His war secret is out, Prince Harry returns to England - Globe and Mail

His war secret is out, Prince Harry returns to England - Globe and Mail

So here's the basic summary of the article above. Lieutenant Harry Wales, more popularly known as Prince Harry returned to England from Afghanistan because the secret of him going to Afghanistan got leaked to the public domain and the Ministry of Defense said Harry is being withdrawn immediately. Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the British army thought that Harry should never be in the military and argued against him going to Iraq, saying it was an "Unnecessary risk" . He was later forced to take Harry to Afghanistan. “I got here on Christmas Eve and going from bullet magnet to anti-bullet magnet" Said the 23-year-old Prince Harry in one interview. Also, when asked why he joined the military he answered "I think dressed in the same uniform as numerous other people, thousands of other people in Afghanistan, will give me one of the best chances to be just a normal person".

Harry's feeling towards joining the army relates to the French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist Gustave Le Bon's ideas 'The Crowd'. A crowd is a group of people with a collective mind, and inn the collective mind, individuality is dimished, so the heterogenous (diverse) is drowned by the homogeneous (common) and the unconscious becomes predominant. Therefore, that is the perfect place that Prince Harry wanted to be in, to basically lose his identity and just become one out of thousands of other soldiers, in order to feel 'normal'.

I guess this feeling happens to people who see something but cannot attain it or has not experienced it. Whether it is a prince who wants to feel normal, or an 'Average Joe' who wants to be a prince. However, Harry joining the military (a crowd) may not actually be the best way of exeriencing a normal life. There is a difference because the military is a collective mind, on the other hand people's daily lives are far form that. We tend to hold onto our individuality and boast about our uniqueness, especially people in Harry's Age group. Therefore, Harry did experience equality because in the military individual intellect and individuality is diminished and his royalty means nothing.

Here's a short Video of Harry in Afghanistan.

Sevigny, Alexandre. "The Medium Is the Message." Communication Studies 1A03, Sevigny, Alexandre. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University Custom Courseware Production Services, 2004. 177-184.

Vote for Nicole Hemmer's bid to become Miss World Canada. She's from McMaster!

McMaster University student Nicole Hemmer looks all made up and ready to go in her photo as one of the contestants of Miss World Canada. The website contains the contestants' profiles including Nicole's. The profile goes through all of Ms. Hemmer's hopes and dreams, from listing her favorite hobbies "modelling, travel basketball, yoga, dancing, travelling, seeing different cultures, public speaking and spending time with family" to mentioning her humanitarian and voluntary work in the past "Nicole loves to volunteer her time and has volunteered over 100 hours with various charities" ; basically sugar coating her life to attract more voters. That is what Beauty Pageants are all about in a nutshell. Contestants try to show their physical beauty and accentuate their attractiveness through all types of mediums. Whether it is on-stage interviews or talent shows.

Don't get me wrong though. It is not simple to win a beauty pageant. The girls need to be great communicators in order to impact the judges and the audience. One of the main things the girls need to do is to check their posture and gesture. A topic which Adler covers. He states that 70% of messages are conveyed through non-verbal communication. A hefty amount, and an asset to the contestants, as most of their communication is non-verbal. Now do not get confused, beauty is not the same thing as attractiveness. Beauty is being blessed by good genes and having a symmetrical face and beautiful features. Attractiveness on the other hand has to do with posture, confidence, and basically the way one carries him/herself. For these beauty contestestants, beauty is basically a given. Most of the girls are good looking, so these contests are more heavily weighed on attractiveness.

Moreover, I have found a similar type of contest as well, where attractiveness (in other forms) must be conveyed in order to score with the votes, and that is the political elections. Taking the American Presidential Election for example, the senators need to show personality (verbally) and good policies in order to get votes. Corrispondingly, beauty pageant contestants need to also show their personality (non-verbally) and talk about world peace and all that junk that the politicians also mention. People like John McCain and George Bush use their emotions, or rather use emotionally stirring speeches about terrorists being "jealous of America's freedom" (Even though America isn't the only free country) in order to win debates. However, someone like Ron Paul, a man who knows what he is talking about, just states facts and reveals the truth in order to win his debates. So John McCain may have won in the bathing suit competition, so to speak, but he has lost in the Q&A part haha!

Ron Paul on the other hand may have done poorly when it comes to his image because the republican party does not like to hear the truth, but he did great on the Q&A part because some citizens wanted to hear the truth. I will leave you with some videos of Ron Paul and John McCain and you be the judge.

Videos

Ron Paul

John McCain

John McCain

John McCain

1-Ron Paul Vs. John McCain

2-Ron Paul Vs. John McCain

3-Ron Paul Vs. John McCain

Sevigny, Alexandre. "The Medium Is the Message." Communication Studies 1A03, Sevigny, Alexandre. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University Custom Courseware Production Services, 2004. 121-133.