The idea of suffering as a' call to the Other' Assignment

The idea of suffering as a' call to the Other' - Assignment Example That year Eric Cassel published a paper on suffering based on his experience as MD. This work that first appeared in New England Journal of Medicine launched a new direction in discussing suffering in healthcare setting. Lots of representatives of other disciplines used Cassel’s understanding of suffering in their publications to draw attention to the fact that suffering is not related just to physical injury or some disease, but relates to human suffering as well (Cassel, 1991). The core idea of Cassel’s perception of suffering is that the latter is â€Å"experienced by persons, not merely by bodies, and has its source in challenges that threaten the intactness of a person as a complex social and psychologic entity† (Cassel, 1982, p. 639). Moreover, the author expresses the view that suffering can include pain, yet is not restricted to it. Importantly, he asserts that to relieve human suffering is the obligation of the medical care. Cassel’s comparisons a nd studies in the area of pain and human suffering, as well as his thoughts on meaning are compatible with the themes of nursing and medical care explored in history. However, in practice one can find that despite their historic meaning, both medicine and nursing often fail to carry out this important duty within modern healthcare. Instead, they have become over technical and depersonalized. To our exploration of suffering as a Call to the Other, Cassel’s study of the illness and its meaning seems specifically relevant since it can be well applied to the nursing practice. Cassel thinks of personal meaning as a basic and principal dimension of what we know as personhood. To add, Cassel provides explanation of the importance of recognition of personal meaning. In particular, the researcher states that this recognition is crucial in understanding people’s illnesses and sufferings. Finally, Cassel rebukes current medicine for its ignorance of person’s spirit that dr ives human life, or in other words for its failure to include the transcendent dimension. ORIGINS OF SUFFERING In his study â€Å"Medicine and Human Suffering†, Professor Hiram Caton asserts that the origin of suffering within humans is their anxiety of death. He writes, â€Å"The fundamental human suffering is knowledge of mortality† (Caton, 1998). However, the vision of origins of suffering is far more complex. Suffering is classified as physical and psychological. For instance, Tudor speaks of physical, psychological suffering, and affliction. Recognizing the existing dichotomy between mind and body, Tudor defines physical suffering as â€Å"suffering felt as physical pain† and psychological suffering as â€Å"suffering felt as psychological pain† (Tudor, 2001: 23). In relation to psychological suffering, the term of affliction has been successfully developed by Weil. In his interpretation, suffering is perceived as affliction and it involves a combina tion of psychological distress, pain felt physically, and some social elements. In addition, psychological suffering is also known as ‘sorrow’, which seems to be unable to accurately reflect such states as distress, despair, anguish, shock, etc (Wyschgorod, 1990: 34). Psychological and physical suffering differ not just in the nature of pain that the Other experiences, but in terms of expressibility as well. On the basis of careful observation, Scarry has come to the conclusion that Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing

Environmental Sustainability Master Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Environmental Sustainability Master - Essay Example There are 76 data sets integrated to fully assess the likelihood of a certain country to preserve effectively its environmental resources. These data sets include tracking natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, environmental management efforts, and its capacity to improve its environmental performance. The broad range of environmental issues being faced by each country falls into five categories: environmental systems, reducing environmental stresses, reducing human vulnerability to environmental stresses, societal and institutional capacity to respond to environmental challenges, and global stewardship. Despite of the continuous urbanization process in most countries, Ireland is maintaining its rural character. An evident decline in the rural population was observed in 1901 when the rural population fell from 72 to 43 percent. Surprisingly, the country experienced a boom in rural population growth in 1981 and 1996. This rural growth is characterized by isolated houses in the countryside or cluster of houses outside towns and villages. The expected reason for such phenomena is the obvious importance of agriculture to the livelihood of the people. However, this is not the case. The observed rural settlement growth took place at a time of stagnating agricultural economy and a turn down in agricultural employment. Studies were able to establish that there is a strong relationship between changes in rural settlement and the trends in car ownership. There was a 140 percent increase in car ownership in Ireland between 1970 and 1994. Presently, the country is experiencing 5 percent annual growth in car ownership. Due to this, people are more capable to choose residence in one place and be employed in another; they become the so called commuters. (McGrath) The growth of rural settlements and the increase in the working population whose residences are situated in a place far from work, give way to the issue of car dependency. The majority of the rural population being car dependent contributes to certain environmental problems whose scopes are wider and whose effects transcends beyond the communities of the involved people. The issue of motor car dependency, therefore, is being linked as the main reason to more serious environmental issues. The motor car is tagged as environmentally unsustainable and less efficient mode of everyday transport. A car consumes twice much energy as a train and five times greater than a bus. Aside from this, it is a main contributor to air pollution, a problem which is of great global concern nowadays. A motor car's carbon dioxide emission, measured as grams per passenger kilometer, is 50 percent higher than a train and four times higher when the bus is the mode of transportation. The bottom line, Ireland, its people being dependent on private cars for personal travels is relatively unsustainable on transport related environmental grounds because of the per capita levels of energy consumptions and vehicle emissions (McGrath). Such is the main findings of the Dublin study. Luckily, the current state of our Science and Technology is far advanced from what we can and what we have in the past. Right now, innovations and discoveries are becoming a usual part in this fast-pace world. Ireland's mod e of transportation has a lot of potential of being modified and improved so as to avoid the further risk of subjecting