloth, wastepaper, while drunk on the few sips of bad wine, they see all the treasure of the East shine around them (104). Italo Calvino’s Life and Work Italian author Italo Calvino (1923–1985) began his career as a writer of realistic stories, then developed an elaborate and intentionally disorienting manner of writing that borrows from canonical Western literature, from folklore, and from popular modern forms such as mystery novels and comic strips. His taste for confusing variety is very much in evidence in Invisible Cities, where 13th-century explorer Marco Polo describes skyscrapers, airports, and other technological developments from the modern era. But it is also possible that Calvino is mixing historical details in order to comment indirectly on 20th-century social and economic issues. Polo, at one point, recalls a city where household goods are replaced on a daily basis by newer models, where street cleaners â€Å"are welcomed like angels,† and where mountains of garbage can be seen on the horizon (114–116). In another tale, Polo tells Kublai of a city that was once peaceful, spacious, and rustic, only t o become nightmarishly overpopulated in a matter of years (146–147). Marco Polo and Kublai Khan The real, historical Marco Polo (1254–1324) was an Italian explorer who spent 17 years in China and established friendly relations with Kublai Khan’s court. Polo documented his travels in his book Il milione (literally translated The Million, but usually referred to as The Travels of Marco Polo), and his accounts became immensely popular in Renaissance Italy. Kublai Khan (1215–1294) was a Mongolian general who brought China under his rule, and also controlled regions of Russia and the Middle East. Readers of English may also be familiar with the much-anthologized poem â€Å"Kubla Khan† by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834). Like Invisible Cities, Coleridge’s piece has little to say about Kublai as a historical personage and is more interested in presenting Kublai as a character who represents immense influence, immense wealth, and underlying vulnerability. Self-Reflexive Fiction   Invisible Cities is not the only narrative from the middle of the 20th century that serves as an investigation of storytelling. Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) created short fictions that feature imaginary books, imaginary libraries, and imaginary literary critics. Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) composed a series of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable) about characters who agonize over the best ways to write their life stories. And John Barth (born 1930) combined parodies of standard writing techniques with reflections on artistic inspiration in his career-defining short story â€Å"Lost in the Funhouse.† Invisible Cities does not refer directly to these works the way it refers directly to Thomas More’s Utopia or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But the work no longer seems outlandishly offbeat or totally baffling when considered in this wider, international context of self-conscious writing. Form and Organization   Although each of the cities that Marco Polo describes appears to be distinct from all the others, Polo makes a surprising declaration halfway through Invisible Cities (page 86 out of 167 pages total). â€Å"Every time I describe a city,† remarks Polo to the inquisitive Kublai, â€Å"I am saying something about Venice.† The placement of this information indicates just how far Calvino is departing from standard methods of writing a novel. Many classics of Western literature—from Jane Austen’s novels to the short stories of James Joyce, to works of detective fiction—build up to dramatic discoveries or confrontations that only take place in the final sections. Calvino, in contrast, has situated a stunning explanation in the dead center of his novel. He has not abandoned traditional literary conventions of conflict and surprise, but he has found nontraditional uses for them. Moreover, while it is difficult to locate an overall pattern of escalating conflict, climax, and resolution in Invisible Cities, the book does have a clear organizational scheme. And here, too, there is a sense of a central dividing line. Polo’s accounts of different cities are arranged in nine separate sections in the following, roughly symmetrical fashion: Section 1 (10 accounts) Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (5 accounts) Section 9 (10 accounts) Often, a principle of symmetry or duplication is responsible for the layouts of the cities Polo tells Kublai about. At one point, Polo describes a city built over a reflecting lake, so that every action of the inhabitants â€Å"is, at once, that action and its mirror image† (53). Elsewhere, he talks about a city â€Å"built so artfully that its every street follows a planet’s orbit, and the buildings and the places of community life repeat the order of the constellations and the position of the most luminous stars† (150). Forms of Communication Calvino provides some very specific information about the strategies that Marco Polo and Kublai use to communicate with each other. Before he learned Kublai’s language, Marco Polo â€Å"could express himself only by drawing objects from his baggage—drums, salt fish, necklaces of wart hogs’ teeth—and pointing to them with gestures, leaps, cries of wonder or of horror, imitating the bay of the jackal, the hoot of the owl† (38). Even after they have become fluent in one another’s languages, Marco and Kublai find communication based on gestures and objects immensely satisfying. Yet the two characters’ different backgrounds, different experiences, and different habits of interpreting the world naturally make perfect understanding impossible. According to Marco Polo, â€Å"it is not the voice that commands the story; it is the ear† (135). Culture, Civilization, History Invisible Cities frequently calls attention to the destructive effects of time and the uncertainty of humanity’s future. Kublai has reached an age of thoughtfulness and disillusionment, which Calvino describes thus: â€Å"It is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption’s gangrene has spread too far to be healed by our scepter, that the triumph over enemy sovereigns has made us the heirs of their long undoing† (5). Several of Polo’s cities are alienating, lonely places, and some of them feature catacombs, huge cemeteries, and other sites devoted to the dead. But Invisible Cities is not an entirely bleak work. As Polo remarks about one of the most miserable of his cities: â€Å"There runs an invisible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence† (149). A Few Discussion Questions: How do Kublai Khan and Marco Polo differ from the characters you have encountered in other novels? What new information about their lives, their motives, and their desires would Calvino have to provide if he were writing a more traditional narrative?What are some sections of the text that you can understand much better when you take into consideration the background material on Calvino, Marco Polo, and Kublai Khan? Is there anything that historical and artistic contexts cannot clarify?Despite Peter Washington’s assertion, can you think of a concise way of classifying the form or genre of Invisible Cities?What kind of a view of human nature does the book Invisible Cities seem to endorse? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Divided? Or totally unclear? You might want to return to some of the passages about the fate of civilization when thinking about this question. Source Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Translated by William Weaver, Harcourt, Inc., 1974.