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Subtext

Subtext

Altermative topic: Subtext_programming_language. Subtext is content of a book, play, film or television series which is not announced explicitly by the characters (or author) but is implicit or becomes something understood by the reader / viewer as the production unfolds. Subtext can also refer to the thoughts and motives of the characters which are only covered in an aside. Subtext can also be used to imply controversial subjects without specifically alienating people from the fiction, often through use of metaphor. H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, for example, use the Morlocks and Eloi as metaphors for exploitative capitalists and exploited workers respectively. Examples of subtext often include the sexuality of the characters. For example the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle in Xena: Warrior Princess, which was left ambiguous throughout the series although some fans believed them to be lovers, or the nature of the relationship between the teachers in the film version of Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour which was based on an actual case in Scotland but toned down for film. A scene in Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall, in which subtitles explain the characters' inner thoughts during an apparently innocent conversation, is an example of the subtext of a scene being made explicit. Category:Literary concepts

Subtext programming language

Subtext is an moderately visual programming language (VPL) and environment, for writing application software, not system software. It is an experimental, research attempt to develop a new programming model, called Example Centric Programming, by treating copied blocks as first class prototypes, for program structure. It uses live text, similar to what occurs in spreadsheets as users update cells, for frequent feedback. When it is developed enough, it will become a practical language for daily use. It is planned to be open software; the license is not yet determined.

External links


- [http://subtextual.org/ Subtextual.org] Official home website.
- [http://alarmingdevelopment.org/ Alarming Development] Weblog for Subtext discussion and debate.
- [http://lists.csail.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/subtext/ Subtext Info Page] Email list with archives, means to subscribe/unsubscribe. Category:Visual programming language Category:Programming languages

H.G. Wells

Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946) was a British writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Time Machine.

Biography

Early life

Herbert George was the fourth and last son born at 58 The High Street, Bromley to Joseph Wells, a former domestic gardener and at the time shopkeeper and cricketer and his wife Sarah Neal, a former domestic servant and occasional housekeeper. Both parents were members of the working class, but aspired to lower-middle-classness. An inheritance allowed them to purchase a china shop, which, after they had bought it, they realized would never be a paying propostion. The stock was old and worn out, the location poor. They managed to earn a meagre income, but little of it came from the shop. Joseph sold cricket bats and balls and other equipment at the matches he played at, and received an unsteady amount of money from the matches, for in those days there were no professional cricketers, and payment for skilled bowlers and batters came from passing the hat afterwards, or from small honoraria from the clubs where matches were played. A defining incident of young Herbert George's life is said to be an accident he had in 1874 when he was eight years old. The accident left him for a time bedridden with a broken leg. To pass the time, he started reading and soon became devoted to the other worlds and lives to which books gave him access; it also stimulated his desire to write. Later that year he entered the Commercial Academy of Thomas Morley, a Scotsman, who had founded the school in 1849, when an earlier one at which he had taught went bankrupt. The teaching was erratic, the curriculum mostly focused, Wells said later, on producing copper-plate handwriting and doing the sort of sums useful to tradesmen. Wells continued at Morley's Academy until 1880. But in 1877 another accident had affected his life. This time it had happened to his father, leaving Joseph Wells with a fractured thigh. The accident effectively put an end to Joseph's career as a cricketer, and his earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss. No longer able to support themselves financially, they instead sought to place their boys as apprentices to various professions. At the time it was a usual method for young employees to learn their trade working under a more experienced employer. In time they should be able to practise their trade for themselves. From 1881 to 1883 Herbert George had an unhappy apprenticeship as a draper at the Southsea Drapery Emporium. His experiences were later used as inspiration for his novel Kipps, which described the life of a draper's apprentice as well as being a critique of the world's distribution of wealth. Wells' mother and father had never got along with one another particularly well (she was a pious Protestant, he a hen-pecked freethinker), and when she went back to work as a ladies maid (at Uppark, a country house) one of the conditions of work was that she would not have space for husband or children; thereafter, she and Joseph lived separate lives, though they never divorced and neither ever developed any other liaison. Herbert George not only failed at being a draper, he failed at several other apprenticeships, and each time he would arrive at Uppark – "the bad shilling back again!" as he said – and stay there until a fresh start could be arranged for him. Fortunately for Wells, Uppark had a magnificent library in which he immersed himself.

Teacher

In 1883 his employer dismissed him, claiming to be dissatisfied with him. The young man was reportedly not displeased with this ending to his apprenticeship. Later that year, he became a teacher at Midhurst Grammar school, until he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science (later the Royal College of Science, now part of Imperial College London) in London, studying biology under T. H. Huxley. As an alumnus, he later helped to set up the Royal College of Science Association, of which he became the first president in 1909. Herbert George studied in his new school until 1887 with an allowance of 21 shillings a week thanks to his scholarship. He soon entered the Debating Society of his school. These years mark the beginning of his interest in a possible reformation of society. At first approaching the subject through studying The Republic by Plato, he soon turned to his contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently formed Fabian Society. He was also among the founders of "The Science School Journal", a school magazine which allowed him to express his views on literature and society. The school year 1886–1887 became the last year of his studies. Having previously successfully passed his exams in both biology and physics, his lack of interest in geology resulted in his failure to pass and the loss of his scholarship. Herbert George was left without a source of income for a while. His aunt Mary, a cousin of his father, invited him to stay with her for a while, so at least he did not face the problem of housing. During his stay with his aunt, he grew interested in her daughter, Isabel.

Marriage and liaisons

In 1891 Wells married his cousin Isabel Mary Wells, but left her in 1894 for one of his students, Amy Catherine, whom he married in 1895. He had two sons by Amy: George Philip in 1901 and Frank Richard in 1903. During his marriage to Amy, Wells had liaisons with a number of women, including American birth control activist Margaret Sanger. He had a daughter with writer Amber Reeves in 1909 and in 1914, a son, Anthony West, by novelist and feminist Rebecca West, 26 years his junior. In spite of Amy Catherine's knowledge of some of these affairs, she remained married to Wells until her death in 1927. "I was never a great amorist," Wells wrote in An Experiment in Autobiography (1934), "though I have loved several people very deeply."

Game designer

Seeking a more structured way to play war games, H.G. Wells wrote Floor Games (1911) followed by Little Wars (1913). Little Wars is recognised today as the first recreational wargame and Wells is regarded by gamers and hobbyists as "the Father of Miniature Wargaming."

Writer

Wells' first bestseller was Anticipations, published in 1901. Perhaps his most explicitly futuristic work, it bore the subtitle "An Experiment in Prophecy" when originally serialised in a magazine. The book is interesting both for its hits (trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of population from cities to suburbs; moral restrictions declining as men and women seek greater sexual freedom) and its misses ("my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea"). He also visualized the elimination of all non-white people to make way for the utopian future ("And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? ... I take it they will have to go"). 1901 and errected as a tribute to the books author H. G. Wells. In Woking town centre, UK.]] His early novels, called "scientific romances", invented a number of themes now classic in science fiction in such works as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds (which have all been made into films) and are often thought of as being influenced by the works of Jules Verne. He also wrote other, non-fantastic novels which have received critical acclaim, including the satire on Edwardian advertising Tono-Bungay and Kipps. Though not a science-fiction novel, radioactive decay plays a small but consequential role in Tono-Bungay. It plays a much larger role in The World Set Free (1914). This book contains what is surely his biggest prophetic "hit." Scientists of the day were well aware that the natural decay of radium releases energy at a slow rate for thousands of years. The rate of release is too slow to have practical utility, but the total amount released is huge. Wells' novel revolves around an (unspecified) invention that accelerates the process of radioactive decay, producing bombs that explode with no more than the force of ordinary high explosive— but which "continue to explode" for days on end. "Nothing could have been more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century," he wrote, "than the rapidity with which war was becoming impossible... [but] they did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands." Leó Szilárd acknowledged that the book inspired him to theorise the nuclear chain reaction. Wells also wrote nonfiction. His classic two-volume work The Outline of History (1920) set a new standard and direction for popularised scholarship. Many other authors followed with 'Outlines' of their own in other subjects. Wells followed it in 1922 by a much shorter popular work, A Short History of the World. The 'Outlines' became sufficiently common for James Thurber to parody the trend in his humorous essay An Outline of Scientists. From quite early in his career, he sought a better way to organise society, and wrote a number of Utopian novels. Usually starting with the world rushing to catastrophe, until people realise a better way of living: whether by mysterious gases from a comet causing people to behave rationally (In the Days of the Comet), or a world council of scientists taking over, as in The Shape of Things to Come (1933), which he later adapted for the 1936 Alexander Korda film, Things to Come. This depicted, all too accurately, the impending World War, with cities being destroyed by aerial bombs. World War] Wells contemplates the ideas of Nature vs Nurture and questions humanity in books like The Island of Dr. Moreau. Not all his scientific romances ended in a happy Utopia, as the dystopian When the Sleeper Awakes shows. The Island of Dr. Moreau is even darker. The narrator, having been trapped on an island of animals vivisected (unsuccessfully) into human beings, eventually returns to England; like Gulliver on his return from the Houyhnhnms he finds himself unable to shake off the perceptions of his fellow humans as barely civilised beasts, slowly reverting back to their animal natures. He called his political views socialist, and with his fondness for Utopia, he was at first quite sympathetic to Lenin's attempts at reconstructing the shattered Russian economy, as his account of a visit (Russia in the Shadows 1920) shows. But he grew disillusioned at the doctrinal rigidity of the Bolsheviks, and after meeting Stalin grew convinced the whole enterprise had gone horribly wrong. Wells also wrote the preface for the first edition of W. N. P. Barbellion's diaries, The Journal of a Disappointed Man, published in 1919. Since Barbellion was the real author's pen-name, many reviewers believed Wells to have been the true author of the Journal; Wells always denied this, despite being full of praise for the diaries, but the rumours persisted until Barbellion's death later that year. In 1927, Florence Deeks sued Wells for plagiarism, claiming that he had stolen much of the content of The Outline of History from a work she had submitted to Macmillan & Sons, his North American publisher, but who held onto the manuscript for eight months before rejecting it. Despite numerous similarities in phrasing and factual errors, the court found Wells not guilty. In 1938, he published a collection of essays on the future organisation of knowledge and education, titled World Brain, including the essay The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia. Near the end of the Second World War Allied forces discovered that the SS had compiled lists of intellectuals and politicians slated for immediate liquidation upon the invasion of England in the abandoned Operation Sea Lion. The name “H.G. Wells” appeared high on the list for the "crime" of being a socialist. In his later years, he grew increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for humanity (mostly because of the Second World War) as the title of his last book, Mind at the End of its Tether suggests. His later books are often thought to do more preaching than storytelling or lack the energy and invention of his earlier works. One critic complained: "He sold his birthright for a pot of message". His last words were, "I'm all right". Mind at the End of its Tether

Legacy

In his lifetime and after his death, Wells was considered a prominent socialist thinker. In his book The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek, one of the twentieth century's most famous proponents of laissez-faire capitalism, held up Wells in particular as an example of the idealist intellectuals who believed in "the most comprehensive central planning" and could "at the same time, write an ardent defence of the rights of man". In later years, however, Wells' image has shifted and he is now thought of simply as one of the pioneers of science fiction; Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and staunch Republican, praised Wells in his book To Renew America, writing "Our generation is still seeking its Jules Verne or H.G. Wells to dazzle our imaginations with hope and optimism".

Appearances in other contexts

H. G. Wells appears as a character in the Doctor Who serial Timelash. He also appears as a character in the novel and motion picture Time After Time, where he chases Jack The Ripper after the latter stole his time machine and escaped to 1979 San Francisco. He also appears as a character in multiple episodes of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. The novel The Time Ships, by British author Stephen Baxter, was designated by the Wells estate as an authorised sequel to The Time Machine, marking the centenary of its publication, and features characters, situations and technobabble from several of Wells' stories, as well as a representation of Wells (unnamed, and referred to as 'my friend, the Author'). Artur Sammler, the main character of Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet is working on a biography of H. G. Wells. Sammler is a Holocaust survivor and a self-made philosopher who treasures his pre-war acquaintance with Wells.

Works

A partial listing of his works: (Entries marked with an
- are available at the Project Gutenberg website.)
- The Chronic Argonauts (1888)
- The Time Machine (1895)
-
- The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents (1895)
-
- The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896)
-
- The Red Room (1896)
-
- The Wheels of Chance (1896)
-
- The Invisible Man (1897)
-
- The Star - short story, Graphic, Christmas (1897)
-
- The War of the Worlds (1898)
-
- When the Sleeper Wakes (1899)
-
- Love and Mr Lewisham (1900)
-
- The First Men in the Moon (1901)
-
- Mankind in the Making (1903)
-
- [http://www.geocities.com/martinwguy/sceptins.txt The Scepticism of the Instrument] - A portion of a paper read to the Oxford Philosophical Society, November 8, (1903)
- The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)
-
- Kipps (1905)
- A Modern Utopia (1905)
-
- In the Days of the Comet (1906)
-
- The War in the Air (1908)
-
- First and Last Things (1908)
-
- Ann Veronica (1909)
-
- Tono-Bungay (1909)
-
- The History of Mr. Polly (1910)
-
- The New Machiavelli (1911)
-
- The Country of the Blind and Other Stories (1911)
-
- The Sleeper Awakes (1911)
- - Revised edition of When the Sleeper Wakes
- Floor Games (1911)
-
- Marriage (1912)
- Little Wars (1913)
-
- The World Set Free (1914)
-
- The Research Magnificent (1915)
-
- God the Invisible King (1917)
-
- War and the Future (1917)
-
- The Soul of a Bishop (1917)
-
- The Outline of History I, II 1920, 1931, 1940 (1949, 1956, 1961, 1971)
- A Short History of the World (1922)
- The Secret Places of the Heart (1922)
-
- Men Like Gods (1923)
- Christina Alberta's Father (1925)
- The World of William Clissold (1926)
- Meanwhile (1927)
- Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928)
- The Open Conspiracy (1928)
- The Shape of Things to Come (1933)
- Star-Begotten (1937)
- Crux Ansata (1943) His autobiography was published in 1934, as An Experiment in Autobiography.

Footnotes


- [http://library.thinkquest.org/27864/data/wells/hgwbio.html ThinkQuest Library]. H.G. Wells Biography.
- [http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/passionate_friends.htm New York University]. The Passionate Friends: H. G. Wells and Margaret Sanger.
- [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hgwells.htm Pegasos - A Literature Related Resource Site]. H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells (1866-1946).
- For examples of his contemporaries' wilful disregard of the failings of the Soviet Union, see the book Political Pilgrims by Paul Hollander.
- The "pot of message" remark comes from a 1948 Theodore Sturgeon short story entitled Unite and Conquer, a character in the story was quoting a "Dr. Pierce".
- Hayek, Friedrich. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944 (1994 edition). p. 94.
- Gingrich, Newt. To Renew America. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. p. 189.

Honours


- H. G. Wells crater on the far side of the Moon is named for him.

See also


- Invasion literature

External links


-
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Wells%2C+H.+G.&amode=start E-texts on The Online Books Page]
- [http://library.thinkquest.org/27864/data/wells/hgwbio.html?tqskip1=1&tqtime=0806 Another profile of him]
- [http://quotesandpoem.com/literature/ListofLiteraryWorks/Wells__H._G._(Herbert_George) H. G. Well’s Works and Quotes]
- [http://www.geocities.com/originalroman/ A more detailed look at his life and work]
-
- [http://www.costik.com/littlewars.html Little Wars & Floor Games] Introduction to the 1995 edition of Wells' gaming books.
- [http://www.english-literature-online.com/h-g-wells/ eBooks by H G Wells at English Literature Online including War of the Worlds]
- [http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/ history and impact of The War Of The Worlds] Wells, H. G. Wells, H. G. Wells, H. G. Wells, H. G. Wells, H. G. Wells, H. G. Wells, H.G. Wells Wells, H.G. ja:ハーバート・ジョージ・ウェルズ simple:H. G. Wells

Morlocks

Morlocks are a fictional species, created by H.G. Wells for his novel, 'The Time Machine'. The Morlocks, as well as another supposed offshoot of humans, the Eloi, exist in the future world in the year AD 802,701 in 'The Time Machine'. The Morlocks are said to have descended from humans, although they have evolved to become a completely different species by the 8028th century.

Morlocks in "The Time Machine"

In the book, the Morlocks and the Eloi have something of a symbiotic relationship: The Eloi are clothed and fed by the Morlocks, and in return, the Morlocks eat the Eloi. The Time Traveller, who is the main character in 'The Time Machine', perceives this, and guesses that the Eloi/Morlock relationship developed from a class distinction present in his own time- the Morlocks are the worker class who had to work underground so that the rich upper class would have luxury. The Morlocks live underground, tending machinery, and are seen by many to represent the "soul-deadening" effects of the Industrial Revolution. In the end of the book, the Time Traveller proceeds further in the future, and sees, on a desolate beach, giant crab-like creatures hunting after beautiful creatures that resemble butterflies. The Time Traveller theorizes that this is an eventual result of the Eloi/Morlock struggle.

Morlocks in other literature

H.G. Wells also wrote a book called 'When the Sleeper Wakes'. The book centers around a man who somehow falls into a sleep for several centuries, and wakes in the mid-21st century to find that he has inherited the world. In this book, we find out that the Salvation Army has rounded up most of the world's lower class, forcing them to work underground in horrible conditions for the sole benefit of the rich upper class. It would seem that these people will later degenerate to become the Morlocks. In a Neal Stephenson's essay on modern culture vis-a-vis OS development, "In the begining there was the Command Line," he demonstrates similarities between the future in The Time Traveller and contemporary American culture. He claims that most Americans have been exposed to a "corporate monoculture" which renders them "unwilling to make judgments and incapable of taking stands." Anyone who remains outside of this "culture" is left with powerful tools to deal with the world, and it is they, rather than the neutered Eloi, that run things. The assumption seems to be that the Eloi will manage to fill their heads with garbage one way or the other, so our culture exists to ensure that it is harmless garbage rather than the dangerous types that lead to disruptions, violence, wars and inquisitions. To quote Stephenson directly: "But in our world it's the other way round. The Morlocks are in the minority, and they are running the show, because they understand how everything works. The much more numerous Eloi learn everything they know from being steeped from birth in electronic media directed and controlled by book-reading Morlocks. So many ignorant people could be dangerous if they got pointed in the wrong direction, and so we've evolved a popular culture that is (a) almost unbelievably infectious and (b) neuters every person who gets infected by it, by rendering them unwilling to make judgments and incapable of taking stands." Stephen Baxter, a prominent Science-Fiction writer, wrote a sequel to The Time Machine, called 'The Time Ships'. In this, the Time Traveller attempts to return to the world of the Eloi and Morlocks, but instead finds that he has changed history somehow and finds a completely different world in the future: One in which there never were Eloi. Instead, Humanity constructed a metallic sphere around the sun where humanity now lives. These humans are physically identical to the Morlocks, although they are a race of scientists, not monsters. They do not have war, or religion, or many of the things which is generally had by Humanity. The 'Morlock' Nebogipfel joins the Time Traveller on his travels through time. Nebogipfel's name comes from the main character of H.G. Wells' first attempt at a time travel story, then called Chronic Argonauts. The character's name was Dr. Moses Nebogipfel. (The name Moses was also used in The Time Ships, though it is given to the younger version of himself that the Time Traveler meets while on his journey.) Two other books involving Morlocks, by different authors were:
- 'The Man who loved Morlocks', by David Lake
- 'Morlock Night', by K.W. Jeter.

Marvel Comics

In Marvel Comics a tribe of mutants who lived below New York's sewer system, the Morlocks, were named after H.G. Wells' Morlocks. They appeared originally as X-Men adversaries, but after Storm defeated their leader, Callisto, in battle, they became their allies. Most of them were slaughtered in the Mutant Massacre, and the survivors later moved to Gene Nation, located in a parallel dimension. A later retcon made them the failed creations of the Dark Beast.

Morlocks in film

In a movie version of The Time Machine directed by George Pal, the Morlocks are eventually defeated by the Eloi, who are motivated to fight by the Time Traveller. One of the differences of the movie Morlocks (who are blue-skinned brutes with glowing eyes) is that the divergence was created not by a varying caste system, but by being forced underground due to nuclear war. This history was told by three recording rings found in an ancient palace. In 2002, another movie based on the Time Machine was directed by Simon Wells, the grandson of H.G. Wells. The Morlocks in this film, as well as the Eloi, have been changed in several major ways. The Morlocks have become more physically strong and fast, very apelike now. In addition, the Morlocks have split into several types. In addition to the 'hunter' Morlocks, which are the most like apes, there are also the Morlocks who aren't as physically fit. These 'spy' Morlocks shoot darts at escaping Eloi, incapacitating them. All the Morlocks are controlled by a race of 'Uber-Morlocks', who appear more human than the other two castes seen in the movies. Instead of having gray skin and patches of fur, the Uber-Morlock seen in the film has long, flowing hair that is the same pure white color as his skin, has the physique of a human, and wears clothing. His brain is so large that it doesn't quite fit into his head, but instead trails down his back and envelops his spine. He is articulate in English speech, and eventually ends up fighting the Time Traveller. The Uber-Morlock explains the history of his species (in terms of the 2002 movie). The Morlocks of the movie originated from the humans that sought shelter underground after an attempt at destroying a lunar colony sent the moon crashing to Earth. They remained underground so long that they developed bodies with very little (if any) melanin in their skin and very light-sensitive eyes that can't deal with sunlight for long. As a result of the past catastrophe and the resulting strain on resources and a need for efficiency, the proto-Morlocks divided themselves into several castes. They interbred within each caste until the Morlock race became composed of genetically fine-tuned sub-races designed for specific tasks. The movie displays three of these races: the hunters that herd Eloi, the spies that shoot them with blowgun darts, and the Uber-Morlocks that serve to command the first two races. The Morlocks seen in the movie are destroyed when the Time Traveller blows up his time machine in their tunnels, but there are other Morlock colonies that remain and are unseen.

Creatures based on Morlocks

In the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons, there is a race of creatures called the Grimlocks which are clearly based on Morlocks. They dwell underground, only ascending to raid villages, etc.

See also


- The yahoos of Gulliver's Travels are another example of human degeneration. Category:Fictional species

Eloi

:For information on Saint Eloi, the Christian apostle to Flanders, see Saint Eligius. The Eloi are one of the two post-human races in H. G. Wells' novel The Time Machine. In the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are the rich, attractive upper class which lives in luxury on the surface of the earth while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing and infrastructure for the Eloi. Each class evolved (or degenerated) from different social classes as humans, a theme that reflects upon Wells' sociopolitical opinions. The main difference from their earlier ruler-worker state is that while the Morlocks continue to support the world's infrastructure and serve the Eloi, the Eloi have undergone significant physical and mental deterioration. Having solved all problems which required strength, intelligence or virtue, they have slowly become dissolute, frail idiots. While one initially has the impression that the Eloi live a life of play and toilless abundance, it is revealed that the Morlocks are tending to their needs as a farmer tends to cattle. It seems that Eloi comprise most(if not all) of the Morlock diet and the Eloi are no longer capable of acting in any other role. In a Neal Stephenson's essay on modern culture vis-a-vis OS development, "In the begining there was the Command Line," he demonstrates similarities between the future in The Time Traveller and contemporary American culture. He claims that most Americans have been exposed to a "corporate monoculture" which renders them "unwilling to make judgments and incapable of taking stands." Anyone who remains outside of this "culture" is left with powerful tools to deal with the world, and it is they, rather than the neutered Eloi, that run things. The assumption seems to be that the Eloi will manage to fill their heads with garbage one way or the other, so our culture exists to ensure that it is harmless garbage rather than the dangerous types that lead to disruptions, violence, wars and inquisitions. To quote Stephenson directly: :"But in our world it's the other way round. The Morlocks are in the minority, and they are running the show, because they understand how everything works. The much more numerous Eloi learn everything they know from being steeped from birth in electronic media directed and controlled by book-reading Morlocks. So many ignorant people could be dangerous if they got pointed in the wrong direction, and so we've evolved a popular culture that is (a) almost unbelievably infectious and (b) neuters every person who gets infected by it, by rendering them unwilling to make judgments and incapable of taking stands." "Eloi" is also a derogatory nickname used by certain traditional conservatives for liberal elites, as the elites are seen unable to address moral subjects that are destructive to society. The progressive rock band Eloy are named after the race. The Elokoi of Brian Caswell's novel Deucalion are presumably inspired by the Eloi, but ones without the dark side of the Morlocks. Category: Fictional species

Working class

The working class is a social class often contrasted with middle class and upper class in terms of the nature of work undertaken (manual labor or skilled), the level of remuneration (typically low hourly rates although there are exceptions) and access to resources (limited access to capital, education and land). People in this class often rely on payment for their labour to survive. The defining characteristic is the dependence on wage-labor (or salaried employment). The working class is mainly found in industrialised capitalist economies or in urban areas of non-industrialised economies.

Prevailing Marxist definition

Karl Marx defined the "working class" or proletariat as the multitude of individuals who sell their labor power for wages and do not own the means of production, and he believed them responsible for creating the wealth of a society. For example, the members of this class physically build bridges, craft furniture, and grow food, but do not themselves own the land or the factories. The proletariat are the "ordinary" proletariat and the lumpenproletariat (rag-proletariat,) who are extremely poor and cannot find legal work on a regular basis (like day laborers and the homeless). As Marxist definitions of class hinge around paid labour and lack of property, key issues in Marxist arguments about working class membership include:
- Those in a temporary or permanent position of unemployment.
- Domestic labour, particularly the children and traditionally, also the wives of male workers who do not themselves work paying jobs outside the home.
- Whether the term includes ownership of personal property.
- Whether the term includes ownership of housing;
- Whether the term includes self-employment.
- The class position of students in society.
- Part-time workers who also run a retail shop.

Historical development

In feudal Europe, and other pre-capitalist societies, the working class as such did not exist in large numbers. Instead, society conceived those engaged in manual labour as labouring classes, a group which united different professions, trades and labours together. In Europe, a lawyer, craftsman and unskilled peasant were all considered to be part of the same social unit, a "third estate" of non-nobles who were not church officials. Similar hierarchies existed outside Europe. The social position of these labouring classes was viewed as natural and ordained by deities. This social position was contested, particularly by peasants, for example during the German Peasants War. In the 18th century in Flanders and England more and more labourers subsisted only on the basis of their labour. They ceased to own tools, land or feudal privileges. Additionally, the dispossession of large numbers of peasants created wandering bands of vagabonds. These members of society were dispossessed by the wealthy in order to produce marketable commodities. This process, where traditional social and political roles are destroyed, and capitalist commodity relations are substituted, is bound up with the generation of working classes across the world and is commonly known as proletarianisation. In the late 18th century, the European society was in a state of change, and this change could not be reconciled with the idea of a changeless god-created social order. Wealthy members of these societies created ideologies which blamed many of the problems of working-class people on the morals and ethics of the working class themselves (i.e. excessive consumption of alcohol, perceived laziness and inability to save money). These processes were identified in English history by E.P. Thompson in his book The Making of the English Working Class. Thompson argues that the English working class was present at its own creation, and seeks to describe the transformation of pre-modern labouring classes into a modern, politically self-conscious, working class.

Culture and personal characteristics

As the working class is divided among nations, and internally divided along very broad lines of rural, blue collar and white collar occupations, there is no one unitary culture. Working class cultures tend to be identified on national and occupational bases, for instance, Australian rural working class culture or New Zealand white collar working class culture. There are however many stereotypes of the working class.

Working class culture in the United States

In the United States, the working class is divided between blue-collar workers and white-collar workers.

Social and emotional life

According to Rubin (1976) there is a differential in social and emotional skills both between working class men and women and between the blue-color working class and more sophisticated college-educated workers. Working class men are characterized by Rubin as taking a "rational" posture while women are characterized as being more emotional and oriented towards communication of feelings. This constellation of issues has been explored in the popular media, for example, the television shows, All in the Family featuring Archie Bunker and his wife Edith Bunker and Roseanne. These popular television programs also explored generational change and conflict in working class families.

Sexuality

According to Rubin, who cites as sources Kinsey (1948) and a national survey in Playboy magazine twenty-five years later, working class sexuality has increased considerably in sophistication during the last decades of the twentieth century: duration of foreplay has increased from near zero to an average of 15 minutes; the percentage of married men who have engaged in cunnilingus was reported at 15% in 1948 and at 56% 25 years later. This increase of sophistication has resulted in some dissatisfaction, especially among working class women, who may not enjoy or participate willingly in such practices as fellatio.

Approaches

Some people question the usefulness of the concept of a working class, and some deny it exists. However, many sociologists, historians and political theorists use of the concept in their academic theory and practice. Due to the political interest in the working class, debate has been raging over the nature of the working class since the early 19th century. Two broad schools of definitions emerge, those aligned with 20th century sociological stratum models of class society, and those aligned with the 19th century historical materialism economic models of the Marxists and Anarchists. The concept of the working class is important in Marxist, Anarchist and Socialist thought, there is a great deal of political interest in the precise definition of who the working class is. Key points of commonality amongst various ideas include the idea that there is one working class, even though it may be internally divided. The idea of one single working class should be contrasted with 18th century conceptions of many labouring classes.

Non-Marxist sociological definitions

The parameters which define working class depend on the schema used to define social class. For example, a simple stratum model of class might divide society into a simple hierarchy of lower class, middle class and upper class with working class not specifically designated. A more finely divided stratum model such as that of Paul Fussell breaks out three categories of blue-collar workers which he designates as "high prole" skilled blue-collar workers; "mid prole" workers in factories and the service industry; and "low Prole" manual laborers. He places office workers in the "middle class" and professionals in the "upper-middle class." At the lower end he places the homeless in a class he terms the "destitute." Identification of a person as a member of the working class is often based on the nature of the work performed (Blue collar/White collar) by the person, the income of the person, or the extent of formal education that the person has completed. However, studies of social class generally focus on other traits, such as the basis for the person's access to the means of production, or amount of control that the person has over his work environment. Working class people are generally paid wages, usually on a weekly or monthly basis. In popular American political discourse, medium-income skilled laborers and tradespeople are termed "middle class" despite having minimal investment income as are college-educated white collar workers. Explanations for the situation of the working class have varied dramatically over the centuries and are still hotly contested. The main points of contention are what causes an individual to be a member of the working class, and what are the causes for troubles faced by the working class.

See also


- Social class
  - Blue collar and White collar
  - Bourgeoisie
  - Middle class
  - proletarianization
  - Proletariat
  - Ruling class
  - Reserve army of labour
  - Underclass or Lumpenproletariat
  - Upper class
- Apprentice
- Globalisation
- Illegal immigrant
- Knowledge workers.
- Living wage and Minimum wage
- Trade union
- Unfree labour
- Vocational education
- Wage slavery

External links


- [http://www.as.ysu.edu/~cwcs/ The Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University]
- [http://www.newschool.edu/gf/history/ilwch/ International Labor and Working-Class History]

Further reading


- Engels, Friedrich, Condition of the Working Class in England [in 1844], Stanford University Press (1968), trade paperback, ISBN 0804706344 Numerous other editions exist; first published in German in 1845. Better editions include a preface written by Engels in 1892.
- Ernest Mandel, Workers under Neo-capitalism http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/19xx/xx/neocap.htm
- Moran, W. (2002). Belles of New England: The women of the textile mills and the families whose wealth they wove. New York: St Martin's Press, ISBN 0312301839.
- Rubin, Lillian Breslow, Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working Class Family, Basic Books (1976), hardcover ISBN 0465091454; trade paperback, 268 pages, ISBN 0465097243
- Shipler, David K., The Working Poor:Invisible in America, Knopf (2004), hardcover, 322 pages, ISBN 0375408908
- Thompson, E.P, The Making of the English Working Class - paperback Penguin, ISBN 0140136037
- Zweig, Michael, Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret, Cornell University Press (2001), trade paperback, 198 pages, ISBN 0801487277 Category:Socialism Category:Social groups Category:Labor

Lillian Hellman

Lillian Florence Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American playwright, romantically involved for thirty years with mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. She was also a long-time friend of poet Dorothy Parker. Her most famous works include The Children's Hour (1934), The Little Foxes (1939) and Toys in the Attic (1959). Her public feud with fellow writer Mary McCarthy continued for years and formed the basis for the play Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron. McCarthy famously said of Hellman on The Dick Cavett Show that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." Hellman replied by filing a US$2,500,000 slander suit against McCarthy but died, at age 79, from natural causes, and the suit was dropped by Hellman's executors. The Oscar-winning film Julia was claimed to be based on the friendship between Hellman and the title character. Upon the film's release, in 1977, New York psychiatrist Muriel Gardiner claimed that she was "Julia" and that she had never known Hellman. Hellman replied that the person upon whom the character was based was not Gardiner. However, the facts that Hellman and Gardiner had the same lawyer (one Wolf Schwawbacher), that the lawyer had been privy to Gardiner's memoirs, and that the events in the film conform to those in the memoirs, have led to the presumption that they had been been appropriated without attribution from Gardiner.

Blacklist

Lillian Hellman appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. Asked to name names of acquaintances with communist affiliations, Hellman instead delivered a prepared statement, which read in part: :To hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group. As a result, Hellman was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios for many years.

List of works


- The Children's Hour (1934)
- These Three (1936)
- The Dark Angel (1935)
- Dead End (1937)
- The North Star (1943)
- The Little Foxes (1939)
- Watch on the Rhine (1940)
- The Autumn Garden (1951)
- Candide (1957)
- Toys in the Attic (1959)
- An Unfinished Woman (1969)
- Pentimento (1973)
- Scoundrel Time (1976)

External links


- [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/hellman_l.html Hellman at American Masters] (PBS)
  - [http://video.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/wnet/ammasters/clips/hellman-lo.rm?altplay=hellman-lo.rm Realplayer video clip on her message to HUAC.]
- [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lhellman.htm Brief biography] at Kirjasto (Pegasos)
- [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6454/ Lillian Hellman Refuses to Name Names] at History Matters
- [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0375484/ Hellman] at the Internet Movie Database
- [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/hellman-per-fbi.html Essay about Lillian Hellman's FBI file] by Herbert Mitgang
- [http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/hellman-today.html "Why Lillian Hellman Remains Fascinating"] By William Wright, from the New York Times (3 November 1996)
- [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hellman.html Hellman] at the Jewish Virtual Library
- [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054743/ The Children's Hour] at IMDb
- [http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/29/childrenshour1.html The Children's Hour]
- [http://www.hrw.org/about/info/helham.html/ Hellman/Hammett Grant Program]
- [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kiernan-mary.html 1977: Who was the real heroine?] Hellman, Lillian Hellman, Lillian Hellman, Lillian Hellman, Lillian Hellman, Lillian Hellman, Lillian Hellman, Lillian Hellman, Lillian

The Children's Hour

:This article is about the stage play by Lillian Hellman. For the BBC Radio 4 programme, see The Children's Hour (radio). For the novel by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling, see The Children's Hour (novel). "The Children's Hour" was also the title of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published in The Atlantic Monthly in September of 1860. ---- 1860 in the 1961 film version]] The Children's Hour is a 1934 stage play by Lillian Hellman. It is a drama set in an all-girls boarding school, run by two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. An angry student, Mary Tilford, runs away and to avoid being sent back tells her grandmother that the two headmistresses are having a lesbian affair, a claim that isn't true. The accusation proceeds to destroy the women's careers, relationships, and lives.

Adaptations

The play was made into a 1936 film, but the Hayes Commission forced the nature of the affair to be changed into a heterosexual love triangle, and would not allow the film to keep the same name as the controversial play it was based on; the title was changed to These Three. In 1961 the play was again brought to the screen, this time with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine in the main roles. The Production Code allowed for the alleged affair to once again be homosexual in nature, but references to it were allusionary and non-specific. In the interviews Shirley MacLaine gave for the documentary called the Celluloid Closet she says that she and Audrey Hepburn never talked about their characters lesbianism, and claims that William Wyler cut out some scenes that would have hinted at her characters love for Hepburn, scenes that the Hollywood Production Code would have allowed, due to the homophobic public outcry from the press about the film.

External links


-
-
- Category:U.S. plays Children's Hour, The Children's Hour, The Children's Hour, The Children's Hour, The Children's Hour, The Children's Hour, The

Scotland

Scotland (Alba in Gaelic) is a nation in northwest Europe and a constituent country of the United Kingdom. The name originally meant Land of the Gaels (see below). The country occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shares a land border to the south with England and is bounded by the North Sea on the east and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Its capital city is Edinburgh. Despite no longer being an independent sovereign state, Scotland is still considered a country in its own right. Scotland existed as an independent Kingdom until 1 May 1707, when the Act of Union 1707 merged Scotland with the Kingdom of England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. The flag of Scotland — the Saltire — is thought to be the oldest national flag still in use. The patron saint of Scotland is Saint Andrew, and Saint Andrew's Day is the 30 November. There are currently attempts to create an additional national holiday on this day.

Etymology

The English language name Scotland could date from at least the first half of the 10th century, when it was used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The word Scot- was borrowed from Latin. We cannot assume Scotland was being used here to mean anything other than Land of the Gaels, just like Latin Scotia. Scottish kings adopted the title Basileus/Rex Scottorum (= High King/King of the Gaels) and Rex Scotiae (King of Gael-Land) some time in the 11th century. The earliest attribution of the latter Latin title was by the Germany-based Irish writer Marianus Scotus, recording the death of King Máel Coluim mac Cináeda as Moelcoluim Rex Scotiae, for the year 1034. In taking this title, they were likely influenced by the style Imperator Scottorum known to have been employed by Brian Bóruma in 1005. In the early 13th century, the Scotto-Norman author of de Situ Albanie protested that Scotia was a corrupt word for what should be called Albania; but by then Scotia was becoming the norm in Latin, French and English; and hence Scotia and its derivitives prevailed in all languages except the Celtic ones. The Kingdom of Scotland has traditionally been regarded as being united in 843, by Cináed mac Ailpín, King of the Picts, the man who is known to the modern English-speaker as King Kenneth I of Scotland.

History

See also the main article: History of Scotland. The written history of Scotland largely began with the arrival of the Roman Empire in Britain, when the Romans occupied what is now England and Wales, administering it as a Roman province called Britannia. To the north was territory not governed by the Romans—Caledonia, peopled by the Picts. From a classical historical viewpoint Scotland seemed a peripheral country, slow to gain advances filtering out from the Mediterranean fount of civilisation, but as knowledge of the past increases it has become apparent that some developments were earlier and more advanced than previously thought, and that the seaways were very important to Scottish history. The country's lengthy struggle with England, its more powerful neighbour to the south, was the cause of the Wars of Scottish Independence, forcing Scotland to rely on trade, cultural and often strategic ties with a number of European powers, most notably France. In these, the Scots repudiated the English king's assertions of paramountcy. They fought firstly under the leadership of Sir William Wallace and Andrew de Moray in support of John Balliol, and later under that of Robert the Bruce. Bruce, crowned as King Robert I in 1306, won a decisive victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Battle of Bannockburn From roughly the end of the 14th century, Scotland began to show a split into two cultural areas — the mainly Scots, or English, speaking Lowlands, and the mainly Gaelic-speaking Highlands. Gaelic persisted in remote parts of the southwest, which had formed part of the rival kingdom of Galloway during the early medieval period, probably up until the late 1700s. Historically, the Lowlands were closer to the mainstream European culture, and adopted a variant of the feudal system after the Norman Conquest of England. A number of major families of Norman ancestry, such as the Bruce, Douglas, and Stewart families, provided most of the monarchs after approximately 1100. By comparison, the clan system of the Highlands formed one of the region's more distinctive features, with a number of powerful clans remaining dominant until after the Act of Union. It is worth noting that the Western Isles, along with Orkney and Shetland, were part of Norway until 1266 and 1468 respectively; the culture of these islands, in many ways, remained distinct from the rest of Scotland until the modern period. In 1603, the Scottish King James VI inherited the throne of England, and became James I of England. James moved to London, only returning to Scotland once. Although he subsequently styled himself as the King of Great Britain, this was a personal union: the two nations shared a head of state but remained separate kingdoms, with the exception of a brief period when Oliver Cromwell overthrew the monarchy and Scotland was under English military occupation. In 1707, the Scottish and English Parliaments enacted the Acts of Union, which merged the Kingdom of Scotland with the Kingdom of England, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Union dissolved both the English and the Scottish Parliaments, and transferred all their powers to a new Parliament sitting in London which then became the Parliament of the United Kingdom. However, most of Scotland's institutions remained separate, notably the country's legal system and its established church; these distinctions remain to the present day. In 1801, Scotland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, when the Kingdom of Great Britain merged with the Kingdom of Ireland. Since 1922, Scotland has been one of the four constituent nations (along with England, Northern Ireland and Wales) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In 1997 the people of Scotland voted to create a new devolved Scottish Parliament, subsequently established by the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998. Following the Act of Union and the subsequent Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Its industrial decline following the Second World War was particularly acute, but in recent decades the country has enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector, the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas, and latterly the devolved parliament.

Geography

Clan Grant Main article: Geography of Scotland. Scotland comprises the northern part of the island of Great Britain; it is bordered on the south by England. Scotland's territorial extent is generally that established by the 1237 Treaty of York between Scotland and England and the 1266 Treaty of Perth between Scotland and Norway. Exceptions include the Isle of Man, which is now a crown dependency outside the United Kingdom, Orkney and Shetland, which are Scottish rather than Norwegian, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was defined as subject to the laws of England by the 1746 Wales and Berwick Act. The country consists of a mainland area plus several island groups, including Shetland, Orkney, and the Hebrides, divided into the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides. Three main geographical and geological areas make up the mainland: from north to south, the generally mountainous Highlands containing Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, the low-lying Central Belt, and the hilly Southern Uplands. The majority of the Scottish population resides in the Central Belt, which contains three of the country's six largest cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Stirling) and many large towns. Most of the remaining population lives in the North-East Lowlands, where two of the remaining three cities (Aberdeen and Dundee) are situated. The final city, Inverness, is situated where the River Ness meets the Moray Firth, on the Great Glen Fault between the North-West Highlands and the Cairngorms. Highest maximum temperature: 32.9°C (91.2°F) at Greycrook, near Newtown St. Boswells, Borders on 9 August 2003. Lowest minimum temperature: -27.2°C (-17.0°F) at Braemar, Aberdeenshire on 11 February 1895 and 10 January 1982 and at Altnaharra, Highland on 30 December 1995. [http://www.metoffice.com/climate/uk/location/scotland/#temperature]

Major cities

The six designated cities in descending order of population size:
- Glasgow
- Edinburgh, the capital
- Aberdeen
- Dundee
- Inverness
- Stirling Scottish towns:
- List of burghs in Scotland

Waterways


- Major Rivers:
  - The Clyde, The Dee, The Don, The Forth, The Tay, The Tweed, The Spey, ...
- Firths:
  - Solway, Clyde, Cromarty, Dornoch, Forth, Lorne, Moray, Tay
- Sea Lochs (fjords):
  - Loch Linnhe, Loch Fyne, Loch Long, Loch Etive, Loch Sunart, Loch Nevis, Loch Hourn, Loch Broom, Loch Eil
- Freshwater Lochs (lakes) include:
  - Loch Ness, Loch Lomond, Loch Morar, Loch Tay, Loch Rannoch, Loch Awe, Loch Shiel, Loch Maree, The Lake of Menteith
- Artificial & Enhanced waterways include:
  - Caledonian Canal, Crinan Canal, Forth and Clyde Canal, Union Canal
    - See Also Falkirk Wheel

Geology

When vulcanism actively occurred in East Lothian, 350 million years ago, the rocks which now comprise Scotland lay close to the equator, and formed part of the newly amalgamated supercontinent of Pangaea. The continental plates making up Pangaea continued to converge, and a major collision occurred with the continent of Gondwana. The northern and southern parts of the island of Great Britain became adjoined only 75 million years before the onset of vulcanism in East Lothian. Before then, Scotland lay on the margin of the Laurentian continent, which included North America and Greenland. England and Wales lay some 40° of latitude further south, adjacent to Africa and South America in the Gondwanan continent. In the Early Ordovician, approximately 475 million years ago, England and Wales, on the Avalonian plate, rifted away from Gondwana and drifted northward towards Laurentia. The Iapetus Ocean, which separated the two land masses, began to close. By the mid-Silurian, about 420 million years ago, its margins had become attached along the Iapetus Suture, which roughly follows a line running West to East from the Solway Firth to Northumberland. When the later episode of vulcanism occurred, approximately 270 million years ago, Scotland still comprised part of Pangaea, but had drifted northward. East Lothian stood at about 8°North. Consolidation of Pangaea had continued so that the nearest ocean, the Tethys seaway, lay between Eurasia and Africa. Siccar Point in Berwickshire, Scotland, is where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) first observed this classic unconformity and recognized the meaning of stratigraphy.

Government and politics

Government

As one of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, Scotland is represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London. The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh has the power to govern the country on Scotland-specific matters and has a limited power to vary income tax. The United Kingdom Parliament retains responsibility for Scotland's defence, international relations and certain other areas. The Scottish Parliament is not a sovereign authority, and the UK Parliament could, in theory, overrule or even abolish it at any time. For the purposes of local government, Scotland is divided into 32 unitary authority districts. Popular folk-memory continues to divide Scotland into 33 traditional counties.

Head of state

traditional counties]] Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom, is descended from King James VI, King of Scots, the first Scottish monarch to also be King of England (James I, King of England from 1603). While great controversy has simmered amongst the Scottish public over her official title since her coronation (many believe that, being the first Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, she should use the regnal name "Elizabeth I"), the courts of Scotland have confirmed "Elizabeth II" as her official title. She has said that in the future monarchs will follow the international ordinal tradition that, where a monarch reigns in a number of non-independent territories (or independent territories that agree to share a monarch) that each have a differing number of previous monarchs of the same name, the highest ordinal used in any of the territories is the one used across all (see List of regnal numerals of future British monarchs). Monarchs between 1603 and 1707, such as James VI and I and James VII and II, reigned over separate states and hence used a dual ordinal (see Personal union). Properly, the Scottish monarch was known as King of Scots or Queen of Scots, and referred to as "your Grace", rather than "your Majesty".

Scots Law

Scotland retains its own unique legal system, based on Roman law, which combines features of both civil law and common law. The terms of union with England specified the retention of separate systems. The barristers being called advocates, and the judges of the high court for civil cases are also the judges for the high court for criminal cases. Scots Law differs from England's common law system. Formerly, there were several regional law systems in Scotland, one of which was Udal Law (also called allodail or odal law) in Shetland and Orkney. This was a direct descendant of Old Norse Law, but was abolished in 1611. Despite this, Scottish courts have acknowledged the supremacy of udal law in some property cases as recently as the 1990s. There is a movement to restore udal law[http://www.udallaw.com/] to the islands as part of a devolution of power from Edinburgh to Shetland and Orkney. The laws regarding the nobility are also different in Scotland. Lords known as "Barons" in England are known as "Lords of Parliament." Gentlemen known as "Barons" in Scotland are not members of the House of Lords, as their titles (although still legitimate) are based on the old system of feudal baronies. Various systems based on common Celtic or Brehon Laws also survived in the Highlands until the 1800s.

Politics

See main article: Politics of Scotland, also Politics of the United Kingdom Politics of the United Kingdom Historically the politics of Scotland have reflected those of the UK as a whole, although with some differences. For example, besides the main UK-wide political parties (Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats) a number of Scottish-specific parties operate. These include the Scottish National Party (SNP) which is Scotland's second largest party and forms the main opposition in Parliament to the Labour-Liberal Democrats coalition, as well as the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and the Scottish Green Party. These parties became more of a force in Scottish politics after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1998. Unlike England, which has a more of a left/right split politically, the political right in Scotland is actually amongst the smallest political groupings with the four main Parties all coming from a mix of far-left to moderate-left philosophies. The traditional political divides of left and right have also intersected with arguments over devolution, which all the UK-wide parties have supported to some degree throughout their history (although both Labour and the Conservatives have swithered a number of times between supporting and opposing it). However, now that devolution has occurred, the main argument about Scotland's constitutional status remains between those who support Scottish independence and those who oppose it. Recent trends indicate, according to the Joseph Rowntree [http://www.jrrt.org.uk/FINDINGS.pdf Reform Trust "State of the Nation Poll"] 2004, that 66% of Scots would like the Scottish Parliament to have more powers, while only 2% would like to see the powers returned to the House of Commons and Whitehall, with 21% happy with the status quo.

Language

Scotland has three distinct languages: English, Gaelic, and Scots. Almost all Scots speak Scottish Standard English. It is estimated by the General Register Office for Scotland that 30% of the population are also fluent in Scots, a West Germanic language sister to the English language. Slightly more than 1% of the population are native Gaelic speakers, a Celtic language similar to Irish. Eilean Siar is the only unitary council region of Scotland where Gaelic is spoken by a majority of the population and that fact is reflected in the use of Gaelic in its official name. Almost all Gaelic speakers also speak fluent English. By the time of James VI's accession to the English throne, the old Scottish Court and Parliament spoke and wrote in Scots, also known as Lowland Scots or Lallans (although strictly speaking Lallans is a literary dialect of the Scots language). Scots is widely believed to have developed from the Northumbrian form of Anglo-Saxon, spoken in Bernicia which, in the 6th century, conquered the Brythonic kingdom of Gododdin (modern-day Lothian) and renamed its capital, Dunedin, to Edinburgh. The influence of settlers from the Low Countries and Norway in the east coast burghs founded from the reign of David I onwards was also an important factor in the development of the language, however. Scots contains a number of loanwords from Gaelic. Equally, there is a strong movement in the Aberdeen area to have Doric, the dialect of Scots spoken around Aberdeen, recognised as a language. In addition, there is a movement to revive Norn, a dialect of Old Norse which died out in the 19th century, on Orkney and Shetland. Town names on signs in Shetland are written in both languages. The Scottish Parliament recognises both English and Gaelic as official languages of Scotland, both receiving "equal respect" although not equal validity. Gaelic received official recognition through the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005. The Scots language was also officially recognised as a "regional or minority language" under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ratified by the United Kingdom in 2001, and the Scottish Executive, has promised to provide support in their Partnership Agreement 2003. The [http://www.scotsdictionaries.org.uk/ Scottish Language Dictionaries] receive some state funding via the Scottish Arts Council.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Scotland Scotland has a civic and ethnic culture distinct from that of the rest of the British Isles. It originates from various differences, some entrenched as part of the Act of Union, others facets of nationhood not readily defined but readily identifiable.

Scottish education

The system of Education in Scotland is also separate, and has a distinctive history as the first country since Sparta in classical Greece to implement a system of general public education. The early roots were in the Education Act of 1496 which first introduced compulsory education for the eldest sons of nobles, then the principle of general public education was set with the Reformation establishment of the national Kirk which in 1561 set out a national programme for spiritual reform, including a school in every parish. In 1633 the Parliament of Scotland introduced a tax on local landowners to fund this, subsequently strengthened with the Education Act of 1696 which remained in force until 1872. The Act of Union guaranteed the rights of the Scottish universities and confirmed the position of the Kirk, maintaining Scotland's pre-eminence in public education. Education finally came under the control of the state rather than the Kirk and became compulsory for all children from the implementation of the Education Act of 1872 onwards. As a result, for over two hundred years Scotland had a higher percentage of its population educated at primary, secondary and tertiary levels than any other country in Europe. The differences in education have manifested themselves in different ways, but most noticeably in the number of Scots who went on to become leaders in their fields during the 18th and 19th centuries. The then-Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace stated in October 2004 that Scotland still produces a higher number of university and college graduates per head than anywhere else in Europe. School students in Scotland sit Standard Grade exams while students in England sit GCSE exams, and then a broad range of Higher Grade exams rather than becoming more specialised under the English A-level system. Following this, a Scottish university's honours degree takes four years of study as opposed to three in the rest of the UK. The university systems in several Commonwealth countries show marked affinities with the Scottish rather than the English system.

Banking and currency

Finance in Scotland also features unique characteristics. Although the Bank of England remains the central bank for the UK Government, three Scottish corporate banks still issue their own banknotes: (the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale Bank). These notes have no status as legal tender in England, Wales or Northern Ireland; but in practice they are universally accepted throughout the UK (including in Northern Ireland, where Irish banks also issue their own banknotes), as well as in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands). The Royal Bank of Scotland still produces a £1 note, unique amongst British banks. The full range of notes commonly accepted are £1, £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100. Bank of England currency is also accepted as legal currency in Scotland. (See British banknotes for further discussion) The only legal tender, by a strict definition, in Scotland is coinage of the Royal Mint (including gold); by statute, Bank of England notes below the value of £5 are legal tender, but none are currently circulating. No Bank of England notes in use, or any of the Scottish banknotes, are legal tender in Scotland. In practice this has little effect, as creditors are obliged to accept any "reasonable" attempt to settle a debt under Scots law. All four sets of banknotes are freely accepted in Scotland, and can be considered legal currency, though it is unusual for notes over £20 to be used in normal business. The pound Scots, which ceased being used with the Act of Union, is still sometimes invoked. Originally the same value as the pound sterling, today it is treated as being worth one-twelfth of a pound sterling, or eight and a third pence, the value it had in 1707. It only exists in a legal sense; generally in archaic laws or bequests, with values given either in pounds Scots or in merks, another archaic unit of currency. The merk, or mark, was worth around thirteen or fourteen shillings Scots — just over one English shilling. Both the Bank of Scotland and the Bank of England were founded by William Paterson of Dumfries. In addition the modern system of branch banking (in which banks maintain a nationwide system of offices rather than one or two central offices) originated in Scotland. Only strong political pressure during the 19th century prevented the resultant strong banking system from taking over banking in England. However, although Scottish banks proved unwelcome in England at the time, their business model became widely copied, firstly in England and later in the rest of the world. The Savings Bank movement was created in Scotland in 1810 by the Reverend Henry Duncan as a means of allowing his parishioners to save smaller amounts of money than the major banks would accept as deposits at that time. His model for the Ruthwell Parish Bank was adopted by well-to-do sponsors throughout the world, with most of the British savings banks eventually amalgamating to form the Trustee Savings Bank - more recently merged with the commercial bank, Lloyds Bank, to form Lloyds TSB - and the American examples becoming a Savings and Loan Association. See [http://www.savingsbanksmuseum.co.uk/] for further information.

Sport

Savings and Loan Association Scotland also has its own sporting competitions distinct from the rest of the UK, such as the Scottish Football League and the Scottish Rugby Union. This gives the country independent representation at many international sporting events such as the football World Cup and various rugby tournaments such as the Six Nations. Scotland cannot compete in the Olympic Games independently however, and Scottish athletes must compete as part of the Great Britain team if they wish to take part. Scotland does however send its own team to compete in the Commonwealth Games. Association Football is the most popular sport in the country, both played and watched. Innovations such as a passing style of play, a team working as a unit, half-time and free-kicks were introduced by Queen's Park F.C., all of which were later incorporated and remain in the modern game. Their Hampden Park home, the world's first and oldest international football stadium, holds several European attendance records including 149,415 watching a Scottish international. The Scottish Football Association is the second oldest national football association in the world, with the Scottish national football team playing and hosting the world's first ever international football match. The Scottish Cup is the world's oldest national trophy. The oldest professional football club in Scotland is Kilmarnock FC, founded in