Individualism Reverses Freedom in America Beginning with Political Freedoms

In Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the author takes great caution to warn America of a tyrant lurking in the shadows of society that could threaten and destroy this Nation’s freedom without its even noticing. That warning is this: if our natural tendency towards individualism goes unchecked, our political freedom as we know it will begin to dissolve and the powers of soft despotism will slowly begin to seep into the very foundations of American democracy. This form of Democracy was characterized by a unique character of self-governance amongst the citizens. It was the people living in the townships who governed their communities and their voices were heard because of the political arrangements that existed. Tocqueville argues that individualism is a vice specific to America and, that due to this latent truth, we alone face a new form of despotism never before seen in political arrangements. This type of tyranny introduces itself in providing us small conveniences. It seeks to lighten the burden of our civic responsibilities and then wholly robs us of all political freedoms. From that point it is not difficult for Americans to become entirely estranged from their once known founding political freedoms. In this paper I will lay out the logic which Tocqueville uses in order to make clear his warning and then show how modern America has been affected by the problem of “individualism.

Marketing Library Services: From Posters to Platforms

No matter how visible your reference desk is, no matter how many information literacy session your librarians teach, no matter how many students come through your library doors each day, there is a need in all libraries for savvy, creative marketing campaigns. We can no longer rely on word-of-mouth to get the message out about what the library can do for students, faculty and staff. This presentation will examine the ups and downs of creating and, especially, maintaining several social media platforms. We will also present some kick-it old school techniques that have proved successful and suggestions on how to promote them. Time and money are always issues, so we will also include time and money saving tips and suggests for your marketing campaigns

Less than 5% of papers on the use of research in health policymaking tested interventions to see what worked. But those studies reveal a number of strategies for improvement

Population health policies stand a much better chance of succeeding if they’re informed by research evidence. But what are the best ways of making sure this happens? Danielle Campbell and Gabriel Moore conducted a rapid review of the literature on the subject and found that very few studies actually concerned testing interventions to see whether they worked. Those articles that do report on intervention strategies revealed a number of effective approaches, with recommendations including tailored approaches to presenting research findings to policymakers, interactive seminars or roundtables for communicating evidence, and increasing organisational capacity to use research

Factors associated with intimate partner violence among college students

The purpose of this study is to explore what individual factors are associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) experiences among college students. Intimate partner violence is a huge problem among college students both male and female of all ethnicities, socio-economic classes, sexual orientation, and social class. This study focused on alcohol consumption and attitudes and beliefs of students to see it those two variables played a role in contributing to the rate of IPV occurring among college students

Overcoming the challenges of translating mental health instruments into sign languages

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is widely used in CAMHS, and has been translated into over sixty spoken languages. British Sign Language (BSL) is a visuo-gestural language, and the first language of up to 50,000 deaf people in the UK. Translating diagnostic tools into BSL is important to provide valid assessment of common mental health problems in Deaf signing young people. We report the process of translation from a written language (English) into a visual language (BSL) using adapted, existing methodologies. We highlight the challenges we faced, with particular reference to the difficulties in translating for a population of signing Deaf young people, followed by suggestions of how to overcome these difficulties