LANGUAGE AND PERSONALITY

Or as this study puts it: The Language OF personality.

If you didn't want to click through, this is an old study (I remember posting about it on facebook a few years ago), that created word clouds based on personality traits using data gleaned from social media sites.

It's a curious thing. I tried to go through this list of clouds and see what I would be classified as based on my own language on facebook (just because that's the account that I've had the longest):

I most strongly correlate with the introverted (left) and openness (below right). Interestingly I used more 'introverted words' when I was younger and more 'open words' now.

Agreeableness seems to be synonymous with religion. I think less conscientious people are basically teenagers. Less neurotic people talk about volleyball at lot?

People who mention anime are more likely to be introverted, less contentious and neurotic. I'm guessing that these people are also teenagers who think  everyone else would feel depressed all the time too if they could just see the way the world was. Thankfully I think everyone grows out of it (personal experience) although it takes some more time than others.

Finally, based on my disinterest in sharing my feelings online and preferring nouns I'm probably male.

Read More

BOOK REVIEW: 'THE WELFARE STATE WE'RE IN' BY JAMES BARTHOLOMEW

Introduction
This was a recommendation from The Freedom Festival which I attended earlier this year, put on by The Freedom Association. The weekend was packed with lectures and then I was able to meet the author, James Bartholomew, at The Freedom Festival a few months later. Each chapter is dedicated to a different aspect of the welfare state in Britain and explains how provisions were made previous to the welfare state being introduced. It's a great history lesson and shows how each part of the welfare state could actually be provided by the private sector.

Style
Mostly easy to read although at times I felt the opinions of the author really came through, influencing and supporting the data rather than the conclusions being drawn from the data. Bartholomew writes in a conversational style that is easy to follow although at times the sheer amount of data and anecdote made the writing dense by necessity.

Content
Each chapter considered different aspects of the welfare state grouped around a general chapter heading. The chapter is usually introduced through the use of an anecdote which draws you into the chapter by asking you questions like 'What did Catherine of Aragon have to do with the origins of the welfare state'? while also addressing more general questions like 'Do welfare benefits cause unemployment?'

Other topics include the NHS (subtitled: like a train crash every day), Education, Housing, Parenting and Pensions. The last chapter is a very useful summary of the book while also drawing general conclusions over whether we should get rid of the welfare state altogether.

Conclusions
‘The Welfare State We're In’ was exceedingly interesting to read; I vaguely felt that the welfare state needed reforming before reading this but I wasn't at all aware of how much it had taken over from the private sector in previous years. Bartholomew presents data and anecdote together to form an interesting narrative and picture of Britain. I was quite convinced by the picture presented. However, straight after reading this I read Jack London's "The People of the Abyss" in which London goes tramping around the east end of London in 1902; before the welfare state was properly introduced. This made me realise that although Bartholomew is statistically correct when he says that people got along perfectly well before the welfare state London describes people sleeping six to a bed or people sleeping under and above the bed, or doing 'shifts' depending on the work schedule.

In summary: Very interesting book, excellent picture of how the welfare state doesn't need to exist in it's current state but best taken with a pinch of salt and another set of writings from the opposite perspective.

Usefulness
Very useful read if you're studying public sector economics or if you're looking for a solution to the expansion of government.

Read More

BOOK REVIEW: 'ROBINSON CRUSOE' BY DANIEL DEFOE

The thing is, I really can't get excited about adventure novels, I was thinking that the next novel I was going to read would be Moby Dick but I don't know if that's a good idea. I may just stick the Jane Eyre. Please bear that in mind when you read this!

So, 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe is a novel about a man who turns 18 and decides to go off to sea. His fist adventure ends up badly and but he recovers and earns his fortune but then decides to go on another journey! This pattern repeats and repeats until finally he ends up shipwrecked on a deserted island.

But even here he survives and manges to make bread and have a flock of goats and stays on the island until he is rescued as an old man. He does most of this alone apart from a parrot which he teaches to talk. Near the end he also rescues a native from a neighbouring island from being eaten by cannibals and this man becomes the famous 'My Man Friday'.

Unfortunately, Friday doesn't show up until.... two thirds through the novel? I've never seen a Robinson Crusoe movie but perhaps he shows up earlier in reproductions because everyone I talked to expected me to know who he was.

Crusoe finds Friday

So that's the main plot, there's bits in-between and a bit at the end when he's going back to England but that's the bones of it. It reminded me of the voyages of Sindbad, another stupid man who just had to keep going back to sea to seek his fortune despite being rich already. I just think it's a bit impractical but I suppose some people aren't content with a good life.

As a character, Robinson Crusoe is a very interesting person. In Wilkie Collins' 'The Moonstone' there is a character who uses Robinson Crusoe as one might use a bible, reading it every day and picking out a passage when he has a problem. I can understand that as the way Crusoe overcomes adversity and still manages to survive with his optimism intact is brilliant.


Also, he moves from not really loving God at all, to being a God fearing man who thanks God for everything that he has. It's got a very strong Christian message which I wasn't sure about. I don't mind it, but at times I felt like I had been fooled into reading the story of a convert rather than a adventurer. I can understand why people prefer Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' which is a more realistic portrayal of a man faced with adversity, but even then I could never get through the whole novel. Adventures just really aren't my thing.

If you like, you can play the story instead!

Summary:

Best Part: The novel is an uplifting tale about a man against adversity. It does make you feel proud of humans!

Worst Part: There's no real conflict in most of the novel. Just a man surviving against the odds and you know he's going to survive.

What I learnt: With some ingenuity, it is possible to survive so you should never give up no matter the circumstances.

Read More

REVIEW: 'A TALE OF TWO CITIES' BY CHARLES DICKENS

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

'A Tale of Two Cities' is a book that has been recommended to me a few times by people, mostly during my A-Levels because I really love reading Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London' and I needed another novel to compare with Orwell for my coursework.

In the end I used Orwell for my second, non-comparative piece with a feminist reading so I never read this novel and I never really wanted to in the first place.

The reason being: Charles Dickens and I do not get on. I don't know why it is, I have a great love of Victorian England and Dickens' literature is as good a picture of London during the time. You can't go through a 'literary guide to London' without most of the guide being dedicated to him.

But his books are just so long! And they never really seem to have much suspense in them, just overly complicated plots and too many characters to count.

'David Copperfield' is very popular in our house and it is the last Dickens book I've ever completed. Before that I read 'Oliver Twist' and 'A Christmas Carol' of course, but as children's classics. Then I found David Copperfield so long and complicated that it really did put me of Dickens altogether.

I picked up 'A Tale of Two Cities' because I was learning about the French Revolution and wanted something to supplement that picture, I also watched The Rose of Versailles which I've been waiting for an excuse to watch.

The novel was originally serialised, as most of Dickens' novels were, and is also divided into the traditional 3 volume novel. This particular story is also noted for having less sub-plots than his other novels which encouraged me to have a read.

So, the novel is set just as the French Revolution is beginning. It begins with Lucy's Father, Dr. Manette being rescued by Mr. Lorry from the Tellson's Bank and his long lost daughter Lucie. This is really all that happens in the first part of the novel. It's an introduction to the main characters and to the owners of the wine shop which will later become important.

I found the first third of the novel interesting enough although I didn't understand some of what was going in regards to the political implications of details that were described. All the characters introduced here turn out to be important in some way or another, even the man who rides the horse to catch up to the carriage, and I didn't understand this as I read it so by the time I encountered these characters again I found it a little difficult to match them up to those that I had read being described previously.

The second/middle of the book I did not understand at all! Or sometimes I did and then I would loose it. Again, all the characters are important and I didn't pay enough attention to them when they were introduced since I'm used to disposable characters as it were.

In this part we are introduced to a few more characters. It begins with a timeskip and Lucie is in the centre of a love triangle and it's a lovely little description on London life. The one subplot is introduced via a minor character called Jerry Cruncher who is a runner for Tellerson Bank and a couple of chapters are devoted to how he lives his life.

I started to get bored here. There isn't any particular conflict of such. Just a normal domestic family life and a little drama in the form of a love triangle. Two of the characters get married and they give birth and loose their son within a paragraph. I really didn't enjoy reading this and I contemplated giving it up.

However, I persevered and I'm very glad I did!

The end of the novel brings absolutely everything together. In a way the whole book reads a little like a mystery novel and you have to think about what the motivations for the characters really are, who holds the power and who's hiding what.

The end is touching and the whole last third of the novel, the part set completely in revolutionary France, gave me a real sense of terror and helped me imagine the plight of those aristocrats and friends of aristocrats who were endangered through their associations, rather than their actions.

Somehow... 'The Rose of Versailles' was more 'edge of your seat' stuff though

Summary: 

Best Part: The abrupt end and the mystery behind the final twist.

Worst Part: The middle which muddles through lots of plot, collecting pieces and leaving them scattered around for someone to find.

 What I learnt:  I expanded my picture of the French Revolution and the terrors. I also learnt that maybe a Charles Dickens novel can be enjoyable, and I wont be put of by that name in the future.

Read More