In countries like the United States whose influence can be felt internationally, surveyors need to have more humility when engaging with societies that are not of the same self-actualized achievement. Being able to recognize differences in society and within societies aside from generalizations that are easily made will provide the surveyor more knowledge in presenting information to the public that contains less impairments in the data gathered… Two important beginning questions that must be asked when looking at statistics and “blind information” are: 1. Where is the source coming from? 2. Who/what is the credibility in the production of knowledge? These questions become important because without knowing the validity of either of these, we will have a lack of knowledge in knowing what perspective this knowledge is coming from and by what depictions/criteria these data contain. We know that by looking at statistics they easily can be calculated in favoring the arguments of the distributor of the knowledge. To walk on this thin ground that is easily misrepresented While these indexes find its use by politicians, governments, and international trade partners; …The criteria of these indexes are based on democratic and western world values that can’t be paralleled in alternative societies and pre-modern societies….
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On the subject of indices ways in finding an answer have become numerous and often has conflicting numbers depending on what boundaries the producer of knowledge sets and the “weight distributions” that are used when calculating a final number to fit within the ranking.
Thesis:: In this argument I will explain what the index for Quality of Life is and what its implications are, the influence of Abraham Maslow, in regards to QOL I will argue a short discourse of a Foucauldian and Clifford Geertz perspective in light of finding some way to create some validity in finding more accurate ways of producing a rating index. One index specifically, Quality of Life Index (QOL), is a system determining the success and health/well-being of a country and using this information to rank nations during a given year. The health/well- being of a country determines the level of livability and possibly the opportunity for self-actualization to be greatest. This index is created by private American affiliated project organizations. These results are tracked using quantitative data that can be obtained through international governmental organizations and summed up through statistics and other number driven data. As these formulas use different distribution weights for setting criteria the highest proportions fall in to education, health/well-being, wealth, safety, and some use the term democracy for other criteria. Within these categories some are broken down further while other indices use an average to publish these statistics. Other criteria included in these statistics are GPD, living expense, peace (from statistics of safety). More recently environmental protection has become great importance. The QOL uses physiological struggles, safety, social development, and self-actualization principals derived from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid in answering guiding the criteria to be used. The QOL index is used in the social sphere in creating historical analysis and giving motivation to nations in being more productive by focusing to improve on these democratic values. With multiple private organizations to publish these numbers, no set methodology is in place for rating these countries and ranking them. So the statistics that distributors publish is different from one-another making the whole system inaccurate. While this can be useful …show more content…
By using Geertz’s definition, it demonstrates defining boundaries of finding the satisfaction to fulfill criteria in the QOL Index (education, health/well-being, wealth, safety, democracy) within different societies. Being able to create these boundaries means that when surveyors go out in the field to find information to meet the criteria a definition will more clearly define what they are looking for. The definition of religion as a social structure gives a guideline for where in society we may look for religion where in some societies it may be all encompassing rather than a separate system, the criteria such as health, environment, and education can also be observed similarly. Geertz is also helpful in using a comparison strategy in finding validity of the data and ways that the data is presented. Below (fig. 2 & 3) are two different QOL indexes from 2013. In comparing the two indexes; Numbeo’s research for 2013 has 67 countries that it received numerical information whereas the EIU’s research polled 80 countries. The first difficulty
On the subject of indices ways in finding an answer have become numerous and often has conflicting numbers depending on what boundaries the producer of knowledge sets and the “weight distributions” that are used when calculating a final number to fit within the ranking.
Thesis:: In this argument I will explain what the index for Quality of Life is and what its implications are, the influence of Abraham Maslow, in regards to QOL I will argue a short discourse of a Foucauldian and Clifford Geertz perspective in light of finding some way to create some validity in finding more accurate ways of producing a rating index. One index specifically, Quality of Life Index (QOL), is a system determining the success and health/well-being of a country and using this information to rank nations during a given year. The health/well- being of a country determines the level of livability and possibly the opportunity for self-actualization to be greatest. This index is created by private American affiliated project organizations. These results are tracked using quantitative data that can be obtained through international governmental organizations and summed up through statistics and other number driven data. As these formulas use different distribution weights for setting criteria the highest proportions fall in to education, health/well-being, wealth, safety, and some use the term democracy for other criteria. Within these categories some are broken down further while other indices use an average to publish these statistics. Other criteria included in these statistics are GPD, living expense, peace (from statistics of safety). More recently environmental protection has become great importance. The QOL uses physiological struggles, safety, social development, and self-actualization principals derived from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid in answering guiding the criteria to be used. The QOL index is used in the social sphere in creating historical analysis and giving motivation to nations in being more productive by focusing to improve on these democratic values. With multiple private organizations to publish these numbers, no set methodology is in place for rating these countries and ranking them. So the statistics that distributors publish is different from one-another making the whole system inaccurate. While this can be useful …show more content…
By using Geertz’s definition, it demonstrates defining boundaries of finding the satisfaction to fulfill criteria in the QOL Index (education, health/well-being, wealth, safety, democracy) within different societies. Being able to create these boundaries means that when surveyors go out in the field to find information to meet the criteria a definition will more clearly define what they are looking for. The definition of religion as a social structure gives a guideline for where in society we may look for religion where in some societies it may be all encompassing rather than a separate system, the criteria such as health, environment, and education can also be observed similarly. Geertz is also helpful in using a comparison strategy in finding validity of the data and ways that the data is presented. Below (fig. 2 & 3) are two different QOL indexes from 2013. In comparing the two indexes; Numbeo’s research for 2013 has 67 countries that it received numerical information whereas the EIU’s research polled 80 countries. The first difficulty