The Social Lie Exposed in The Pillars of Society :: Pillars of Society Essays

The Social Lie Exposed in The Pillars of Society The disintegrating effect of the Social Lie, of Duty, as an imposition and outrage, and of the spirit of Provincialism, as a stifling factor, are brought out with dynamic force in The Pillars of Society. Consul Bernick, driven by the conception of his duty toward the House of Bernick, begins his career with a terrible lie. He sells his love for Lona Hessel in return for the large dowry of her step-sister Betty, whom he does not love. To forget his treachery, he enters into a clandestine relationship with an actress of the town. When surprised in her room by the drunken husband, young Bernick jumps out of the window, and then graciously accepts the offer of his bosom friend, Johan, to let him take the blame. Johan, together with his faithful sister Lona, leaves for America. In return for his devotion, young Bernick helps to rob his friend of his good name, by acquiescing in the rumors circulating in the town that Johan had broken into the safe of the Bernicks and stolen a large sum of money. In the opening scene of "The Pillars of Society," we find Consul Bernick at the height of his career. The richest, most powerful and respected citizen of the community, he is held up as the model of an ideal husband and devoted father. In short, a worthy pillar of society. The best ladies of the town come together in the home of the Bernicks. They represent the society for the "Lapsed and Lost," and they gather to do a little charitable sewing and a lot of charitable gossip. It is through them we learn that Dina Dorf, the ward of Bernick, is the issue of the supposed escapade of Johan and the actress. With them, giving unctuous spiritual advice and representing the purity and morality of the community, is Rector Rorlund, hidebound, self-righteous, and narrow-minded. Into this deadening atmosphere of mental and social provincialism comes Lona Hessel, refreshing and invigorating as the wind of the plains. She has returned to her native town together with Johan. The moment she enters the house of Bernick, the whole structure begins to totter. For in Lona's own words, "Fie, fie--this moral linen here smells so tainted--just like a shroud. I am accustomed to the air of the prairies now, I can tell you.

Fiji Water Essay

FIJI Water has recently been accused of greenwashing. Greenwashing is a term that is used to describe companies that mislead their consumers into believing that they are an environmentally safe company. With the threat of global warming due to greenhouse gases, many people have become extremely sensitive to companies that aren’t doing their part to keep the world a great place to live for thousands of years to come. This has caused problems for FIJI Water because their business is successful only if they are able to get consumers to buy their water even though they aren’t an environmentally friendly company. Fiji, an island located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, has to ship bottled water 5,500 miles to the United States, which produces 216,000,000 pounds of greenhouse gases per trip. This has a huge impact on the environment and therefore has led to many conservationists attacks due to FIJI Water’s claim to go carbon negative. FIJI Water promised to reduce their packaging by 20 percent per year, supply at least 50 percent of the energy used at its plants with renewable energy, optimized logistics and use more carbon-efficient transportations modes, restore degraded grasslands in Fiji, and support recycling programs for plastic bottles. They claimed that this would have a net reduction of carbon in the atmosphere, and used the slogan â€Å"every drop is green† to symbolize that their company wasn’t doing any harm to the environment. While they promised this and created a website to show that they were going carbon negative, there were no numbers to prove that they actually accomplished what they intended to do. I completely agree with the conservationists that they are greenwashing because it’s hard to believe that a company exporting 90 percent of their products to places that are thousands of miles away and emit a ton of greenhouse gases would be able to be carbon negative. Some companies don’t get caught for their greenwashing, but when it’s completely obvious it’s hard to fool customers, especially conservationists.

The Role of Audit in the Collapse of Enron and Lehman Brother

Hamza Ahmad Hamza Ahmad Hamza Ahmad STUDENT ID: W12302464 Hamza Ahmad STUDENT ID: W12302464 Advanced Audit Course work Advanced Audit Course work Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 INTRODUCTION 3 CHANGES IN REGULATIONS 3 CHALLENGES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 4 RESPONDING TO THE CHANGES 4 Research Studies 4 Response to Surbanes-Oxley Act 5 Response to the European Commission’s proposals 6 Enron Failure 6 Arthur Andersen failure 6 Lehman Brothers failure 6 Ernst amp; Young failure 7 Detection of fraud 7 Going Concern 7 MINIMISING LITIGATION RISK 7 Obstruction of Justice 8 Consultancy service 8 Conservative Audit 8 Conclusion 8 References 9 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the UK, European Union and the†¦show more content†¦(ICAEW 2009). CGAA further concluded that there was little clear evidence that joint provision of audit and NAS had in fact compromised auditor independence. Nevertheless, CGAA recommended ‘tougher and clearer safeguards to ensure that join provision of audit and non-audit services does not undermine auditor independence in fact or appearance’. This was to be achieved by independent setting of auditors’ ethical standards and an enhanced role for audit committees in overseeing auditor independence and NAS provision. (ICAEW 2009). In Europe and other parts of the world, auditing came under severe scrutiny which led to the European commission issuing a Recommendation on auditor independence in 2002 which included restrictions on auditors providing several non-audit services (European Commission, 2002). In addition to this an organisation was created for regular inspection of public interest audit in 2004 by the newly established Professional Oversight Board for Accountancy (FRC, 2009). Other regulations introduced included the EU Green Paper which aims to ensure that investors can rely on the accuracy of the audited accounts and to enhance the EU’s protection against the type of scandals that occurred in companies such and Parmalat and Ahold (i.e. cases of fraud not discovered by the auditors). To make matter even more complicated in 2004 the Auditing Practices Board (APB, 2004) issued Ethical Standard 5Show MoreRelatedThe Roles Of Auditing And Assurance Services1397 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction The role accounting firms played in the last financial crisis raised questions about the legitimacy of auditing and assurance services. Auditors, who are considered independent and are supposed to provide reliable information to financial statement users, played a major part in the financial institutions’ crisis. 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