White supremacy

White supremacy is the belief, or promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds and that therefore whites should politically, economically and socially dominate non-whites. The term is also typically used to describe a political ideology that perpetuates and maintains the social, political, historical and/or industrial dominance of whites. Different forms of white supremacy have different conceptions of who is considered white, and different white supremacists identify various racial and cultural groups as their primary enemy.

Source: Wikipedia

 

Veritas

In Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning truth, was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white.

Veritas is also the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. In Greek mythology, Veritas was known as Aletheia.

Source: Wikipedia

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable.

Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a skeptical approach to questions. In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the difference between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief. In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve, respectively. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that humanity does not currently possess the requisite knowledge and/or reason to provide sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist.

Source: Wikipedia.

World Heritage Site

Logo of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place (such as a forest, mountain, lake, island, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance. The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 states’ parties which are elected by their General Assembly.

The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity. Under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The programme was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. Since then, 190 states parties have ratified the Convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. Only the Bahamas,Liechtenstein, Nauru, Somalia, South Sudan, Timor-Leste and Tuvalu are not Party to the Convention.

As of 2013, 981 sites are listed: 759 cultural, 193 natural, and 29 mixed properties, in 160 states parties. By sites ranked by country, Italy is home to the greatest number of World Heritage Sites with 49 sites, followed by China (45), Spain (44), France and Germany (both 38). UNESCO references each World Heritage Site with an identification number; but new inscriptions often include previous sites now listed as part of larger descriptions. As a result, the identification numbers exceed 1,200 even though there are fewer on the list.

While each World Heritage Site remains part of the legal territory of the state wherein the site is located, UNESCO considers it in the interest of the international community to preserve each site.

Source: Wikipedia.

Feudalism

Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste, c.14th.c.

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.

Although derived from the Latin word feodum or feudum (fief), then in use, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people living in the medieval period. In its classic definition, by François-Louis Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.

There is also a broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), that includes not only warrior nobility but all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clerics and the peasantry bonds of manorialism; this is sometimes referred to as a “feudal society”. Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. Brown‘s “The Tyranny of a Construct” (1974) and Susan Reynolds‘ Fiefs and Vassals (1994), there has been ongoing inconclusive discussion among medieval historians as to whether feudalism is a useful construct for understanding medieval society.

Source: Wikipedia.

 

French Revolution

The French Revolution (French: Révolution française) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France from 1789 to 1799 that profoundly affected French and modern history, marking the decline of powerful monarchies and churches and the rise of democracy. It was a highly controversial instance of the Atlantic Revolutions of the era. Historian François Aulard writes:

From the social point of view, the Revolution consisted in the suppression of what was called the feudal system, in the emancipation of the individual, in greater division of landed property, the abolition of the privileges of noble birth, the establishment of equality, the simplification of life… The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity.”

Popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy, aristocracy and the King’s court at Versailles combined with an economic crisis following the expenses of the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolutionary War and years of bad harvests motivated demands for change, which were couched in terms of Enlightenment ideals and caused the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789. The first year of the Revolution saw members of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed the next year.

External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution. The Revolutionary Wars began in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had eluded previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular agitation radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. The dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror, from 1793 until 1794, caused up to 40,000 deaths inside France, abolished slavery in the colonies, and secured the borders of the new republic from its enemies. The Reign of Terror ended with the overthrow and execution of Robespierre and the other leading Jacobins in the Thermidorian Reaction. The Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799. In that year, conventionally seen as the conclusion of the Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire and established the Consulate. The First Empire under Napoleon emerged in 1804 and spread French revolutionary principles all over Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. The First Empire was militarily defeated by an anti-Napoleonic coalition that in 1815 brought about the restoration of the Bourbons, albeit under a constitutional monarchy, and the reversion to France’s traditional frontiers.

The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. French society itself underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges were overthrown. Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy were abruptly overthrown under the mantra of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” although opponents fought furiously against this for more than a century. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies, the spread of liberalism, nationalism, socialism and secularism, the development of modern political ideologies, and the practice of total war. Some of its central documents, like the Declaration of the Rights of Man, expanded the arena of human rights to include women and slaves. The fallout from the Revolution had permanent consequences for human history: the Latin American independence wars, the Louisiana Purchase by the United States, and the Revolutions of 1848 are just a few of the numerous events that ultimately depended upon the eruption of 1789.

Storming of the Bastille and arrest of the Governor M. de Launay, July 14, 1789.

Source: Wikipedia.

Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte [napoleɔ̃ bɔnɑpaʁt], Italian: Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolutionand its associated wars in Europe.

As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814. He implemented a wide array of liberal reforms across Europe, including the abolition of feudalism and the spread of religious toleration.His legal code in France, the Napoleonic Code, influenced numerous civil law jurisdictions worldwide. Napoleon is remembered for his role in leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won the majority of his battles and seized control of most of continental Europe in a quest for personal power and to spread the ideals of the French Revolution. Widely regarded as one of the greatest commanders in history, his campaigns are studied at military academies worldwide. He remains one of the most studied political and military leaders in all of history.

Napoleon was born in Corsica in a family of noble Italian ancestry which had settled in Corsica in the 16th century. He spoke French with a heavy Corsican-Italian accent.

Jacques-Louis David – The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries

, he rose to prominence under the French First Republic and led successful campaigns against the enemies of the French revolution who set up the First and Second Coalitions, most notably his campaigns in Italy.

He took power in a coup d’état in 1799 and installed himself as First Consul. In 1804 he made himself emperor of the French people. He fought a series of wars —the Napoleonic Wars—that involved complex coalitions for and against him. After a streak of victories, France secured a dominant position in continental Europe, and Napoleon maintained the French sphere of influence through the formation of extensive alliances and the elevation of friends and family members to rule other European countries as French vassal states.

The Peninsular War (1807–14) and the French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked major military failures. His Grande Armée was badly damaged and never fully recovered. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at the Battle of Leipzig and his enemies invaded France. Napoleon was forced to abdicate and go in exile to the Italian island of Elba. In 1815 he escaped and returned to power, but he was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. He spent the last 6 years of his life in confinement by the British on the island of Saint Helena. An autopsy concluded he died of stomach cancer, but there has been debate about the cause of his death, some scholars have speculated that he was a victim of arsenic poisoning.

 

Source: Wikipedia.

 

Ideology

An ideology is a set of conscious and unconscious ideas that constitute one’s goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology is a comprehensive vision, a way of looking at things as in several philosophical tendencies (see political ideologies), or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a “received consciousness” or product of socialisation).

Ideologies are systems of abstract thought applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics. Implicitly every political or economic tendency entails an ideology whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought.

Source: Wikipedia

 

1.  The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.
2. A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system.

Source: The Free Dictionary

Intrinsic and extrinsic properties (philosophy)

An intrinsic property is a property that an object or a thing has of itself, independently of other things, including its context. An extrinsic (or relational) property is a property that depends on a thing’s relationship with other things. For example, mass is an intrinsic property of any physical object, whereas weight is an extrinsic property that varies depending on the strength of the gravitational field in which the respective object is placed. As such, the question of intrinsicality and extrinsicality in empirically observable objects is a significant field of study in ontology, the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being.

Source: Wikipedia.

Gini Coefficient World CIA Report 2009

Gini Coefficient World CIA Report 2009

Differences in national income equality around the world as measured by the national Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income, and everyone else has zero income).