The Old Demon In the short story "The Old Demon" by Pearl S. Buck, Mrs. Wang is a practical person, who takes things at face value, does whatever she thinks must be done, and accepts her fate.
Foremost, Mrs. Wang takes things at face value. Seeing things as they truly are, after rescuing a wounded soldier from a fallen plane, she learns from a crowd of Chinese soldiers that he is Japanese. Though fully acknowledging that he is the adversary, Mrs.
Wang saves the young man from being stabbed. The Chinese soldiers' query to her concern for the "Japanese monkey' results in Mrs.Wangs ompelling response: "If he is dead, then there is no use in sending him into purgatory all in pieces" (Buck 159). Unlike the others, Mrs. Wang clearly distinguishes him not as Just one of the Japanese, but rather as an injured man who needs help. She perceives things as they are, rescuing the young soldier from a painful death.
Although he is Japanese, she sees him as she does everyone else, a human being in a time of great need. Additionally, Mrs. Wang does whatever she thinks must be done. For instance, as the silver planes crash headlong into the vast field, the villagers flee, striving to escape the burning catastrophe.Though Little Pig's wife pleads and implores her to run, Mrs. Wang seats herself against the bank of the dike and gazes at the extraordinary spectacle, replying "l haven't run in seventy years, since before my feet were bound" (156).
Stubborn, old Mrs. Wang refuses to leave and abandon her place, for she knows that she is slow and will only delay the others from escaping. Placing others before herself, she feels that "it is her duty' to stay behind (156). Acknowledging what is right, she puts others before herself, in spite of the fatal consequences that it holds. Lastly, Mrs.
Wang accepts her fate.Exemplifying acquiescence of her destiny, in the arrival of an army of Japanese soldiers, she understands that if they are not stopped, then they will kill all the villagers. As they march across the plain, the circumstances pose a difficult choice: her death or the death of the villagers. Mrs. Wang soon realizes that there "is an end to what one could see," and this is the end for her. Knowing what she must do, she opens the water sluice and unleashes the wicked river, drowning both herself and the Japanese.
Mrs. Wang sacrifices her life for the villagers, prepared for life and where it shall take her. rruption exist in every country in the contemporary world and it is not exclusively a problem of developing countries. The classical concept of corruption as a general disease of the body politics was stated by ancient political philosophers Plato and Aristotle.
Plato in his theory of the "perverted" constitutions-Democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny-worried that these regimes instead of being guided by the law were serving the interest of the rulers. "These fundamental general notions of corruption all practically define corruption as dysfunctional.For it is seen as destructive of a articular political order, be it monarchy, aristocracy, or polity, the latter a constitutionally limited popular rule, and thus by definition devoid of any function within a political order. " This classic conception of corruption continued into modern times, and is central to the political thought of Machiavelli, Montesquieu and Rosseau. For Machiavelli corruption was process by which the virtue of the citizen was undermined and eventually destroyed. "Since most men are weak and lacking in the virtue of the good citizen except when inspired by a great leader, the process of corruption is ever threatening.
And when virtue has been corrupted, a heroic leader must appear who in rebuilding the political order infuses this virtue into the entire citizenry. " Arnold Heidenheimer (1993 p. 25) Montesquieu saw corruption as the dysfunctional process by which a good political order is perverted into evil one and a monarchy into a despotism. According to Rosseau political corruption is a necessary consequence of the struggle for power. Then he argued "that man had been corrupted by social and political life.
It is not the corruption of man which destroyed the political system but the political system which corrupts and destroys man.Arnold Heidenheimer (1993 p. 25) There is an agreement between the views of Rosseau and Lord Acton that "all powers tends to corrupt and absolute powers corrupts absolutely. " Lord Acton is focused on the moral depravity which power is believed to cause in man, "they no longer think about what is right action or manner, but only about which is expedient action or manner. " Arnold Heidenheimer (1993 p. 16) According to Carl Fredrich (1972 p.
18) "Corruption is a kind of behavior which deviates from the norm actually prevalent or behaved to prevail in a given context, such as the political.It is deviant behavior associated with a particular motivation, namely that of private gain at public expense. " So he stated the concept of corruption in a way that constitutes a break of law or of standards of high moral conduct. Jacob Van Klavaren (1954, p. 25) defines corruption as the exploitation of the public.
And he brought very interesting explanation taking a public official as an economic subject who, as every economic subject, tries to miximise his gain or income. Supposing that the income derived from the free-market agreement with the functional-economic income.In a system of free competition, there can be market equilibrium if both sides of the market, sellers and buyers, are equally strong and two exchange curves intersects. However, if there is a monopolistic condition on one side of the market, the monopolist will try to get the maximum profit from the other side. So the income of public official, who as an economic agent regards his office as a business, "does not depend on his usefulness for the common good but upon the market situation and his talent for finding the point of maximal gain on the public's demand curve. Thus the "corruption is always an exploitation of the public, which can occur only because the civil servants occupy a constitutionally independent position vis-a-vis the public.
" There have been a number of different attempts at defining corruption. However no precise definition can be found which applies to all forms, types and degrees of corruption, or which would be acceptable universally.According to Oxford English Dictionary (OED) the term corruption in political context is defined as "Perversion or favor, the use or existence of corrupt practices, especially in a state, ublic corruption, etc. " One of the most popular definition of corruption was given by Leslie Palmier (1983, p.
207). According to this definition corruption is seen as the use of public office for private advantage. According to Friedrich (1966, pp. 174-5) the use of public office for private advantage is not always widely perceived in a given society to be corrupt. Particularly if an individual making personal gain is simultaneously making a positive contribution to the society-there is no necessary contradiction between private advantage and contributing to the general good-many citizens will ee such actions as at least acceptable and sometimes even Just reward. " Considering the conflict that can arise between an abstract definition of corruption and its application to a complex real world some writers have distinguished between what can crudely be called good, bad and ambiguous corruption.
For example, Katsenelinbogen (1983, p236) identifies two basic types of corruption. 1 . Actions whose harmful effects on society are questionable. According to Katsenelinbogen, this form of corruption involves redesigning the system and legalizing the appropriate actions of people in it.
2. Actions that unambiguously harm society. Such acts should be treated as corrupt and criminal. " Then Arnold Heindehmer (1970 pp.
3-28) goes further and identifies three basic categories of corruption 'black', 'white' and 'gray'. Depending on the level of commonality of perception of a given act by public officials and citizens. White' acts are more or less accepted by both groups, whereas 'Grey' acts are those about which both officials and citizens disagree. 'Black' acts are perceived as wrong by both officials and citizens. It is evident from the above discussion that there is a wide range of definitions of corruption.
For our further discussion about the forms of corruption we take the definition given by Leslie Palmier (1983, p. 207) use of public office for private gain. This definition is both simple and sufficiently broad to cover most of the corruption that we face, and it is also widely used in literature.
