Foeticide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foeticide

Foeticide (British English), or feticide (North American English), is the act of killing a fetus, or causing a miscarriage. Definitions differ between legal and medical applications, whereas in law, feticide frequently refers to a criminal offense, in medicine the term generally refers to a part of an abortion procedure in which a provider intentionally induces fetal demise to avoid the chance of an unintended live birth, or as a standalone procedure in the case of selective reduction.

Etymology

Foeticide derives from two constituent Latin roots. Foetus, meaning child, is an alternate form of fetus coming from the writings of Isidorus, who preferred oe due to its association with foveo "I cherish" as opposed to feo "I beget". Foetus is compounded with the suffix -cide, from caedere, "to cut down, to kill." Also see homicide, genocide, infanticide, matricide, and regicide.

As a crime

Laws in the North America

Laws in the United States

Fetal homicide laws in the United States

  Homicide or murder.

  Other crime against fetus.

  Depends on age of fetus.

  Assaulting mother.

  No law on feticide.

In the U.S., most crimes of violence are covered by state law, not federal law. 38 states currently recognize the unborn child (the term usually used) or fetus as a homicide victim, and 29 of those states apply this principle throughout the period of pre-natal development. These laws do not apply to legally induced abortions. Federal and state courts have consistently held that these laws do not contradict the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on abortion.

In 2004, Congress enacted, and President Bush signed, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes the "child in utero" as a legal victim if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of the 68 existing federal crimes of violence. These crimes include some acts that are federal crimes no matter where they occur (e.g., certain acts of terrorism), crimes in federal jurisdictions, crimes within the military system, crimes involving certain federal officials, and other special cases. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." This federal law (as well as many similar state laws, such as the one in California), does not require any proof that the person charged with the crime actually knew the woman was pregnant when the crime was committed.

Of the 38 states that recognize fetal homicide, approximately two-thirds apply the principle throughout the period of pre-natal development, while one-third establish protection at some later stage, which varies from state to state. For example, California treats the killing of a fetus as homicide, but does not treat the killing of an embryo (prior to approximately eight weeks) as homicide, by construction of the California Supreme Court. Some other states do not consider the killing of a fetus to be homicide until the fetus has reached quickening or viability.

In states where the overturning of Roe v. Wade has resulted in the complete illegalization of abortion except to preserve the life of the carrier, such laws may be used to prosecute any such procedure resulting in fetal demise.

Fetal homicide laws have also been used to prosecute women for recklessly causing stillbirths, such as in the cases of Rennie Gibbs, Bei Bei Shuai, and Purvi Patel. Gibbs was charged with murder in Mississippi in 2006 for having a stillborn daughter while addicted to cocaine. Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. The judge in that case ruled that the charges be dismissed. In 2011 Shuai was charged by Indiana authorities with murder and foeticide after her suicide attempt resulted in the death of the child she was pregnant with. Shuai's case was the first in the history of Indiana in which a woman was prosecuted for murder for a suicide attempt while pregnant. In 2013 Shuai pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal recklessness and was released, having been sentenced to time served. In 2015 Purvi Patel became the first woman in the United States to be charged, convicted, and sentenced on a foeticide charge. However, her conviction was later overturned, and she was resentenced to time served for a lesser charge.

Laws in Canada

Feticide is not considered a crime in Canada, as the Revised Statutes of Canada does not define a fetus as a person until it has either (1) taken a breath, (2) had independent circulation, or (3) had its umbilical cord severed. However, if the feticide occurs in the process of birth, it is a criminal offense.

Laws in the Central America

Laws in Belize

In Belizean Law, Feticide is a crime, although the prosecution and exact legality of such a such an action is difficult to conclusively ascertain, as legal experts disagree on how the law, and its requirement for Mens rea should be applied.

Laws in Costa Rica

In Costa Rican law, feticide exists as a crime, but it does not stand equivalent to homicide, nor does it result in similar penalties.

Laws in El Salvador

In Salvadoran law, any act which results in the death of a fetus is heavily criminalized. This has resulted in numerous women being charged and convicted for miscarriages, as was the case with Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, María Teres, and others.

Laws in Guatemala

In Guatemalan law, anyone who, during "acts of violence" causes on abortion "when the pregnant state of the victim is evident" has committed what the law calls an unintended abortion, and faces penalties up of up to three years imprisonment.

Laws in Honduras

In Honduran law, causing the death of a fetus where the mother is visibly pregnant is known legally as feticide.

Laws in Nicaragua

In Nicaraguan law, feticide is known legally as Reckless Abortion, and the law specifies that whoever causes "abortion through recklessness" is guilty of the offense and shall face six months to one year in prison.

Laws in the Caribbean

Laws in Bahamas

In Bahaman Law, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). In cases tried both recently and historically the murder of pregnant women, even when the women was obviously pregnant, resulted in no greater penalty for the destruction of the fetus.

Laws in Jamaica

In Jamaican law, feticide is not a crime. In recent history there have however been repeated calls for this to change.

Laws in Haiti

In Haitian law, feticide is a crime. Under Section 2, Article 262 of the Penal Code of Haiti, "Anyone who, by means of food, drink, medicine, violence or any other means, procures the abortion of a pregnant woman, whether she has consented to it or not, will be punished by imprisonment."

Laws in The Dominican Republic

In Dominican law, feticide is a crime. Under Article 317 of the Criminal Code of the Dominican Republic, "Whoever, by means of food, medicines, medicines, probes, treatments or in any other way, causes or directly cooperates to cause the abortion of a pregnant woman, even if she consents to it, shall be punished with the penalty of minor imprisonment."

Laws in St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica

In the countries listed above, English Common Law remains the law of the land, and as such, feticide is prohibited by a combination of two acts, the first, the Offences Against the Person Act, makes feticide a crime, but only when the act that induced it was itself intended to "to procure... (a) miscarriage", defining the act as an abortion. The second act on the subject, the Infant Life (Preservation) Act further outlines a separate crime, child destruction, which occurs when a person with "intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive" takes an action which, "causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother". The act goes on to specify that any fetus which has gestated for 28 weeks or more is to be considered capable of being born alive.

Laws in St. Lucia

In St. Lucia, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime, known as "causing a termination of a pregnancy" occurs when someone causes the pregnant person to "be prematurely delivered of a child" but only if they also have "intent unlawfully to cause or hasten the death of the child"

Laws in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime, which is known simply as abortion occurs when someone "unlawfully administers to her (a pregnant person), or causes her to take, any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatsoever" but only if they also have "intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman".

Laws in Barbados

In Barbados, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage) or, when the pregnant person "is about to be delivered of a child". The crime for intentionally inducing a miscarriage, which is known as "Administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion" occurs when someone "with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman,... unlawfully administers to her or causes to be taken by her any poison or other noxious thing or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means whatsoever". The crime for feticide where the pregnant person "is about to be delivered of a child", is defined as "Killing an unborn child" and occurs when a person "prevents the child from being born alive by any act or omission of such a nature that, if the child had been born alive and had then died, he would be deemed to have unlawfully killed the child"

Laws in Grenada

In Grenada, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime is known simply as causing abortion, and is committed when someone takes an action "causing a woman to be prematurely delivered of a child, with intent unlawfully to cause or hasten the death of the child."

Laws in Trinidad and Tobago

In Trinidad and Tobago, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime, which is known simply as abortion occurs when someone "unlawfully administers to her or causes to be taken by her any poison or other noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means whatsoever with the like intent" but only if they also have "intent to procure a miscarriage".

Laws in Europe

Laws in the United Kingdom

Main article: Child destruction

In English law, "child destruction" is the crime of killing a fetus "capable of being born alive", before it has "a separate existence". The Crimes Act 1958 defined "capable of being born alive" as 28 weeks' gestation, later reduced to 24 weeks. The 1990 Amendment to the Abortion Act 1967 means a medical practitioner cannot be guilty of the crime.

The charge of child destruction is rare. A woman who had an unsafe abortion while 7½ months pregnant was given a suspended sentence of 12 months in 2007;^[40] the Crown Prosecution Service was unaware of any similar conviction.

Laws in Asia

Laws in India

Main article: Female foeticide in India

In Indian Law, feticide is considered a form of "culpable homicide". Section 316 of the Indian Penal Code defines the crime as "an act (that) cause(s) the death of a quick unborn child", but only applies when it occurs as an effect of another crime which would cause death, such as the murder of the mother.

In the case of sex-selective abortion, the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act prohibits the act, although there is question as to the degree of enforcement, as the ratio of male to female live births continue to be misaligned with the international average.

As a medical practice

A sign in an Indian hospital stating that prenatal sex determination is a crime. The concern is that it will lead to female foeticide.

In medical use, the word "foeticide" is used simply to mean the induction of fetal demise, either as a precursor to a further abortion procedure, or as a primary abortive method during selective reduction due to fetal abnormality or multiples. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recommends foeticide be performed "before medical abortion after 21 weeks and 6 days of gestation to ensure that there is no risk of a live birth". In abortions after 20 weeks, an injection of digoxin or potassium chloride into the fetal heart to stop the fetal heart can be used to achieve foeticide. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that a legal ban on intact dilation and extraction procedures does not apply if foeticide is completed before surgery starts.

Historically, a multitude of methods both mechanical and pharmaceutical were used to induce fetal demise. These included intrafetal injection with meperidine and xylocaine, injection of lidocaine into the umbilical vain, intracardiac calcium gluconate or fibrin adhesive injection, umbilical occlusion by way of alcohol or embucrilate gel injection, umbilical cord ligation, intraarterial coil placement, and cardiac puncture. These methods are rarely if ever used in modern practice, as both digoxin and potassium chloride have better, and more reliable outcomes.

Injecting potassium chloride into the heart of a fetus causes immediate asystole, but depending on the method used, digoxin may fail to induce fetal demise in some cases (up to 5% if injected into the fetus and up to a third if injected into the amniotic sac) even though it is the preferred drug in many clinics. Digoxin is preferred because it is technically difficult to inject KCl into the heart or umbilical cord.

The most common method of selective reduction—a procedure to reduce the number of fetuses in a multifetus pregnancy—is foeticide via a chemical injection into the selected fetus or fetuses. The reduction procedure is usually performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. It often follows detection of a congenital defect in the selected fetus or fetuses, but can also reduce the risks of carrying more than three fetuses to term.

Right to life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_life

The right to life is the belief that a human or other animal has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by another entity. The concept of a right to life arises in debates on issues including capital punishment, with some people seeing it as immoral; abortion, with some seeing the fetus as a human being in an early state of development whose life should not be ended; euthanasia, where the decision to end one's life outside of natural means is seen as incorrect; meat production and consumption, where the breeding and killing of animals for their meat is seen by some people as an infringement on their rights; and in killings by law enforcement, which is seen by some as an infringement of a person's right to live. Various individuals may disagree in which of these areas the principle of a right to life might apply.

Abortion

See also: Abortion debate, Abortion-rights movements, and Anti-abortion movement

The term "right to life" is used in the abortion debate by those who wish to end the practice of abortion, or at least reduce the frequency of the practice, and in the context of pregnancy, the term right to life was advanced by Pope Pius XII during a 1951 papal encyclical:

Every human being, even the child in the womb, has the right to life directly from God and not from his parents, not from any society or human authority. Therefore, there is no man, no society, no human authority, no science, no “indication” at all whether it be medical, eugenic, social, economic, or moral that may offer or give a valid judicial title for a direct deliberate disposal of an innocent human life

— Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession Papal Encyclical, October 29, 1951.

In 1966 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) asked Fr. James T. McHugh to begin observing trends in abortion reform within the United States. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) was founded in 1967 as the Right to Life League to coordinate its state campaigns under the auspices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. To appeal to a more broad-based, nonsectarian movement, key Minnesota leaders proposed an organizational model that would separate the NRLC from the direct oversight of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and by early 1973 NRLC Director Fr. James T. McHugh and his executive assistant, Michael Taylor, proposed a different plan, facilitating the NRLC move toward its independence from the Roman Catholic Church.

Ethics and right to life

See also: Abortion debate, Philosophical aspects of the abortion debate, and Infanticide

Some utilitarian ethicists argue that the "right to life", where it exists, depends on conditions other than membership of the human species. The philosopher Peter Singer is a notable proponent of this argument. For Singer, the right to life is grounded in the ability to plan and anticipate one's future. This extends the concept to non-human animals, such as other apes, but since the unborn, infants and severely disabled people lack this, he states that abortion, painless infanticide and euthanasia can be "justified" (but are not obligatory) in certain special circumstances, for instance in the case of a disabled infant whose life would be one of suffering.

Bioethicists associated with disability rights and disability studies communities have argued that Singer's epistemology is based on ableist conceptions of disability.

Capital punishment

Further information: Capital punishment § Roman Catholic Church

Opponents of capital punishment argue that it is a violation of the right to life, while its supporters argue that the death penalty is not a violation of the right to life because the right to life should apply with deference to a sense of justice. The opponents believe that capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because the right to life is the most important, and capital punishment violates it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it "cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment", and Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate, irreversible denial of Human Rights".

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.

Killings by law enforcement

See also: Lists of killings by law enforcement officers and Police brutality

The International Human Rights Standards for Law Enforcement has created a system whereby it is recognised that international human rights law is binding upon all state actors, and that said state actors must know and be capable of applying international standards for human rights. The right to life is for the most part an inalienable right granted to every human upon the planet, however, there are certain situations in which state actors are required to take drastic action, which can result in civilians being killed by law enforcement agents.

Appropriate occasions for killings by law enforcement are strictly outlined by the International Human Rights Standards for Law Enforcement. Any lethal action taken by law enforcement agents must be taken following a certain set of rules that have been set out in the 'Use of Force' section of the Pocket Book on Human Rights for the Police. The essential tenet of the Pocket Book surrounding the use of lethal force is that all other means of a non-violent nature should be employed initially, followed by proportionately appropriate use of force. Proportionately appropriate use of force can, and will in some circumstances, refer to lethal force if a law enforcement agent genuinely believes that ending the life of one civilian would result in the preservation of his life, or the lives of his fellow civilians, as is outlined in the 'Permissible Circumstances for the Use of Firearms' section of the Pocket Book. The Pocket Book also outlines in the 'Accountability for the Use of Force and Firearms' section that there are stringent measures of accountability in place to maintain integrity within state law enforcement agencies as regards their right to the use of lethal force.

International institutions have outlined when and where law enforcement agents might have the availability of lethal force at their disposal. The International Association of Chiefs of Police have 'Model Policies' which incorporate various pieces of information from leading sources. One of these model policies states that law enforcement agents will engage in reasonable necessary force to efficiently bring a scenario to a conclusion, giving specific thought to both the safety of themselves and other civilians. Law enforcement officers are given the prerogative to engage in department-approved methods to safely bring a conclusion to a scenario and are also given the ability to use issued equipment to resolve issues in scenarios where they are required to protect themselves or others from damage, to bring resistant individuals under control, or to safely conclude unlawful incidents. There is no mention as to what "reasonably necessary" should be interpreted as meaning, but there is reference made to the reasonable man method of determining how one should approach a scenario. However, it has been highlighted through events such as the killing of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, which resulted in public unrest, that there is confusion and debate surrounding the use of firearms and lethal force. The 'Procedure for the Use of Firearms' section provides the process through which law enforcement agents must progress when using firearms. It states that they must identify themselves as a law enforcement agent, issue a clear warning, and give an adequate amount of time for response (providing that time would not likely result in harm being done to the agent or other civilians) before deadly force can be used within the bounds of international law.

While the Pocket Book on Human Rights for the Police outlines the academic circumstances under which law enforcement agents may use lethal force, the literal scenarios in which police killings have occurred are also relevant. Rosenfeld states that there is considerable literature that gives reason to believe that social conditions also have a part to play in how law enforcement killings can occur. Rosenfeld states that there are numerous studies that have been conducted which link law enforcement agents' use of lethal force to the area's rate of violent crime, the size of the non-indigenous population and the socioeconomic position of the community concerned. Appropriating a blanket description of how police killings can occur across the board is difficult given the vast differences in social context from state to state.

Perry, Hall and Hall discuss the phenomena across the United States of America which became highly charged and widely documented in late 2014, referring to the use of lethal force from white police officers on unarmed black male civilians. There is no legal prerogative which gives law enforcement agents the ability to use lethal force based on the race of the person they are dealing with, there is only a legal prerogative to engage in lethal force if there is a reasonable fear for your life or the lives of others. However, the Propublica analysis of federal data on fatal police shootings between 2010 and 2012, showed that young black male civilians were 21 times more likely to be killed by police than young white male civilians. The use of lethal force from law enforcement agents in the United States created widespread feeling amongst US citizens that they were not being protected by the police. The justice system mostly found that these agents acted within the boundaries of the law because the actions of the people who were shot were judged to be sufficiently questionable in character for the police officer to fear for their own life or the lives of others. Coppolo investigated Connecticut law and reported that the use of lethal force must be followed by a report that determines whether the law enforcement agent's lethal force was proportionately necessary in the circumstances. Coppolo also stated that a reasonable lethal response must only be made when there is a reasonable belief that the facts you have been presented with could realistically result in a risk of death or grievous bodily harm.

Animals

See also: Ethics of eating meat, Sentiocentrism, and Argument from marginal cases

In Animal Liberation, Peter Singer writes that the killing of animals for the consumption of their meat should be seen as immoral and a violation of their right to life. He holds that rights should be based on sentience, rather than species membership.

Numerous authors have invoked the argument from marginal cases to argue that animals should have similar moral status to human infants, senile people, the comatose, and cognitively disabled people.

A 2020 survey of 1812 published English-language philosophers found that 48% said it was permissible to eat animals in ordinary circumstances, while 45% said it was not.

Euthanasia

Main article: Legality of euthanasia

Those who believe a person should be able to make the decision to end their own life through euthanasia use the argument that persons have a right to choose, while those who oppose the legalization of euthanasia argue so on the grounds that all persons have a right to life, which they interpret as an obligation to live. They are commonly referred to as right-to-lifers.

The European Convention on Human Rights defended the possibility of the existence of a “right to die” through the application of euthanasia and granting the individual the right to choose the method of implementing this type of dying, considering that the latter is one of the parts of the right to life.

Juridical statements

• In 1444, the Poljica Statute declared a right to live "-for nothing existed forever".
• In 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence declared that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
• In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly declared in article three:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

• In 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights was adopted by the Council of Europe, declaring a protected human right to life in Article 2. There are exceptions for lawful executions and self-defense, arresting a fleeing suspect, and suppressing riots and insurrections. Since then Protocol 6 of the convention has called for nations to outlaw capital punishment except in time of war or national emergency, and at present this pertains in all countries of the council. Protocol 13 provides for the total abolition of capital punishment, and has been implemented in most member countries of the council.
• In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.

— Article 6.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

• In 1969, the American Convention on Human Rights was adopted in San José, Costa Rica by many countries in the Western Hemisphere. It is in force in 23 countries.

Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.

— Article 4.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights

• In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrined that

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

— Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

• In 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
• The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany holds the principle of human dignity paramount, even above the right to life.
• The Catholic Church has issued a Charter of the Rights of the Family in which it states that the right to life is directly implied by human dignity.
• Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, 1950, guarantees the right to life to all persons within the territory of India and states: "No person shall be deprived of his right to life and personal liberty except according to procedure established by law." Article 21 confers on every person the fundamental right to life and personal liberty which has become an inexhaustible source of many other rights.

The right to life is considered the most important and first right urged by the European Convention on Human Rights, and it is a right granted to all persons, which makes it necessary in the system of basic human rights and freedoms that this Convention works to protect and preserve.

Intellectual

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual

Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of the foremost intellectuals of his time.

Foreign Policy magazine named the lawyer Shirin Ebadi a leading intellectual for her work protecting human rights in Iran.

An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.

Etymological background

"Man of letters"

The term "man of letters" derives from the French term belletrist or homme de lettres but is not synonymous with "an academic". A "man of letters" was a literate man, able to read and write, and thus highly valued in the upper strata of society in a time when literacy was rare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term Belletrist(s) came to be applied to the literati: the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—the Republic of Letters, which evolved into the salon, a social institution, usually run by a hostess, meant for the edification, education, and cultural refinement of the participants.

In the late 19th century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries such as the United Kingdom, the "Man of Letters" (littérateur)^[7] denotation broadened to mean "specialized", a man who earned his living writing intellectually (not creatively) about literature: the essayist, the journalist, the critic, et al. Examples include Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle. In the 20th century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and the term "Man of Letters" became disused, replaced by the generic term "intellectual", describing the intellectual person. The archaic term is the basis of the names of several academic institutions which call themselves Colleges of Letters and Science.

"Intellectual"

The earliest record of the English noun "intellectual" is found in the 19th century, where in 1813, Byron reports that 'I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals'. Over the course of the 19th century, other variants of the already established adjective 'intellectual' as a noun appeared in English and in French, where in the 1890s the noun (intellectuels) formed from the adjective intellectuel appeared with higher frequency in the literature. Collini writes about this time that "[a]mong this cluster of linguistic experiments there occurred ... the occasional usage of 'intellectuals' as a plural noun to refer, usually with a figurative or ironic intent, to a collection of people who might be identified in terms of their intellectual inclinations or pretensions."

In early 19th-century Britain, Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term clerisy, the intellectual class responsible for upholding and maintaining the national culture, the secular equivalent of the Anglican clergy. Likewise, in Tsarist Russia, there arose the intelligentsia (1860s–1870s), who were the status class of white-collar workers. For Germany, the theologian Alister McGrath said that "the emergence of a socially alienated, theologically literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of Germany in the 1830s". An intellectual class in Europe was socially important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose participation in society's arts, politics, journalism, and education—of either nationalist, internationalist, or ethnic sentiment—constitute "vocation of the intellectual". Moreover, some intellectuals were anti-academic, despite universities (the academy) being synonymous with intellectualism.

The front page of L'Aurore (13 January 1898) featured Émile Zola's open letter J'Accuse…! asking the French President Félix Faure to resolve the Dreyfus affair.

In France, the Dreyfus affair (1894–1906), an identity crisis of antisemitic nationalism for the French Third Republic (1870–1940), marked the full emergence of the "intellectual in public life", especially Émile Zola, Octave Mirbeau and Anatole France directly addressing the matter of French antisemitism to the public; thenceforward, "intellectual" became common, yet initially derogatory, usage; its French noun usage is attributed to Georges Clemenceau in 1898. Nevertheless, by 1930 the term "intellectual" passed from its earlier pejorative associations and restricted usages to a widely accepted term and it was because of the Dreyfus Affair that the term also acquired generally accepted use in English.

In the 20th century, the term intellectual acquired positive connotations of social prestige, derived from possessing intellect and intelligence, especially when the intellectual's activities exerted positive consequences in the public sphere and so increased the intellectual understanding of the public, by means of moral responsibility, altruism, and solidarity, without resorting to the manipulations of demagoguery, paternalism and incivility (condescension). The sociologist Frank Furedi said that "Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the [social and political] values that they uphold.

According to Thomas Sowell, as a descriptive term of person, personality, and profession, the word intellectual identifies three traits:

1. Educated; erudition for developing theories;
2. Productive; creates cultural capital in the fields of philosophy, literary criticism, and sociology, law, medicine, and science, etc.; and
3. Artistic; creates art in literature, music, painting, sculpture, etc.

Historical uses

In Latin language, at least starting from the Carolingian Empire, intellectuals could be called litterati, a term which is sometimes applied today.

The word intellectual is found in Indian scripture Mahabharata in the Bachelorette meeting (Swayamvara Sava) of Draupadi. Immediately after Arjuna and Raja-Maharaja (kings-emperors) came to the meeting, Nipuna Buddhijibina (perfect intellectuals) appeared at the meeting.

In Imperial China in the period from 206 BC until AD 1912, the intellectuals were the Scholar-officials ("Scholar-gentlemen"), who were civil servants appointed by the Emperor of China to perform the tasks of daily governance. Such civil servants earned academic degrees by means of imperial examination, and were often also skilled calligraphers or Confucian philosophers. Historian Wing-Tsit Chan concludes that:

Generally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been a worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse.

In Joseon Korea (1392–1910), the intellectuals were the literati, who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as the chungin (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system. Socially, they constituted the petite bourgeoisie, composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty.

Public intellectual

The term public intellectual describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs discourse of society, in addition to an academic career. Regardless of their academic fields or professional expertise, public intellectuals address and respond to the normative problems of society, and, as such, are expected to be impartial critics who can "rise above the partial preoccupation of one's own profession—and engage with the global issues of truth, judgment, and taste of the time". In Representations of the Intellectual (1994), Edward Saïd said that the "true intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society". Public intellectuals usually arise from the educated élite of a society; although the North American usage of the term intellectual includes the university academics. The difference between intellectual and academic is participation in the realm of public affairs.

Jürgen Habermas' Structural Transformation of Public Sphere (1963) made significant contribution to the notion of public intellectual by historically and conceptually delineating the idea of private and public. Controversial, in the same year, was Ralf Dahrendorf's definition: "As the court-jesters of modern society, all intellectuals have the duty to doubt everything that is obvious, to make relative all authority, to ask all those questions that no one else dares to ask".

An intellectual usually is associated with an ideology or with a philosophy. The Czech intellectual Václav Havel said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that moral responsibility for the intellectual's ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it is best to avoid utopian intellectuals who offer 'universal insights' to resolve the problems of political economy with public policies that might harm and that have harmed civil society; that intellectuals be mindful of the social and cultural ties created with their words, insights and ideas; and should be heard as social critics of politics and power.

Public engagement

The determining factor for a "thinker" (historian, philosopher, scientist, writer, artist) to be considered a public intellectual is the degree to which the individual is implicated and engaged with the vital reality of the contemporary world, i.e. participation in the public affairs of society. Consequently, being designated as a public intellectual is determined by the degree of influence of the designator's motivations, opinions, and options of action (social, political, ideological), and by affinity with the given thinker.

After the failure of the large-scale May 68 movement in France, intellectuals within the country were often maligned for having specific areas of expertise while discussing general subjects like democracy. Intellectuals increasingly claimed to be within marginalized groups rather than their spokespeople, and centered their activism on the social problems relevant to their areas of expertise (such as gender relations in the case of psychologists). A similar shift occurred in China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre from the "universal intellectual" (who plans better futures from within academia) to minjian ("grassroots") intellectuals, the latter group represented by such figures as Wang Xiaobo, social scientist Yu Jianrong, and Yanhuang Chunqiu editor Ding Dong (丁東).

Public policy

In the matters of public policy, the public intellectual connects scholarly research to the practical matters of solving societal problems. The British sociologist Michael Burawoy, an exponent of public sociology, said that professional sociology has failed by giving insufficient attention to resolving social problems, and that a dialogue between the academic and the layman would bridge the gap. An example is how Chilean intellectuals worked to reestablish democracy within the right-wing, neoliberal governments of the military dictatorship of 1973–1990, the Pinochet régime allowed professional opportunities for some liberal and left-wing social scientists to work as politicians and as consultants in effort to realize the theoretical economics of the Chicago Boys, but their access to power was contingent upon political pragmatism, abandoning the political neutrality of the academic intellectual.

In The Sociological Imagination (1959), C. Wright Mills said that academics had become ill-equipped for participating in public discourse, and that journalists usually are "more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially ... political scientists". That, because the universities of the U.S. are bureaucratic, private businesses, they "do not teach critical reasoning to the student", who then does not know "how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society". Likewise, Richard Rorty criticized the quality of participation of intellectuals in public discourse as an example of the "civic irresponsibility of intellect, especially academic intellect".

The American legal scholar Richard Posner said that the participation of academic public intellectuals in the public life of society is characterized by logically untidy and politically biased statements of the kind that would be unacceptable to academia. He concluded that there are few ideologically and politically independent public intellectuals, and disapproved public intellectuals who limit themselves to practical matters of public policy, and not with values or public philosophy, or public ethics, or public theology, nor with matters of moral and spiritual outrage.

Intellectual status class

Main article: Intelligentsia

Socially, intellectuals constitute the intelligentsia, a status class organised either by ideology (e.g., conservatism, fascism, socialism, liberal, reactionary, revolutionary, democratic, communism), or by nationality (American intellectuals, French intellectuals, Ibero–American intellectuals, et al.). The term intelligentsiya originated from Tsarist Russia (c. 1860s–1870s), where it denotes the social stratum of those possessing intellectual formation (schooling, education), and who were Russian society's counterpart to the German Bildungsbürgertum and to the French bourgeoisie éclairée, the enlightened middle classes of those realms.

In Marxist philosophy, the social class function of the intellectuals (the intelligentsia) is to be the source of progressive ideas for the transformation of society: providing advice and counsel to the political leaders, interpreting the country's politics to the mass of the population (urban workers and peasants). In the pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (1902), Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said that vanguard-party revolution required the participation of the intellectuals to explain the complexities of socialist ideology to the uneducated proletariat and the urban industrial workers in order to integrate them to the revolution because "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness" and will settle for the limited, socio-economic gains so achieved. In Russia as in Continental Europe, socialist theory was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", of "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", such as were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

The Hungarian Marxist philosopher György Lukács (1885–1971) identified the intelligentsia as the privileged social class who provide revolutionary leadership. By means of intelligible and accessible interpretation, the intellectuals explain to the workers and peasants the "Who?", the "How?" and the "Why?" of the social, economic and political status quo—the ideological totality of society—and its practical, revolutionary application to the transformation of their society.

The Italian communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developed Karl Marx's conception of the intelligentsia to include political leadership in the public sphere. That because "all knowledge is existentially-based", the intellectuals, who create and preserve knowledge, are "spokesmen for different social groups, and articulate particular social interests". That intellectuals occur in each social class and throughout the right-wing, the centre and the left-wing of the political spectrum and that as a social class the "intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from the ruling class" of their society.

Addressing their role as a social class, Jean-Paul Sartre said that intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age; that their moral and ethical responsibilities are to observe the socio-political moment, and to freely speak to their society, in accordance with their consciences.

The British historian Norman Stone said that the intellectual social class misunderstand the reality of society and so are doomed to the errors of logical fallacy, ideological stupidity, and poor planning hampered by ideology. In her memoirs, the Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher wrote that the anti-monarchical French Revolution (1789–1799) was "a utopian attempt to overthrow a traditional order [...] in the name of abstract ideas, formulated by vain intellectuals".

Latin America

The American academic Peter H. Smith describes the intellectuals of Latin America as people from an identifiable social class, who have been conditioned by that common experience and thus are inclined to share a set of common assumptions (values and ethics); that ninety-four per cent of intellectuals come either from the middle class or from the upper class and that only six per cent come from the working class. 

Philosopher Steven Fuller said that because cultural capital confers power and social status as a status group they must be autonomous in order to be credible as intellectuals:

It is relatively easy to demonstrate autonomy, if you come from a wealthy or [an] aristocratic background. You simply need to disown your status and champion the poor and [the] downtrodden [...]. [A]utonomy is much harder to demonstrate if you come from a poor or proletarian background [...], [thus] calls to join the wealthy in common cause appear to betray one's class origins.

United States

The Congregational theologian Edwards Amasa Park proposed segregating the intellectuals from the public sphere of society in the United States.

The 19th-century U.S. Congregational theologian Edwards Amasa Park said: "We do wrong to our own minds, when we carry out scientific difficulties down to the arena of popular dissension". In his view, it was necessary for the sake of social, economic and political stability "to separate the serious, technical role of professionals from their responsibility [for] supplying usable philosophies for the general public". This expresses a dichotomy, derived from Plato, between public knowledge and private knowledge, "civic culture" and "professional culture", the intellectual sphere of life and the life of ordinary people in society.

In the United States, members of the intellectual status class have been demographically characterized as people who hold liberal-to-leftist political perspectives about guns-or-butter fiscal policy.

In "The Intellectuals and Socialism" (1949), Friedrich Hayek wrote that "journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists" form an intellectual social class whose function is to communicate the complex and specialized knowledge of the scientist to the general public. He argued that intellectuals were attracted to socialism or social democracy because the socialists offered "broad visions; the spacious comprehension of the social order, as a whole, which a planned system promises" and that such broad-vision philosophies "succeeded in inspiring the imagination of the intellectuals" to change and improve their societies. According to Hayek, intellectuals disproportionately support socialism for idealistic and utopian reasons that cannot be realized in practice.

Persecution of intellectuals

Totalitarian governments manipulate and apply anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent. Intellectuals were targeted by the Nazis, the communist regime in China, in communist Romania by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and the Securitate, the Khmer Rouge, and in conflicts in Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland.

Criticism

The economist Milton Friedman identified the intelligentsia and the business class as interfering with capitalism.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre noted that "the Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern them" (L'intellectuel est quelqu'un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas).

Noam Chomsky expressed the view that "intellectuals are specialists in defamation, they are basically political commissars, they are the ideological administrators, the most threatened by dissidence." In his 1967 article "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", Chomsky analyzes the intellectual culture in the U.S., and argues that it is largely subservient to power. He is particularly critical of social scientists and technocrats, who provide a pseudo-scientific justification for the crimes of the state.

In "An Interview with Milton Friedman" (1974), the American economist Milton Friedman said that businessmen and intellectuals are enemies of capitalism: most intellectuals believed in socialism while businessmen expected economic privileges. In his essay "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" (1998), the American libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick of the Cato Institute argued that intellectuals become embittered leftists because their superior intellectual work, much rewarded at school and at university, are undervalued and underpaid in the capitalist market economy. Thus, intellectuals turn against capitalism despite enjoying more socioeconomic status than the average person.

The economist Thomas Sowell wrote in his book Intellectuals and Society (2010) that intellectuals, who are producers of knowledge, not material goods, tend to speak outside their own areas of expertise, and yet expect social and professional benefits from the halo effect derived from possessing professional expertise. In relation to other professions, public intellectuals are socially detached from the negative and unintended consequences of public policy derived from their ideas. Sowell gives the example of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), who advised the British government against national rearmament in the years before the Second World War.

Trees in mythology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trees_in_mythology

The Bodhi Tree of Bodh Gaya is believed to be the Ficus religiosa under which Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment. It is worshipped by Buddhists. The sacred fig is also venerated in Hinduism and Jainism.

Trees are significant in many of the world's mythologies, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, have often seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth. Evergreen trees, which largely stay green throughout these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the eternal, immortality or fertility. The image of the Tree of life or world tree occurs in many mythologies.

Examples include the banyan and the sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of Judaism and Christianity. In folk religion and folklore, trees are often said to be the homes of tree spirits. Germanic mythology as well as Celtic polytheism both appear to have involved cultic practice in sacred groves, especially grove of oak. The term druid itself possibly derives from the Celtic word for oak. The Egyptian Book of the Dead mentions sycamores as part of the scenery where the soul of the deceased finds blissful repose.

The presence of trees in myth sometimes occurs in connection to the concept of the sacred tree and the sacred grove. Trees are an attribute of the archetypical locus amoenus.

Wishing trees

Main article: Wish Tree

In many parts of the world travelers have observed the custom of hanging objects upon trees in order to establish some sort of a relationship between themselves and the tree. Throughout Europe, trees are known as sites of pilgrimages, ritual ambulation, and the recital of (Christian) prayers. Wreaths, ribbons or rags are suspended to win favor for sick humans or livestock, or merely for good luck. Popular belief associates the sites with healing, bewitching, or mere wishing.

In South America, Darwin recorded a tree honored by numerous offerings (rags, meat, cigars, etc.); libations were made to it, and horses were sacrificed.

World tree

Main article: World tree

Yggdrasil, the World Ash of Norse mythology

The world tree, with its branches reaching up into the sky, and roots deep into the earth, can be seen to dwell in three worlds - a link between heaven, the earth, and the underworld, uniting above and below. This great tree acts as an axis mundi, supporting or holding up the cosmos, and providing a link between the heavens, earth, and underworld. In European mythology, the best-known example is the tree Yggdrasil from Norse mythology.

Religion and folklore

Numerous popular stories throughout the world reflect a firmly-rooted belief in an intimate connection between a human being and a tree, plant or flower. Sometimes a man's life depends upon the tree and suffers when it withers or is injured, and we encounter the idea of the external soul, already found in the Ancient Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers from at least 3000 years ago. Here one of the brothers leaves his heart on the top of the flower of the acacia and falls dead when it is cut down. Sometimes, however, the tree is a mysterious token which shows its sympathy with an absent hero by weakening or dying, as the man becomes ill or loses his life. These two features very easily combine, and they agree in representing to us mysterious sympathy between tree and human life.

Sometimes the new-born child is associated with a newly planted tree with which its life is supposed to be bound up; or, on ceremonial occasions (betrothal, marriage, ascent to the throne), a personal relationship of this kind is instituted by planting trees, upon the fortunes of which the career of the individual depends. Sometimes, boughs or plants are selected and the individual draws omens of life and death. Again, a person will put themselves into relationship with a tree by depositing upon it something which has been in close contact with them, such as hair or clothing.

Often a tree will be associated with oracles. The oak of Dodona was tended by priests who slept on the ground. Forms of the tall oaks of the old Prussians were inhabited by gods who gave responses, and so numerous are the examples that the old Hebrew terebinth of the teacher, and the terebinth of the diviners may reasonably be placed in this category. In Greek myth, oak trees are said to be inhabited by spirits or nymphs called hamadryads, and if they were cut down by mortals, the gods punished them since the beings in the trees were believed to die. Important sacred trees are also the object of pilgrimage, one of the most noteworthy being the branch of the Bo tree at Sri Lanka brought thither before the Christian era. The tree spirits will hold sway over the surrounding forest or district, and the animals in the locality are often sacred and must not be harmed.

The custom of transferring disease or sickness from humans to trees is well known. Sometimes the hair, nails, clothing, etc. of a sickly person are fixed to a tree, or they are forcibly inserted in a hole in the trunk, or the tree is split and the patient passes through the aperture. Where the tree has been thus injured, its recovery and that of the patient are often associated. Different explanations may be found of such customs which naturally take rather different forms among peoples in different grades.

In Arab folklore, sacred trees are haunted by jinn; sacrifices are made, and the sick who sleep beneath them receive prescriptions in their dreams. Here, as frequently elsewhere, it is dangerous to pull a bough. This dread of damaging special trees is familiar: Cato instructed the woodman to sacrifice to the male or female deity before thinning a grove, while in the Homeric poem to Aphrodite the tree nymph is wounded when the tree is injured, and dies when the trunk falls.

Early Buddhism held that trees had neither mind nor feeling and might lawfully be cut; but it recognized that certain spirits might reside in them, such as Nang Takian in Thailand. Propitiation is made before the axe is laid to the holy trees; loss of life or of wealth and the failure of rain are feared should they be wantonly cut; there are even trees which it is dangerous to climb. The Talein of Burma prays to the tree before he cuts it down, and the African woodman will place a fresh sprig upon the tree. In Hawaiian tradition, a tree either located at the end of a valley or on a cliff near the sea, is used by the soul as a gateway to the Underworld (AKA Pit of Milu). Some Ancient Indian tree deities, such as Puliyidaivalaiyamman, the Tamil deity of the tamarind tree, or Kadambariyamman, associated with the kadamba tree were seen as manifestations of a goddess who offers her blessings by giving fruits in abundance.

In literature

A temple in India with the sacred banyan Tree

• In literature, a mythology was developed by J. R. R. Tolkien, his Two Trees of Valinor playing a central role in his mythopoeic cosmogony. Tolkien's 1964 Tree and Leaf combines the allegorical tale Leaf by Niggle and his essay On Fairy-Stories. In The Lord of the Rings, the White Tree of Gondor stands as a symbol of Gondor in the Court of the Fountain in Minas Tirith.
• W. B. Yeats describes a "holy tree" in his poem "The Two Trees" (1893).
• In George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, one of the main religions, that of "the old gods" or "the gods of the North", involves sacred groves of trees ("godswoods") with a white tree with red leaves at the center known as the "heart tree".
• In Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows, the Fjerdans worship a god called Djel, symbolized as a white ash tree.

Tree worship at Kannur in India

In film and TV

In the third (sixth chronologically) Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks worship trees on the forest moon of Endor.

In the fictional universe of the film Avatar, the Pandoran biosphere habitates trees, which are of fundamental importance for the Na'vi people, like the Hometrees, the Tree of Souls and the Tree of Voices as well as Woodsprites.

In the TV series Teen Wolf, an element of the plot is the Nemeton, a sacred tree from which druids draw power through human sacrifices, and which later acts as a beacon, drawing supernatural entities to the nearby town of Beacon Hills.