Music Pros and Cons Essay Example For Students

Music : Pros and Cons Essay Many issues lie conceding todays music. Parents complain about song lyrics and the message the song sends out to the youngsters of Americas society. Parents try to stop rappers like Mine, Jay-Z, and Jaw Rule from corrupting the minds of children. They say its gives them (children) ideas about drugs and crimes being that they are seeing there idols on TV rap about it. But on question I ask myself is are the parents right or are the rappers rapping the truth. I believe that it is the parents responsibility to kook after their children to guide them and to stay on top of what they are doing no matter what. Rappers like Mine have stated this. In Imines song I am he says they blame it on Marylyn and the heroin, but where were the parents. I believe he is correct in everyday. I believe that the parents are getting upset due to the fact that because they are not doing there Job which is raising kids the TV is doing it for them. Other rappers such as the former Tuba Shaker always spoke the harsh truth about life and the future. Because of this parents became alarmed that their children would grow up to deal drugs and perform illegal operations, Just because a rapper finally expressed how hard life is. If a parent does not want their children to listen to rap music then they should watch them and take responsibility for them instead of blaming it on someone else. Maybe Just maybe when the parents start to do that all the shoot outs in school will stop and the truth wont have to come out. Music : Pros and Cons By Expressway Contributor

Rap Music’s Negative Influence on Society Essay Example

Rap Music’s Negative Influence on Society Essay Rap music have elicited an overindulgence of sexism, substance abuse, violence, suicides that are of exceptional concern in the society posing unparalleled threats to the well-being of mostly the adolescents.Music plays a fundamental element in a society’s edification as well as development of a certain culture. Each member of a society gains familiarity from what they see and hear. Beforehand, what we see and hear has extremely used words, music along with fast-paced animation to achieve learning. Everyone knows concerning the filth in film theatres, radio, porn shops, television, and in magazine racks. Several of the utmost unpleasant and even harmful substances, however, are in music that we listen to. Countless parents are poorly knowledgeable of what rap stars, in particular, are showing to children. Rap music is a problem that has besieged the society from the time it was conceived and eventually some shows exemplify vicious acts that diverse viewers and listeners believ e inappropriate for the society predominantly the youth.Nowadays, violent behaviours in rap music are a predicament in the society. I deem that the rap music promotes sadism and the effects are being inconsiderate and thus widespread. The characters exposed to rap music are commonly children and youth; certainly they are susceptible to imitate what they perceive as well as those that are told by other people. Children who view and hear rap music in which violence is extremely pragmatic, habitually repetitive or with impunity are expected to mimic the lyrics and even the attiude of the rappers. Children with behavioural, emotional, impulse or learning control problems may be more simply influenced by music violence. The impact of music violence, especially in rap music may be directly evident in the behaviour of the child or may float up years later, and the youth can even be affected when the family ambiance shows no propensity toward violence.Ever since the 1980s, rap music has b een characterized to be Anti-Christ-like in our civilization. People make use of bad language in rap music that is why people, particularly the youth, resort to violent crimes. Actually, rap music is characterized as a fashion of pop music comprising improvised rhythms and lyrics performed to a musical auxiliary.Over the years, it has become a mainstream in the music industry. Everybody is listening to it. Most of the content of the lyrics are about crime, street violence and killing. More and more people started rapping about killing people and police brutality with that crime rose to high levels. There are some who took the most disparagement from the public.Dr. Dre was one, who was rapping about drive bys, alcohols, sex with women, and so on. Along with him, he helped out a rising star named Snoop Doggy Dog to be converted into a big star. Snoop released Doggy Style and it was a hit. Snoop was eventually indicted for murder but soon he was found to be above suspicion.   Another is Tupac Shakur. Many say he was the best rapper and the most triumphant. Tupac was in trouble with the community he was in since his foremost album even until now behind his death. He was detained for copious charges such as attempted murder, battery, and rape. In 1994 two 17-year-old youngsters shot some police officers and said they did it for they heard it in Tupacs music.I will not say that some youth would not listen to some rap music and get the incorrect idea, but that also can happen with other kinds of music such as Alternative music. Several groups and bands are well-known for unequivocal music and lyrics but they don’t place much authority in trying to forbid their music. Lots of questions occurred trying to take up for rap music. Does it promote violence? The most frequent answer was yes, and the murder of Tupac Shakur and Notoruis B.I.G. proves it. It would be the truth. You do not ever hear about how LL COOL J created a camp for youth in Brooklyn, or how Puff Daddy contributed ten million dollars to Biggies children.Rap stars are advocating death deviance and abhorrence to the youth, and those youth are responding. The point must be that the recording industry cannot implement privileges without accommodating responsibility, and that parents have a right to identify what is in the music their children may desire to listen to (Dominick, 2005). The industry wants uninformed parents so it can make big money from promoting and selling filthy rap music; the existing administration should not consent to this circumstances to carry on. By any measure, these aspects of popular culture have an enormous effect on moulding and shaping the imaginations of the youth. Yet for some who learn the situation in times of calmness as well as crisis, the predictable parry and thrust media defenders and critics that follow the most recent tragedy frequently raises all the incorrect questions.Without a doubt, something must be done. Most parents are anxious ab out what their young children hear and see, but as children mature, parents give a smaller amount of attention to the videos and music that hold their childrens interest. Sharing experiences about music involving generations within a family can be an amiable occurrence. Music is a major part of a youths separate world. It is fairly ordinary for teenagers to get enjoyment from keeping adults out and causing adults some misery. A concern for many involved in the improvement and expansion of teenagers is the pessimistic and disparaging themes of some various kinds of music, including best-selling albums endorsed by major recording companies.Music lyrics have gone through dramatic changes since the beginning of rap music many years ago. This is an issue of very important interest and concern for parents.   Within the past four decades, rap music lyrics have turn out to be gradually more explicit-predominantly regarding drugs, sex, and violence.Formats in the rap music video are fashio nable among adolescents and children. When the lyrics of any particular song are illustrated in music videos, their potential impact is exaggerated. Teenagers who may perhaps not hear or even understand raps lyrics cannot keep away from the frequently disturbing imagery that distinguish a growing number of videos.The one truth that every one can have the same opinion on is that rap music today contain volumes of graphic lyrics about, or even promoting, suicide, robbery, murder, rape, violence against woman, violence against parents, violence against society, and violence against anyone.Rap music has further superior effects of their message by adding the visual impact of violence and sexually indicative images. The multi-sensory key from rap music videos not only intensifies the entertainment effect of the music, but also underpins the message, distinctively enhancing knowledge.Music is not typically a danger for youth whose lives are contented and vigorous. But if a teenager is tir elessly lost in thought with music that has dangerously negative themes, and there are transformations in behaviour such as loneliness, gloominess, alcohol or other drug abuse, a psychiatric assessment must be considered.   The dispute at this time, relating to rap music and violence has transformed into such a fiery issue wherein a crowd attributes culpability for the crisis to other innocent people. Youth violence will not be critically condensed without violence in other characteristics of our culture being addressed. In the same element, transforming rap music alone will not have much consequence but to pay no attention to it will make efforts on other fronts less flourishing.

Kantian Philosophy Of Morality Essays - Kantianism, Free Essays

Kantian Philosophy Of Morality Essays - Kantianism, Free Essays Kantian Philosophy of Morality Kantian philosophy outlines the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative as a method for determining morality of actions. This formula is a two part test. First, one creates a maxim and considers whether the maxim could be a universal law for all rational beings. Second, one determines whether rational beings would will it to be a universal law. Once it is clear that the maxim passes both prongs of the test, there are no exceptions. As a paramedic faced with a distraught widow who asks whether her late husband suffered in his accidental death, you must decide which maxim to create and based on the test which action to perform. The maxim "when answering a widow's inquiry as to the nature and duration of her late husbands death, one should always tell the truth regarding the nature of her late husband's death" (M1) passes both parts of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative. Consequently, according to Kant, M1 is a moral action. The initial stage of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative requires that a maxim be universally applicable to all rational beings. M1 succeeds in passing the first stage. We can easily imagine a world in which paramedics always answer widows truthfully when queried. Therefore, this maxim is logical and everyone can abide by it without causing a logical impossibility. The next logical step is to apply the second stage of the test. The second requirement is that a rational being would will this maxim to become a universal law. In testing this part, you must decide whether in every case, a rational being would believe that the morally correct action is to tell the truth. First, it is clear that the widow expects to know the truth. A lie would only serve to spare her feelings if she believed it to be the truth. Therefore, even people who would consider lying to her, must concede that the correct and expected action is to tell the truth. By asking she has already decided, good or bad, that she must know the truth. What if telling the truth brings the widow to the point where she commits suicide, however? Is telling her the truth then a moral action although its consequence is this terrible response? If telling the widow the truth drives her to commit suicide, it seems like no rational being would will the maxim to become a universal law. The suicide is, however, a consequence of your initial action. The suicide has no bearing, at least for the Categorical Imperative, on whether telling the truth is moral or not. Likewise it is impossible to judge whether upon hearing the news, the widow would commit suicide. Granted it is a possibility, but there are a multitude of alternative choices that she could make and it is impossible to predict each one. To decide whether rational being would will a maxim to become a law, the maxim itself must be examined rationally and not its consequences. Accordingly, the maxim passes the second test. Conversely, some people might argue that in telling the widow a lie, you spare her years of torment and suffering. These supporters of "white lies" feel the maxim should read, "When facing a distraught widow, you should lie in regards to the death of her late husband in order to spare her feelings." Applying the first part of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative, it appears that this maxim is a moral act. Certainly, a universal law that prevents the feelings of people who are already in pain from being hurt further seems like an excellent universal law. Unfortunately for this line of objection, the only reason a lie works is because the person being lied to believes it to be the truth. In a situation where every widow is lied to in order to spare her feelings, then they never get the truth. This leads to a logical contradiction because no one will believe a lie if they know it a lie and the maxim fails. Perhaps the die-hard liar can regroup and test a narrower maxim. If it is narrow enough so that it

Using Social Media to Dramatically Boost Your Efficiency [PODCAST]

Using Social Media to Dramatically Boost Your Efficiency [PODCAST] Reposting your best content on social media is a best practice: the conversions and conversations are like gold. You might be wondering about the best way to go about re-sharing content. Today, we’re going to be talking to Christin Kardos, the social media and community manager at Convince and Convert, the #1 content marketing blog in the world, according to Content Marketing Institute. Today, we’re going to talk about evergreen content, how to capitalize on incredible opportunities, and thought on whether social media automation is the right tool for you to increase productivity. You won’t want to miss today’s show! Information about Convince and Convert and what Christin does there. Evergreen content: What it is and how to leverage it to your advantage. How you can tweak and update your content to make it rank for certain keywords. Best practices when it comes to sharing previously published content. What content curation is and how Christin handles it at Convince and Convert. Thoughts on balancing your own content and others’ content, as well as why it’s important to focus on quality first and foremost. The benefits and potential downfalls of social media automation. Christen’s best advice for marketers wanting to get started with automation and reposting content. Links and Resources: Christin on Twitter Convince and Convert 105 Types of Content to Fill Your Editorial Calendar Feedly Pocket Send a Screenshot of Your Review Here If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud,  Stitcher, and Google Play. Quotes by Christin: â€Å"Rule number one is if it’s not good, don’t share it.† â€Å"We focus on the â€Å"and therefore† aspect when we share content there are others who are actually the newsbreakers.† â€Å"Being useful is the best thing you can do.†

Does Friedrich Nietzche say the Buffalo Story is true or not ( Based Essay

Does Friedrich Nietzche say the Buffalo Story is true or not ( Based on his idea of truth ) - Essay Example Nietzsche’s precepts can in fact be brought in directly to analyze the issues raised by O’Brien. The concept of truth remains an ambiguous one, even after centuries of introspective inspection on it from many philosophers. Friedrich Nietzsche, who scorned the abundance of European theories related to the nature of truth and reality that have come especially from England and Germany, tries to bring in some unique reflections on the topic in his essay. Defying the necessity to define truth, he rather deconstructs the concept of truth, emphasizing the deceptive, self-conceptual existence of humans and their understanding of the world. O’Brien’s attempt is to delimit his analysis of truth to war stories. He observes that â€Å"[I]n any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way†. Recounting the death of a young soldier named Curt Lemon and the responses to it by a few other soldiers, including his best friend Bob Kile y aka Rat, and comrades Mitchell Sanders and the narrator himself. What links O’Brien’s observations on the possible narrations of a true war story with Nietzsche’s views is the skepticism that prevails. Nietzsche develops in his essay the idea of human existence and survival in relation to the concept of the deceptive nature of truth, or reality, in the time-space configuration they inhabit. It begins with a putative reference to the diminutive, momentary, insignificant nature of the place human beings inhabit in this universe, which they ironically perceive to be a gigantic, everlasting, all-consuming one. The nature of truth, when one attempts to perceive it in a hypothetical stance that transcends the here and now is a relative one, always constructed in a subjective conceptual framework. The desperate attempts of those who try to narrate a true war story have to fight with

What were the main features of Russian economic backwardness Essay

What were the main features of Russian economic backwardness - Essay Example The more backward the economy is the higher level of production and enterprise is; the higher the dependence on borrowed instead of indigenous technologies is; the higher the prominence of the production of producer groups compared to consumer goods is; the higher the emphasis on capital-intensive rather than labor-intensive production is; the bigger the dependence on productivity growth is (Gerschenkron 1962, p.6). In approaching the economics of Tsarist, Russia one encounters two remarkable and entirely opposite features of the Russian economy at that period, namely: a) the industrial â€Å"boom† of the 1880s and (2) the economic backwardness of 1914. Economic historians attest to the fact that in the period ranging between 1891 and 1900 Russian economy did grow (Spulber 2003, p.33). This period details the period of industrial boom within Russia and featured the period at which the industrial output of Russia rated among the highest. During this period, majority of the indu strial areas were growing speedily whereby the â€Å"Tsarist empire, Europe’s biggest economy has by 1900 displaced France from 4th position within the world iron production and had raked 5th position within steel output (Goldsmith 1961, p.441). The railway system rose in mileage by 87% in the period 1892-1903 while oil extraction tripled in the period 1887-1898. These were evidently significant achievements of Russian economic planning, especially the Russian finance minister of the time. At the period, from 1892-1903, the finance minister attempted to do his best to improve Russia in both fiscal and industrial capacity to be at par with other European powers and the entire government awarded support in this endeavor. Russian government was eager to foster industrialization since (1) the market featured deep control from the state (2) the expansion of heavy industry enabled a speedy catch-up, speedily covering the gap that manifested within the country’s economy, and (3) the industrialization enhanced the overall military capability of Russia. Nevertheless, the massive project demanded enormous investments. The investments demanded entailed: (a) the capital resource investments, (b) workforce investment, and, (c) knowledge capital investments. With regard to capital investments, Russia was unable to avail capital investments in adequate quantities and, as a result, foreign investments were broadly encouraged. Ultimately, some of the industries fell into the hands of the foreigners (Goldsmith 1961, p.442). By the start of the Crimean war, Russia featured as the world’s largest debtor nation. The war can be regarded as one of the core obstructions that hindered the progress of Russia economically. This detailed one of the core reasons for Russia’s further incapability to keep the pace of the â€Å"boom† given that significant energy and finances directed towards supporting the war against Britain and France (O'Brien 1998, p.2 27). With regard, to workforce investments, the rapid pace of industrial development owed much of its accomplishment to the common working people, frequently regular peasant who went to the cities to seek new industrial jobs (Gregory 1973, p.486). The flow of the labor force from the villages to the cities yielded a highly unbalanced economy. The Russian economy at this period cannot be likened to a plan of a system. As Alexander Gerschenkron outlines it, this economy of industrialization was fundamentally a â€Å"powerful spur† out of backwardness (Gerschenkron 1962, p.5). The Main Features of Russian Economic Backwardness The economic successes that Russia experienced then (after 1914)were practically unsustainable owing to a number of reasons, namely: (1) originally, the full-scale Russian industrialization

Hofstede Cultural Difference Critiques Essay Example for Free

Hofstede Cultural Difference Critiques Essay Arguably, Hofstede’s work (1980, 1997) represents a pioneering approach of culture as a way of comparing international management frameworks. First of all, prior to offering any evaluations in regards to McSweeney’s criticism (2002a/b), it is crucial to identify the nature of Hostede’s work within the entire sphere of the culture approach itself. In contrast to the guarantors of the emic approach , whose main concepts tend to discard the equalization and standardization of dimensions in national cultures’ comparisons, the pillars of Hofstede’s work, which belong to the etic approach , are based on 5 dimensions whereby national differences are then measured. In other words, from the emic standpoint it is also arguable that the etic research methodology, as aiming to identify equalities among national differences, would risk throwing out the baby with the bath water . On the other hand, from the emic perspective, dividing the culture into a set of defined scopes stands as the only way to actually enable researchers to compare cultures . Having briefly introduced the shortcomings related to both approaches, McSweeney’s critiques can now be narrowed down to a specific scope, which is mainly encompassed with Hofstede’s research methodology. Research Validity  In light of the importance for any researches to provide clear definitions on the specific research concepts and key words, the first part of this essay will evolve on contextualizing the meaning of culture within Hofstede’s work, thus, giving ground to McSweeney’s relevant sources of criticism. Geert (1980) has defined culture as the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from another. McSweeney essentially critiques Hofstede’s adoption of nations as means of cultural comparisons, scorning the territoriality uniqueness of culture in primis. In regards to this issue, Hofstede in a second stage (2002: 1356) acknowledges that nations are not the ideal elements for studying cultures, yet this is the only way researchers could have access to comparable units. Predictably, thousands of other author’s contributions in regards to the definition of culture would make this argument even more complex. For the sake of this analysis, emphasis would be given to the arguments in regards to the research methodology. Research Reliability: Research Sample The first criticism which may arise is likely to involve the representativeness of Hofstede’s research sample. In more details, he argues that 117,000 questionnaires for two surveys, covering 66 countries would be enough to ensure the research reliability. From my point of view, McSweeney’s critiques result founded when analysing the sampling framework in more details. CountryNumber of Respondents for Each Country Belgium, France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan and Sweden (6 countries)More than 1000 Chile, Columbia, Greece, Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey (15 countries)Less than 200 [Tab. 1] As it can be seen by the table (Tab. ), in 15 countries the sample size is composed by less than 200 respondents, which results to be extremely small compared to other countries with over 1000 respondents. To couple this argument, McSweeney discusses about the narrowness of the population surveyed as respondents were all IBM employees, mainly involved with the marketing and sales departments. Hofstede’s reply ( 2002), stating that this sample’s framework had only been used in order to isolate the national culture differences from both the organizational and occupational culture, seems however to give rise to other arguments. As McSweeney’s (2002a: 95-99) argues, respondents’ cultural framework is made up by three non-interacting and durable levels of culture (Tab. 2). At the first level, the assumptions which would free this model from any shortcomings would be that there is only one IBM culture and that there is also a common worldwide occupational culture for each job (Hofstede 1980a: 181). What are these assumptions based on? According to McSweeney (2002a: 96), these assumptions are â€Å"too crude and implausible to underpin Hofstede’s emphatic empirical claims† . Following the thread of his argument we come across a situation where assuming that an IBM employee, whether in a developed USA head office or a new opened branch office in Pakistan, will possess the same identical organizational and occupational culture does become hard to encompass. In response to this argument, Hofstede acknowledges that considerable differences exist at the â€Å"organizational level† (1991: 93), yet it redefines the entire organizational culture as a mere set of â€Å"shared perceptions of daily practices† (1991: 182-3), therefore distancing from the early-stage value-based definition. According to McSweeney (2002b), this is only a failed attempt to deliver a straightforward concept and definition of organizational culture. Back to Culture Hofstede’s vision of culture is often linked to two different concepts, unique national tendency and central tendency, respectively. In the first case, as pointed out by McSweeney, the national uniformity which Hofstede claims to have found, results to have no valid grounds as it derives from a very specific micro-level (IBM). Secondly, in regards to the claimed average tendency, the heterogeneity of questionnaires’ responses completely contradicts this conceptualization at the first place. As cited from Jacob (2005), â€Å"if exceptions to the rule are as numerous as the rule itself† to what extent could predictions based on that rule be reliable? In many countries, McSweeney argues, the typical IBM employee would at a high extent diverge from the general population. That is to say that an IBM employee in Taiwan would not necessarily reflect Taiwan’s population average individual, especially when we are talking about someone who holds a managerial position in a multinational firm. This concept brings us to another aspect of McSweeney’s criticism (2002a:92), â€Å"culture treated as a mere epiphenomenon, completely casual†, as conceptualized by Hofstede, it would look like something which moves along the history â€Å"enduring†, yet it is not subject to radical changes due to fluctuating social, economic and institutional trends (Tab. 3). Questionnaire and Dimensions Arguably, the questionnaire itself also presents some limitations. Firstly aimed to investigate the employees’ morale at IBM, it also resulted to reflect some values that, for Hofstede, could have been used to unveil the national cultural differences’ myth. Citing one of his research questions, â€Å"How long do you think you will continue working for this company? †(1980 Appendix 1) , it is obviously clear there would be differences in whether this question is being asked in a country, say, the USA, with plentiful employment vacancies, or in a country, say Thailand where at the time of the research the unemployment rate was comparatively high. Under these circumstances, it is extremely hard to assume that the respondents were not influenced by other social, political and institutional factors (See Tab. 3). Therefore, his research’s entire reliability could be easily questioned on this basis. Despite ensuring the confidentiality of respondents’ answers, employees’ foreknowledge of the end objective of the survey might have easily encouraged them to assume a more positive attitude in order to support their divisions’ reputation. Arguably, the responses analysed by Hofstede were situationally restricted (McSweeney, 2002a: 107). In more details, the questions only reflected values related to the workplace, furthermore the surveys were exclusively directed within the workplace and were not tested in non-work place locations for both same respondents and others. In light of the first purpose of the questionnaire, it is spontaneous to raise a question in regards to the validity of the dimensions found by Hofstede. Could it be possible that a specialized study in cultural differences would have delineated different dimensions? In his response, Hofstede acknowledged that, although there may be some other dimensions equally important for the structuring of a comparative cultural analysis, relative questions were simply not asked. McSweeney with reference to Triadis (1994) argues that bi-polar dimensions of national cultures should not be comprised of opposite poles (for example: Individualism – Collectivism), but depending on the situations they could coexist. Under these principles, the work of Schwartz (1992) appears to give a comparatively dynamic dimensions’ disposition. History and Research Validations In the last section of his book, Hofstede (1980: 326- 331) includes some historical and contemporary events which he states would validate his research findings. However, McSweeney (2002b) argues that these stories reveal nothing but justifications, leaving out the basics for an accurate confirmation. According to his analysis, Hosfstede’s assertion, â€Å"the more masculine a culture the more antagonistic are industrial relations, is flawed as the trends for working days lost in industrial disputes , in both Spain and the UK, result to vary enormously over time. In other words, we could argue that these fluctuations are highly influenced by political, economic and institutional changes. In the case of industrial relations’ disputes in Spain, after the death of Spanish dictator Franco in 1975, the level of working days was subject to a huge increase. Hofstede’s findings have also been validated by other studies, reflecting the same national cultural differences . This is one of the reasons why Hofstede’s work has so far been used in many disciplines as pioneer of the cultural approach in the sphere of comparative international management. Under these circumstances, as Hofstede states (2002 p. 1358), it is just not all about faith in his research, but it is the willingness of the society to accept his work as something which could be taken to a step further. In some cases, institutional factors, history, politics and economy do provide better explanations in this field, yet as Hofstede would argue, the cultural perspective does have his validity as it offers a complete different view on values embedded by people which do have an influence on their daily lives. Conclusion Arguably, some of Hofstede research framework’s features, especially the ones related to his research methodology, do present various shortcomings. However, the overall importance of cultural approach for national differences should be seen as undeniable (Koen, 2005). Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that after all, the main argument merely evolves on Hofstede’s claims to have â€Å"uncover[ed] the secrets of entire national cultures† (1980b: 44). Despite his book title narrowing the scope of its findings down to the work-place, â€Å"Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Place Values†, Hofstede, in many of his publications, seems to overestimate his findings. It is extremely important to acknowledge and appreciate the enormous contribution that Hofstede has made to the entire society’s understanding of international cultural differences. On the other hand, it is also crucial to stay away from the â€Å"taken for granted† approach when coming across such a complex topic. As mentioned in the preface, etic and emic approach despite having a different vision on how to measure and analyse culture, they could still be seen as two complementarities which could be extensively used for a more thorough research. In addition, although admitting that limitations in research methodology do hamper the objectivity of findings, the etic approach still stands as the unique way to allow researchers to obtain comparable quantitative data. I do also appreciate the contributions made by McSweeney, whose criticisms have enabled me to adopt a more critical line of thought in analysing this interesting topic. At some extent we could assume that Hofstede’s research is still a â€Å"work in progress†, eventually other advocates of the etic approach will take it to a more universal level, as some of other authors in this field have already done. I would like to conclude this essay with a quote from McSweeney (2002a: 90), when he states that Hofstede’s work could be dismissed as a misguided attempt to measure the unmeasurable .