Greetings, Class of 2015!
If you are looking for where to put your responses to the essays in your summer reading packet, this is the place. Remember they are due here by 11:59 p.m. on July 1. Refer to your summer assignment for content and length requirements. I hope you're enjoying summer, as well as some good books.
LAR
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There are many ways to skin a goat and torture is just one of the many ways to get what you want out of someone. Children often play “Uncle” by “torturing” the other until one of them say “Uncle”. Of course in the essay “The Case for Torture” by Michael Levin brings the attention to torture in order to get information from terrorist and other HYPOTHETICAL situations. All the situations that are brought up seem like he is fighting to get evidence to say that torture is an acceptable thing to do. I don’t disagree with the fact that there are some cases in which torture is acceptable in order to get what you need from a terrorist or criminal, but the hypothetical cases in which he brings to attention are not the kind I would say need torture.
His first hypothetical situation that he brings to attention is “Suppose a terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on Manhattan Island which will detonate at noon on July 4 unless… (here follow the usual demands for money and release of his friends from jail).” The first thing I want to point out it the first word in this sentence “Suppose”. Well suppose that a purple elephant jumped over the moon while petting a cat. Suppose I was the president of the United States. This little word is the only flaw in his argument that makes it easy to poke holes into his theory. He goes on to say “If the only way to save those lives is to subject the terrorist to the most excruciating possible pain,” the word “if” is yet another hole in his argument. IF such terrorist did attempt such terrorist actions, there would be so many loopholes in which to avoid thousands of people’s deaths, like oh… I don’t know… maybe evacuating the island and the surrounding areas. Another thing that would be hard for this so called terrorist is the fact that it would be very difficult to get an atomic bomb without drawing attention to yourself from the government before he was even successful at planting this said bomb. I could be wrong in such theory myself but one should consider the other potential factors. Plus, one cannot guarantee that they would be successful in getting such information before the bomb were to explode.
The other situation he brings up is if “someone plants a bomb on a jumbo jet. He alone can disarm it, and his demands cannot be met (or if they can we refuse to set a precedent by yielding to his threats).” The only thing that is his flaw is that we could easily find the bomb, and get rid of the jet by sending it to the middle of the deepest ocean so that it cannot hurt humanity by setting the autopilot’s coordinates to this ocean. Yeah a jumbo jet costs a lot of money but so does a law suit against thousands of families, and what would you rather do “tell 300 or 100, or 10 people who never asked to be put in danger, ‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to die in agony, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to’” get rid of this jet, or get rid of the jet that those people’s tax money helped pay for and will probably help pay for a brand spanking new one?
Torture is acceptable in certain situations, but the ones that Michael Levin brings to attention are just not the best to give as an example. In order to avoid such disasters brought on by a terrorist, one must think like the terrorist, and undo the terrorist’s deeds. Like I said before, there is more than one way to skin a goat, and there is more than one way that the government prevents such crimes from happening.
When noticing the title of, Thinking as a Hobby", I expected it to be about how someone spends most of their time thinking and figuring out things, but what I actually took away from this essay was that the majority of the population lacks a "greater truth" for which I think is essential in living a balanced life. Golding describes three types of thinkers: grade three, grade two, and the rare ones being grade one. In the essay, Golding goes on to describe situations in his childhood in which he observed different reactions of people based on their thinking. The first level of thought he was brought up to was grade three thinking in which he thinks "it is often full of unconscious prejudice, ignorance, and hypocrisy". These people fail to think for themselves and often follow people’s orders. Golding describes these people as capable of being overtaken by a dictator and likely to never know who they truly are. I think that these levels of thinkers don’t actually “think” but use their feelings, which I think feelings are temporary and don’t actually connect to your creative mind. The second levels of thinkers are thinkers who aren't likely to follow into people's commands, but rather are likely to question their purpose behind it. Golding says "these grade two thinking destroys without having power to create" meaning that these people observe but don't have the courage to take action. I think that at some point everyone has this level of thinking because we begin to question everything that’s happened to us but we fear to do anything because we are still stuck in level three thinking. Golding describes grade one thinkers who question, "What is truth" and set out to find it unlike level two thinkers. I think that these thinkers are the ones who have reached the top of the mountain or have finally realized the meaning to their suffering. These people live inside their heads and take in every experience as a blessing. Since the majority of the population seems to be followers, then it's no wonder that there is so many suffering in the world. People are blinded by the truth and don't care to take risks for the sake of their spiritual development. It might take lifetimes for these level three thinkers to reach level one. it's like a spiritual journey to reach level one because level one is like feeling enlightened. All you have to do is use your mind wisely because after all your thoughts make the world.
Speaking upon an American giant like Henry David Thoreau, may seem intimidating..well at least to me it is, however after reading the excerpt "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For" multiple times I began to recognize all that Thoreau was initially pushing down the throats of humanity itself. Since Thoreau was a firm believer in transcendentalism it is no surprise to see that this man compares himself to "a small pond" which eventually escalates to Thoreau comparing himself to an even bigger body of water now calling it "a small lake" I feel that Thoreau does this in order to emphasize water's universal reliability. Everything needs water, without it life would not be sustained and the coexistent value of life would cease to exist. Not only would "small ripples" cease to exist, but the very "ripples" in time itself would cease to exist as well. Thoreau allows us to see the world through his own unique set of eyes, which allows him to create symbolistic values in natural monuments like "mountains" being compared to the ancient greek mountain known as "Olympus". Also Thoreau focuses on numerous cultures from Hindu to Greek, meaning that this small excerpt will leave no subject untouched. When bringing up the Hindu God Krishna for example, Thoreau's motives shift and it now seems that he is taking the place of a single God "Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me" now, to start off this phrase can mean many things, however the word I would like to emphasize is "universe" it's not everyday that you see an author use that very word when describing their own lives. I feel that Thoreau does this because he recognizes his true self, and doesn't ignore the fact that, as he is human he also has flaws. Interestingly however, he counters his flaws with the phrase "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn" meaning that each and every day that we are given as humans must be lived without regrets and should be instead lived to the fullest satisfaction. Thoreau is not saying to just go crazy, with crime and lust, but to go crazy with the opportunities that are given to you. To take into account the inevitable retrograde that life brings and to be true to yourself. Without living this way, people could easily get lost in their own deepest desires, leading them down a path of endless destitute and anguish. On another note, Thoreau's final paragraph within the given excerpt is reminiscent of the story of Siddartha Gautama. Which is a direct allusion and comparison to both men's journey towards the belief of "self enlightenment". However there is a supreme difference between these two men, the main being that Guatama is considered to be the founding pillar of faith for the Buddhist religion. While Henry David Thoreau was an esteemed philosopher and world renowned poet. But the difference here is that Thoreau continuously lived his days "reawakening" himself to not just a higher calling, but the prestigious recognition of himself through multiple forms of literature. All in all I feel that Thoreau allows us to take a glimpse at his childhood in order to create the universal truth of undying self honesty and the undeniable benefactor that is awoken. Which can occur in many forms, but is commonly known as one...Hope. Thoreau gives hope to not only himself, but humanity in order to help his life long achievements live on beyond the future.
A person's ideas are going to be changed through the years and the people around you.Just like ideas, hobbies are something that continues throughout the years.In the reading "Thinking as a Hobby", the way the boy thinks transforms as the years go on.He goes from being someone impulsive to someone who pays close attention to every detail. This transformation occurs because of the influence that the environment you live in places on you. His teachers showed him that your thoughts could be biased based off what you admire or feel for.For example Mr. Houghton stated that he was a man that thinked about his actions although he chose to harm his body by drinking.He enjoyed drinking both the feeling and taste so therefore he failed to think about the harm that it was doing to his body which would enable him to continue drinking.The way someone thinks determines the persons actions.
Joan Didion is an American novelist who concentrates in the cultural disintegration and family. This is illustrated in the essay, “On Going Home” she wrote in 1966 in her first volume of nonfiction. The essay illustrates the crisis of identity that Joan Didion is experiencing. As an adult, Didion tells the story of when she took her daughter to visit her family in her hometown for her first birthday. Didion goes without her husband to this trip, which causes her to reflect and contrast on her current life as a wife with her husband and daughter in the city and her previous life as she was growing up with her family in a rural area. Joan Didion is looking back at her past and reminiscing with the objects that she sees while she is home with her parents. Didion identifies her home where her parents are because it is where all the memories from the past are found from a bathing suit she wore when she was seventeen, teacups that belonged to her grandma and a photograph of her grandfather as a young man. Listing these objects makes me realize that what Didion is experiencing is normal and is something that most humans experience. Each person has a different definition of home. For example, my parents, who were both born in Mexico and consider that their home, not the physical building in which my parents, my siblings, and I live in in Houston. I on the other hand consider my house where I do homework and chores my home because it is surrounded by memories. Memories that include childhood pictures in family albums, magnets of places I've traveled to in the refrigerator to simply watching my two little sisters playing outside, in the same backyard in which I went on many adventures years ago. I believe Joan Didion internal conflict is caused by age, as she gets older things that where there when she was younger are not there. Eventually what she is going through will occur to most.
Being at home brings feelings of nostalgia that only one understands. Even though many grow up and live off on their own with out their family, memories and insignificant things mean so much when one returns to where they had their start. In the essay "On Going Home" by Joan Didion, a story is told on how the narrator feels so many memories when she returns home, where as her husband and daughter do not get the same feeling she does. Of course, everyone has a different setting that they grow up in which makes it difficult to understand exactly why people get so hyped up about certain things. Joan mentions how when she gets back home her husband finds "momentos quite without value to him". Even though the author finds sentimental feelings towards things, her husband is now a different family to her and therefore doesn't take in to consideration exactly what they mean to her. Everyone's idea of a home is different and some people invest themselves more in the idea of home than others. She keeps "a bathing suit" that she wore when she was "seventeen". This might seem like a totally pointless thing, it means so much to the narrator because she experienced it and actually grew an attachment to the bathing suit. This shows how everyone finds attachments to different things, whether or not they might seem like they have significance or not. Personally, I have many things in my life that no one might find important, yet hold so much meaning to me. Just like the infamous quote "Home is where the heart is", everybody experiences a sense of home wherever they want to find it.
Going back home can usually bring mixed feelings. Ones reactions to the thought of "home" can very because of memories from the past. Yeah there is good times as one grows up, but there is also space for the bad things in life. In the essay, "On Going Home" by Joan Didion, the narrator is a mother who is going to celebrate her daughters first birthday at her home where she grew up herself. As the essay progresses it seems as if she does not want to give her daughter the feeling she feels when going back home. The narrator seems saddened as she sees how things are different, and of course now she is older and she can't understand the things she could not when she was young. When asked by her husband what she has been doing she feels uneasy because she is actually not quite sure. The narrator clearly states "Marriage is the classic betrayal". Now that the narrator is married she is not home as often, and maybe that is what causes her to actually miss her memories even though they aren't the best to think of. The narrator states that she, "had by all objective accounts a 'normal' and a 'happy' family situation. By using the word "had" if demonstrates past tense, meaning that happiness is not what her family now has. It seems as if now that the narrator has started her own life she feels distant from her home. I mean, I believe that your home is something that you can never forget. It has to be kept in your heart because it is what has shaped you for the future. It's where people learn how to act and react. Maybe going away from ones home is the realization that everything wasn't even the way it was supposed to be. If the narrator in this essay is always feeling down and is crying, then she is realizing that something was not right. At the end of the essay the narrator says that she "would like to giver her more", directing to her daughter, who is lying asleep in her crib. The narrator wants to raise her daughter differently than how she was raised or she wants her daughter to have a different experience. If the narrator felt that her home was perfect, she would not feel the need to raise her young daughter a different way. She would feel content. She wants her to remember the good times and the good people and the good objects. She does not want her daughter to looks back and feel remorse the way she does.
I always thought of "Spanglish" as improper Spanish. I never considered it to one day became a form of a "proper language". Chicanos have molded the Spanish language in the United States into a form that unites the American and Mexican culture. It's a whole new form of identity that identifies Hispanics living in the United States. Many native Mexicans believe Spanglish is an inadequate form of Spanish. Rather than praising the shift in culture, many believe that the change in language is embarrassing or humiliating. For example when I go to Mexico my cousins make it their duty to notice any mistakes in my vocabulary when I’m speaking. I think that throughout time the change in culture will no longer be seen as an incorrect way of speaking because as old generations die, new generations begin to mold society’s perspective as a whole. General ideas are adapted throughout time and eventually become accepted by the people that once neglected them. Culture and language is a form of evolution that will continue to change throughout time. Migration movements will determine the direction of how culture will change. Spanish is not the only language group that could possibly be mixed with English. Throughout time Chinese, Portuguese, or any other language could potentially begin to share similar words with English. Anglicisms could one day form a part of various languages. It’s an ongoing process that progresses as time and generations are raised in the changing environment. Many years from now Hispanic children will believe that the proper way of saying “park” in Spanish is “parkiarse” rather than estacionarse. The “original” form of a culture is lost throughout decades, but it will never seize to change. Culture is history, and every year has a different history. As countries, like Mexico and the United States, continue to build stronger ties, the culture in both countries will become even more similar. Chicanos represent the union of the American and Mexican language. Although they are seen with shame in the eyes of native Mexicans, they are a form of the result of joining two different cultures. Even though many native Mexicans dislike the Chicano Spanglish, they are the reason behind why the language sprouted in the first place by migrating to the United States. A person can’t expect to not be influences by his or her environment especially when it comes to children. “Monkey see; Monkey do” is an appropriate saying that summarizes the new adaptations of new generations.
In the essay "on going home" i believe Joan Didion is creating two definitions of home. one definition of home is happy and exciting while the other sounds dreadful and dull. in the beginning she is describing the diffrence of home but the physical version describing how her home know is the one in los angeles were her husband and baby live then describes her other home which is where she use to live with her parents and cousins. I was confused the middle part of the story but in the end she explains the "home" she would like to promise her daughter to grow up having. the narrator is showing how didion has two diffrent personalities that are viewed , which can be viewed as masks one is with her husband that she shows and later says that he didnt like being with them because a diffrent mask is shown at the presense of her family. i guess the reason the husband says she changes with her family but in truth she has turned back to her normal self. the whole part about being the last generation of have the chance to actually know what home really is as she explains know a days people can easily leave and how she almost thirty still old cries when hangs up the phone. so the meaning of home she is saying her generation will be the last to know is where you get to be close to your cusins drinking green tea made by her grandma and just being happy in the presence of family. you can also tell the diffrence between the two personalities didion has is threw the complexity her husband and her father demonstrate through the diffrente morals they believe in and the things they are good at. overall i understand the story better after analyzing these things.
Reading "On Going Home" was a bit confusing considering that there two points of view introduced to the reader at the beginning of the essay. Getting to the middle of the passage was easier to understand the multiple point of views. Starting off the essay, Joan Didion describes how the narrator's husband doesn't get along very well with her childhood family. The narrator describes her husband as uneducated, yet he's morally great man. The narrator's father is described as an intelligent man, yet he commits impulsive actions along with attending a "mental hospital." Didion's comment involving her brother calling her husband "Joan's husband" created a sense of "betrayal" as Didion adds in the following sentence. Didion's brother isn't accepting Joan's husband into the family. As a member of a family, one would gladly appreciate the family to accept any add ons that come into their life. A really interesting paragraph that caught my attention was the paragraph about Didion going through her old drawer and re-gaining memory of her past. Didion uses visual imagery to describe all the objects that the drawer contained inside. One object that really affected Didion was the photograph of her and her grandfather. Didion adds that she didn't see her "own" self in the picture. This symbolizes Didion's past memories that is no longer the same. Although she has a family and a childhood family, Didion feels bad that she can't provide the same she has to her own children do to the complex relationship her husband and her family have. At the end of the essay, the reader understands that Didion is low-spirited on how she can't provide a good family for her children. One thing that everyone worries constantly is to accommodate their children and raise them well. Didion can possibly feel disappointed that she couldn't give everything she could due to how childish both sides of the family could be to each other. Overall, I think that the essay contains a very open subject that many can relate to. That's a reason why reading is a good thing because we learn from others' mistakes.
Home, was the main point of "On Going Home". The difficulty of growing up and being in a new situation having to create a new home mean while you had been raised in one all your life. The narrator has come to the point in her life where she has realized that her home where she lives with her husband and child differs from the home where she lived interacting with her family. She "dreads" her husbands call because it causes her to come back to reality and think about the present life mean while she is enjoying finally being herself. The narrator is caught up in a double life where she acts different hen being with her husband and when she is with her family. Her husband does not agree with his wife's personality when she is with we family, but her family does not appreciate or accept him either. "Marriage is the classic betrayal" causing her family to feel betrayed by her because she is willing to abandon we own family and home in attempt to crate her own. The narrator believes being the youngest in the family she is the only one who is left with the responsibility of becoming aware of what family truly means. She is the one who is able to see the affects of family and put them to use in her own. Her child's family situation is completely different from her own she will not be surrounded by family members who corrupt her personality. Didions time is mostly spend reminiscing on the past ant discussing about the people she once knew and where they have ended up, but at one point she decided to look upon her won past and "clean out a drawer". Revealing her past seeing pictures, letters of rejection from "The Nation", teacups and a bathing suit. She believes living in the past is not the greatest thing to do, but when she compares herself to a photograph of her grandfather she does not see herself. She she's how her encounters have caused her to grow in different ways and has become a different person than he was. She is her own person who acts on her own not needing to depend only upon her family.
I learned about social Darwinism in ninth grade, and what I remember it had something to do with the most powerful and smart progressing while the rest do not. Well at first it was believed that only the whites were here to make the world better, but as we evolved the world began depending on every race and every person of any color. Soon enough we began thinking that all men were actually part of the social Darwinism. In the article, “9.11.01: The Skyscraper and the Airplane” I began to realize that men do not only enhance the world, but we are also part of our own destruction. We create powerful instruments that might seem helpful and necessary at the moment, but soon turn to be the worst nightmare. The nightmare that occurred on 9/11/2001 is not an event that we can blame others; although the United States was not the actual country to attack, we were still part of that great invention. Big and complex ideas are formed from smaller and simple ideas. The idea of a skyscraper was first viewed as something untrustworthy because it was a new invention that people had to risk their lives to be in a structure never seen before. After seeing how useful and how much job and money it brought, people began to realize that a building was similar to a person. The skyscraper was is able to have a set structure and the smaller components that make it possible for it to function while covering it with a rough skin to protect it. Right now I am working for Marathon Oil, and I am part of Facilities. I’ve realized that even the smallest things and jobs help the whole building run properly. Soon enough, they realized that having something mobile would be more than helpful. It would have the same components of being a vertebrate with different functions and a smooth skin on the outside. People had to learn and trust statistics with the probability of them dying on a plane accident. That moment of epiphany that you get before getting on a plane I got while reading this article. I realized that humanity builds technology to enhance and make the world easier, but in reality we are just making it a more dangerous and competitive place. What we build with time can tear us down in a matter of a “kiss”.
Joan Didion talk about “home” towards being somewhere that is not just a place to live but a place where one can have freedom to be who they want to be and for her that’s with her family best to have better life. This is shown in the essay “On Going Home” by Joan Didion who talks about her story onto trying to go through life seeking meaning towards her choices on being better or worse. Didion goes onto how her and her husband live in New York, Los Angeles where they have their daughter but does not speak of this place as home. Instead she mentions it more as a imprisonment where she cannot be free to do as she pleases, and that her husband doesn’t even appear to care as much for her the way she wants him to. This essay shows her thoughts of her place in New York when she says “That I am trapped in this particular irrelevancy” (Parag. 3 pg.10) and that afterwards begin to go through her old items such as bathing suit, letter of rejection, and aerial photograph of a site her father didn’t build of a store. These things make her go back to exploring her past and her so called “home”. Didion also goes onto telling the conflicts that have affected her life in the past and the ones that are current to her. The war was one that affected her past and her husband with the feel of betrayal from him is the current that is affecting her life to being such conflict. Didion in paragraph 6 says of wanting to give home to her daughter for her birthday but they live differently, this means she was going towards in the essay is wanting to give her daughter the perfect life of freedom, choices that her daughter could make later on. They live differently is the time era and how things have changed to where Didion does not even know now, like she said “we live differently now and I can promise her nothing like that”(Parag.6 pg.11) to show that the changes of the new generation have more of a better hope of choices than Didion Generation.
In "On Going Home" Joan Didion talks about not being able to give her daughter a home. She says, "things are different now" meaning that the family she has built is not the same as the family she was grown into. The culture bounded by what seems to be a different generation is what seems to be 'different'. The idea of a having a strong family is important to Joan but she cannot seem give her past life a chance in her new life. Her husband's inability to 'understand' her family is what prevents Joan from giving her family an idea of a close family. Her husband is does not want Joan to be a part of her family, because of their life style. How they have so many people in, 'mental hospitals' or 'drunk driving cases'. Joan sees past all of that and sees her family, her blood and her as well. Then realizes that the life for her children will never be like the childhood she had. Parents today cannot seem to give their children the life they used to have. Nowadays there are so many troubles with relationships. It is difficult because of technology and the media and how family is depicted versus how it really is. Now many parents focus on jobs and paying bills and hardly have time to spend with their children. They give so much time into work to provide a better life for their kids, but it is the time that the kids do not see. Times are different and that is what Joan was trying to get at in her story; that there are other factors that contribute to the problem. There is nothing that she can do to give her daughter the family culture she had other than continue to introduce her to her family, and spend time with them.
When I first read the title of this essay, I automatically thought about 9/11 and how extreme the impact was on the whole word. In the essay "The Skyscraper and the Airplane", Goodheart advocates on how our technology increasingly risks our everyday lives. It is often a desire to obtain the greatest technology available to us; however are we not putting our life in danger by providing ourselves the capability of dying or causing too many distractions in your life? Cell phones annually release their newest applications and their advanced technology. Engineers create the most renowned technology to move us to another state or country within a matter of hours, and we still don't ponder on exactly how our lives are put into danger every day. Goodheart portrays skyscrapers and airplanes as "Fragile containers for even-more-fragile flesh blood" describing how in a matter of minutes these innovations can be destroyed along with our lives. This essay made me realize that every day our lives are on the line, whether you jump on an elevator or fly to visit your cousins 2 hours away... accidents can occur within a matter of seconds. Society doesn’t realize what each piece of technology is made out of, since it is easier to utilize a certain piece of equipment to make our lives run smoothly and leave it at that. However, we should take into consideration that not only by taking the easy can we become endangered but get to a point in which we have no return. “We must summon up the will to trust – not so much in the metal armature beneath us as in the faceless experts who designed and built it” perfectly describes the way society works daily. We expect to be safe everywhere we go because we are provided with safety regulations, yet there’s always room for mistakes in everything. Even the most assured way of transportation, driving in a car, can break you because there is no guarantee that everything will be safe in the end. Just like our lives, everything must come to an end. It is very realistic to think that almost every one encounters a near death experience, whether it may be standing in the middle of an elevator to rush to get in or driving yourself to school. The greatest innovations are available to us, especially us as teenagers. We see the world at our feet and don’t realize the dangers that are given to us at our fingertips.
We all know the topic over abortion is quite controversial. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, it is disputable. After reading "We Do Abortions Here" by Sallie Tisdale, I was left pondering at the consequences of the termination of emerging life. It's interesting to see how something that is beginning to thrive, to have a chance at life suddenly become so moribund and decadent. It's even more intriguing to find that some choose this choice, even if it will cause them emotional harm.
It was interesting to see this topic through the perspective of a nurse, someone who is supposed to hold in all bias and look at this delicate topic through nonjudgmental eyes. As a reader, I got to see how she acts with her patients, but I also got to hear about her opinions, which is something she is not supposed to let her patients know. Her take on her work and the patients she encounters seem to shine a light on the ignorance of birth and pregnancy. Although she tries to maintain a stoic tone, she cannot help but express herself, as she is only human.
However, after finishing this text, I found myself thinking about what constitutes something as "wrong." What makes something unethical? Is it the vast arrays of human emotion? Is it trespassing against the roles nature? Cutting destiny's work short? I deduced from my thinking that, primarily, human emotion is the main culprit in ethical dilemmas. Humans are perfectly able to function, but we allow our emotions to hinder us, to lead our lives, to make our decisions. Our emotions dictate whether we are content with our lives, and if we are not then we change things around to fit accordingly with our desires and goals.
The first essay was quite blunt and to the point. Upon the first reading, I kept getting lost as the text seemed endless and bland. But after a second and third reread, there are slight innuendos in the text that emphasize its importance. The husbands uncomfortable nature with his wife's family creates a stark contrast with his wife. She claims her home is not with him and her child in LA, but in the Central Valley of California where her direct family is, which is quite odd. It seems as if she puts her immediate family over the one she has created and engaged in. I can relate, as I imagine many families can, where one parent or individual is uncomfortable with a specific family due to their stark contrasting beliefs, which ultimately leads them to be polar opposites and never come to an agreed liking or similarity. When Didion claims "marriage is the classic form of betrayal", does she mean to her immediate family? Does she regret getting married and having a family besides her immediate one?
You can't let love get in the way of marriage. I know at first you're like woah, that's horrible. But, if you understand the journal, you will see that it's not. When two are deeply in love, what do they want? They want more love, they want a way to express their love. And, what do most people that want to express their love do? No, you little dirty person! They get married. Getting married to them will help to give them a goal. Like the journal reads that it was the ultimate goal. But, when that goal is reached, what happens? What happens, is that they surpass love; love can go so far, and then, they start to know. It's vague, but it's true, they just know. They don't need to speak to have a conversation, they don't need to say those three words, because they already know it. They don't love the other, they love they whole that they make, they are one. Without the other, it's like they don't know whats going on, all reason is lost until they are with their beloved. It is so much more than a relationship. And, it is incredible how intense it sounds, i don't think i can fathom it. I really liked this journal, it showed me I'm right about things that i believe in, i want to be able to do what i have previously written, i want more than that too. I can really care less about how my writing sounds to other people, as long as whoever it's directed to show some sign of gratitude, I'ma keep at it. Trust me, i'm a doctor. Ok, that's all, bye!
There are always two sides to every story, but sometimes we do not acknowledge one of them. In the short essay " We do abortions here: a nurses story" we get to see the other side of the coin. People tend to focus on the issue at hand, in which case would be the abortion rather than the emotional struggle that arises within the person that is performing or assisting in the abortion. People assume that the nurses performing the procedures are generally okay with abortions just because it forms part of their profession, yet the nurse might differ from the assumptions. There must be some emotional detachment when working with humans and their health. Doctors and nurses must have a boundary that allows them to work as professionals rather than humans with emotions. This can at times be troublesome because it results in poor treatment of patients; however it can be essential to correctly performing the duty at hand. That is when the internal question arises, when must the doctors and nurses show emotional detachment to their patients?
In the essay a nurse talks about the procedures done to be able to successfully complete an abortion. This has been her job for quite some time, yet she still cannot get used to the procedures and mentally stabilize herself to see the "bloody remains". Her essay allows the reader to see the internal burden that some nurses go through with abortions. She reveals that even after time of having been following through with procedures she cannot bring herself to be completely numb to the situation. Her detail with each one of the patients she mentions shows that she still seems them all as unique individuals and not just more incoming faces which hints at some emotional connection.
In particular she recalls the young girls that she has had to work with and their ironic innocence on the subject of intercourse. She also recalls the questions made by specific people and how sometimes the questions asked lead to a changed mind. The way she finds comfort is by believing that the clients know that they will have the burden for the rest of their life’s but for her the burden comes as she attempts not to judge them.
In her attempt to not judge them she says that women who go in for abortion do it for many reasons, some of them are them being too rich, too smart, too poor, too stupid, too old, or too young but what she hints at is that all these women have life’s that they wish not to alter with the inconvenience of having a baby.
She does not blame many of them because many of them claim to have been on some kind of protection, but regardless of its hard for these women to give up a fetus or not it does not make the nurses job any more simple because they still have to do all the dirty work and maintain calm for the client. The facade that the nurses must put on day by day sometimes breaks when they are in the middle of a procedure but for the most part they must remain calm for the sake of those having the abortion made.
Often the ones pro-abortion are considered monsters and the ones performing abortions are considered monsters as well, but what others fail to realize is that at the end of the day the people performing abortions might be against performing them. Being pro-abortion does not make anyone a monster either, their views are different and they have a different idea of a realistic approach towards life. It is simple to make assumptions and to judge others but what makes the difference between killing a fetus and killing in war?
People who go in to have abortions done know that they will not be able to provide the love and attention that a baby needs and rather than having a baby run the risk for living a life full of neglect and loneliness they decide what they believe is best, and whether they do it thinking about themselves or a potential new born is between them and their conscience.
Home represents something different to everyone. It can be someone’s safety blanket or someone’s worst memories. For Joan Didion she sees home as a place where her family is and where her memories remain according to her essay. I understand the fact that she does not see her house in Los Angeles as her “home” due to the fact that her first family is not there, but it is shocking that even though her husband and her baby, which are her new family, live in the house in Las Angeles she feels as if she does not belong there. Even a simple phone call from her husband, she dreads which shows how she much rather be in Central Valley than spending time with her new family. What I don’t understand is then why did she get married? Or why did she move, if she was going to hate living in Los Angeles so bad? I guess sometimes people sacrifice things in life and she had to sacrifice not being with her original family all the time. Her being back home, she realized that as generations pass by the new children do not get to experience the sense of family that she did. She feels as if children now a day does not get to experience how it is to grow up without so many innovations. She feels that when she was young she enjoyed the simple things in life for example knowing all her cousins or just having a simple picnic. Although I agree with her on the fact that children now a day’s including myself do not get the commonly experience how it is to grow up with as much of the natural beauty of life, I disagree on the fact that people still can have homes that they enjoy. Just because things in life are modernizing does not mean that the sense of family disappears or fades. Real families will remain united and full of memories if they put in the work to make it happen. There might be situations where people live far away from each other but if the communication remains then the unity of the relationship will remain as well.
Upon reading the title "We Do Abortions Here : A nurse's Story" brings up many thoughts beliefs both moral and personal. This short story Tisdale represents the side of a nurse who works for an abortion clinic and doesn't really mind the hatred some people have for it , but on the other hand she shows the scene that not every one knows. she doesn't criticize those who've returned for the fourth , fifth even seventh time. i honestly think that people should be more open-minded like her. Yes abortion is a very controversial thing saying that its basically murder, but how can you murder something thats not even in the real world , it can basically just be considered a parasite a very most it lives in it"host" and gets everything from there. and honestly i think that its the mothers choice whether she wants it or not after it all its her who is going to be pregnant for nine months , and more than likely nurturing it afterwards. i also say that abortion is better than letting it live , because if you let it live, if the parents didn't want it , it could end up causing danger to itself and the others around it . just get it over before its even started. Yes its very heartless to say but i think its more logical than letting it have resentment and pain for the rest of its life. im not saying that it's the right thing to do considering those who are opposed to it but I'm just saying that if it does grow up in the negative situation it started it , he/she will still have to hear the judgment of those who say abortion is wrong , if you look in the bible , the bible goes against a lot of things that us as humans still do and will do without thinking it over twice. so someone can't use the bible to make others regret it.
There is a great divide between English and Spanish. As Gloria Anzaldua brilliantly pointed out there is also an in-between. Spanglish. As I was reading this essay I couldn’t help but to feel dumbstruck that I knew all of these “languages”. I was also amazed that I could go from proper Standard English to pachuco in less than 5 seconds. I come from a family that is half Greek and half Mexican. Where one side wants me to speak English the other Spanish. In the end I speak both. I know how to speak both of them almost perfectly but lately I have been forgetting my standard Spanish and I tend to speak more Chicano around them, all giving me disapproving glares when I do. Like Anzaldua I was once speaking Spanish with my friends and my teacher told me the exact thing that the author’s teacher told her. As I was reading that part I felt angered by that small act of oppression. After that little incident I only spoke Spanish when needed. Anzaldua says that we learn English to get ahead but we are also forced to keep speaking and learning Spanish to keep in contact with other Hispanics. Now a days if we hear people speaking Spanglish or Chicano we tend to criticize them because we feel as though they are neither from here or from there. Anzaldua describes the push and pull from society to speak both English and Spanish and she also explains how we use different variations of Spanglish in different situations. I think that overall she is trying to tell everyone that it is okay to speak both languages and even mix them up from time to time because the Spanglish/Chicano language has already become steadily ingrained into our society as a whole.
The way I see it, every person was built on the principle that they have the capability and freedom to do whatever they so desire. Well, isn't that what Hobbes told us? I guess if you consider the overwhelming power that emotions have, then you would think about it again. But then, you can think about how incredibly commanding one has to be to be completely in charge of your emotions. And maybe, that’s when we reach the so called freedom people promise us. And, I could not have seen a clearer example of someone who can control their emotions more than in the nurse in “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story” by Sallie Tisdale. It’s no question that abortions are controversial all around. And, the story really did emphasize the presence it has when spoken about. However, besides that, I was very caught off guard by how the nurse was portrayed. She was shown as very stoic to all different types of women. Plus, besides the very open minded nurse, we saw the suffering women like the one who didn't want her to use the word abortion or the ones who were returning for more than once. And, it made me think, as I presented before, about the true meaning of freedom. Pro- Life activists always support the idea that people have the freedom to decide their own fate, but do they really? Most of the women in the clinic seemed to be chained by something, most of them being emotional chains. Like, the one who thought that holding the fetus would help her cope with the abortion or the one whose husband would attack her if the fetus was a boy. All of the women aren't really at all free, except for the nurse of course. The nurse is the only who doesn't judge, doesn't really impute her own opinion, doesn't add emotion and becomes very straight forward. And, maybe, she is the only one in this story that is truly free.
So, that’s where my ideology lies when talking about this essay. I believe that people do have the right to choose what they want. And, even though they’re overwhelmed by the emotion of supposedly “murdering” a possible human being, they have to know that they truly do want this. Because, even though it is a very emotional situation, it is a very serious situation. There is no backing out of it or getting a refund. Thus, the nurse explains to us the process and tells us all that people deal with. And, at the end of the day, the essay showed me that people can cry, they can feel something and there will be struggles, but one just has to push through because no one else controls you but yourself. The nurse controls herself to even work in this field which I see as quite powerful. Therefore, the essay was very powerful because it spoke very differently on an issue that everyone always hesitates from. People wouldn't really ever write from the point of view that would make many feel uncomfortable. And, Tisdale truly shows us a different side of the story and how this highly controversial topic can be seen from something else as just controversy. It can be seen as a job that is actually hard but can save people from later troubles. The topic is just truly something that has to be seen with different eyes to make a fully educational conclusion on it.
In the essay On Going Home the narrator of the story talks about the contrasting nature of a home and a house in the context of past and current life. In the narrators life the place she calls home is with her mother, father and siblings. Whereas the family she chose to have is only a house. She views her memories with her brother near the river and in the fields with a zealous remembrance, but the man she chose to be with is not viewed in the same light. He is only seen as a nuisance that she has to put up with now because they have different outlooks on life based on their passed. Her husband wants her to come back to him, but she wants her fun exciting country life. Even the news and conversations that her husband shares with her over phone is becoming a dreaded part of the day. With her family that she grew up with as a child they value objects and don’t mind a little dust, but her husband is a little more meticulous than she and her family. Her husband does not agree with the life that his wife lived before, so he does not go with her to celebrate their daughter’s birthday. Just as the husband dislikes her family, she also dislikes his family and his past because it feels too much like their current boring life. When she is with her husband she is not the same way she is as when she is in her true home. When she does go home she does not want to go back to Las Angeles with her husband because that phase of her life can never make her as happy as her past. She enjoyed her past life so much that she wants to pass it on to her offspring, but knows she cannot do this. She cannot do this because she has already had her child in the city with her city husband. Her child can’t have the same past because that is not what she was born into, but since that is what the mother found enjoyable she wants it for her child. The contrasting nature of rural and urban is explored in this essay through the wife’s past and current life. Like most of humanity though the mother is afraid of change and dislikes it which results in her resenting her life she lives today with her husband and daughter. All the mother wants is her past back, but she can’t have it because she already started a new life that does not bring her the joy she use to have.
I found it awesome that over the years there has been much adaptation to the many combination of the English and Spanish language such as Spanglish. Although spoken by many people in today’s society I see it unfair that it does not receive the attention that it deserves. For many Spanish speaking people that are learning English I view that Spanglish as a helpful guide for them to learn English while also maintaining their knowledge of Spanish. Maintaining your primary language to me means that you would preserve your culture and expand on your ability to communicate with other people. In doing so you would open up to more connection to the world, not be restricted by lack of communication and have better opportunities in life. Speaking the two languages together is impressive but there also different variation like the author explained. There are those times in which you would speak with friends in terms of slang or using standard Spanish with parents, Standard English with teacher and a Spanglish with other family members. Although it seems like that’s what society would like for us to think. That all we use is slang whenever we speak Spanglish and that only people of bad character speak it. To which I say is dumb all of the allusion that has characterized that people with bad character has been derived from T.V and media. We should have a better mindset then let other decided what would be best for us. By giving Spanglish a chance it would give more young people an opportunity to fit in the society that we have today while at the same time let them maintain their own culture and not be forced into the American way that would force them to destroy their own culture and part of their background.
I enjoyed the introductory essay, On Going Home, made by Joan Didion. Her comparison to old life and new life with the mix of marriage and children shows the struggle of the passing of time. The narrator of the essay is a mother whose daughter is about to have her first birthday. Both the mother and the daughter show their distinct qualities: the mother being older and reflective, and the daughter being an infant and unaware. Throughout the entire essay, the mother has an internal conflict with her childhood home and her new home with her husband in Los Angeles, California. The difference between the mother and her husband are extremely visible as the mother's family cannot relate themselves to the husband. The quote "Marriage is the classic betrayal" shows the distinct qualities that a wife and husband have according to their family backgrounds. The essay continuously refers to family and family history which shows how important that is to the mother. I find it interesting how the daughter's first birthday is coming up, and the mother wants to go back to where she came from. The mother wants to give her daughter that sense of home and family that the mother sort of lost as she grew up. The mother becomes distant from her husband as she searches for more of her childhood and past life. When things aren't as clear to her, she realizes the importance and need for family background. One should always remember where they're from, no matter what, as they grow throughout life.
Although many individuals refuse to admit, torture is an action that must be done when the time calls for it. In the essay The Case for Torture the writer argues that torture is necessary in situations where innocent lives must be saved, also torture would prevent future disasters from occurring. It was interesting reading this essay due to the fact that I am not a huge fan of violence being involved in any situation. However, the writer of this essay proves a point when the lives of the innocent or the life of someone you love is threatened by a ”terrorist”; one will suddenly promote torture in order to prevent any deaths. But, many still argue that the rights of an individual still come to play in this whole situation. The writer argues the “terrorist” voluntarily chooses to do the wrong that he/she does not the victim, the victims never volunteer to be kidnapped or at the brink of death. I believe that the writer has a point that if the “terrorist” choose to do the evil act, therefore it is only justified that society punishes that individual for the wrongs committed. He also argues that we as people are cowards when it comes to torture because it is morally wrong. Even though that is the case, if we were responsible for the death of millions of innocent lives, because it was morally wrong to torture the man/woman who was able to stop the deaths from ever happening, would those opposed to torture still stand their ground? Although I at first saw torture as cruel, I see torture in this essay is not being adamantly advocated for punishment, it is advocated to save lives and to prevent the criminal whom has committed a “terrorist” action from ever doing the action again. Torture in this case, is not being done to get secret information of confessions from an individual but it is done to save and protect the lives of the innocent.
As a wise man once said, an essay is an argument. Usually for us students an essay is the argument we must form for a specific prompt as an assignment.
However, many of these essays in this anthology are not written in the formulaic way that we're used to. No. These essays are well-fleshed out thoughts about a specific topic.
The one essay that really stuck out to me was 9.11.01: The Skyscraper and the Airplane. In summary, the main theme that I got out of this essay was that society has developed technology for advancement, but society should also prepare itself for the possibility of failure.
The way that technology is created makes it seem that humans have the advantage. That the animalistic nature that all humans have is diminished with each technology created.
The skyscraper started out as a word to describe something more above than the norm. As the actual creation of the skyscraper proceeded, it was an idea that started to change the way humans thought about the top. We wanted more and more, story after story of the building that scraped the sky. There was this American entity that shaped the idea of this skyscraper. But story after story, we had to also think about the dangerous possibilities of such an advancement.
The airplane was yet another symbol of American thought that once again should have been thought of in terms of the pros and the cons.
There is this one interesting thing that I once read about parties needing a necessary amount of danger in order to function. For many college parties, this means a bonfire being present so that everyone is aware of the situation that could be dangerous while at the same time enjoying the function.
This is similar to this idea of the airplane in that people board the airplane in order to travel from one place to another. However, there is this presence of danger as soon as you step onto the plane that one feels while at the same time the services that the airplane offers rids one of the idea of this present danger.
In an age where technology keeps advancing, where a pair of glasses can access the Internet and cars can drive themselves, humanity must also think of the dangers of said technology, not only the benefits that it provides.
Torture shouldn’t be used as a method of punishment. Torture isn’t an excuse to bring justice to a criminal or terrorist even though there are some people who do believe it should. The only reason I agree to torture is because when a situation, like terrorism, arises there is a possibility that there are innocent lives at stake. Like Levin said “we must, do anything to the extortionist to save the passengers” despite having to torture the terrorist. I don’t want to sound malicious, but it’s not like we are killing the person, yet the terrorist s are placing innocent lives in danger. As I read this essay I put myself in the position of the person in charge of deciding between the torture and the lives of any hostages. I don’t think I’d hesitate to torture the terrorist into giving away valuable information that can potentially save the lives of innocent people caught in the middle. Unlike Alexia D, I do agree that there might be some loopholes in certain situations, but imagine a terrorist placing a bomb in a theme park and suppose he gets caught by the police, like Levin said. What if he denied the code to disarm the bomb? What do you suppose we do? We can’t just evacuate everyone. Yes it may be possible, but people aren’t going to do it without a reasonable explanation and you just can’t say there is a bomb. It’s like yelling “Shark!” at the beach, it creates a wave of panic in where anything can and possibly will go wrong.
But back to my reasoning, I understand that some believe that this violates their rights, but like Levin writes “by threatening to kill for profit or idealism, he renounces civilized standards”. I do agree, for why would you plead for your rights when you gave them up by voluntarily at first? Lastly, I just want to state that, although many people agree that torture is dreadful, I believe it may be useful in the future, depending on how it is used.
Abortion is one of many controversial topics which may make it difficult for a person to talk about and express their opinion on. Sallie Tisdale, a nurse in an abortion clinic and author of “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story”, writes about her experience of assisting in performing an abortion. Even though the author writes about abortion, she doesn’t let the reader know if she agrees or disagrees with abortion. The author does this because she wants the readers to have an opinion of their own. Throughout the essay Tisdale does a great job in describing the procedures that she has to go through on a daily basis before, during and after the procedure. Tisdale also talks about the different women who want to abort. Based on how the woman is, Tisdale will talk to each patient differently. The only thing that she does keep the same with all the women is the question “are you sure you want to have an abortion?” Tisdale’s descriptive words allows the audience to visualize what she deals with every day in the clinic which helps the audience fully understand the situation since not everyone is familiar with procedures done in abortion clinics. As I was in the last few sentences of the essay I was expecting the author to express her opinion on abortion, but her opinion is never expressed only her experiences. The last sentence of the essay “As I close the freezer door, I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is” leaves me thinking about what her possible opinion on abortion is. Something that I really like about this essay is that I didn’t just read someone’s experience with abortion, but also was informed with the procedures since she deals with abortion every day.
Hi,
Reading “On Going Home” reminded me of my mother. Not because of her missing her past life, but because she always considers or incorporates her family into her “happy times”. At some point everyone wishes they could go back, whether it’s to change something or relive a moment. In the case of Joan Didion’s essay, she misses her life and how the world appeared. She describes mementos of her family and sees some part of herself in them; she identifies herself with her family. My mom is the same way always thinking about her family to relive her exciting past life. By family I mean the original family where it’s mom, dad, and siblings. Those are the people that Joan and my mom grew up with, so they feel most comfortable and liberated being with them. For Joan, family calls back good memories which she claims no one else could understand. Even her family now, husband and daughter, are not enough to make her content. Her husband cannot understand what Joan feels because he didn’t know her when she was young and happy. Joan associates happiness with the people she lived with, so her husband could never be part of what Joan misses. Life is never the same as time passes on, and Joan realizes that. She will never receive the same bliss she had when she lived with her original family. All she can do is look through objects to reminiscence as she endures seeing her world change in a disappointing direction. The memories she made are difficult to get rid of, it even impedes her from enjoying her life now. She tries to recover as much from the past with her daughter, but the environment around won’t let her hold to it. Same as my mother who explains and redoes what she did to feel comfort
“Home” and “House” have two different meanings. While “House” can be the shelter in which you live in, “home” can be the place in which you and your family have the moments that can never be replaced. It’s amazing how a person feels differently in a place that is not their own. In the essay “On Going Home”, Joan Didion explores this way through her husband. When they both go to the home of hers, her husband feels out of place there. He doesn’t understand the way that they talk or their memories or their lifestyle. To him, it’s not home because he doesn't feel comfortable. Didion points out that “Marriage is the classic betrayal”. As I thought more about this particular line, it really spoke to me of how accurate it is. A man and woman choose to live on their own, away from their family, to start their own. And sometimes, it doesn’t even always have to be a man and a woman. Sometimes it’s on their own. To a family, that might feel like betrayal. They might get the feeling that they might not want to come and see them and to continue making memories. That is why Didion wants to promise her daughter a sense of family. She wants to offer her a way in which she feels she would love to have her significant other feel comfortable and at home with her family. Of course, she can’t promise that. She can only try to do what she feels. Didion seems to be filled with regret of not being able to have a closer relationship with her past and her family, and she doesn’t want that to happen to her own daughter either. Didion feels as if she must only pick one family of hers: her family that she grew up with or her husband and daughter. It is okay to have more than one family and for it to merge together and have a bigger family to make memories together. It’s never okay to separate from your family just because you’re married with children. It’s important that your new family and your old family merge together to create new memories.
It goes to show that a child’s imagination may never have the same view as an adult. As I read the essay “Thinking as a Hobby” William Golding continues to demonstrate a transformation in the manner he views life as he experiences a coming of age and a shift of ideas. Throughout the essay, Golding divides the grades of thinking into three levels with the representation of the statuettes such as Venus de Milo, the leopard and Rodin’s Thinker. He used to believe Venus de Milo was filled with fear, the leopard crouched low to attack, and Rodin’s Thinker expressed misery. However, Golding elaborates how the statuettes represent the levels of thought. Grade three thinkers are described as someone who appears docile as they never think for themselves as they could not distinguish the truth from lies such as Mr. Houghton who demonstrated a sense of curiosity as he questions his actions although he did not do anything to stop his alcoholic issues. Furthermore, grade two thinkers are known to contradict and prove someone wrong such as when Golding had questioned the honesty of religion. Additionally, grade one thinkers are the most rare; they seek the truth as they analyze everything without their decision interfering. I enjoyed the example Golding used about his interaction with Einstein. The grade thinkers may be viewed as a dictatorship. 90% of the people in a dictatorship are grade three thinkers as they may question their environment but they continue to obey the superior. However, grade two thinkers represent protesters, they are less likely to obey their dictator as they question their political instructions but fail to create new ideas. Grade three thinkers may not only see corruption, but they know how to rise against through their knowledge and wisdom. I think it’s great for everyone to know what type of thinker they are as it helps understand their personality and communication with others. I would classify myself as a grade three thinker as I may always question many things but I do not seem to do things about it. After reading the essay, I understand why Golding refers thinking as a “hobby” as he demonstrates pleasure about observing every single detail.
When reading the title of the essay “9.11.01: The Skyscraper and the Airplane” my immediate thoughts were about the tragic event that occurred in New York. I then began to ponder about the world we live in today. We live in an era full of technological advances and we are further advancing day by day. As I read this essay, I have begun to realize that technology not only enhances our way of life, but also further endangers us. Karl Marx states it perfectly when describing that being modern means to” find ourselves in an environment that promises power and adventure but at the same time threatens to destroy everything we have”. Humans created airplanes to allow us to travel faster and go anywhere we want to go visit. Even though, the creation of airplanes was a remarkable technological advancement, it also threatened to be a weapon of destruction, as seen in the nightmare of 9/11. With greater advancements, there is greater threat of destruction. If someone can find a cure for cancer, it is easy to create the opposite, a plague that will destroy the world. People have knowledge about this, and “wager their life on the journey”. When a person takes a step into a plane, an elevator, a high floor on a skyscraper, a ship, they are all conscious about the risk they are taking. They are all putting their trust and their lives on others hands. We, who are described as “even-more-fragile flesh and blood”, “surrender [ourselves], in absolute trust, to wisdom and expertise” of the creators of the technology. As we get into these “fragile containers”, we are more exposed and more vulnerable to danger. Although we are putting our lives in danger every day, we must be grateful for the continuous efforts of engineers, doctors and anyone who is trying to create a safer and enhanced world.
After reading Niccolo Machiavelli's essay, "The Morals of the Prince" I constantly find myself reiterating this idea of survival of the fittest. Machiavelli begins his essay providing his purpose of writing this essay, being that he wants to provide the reader a useful understanding as to why men of high power positions commit certain acts that would be perceived by the average eye as a good ruler or bad ruler. Machiavelli states specifically that his main focus is to justify "especially princes" actions. Machiavelli points did not only justify why a prince could be and should be cruel, but also enhance my understanding as to why it is done and also turn me into a supporter of his ideas.
The first moral dilemma Machiavelli presents is on the idea that a prince can either be liberal or stingy. Again, Machiavelli uses his essay to show how a prince should act in order to be the most successful ruler, no matter the probability of unpopular choice. In this dilemma of liberality and stinginess, a prince is faced with two decisions; to be the ostentatious prince, distributing his wealth to the needy ultimately making him a generous man, or to hoard his wealth and become a miser. On a surface glance the choice seems simple enough, to donate your wealth to the poorer majority. However, Machiavelli proposes a very real hypothetical situation that applies to both human characteristics and desires. If a prince is to give his wealth away to the poor, he would be expected to do so commonly, whether to keep his title of generosity or to commit to a heartfelt desire. This continuous giving would eventually lead to the use of one's entire revenue. If a prince wanted to continue giving, even after having no more to give, he would have to impose a taxes on the majority middle class in order to keep financial sustainability. This would result to the subject's first feelings of repulsiveness towards the prince, even though he is committing a good deed. On the contrary if a prince never donated his wealth to the needy to begin with, and hoarded it instead, this excessive amount of wealth could be used in times of great need. Using this great amount of money stored would eliminate public taxing and would ultimately save the majority more than if the prince was to give to the small minority.
Machiavelli continues his essay posing another question of whether it is better to be loved or feared. Although Machiavelli begins this portion of the essay saying that it is most beneficial to be both loved and feared, this outcome is almost impossible to produce as a prince could not over commit to one idea, ultimately eliminating the other. In the situation that a single option must be chosen, Machiavelli believes that to be feared rather than loved would bring a prince far more success. To love a man shows weakness, and when presented in the face of danger, the subjects of a prince will use his love as an advantage of their betrayal of him, knowing that with the betrayal no harm will come their way. However Machiavelli states that if a man fears his prince the "dread of punishment" will hinder them to a point in which "they can never escape". Although being feared may not seem like a popular choice to make, Machiavelli goes on to say that having a cruelty that is justifiable may still create fear without encouraging the emotion of hate. In the eyes of Machiavelli, a prince who is able to have an army who fear him but do not hate him, is able to lead any number of people successfully into battle.
Home is significant to people in many different ways. It can be a place they go to everyday or it could be a place they feel safe in. For Joan Didion she sees home a place where she has all different kind of memories at and where she knows she is with her family, the family she grew up with. It's shocking to know that Los Angeles is not a place she recognizes as her home, yet in the essay Joan's relatives ask, "if [she] still liked living in New York City." Showing how as Joan moved out of her home, in Central Valley, she has been moving city to city not gap finding the right place to make life saving memories in a house to call it her home. The betrayal of family does not nearly exist because the family in its hardest time need each other but Joan's family shows that they don't truly accept her family because he doesn't seem to fit into their family because he doesn't find anything about the topics they talk about interesting or important. Joan mentions how she won't be able to give the same life she lived to her baby. I believe that she possibly can't give her the same things either but it's not because there is no home for her it's because generation after generation things change and society changes. Yet Joan's thinks it's because there is no home, but a home is truly made by acceptance of everyone around and with memories. Joan's has to accept the fact that she has to distant herself slightly from her family to start her own life and home with her husband, because together they can find a home, and the Joan can still communicate with her family and tell them how happy she is in her new home with her daughter.
In the essay "On Going Home" Joan talks about the two places she belongs to. There's two places where she has family but she only considers one of them her "home." The life she has in Los Angeles is very different than the one she once had with her family. As she visits her family she understands that the "generation" she was born in turned out to be the last one to "carry the burden of "home." To me this means that they are the last ones to actually understand the way time has impacted the way people grow up. Joan is the last one to be able to differentiate between the life she grew up in and the life she learns as she "[betrays]" her family when she gets married. I say "betrays" because her brother considers "Marriage the classic betrayal." He might consider that because she becomes what seems like, another family. Her ways change and so do the people around her. The way she considers "whether or not [she] could go home," as emotional is important because carries the key meaning to the essay. This means that she is so accustomed to the new life she has in Los Angeles with her kids and husband that it hurts her to know that she has left behind the life she was accustomed to being part of with her "difficult, oblique, [and] deliberately inarticulate" family. At the end of the essay Joan talks about her daughter and how worried she is about the lifestyle that her daughter will grow up in. She feels that she can only "offer her little of [the] life" she lived as she grew up. She is worried that she won't live acknowledging the culture in their family name. She feels that she also won't be able to offer her a "home," not in reference to a physical place to live in but to a place where she can go to and differentiate the two places she is a part of. The generation of her kids will seem like the end to the passing of the family culture.
The essay "On Going Home" left me thinking about my life. It made me realize that in a year, my life will experience a change. Soon I will be in the position of Joan Didion, where the present will convert into past memories. Just as how Didion describes home as the place where she shared her memories with her family, I as well will refer to my "home" as the first experience of a family I had. Didion is touching on the idea that the best memories can't be renewed. She's very sensitive of the fact that the best times of her life are just faded memories. Those memories are very special to her, yet they cause a lot of internal destruction. Didion does not take change very smoothly, instead it damages her. In the end of the essay, she describes how she doesn't want her daughter to have the same emotional conflicts she deals with. In this essay, the reader is educated through Joan Didion's emotions.
After reading the essay, "We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse's Story", it made me realize that not only are the woman having the abortions done are effected, but the nurses who actually perform the abortions are effected also. Sallie Tisdale describes her experiences as a nurse in a clinic that performs abortions. Although she knows that abortions aren't morally correct, she stays at the clinic where she sees "brief and chafing loss". She emphasizes that there is a "numbing sameness" in her job because all the women who go to the clinic to have abortions are similar even though they all have different reasons why they want to abort the fetus inside of them. The nurse describes her job as a "sweet brutality", and I think she she describes it with this oxymoron in order to suggest that even though it might be wrong, women don't abort out of hatred or violence; they do it because they think its what's right for themselves and the fetus. However, Sallie Tisdale thinks of abortions as "failures" and "broken promises". The way she makes the connection is understanding because with every abortion, it shows how women fail to use protection, how protection fails them, how they just ultimately fail at being responsible and being ready to have a child. With abortions also come broken promises. Promises to have that child and give them life, education, health, innocence, community and family are all broken when an abortion happens and that is what Tisdale sees within abortions. This essay shows that not only the women who are getting the abortions are being effected, but the nurses who preform the abortions are effected too. Just because they perform the "sweet brutality" of them, does not mean that they agree 100% with it.
Gloria Anzaldua beautifully shines light to the issue of language being manipulated by oppression. As she mentions the oppression she's experienced from the Anglo American, she accentuates the sub conscious oppression from the “Latina.” Immediately, I noticed her separation from identifying under as Latina, even though she claims to identify as her “raza” before anything else. As she speaks for Chicanos, she mentions the war to try to “out chicano” each other. It’s as if each region is in search for the perfect formula that combines both elements of their racial background and their demographic living. In the process, another border is creating. The Chicanos from California no longer unite with the Tex Mex culture. It becomes two entities, a inner war rooting originally from the struggle to identify. With the “Latinos,” the Chicanos are embarrassed, shied away, for they feel as if they committed sin for adapting to the English world. With the Americans, the Chicanos are oppressed, reminded that they’re roots are not appreciated. It creates a confused entity of people juggling in two rejecting cultures, one which they are rejected from, one which they reject themselves to. In the process, they form their own, the “Chicano” culture, but not one experience is same as other. A Mexican living in New York will never experience as growing up to parents of Southwestern field workers. Even with the Chicanos attempt to create a unity, they have failed. They are left with their language, punished for their use of words. With two languages, the Chicanos have formulated a plethora of languages. They got used to being said “no” to, that they’ve developed different tongues for different environments and situations. Even with their accomplishment to establish new languages, they’re punished for speaking in it. Because once one knows, that person can create social justice. The Chicano community has learned how to adapt. With their social power, it’s abilities to outdo the oppressor have been established. All it has left to do is speak, which is where the oppressor controls the community in order to prevent outbreak. Instead of fighting the higher power, the oppressor has taught the Chicano community to shame themselves, so the community has shamed themselves to the Latinos and to each other. A chicana has been taught contradictions. She will love herself and respect herself, but then she is told to watch her mouth. She cannot love herself when she is denied her chances to speak of her ambitions. The social hierchy is created; the only way to abolish it is through voice. The power of voice can give the Chicanos power in their accomplishments, instead of shame.
The essay I decided to read was “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story” by Sallie Teasdale. I’ve never exactly had an opinion on abortion but this essay defiantly made me think about this topic more. What stood out the most was that the point a view was from a nurse and how she described the different type of people that came to get an abortion. In a way by the way Teasdale described the reasons people came to get an abortion made me feel like it was justified. If a child might be wanted but is brought into a family where the parents weren’t exactly ready or as the nurse does say can’t be pictured as a mother then maybe it is justified. Another thing that I found interesting was how the nurse would act with the patients while the patient was getting an abortion. She did mention that she enjoyed her job because of the “bond” she had with the patients. What the nurse I believed like was being able to stand by the person that is going through a difficult time. Which is the reason I believe she decides to stay even though she does say since the beginning there is times when she “cannot bear another basin of bloody remains”. I feel like the nurse is well aware of what she is doing and believes it might not be the correct thing because she asks if they are sure about the decision they are about to take. But then realizes some of the people that come and get an abortion might not be ready for what is to come.
After reading the essay “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story”, it made me realize that everyone in this process of pregnancy and abortion is being affected by the choices that people make. These choices to me range from having sex in the first place, forgetting to take a birth control pill, to even thinking about having an abortion, to working there at the clinic and having to deal with this every single day to the point where one would be having these nightmares of “trees full of crawling fetuses”. These choices that everyone is affected by if it is for the good or the bad, which cause traumatize people yet lift the weight off the shoulders of others. This essay had me on a rollercoaster with trying to choose a side of either pro life or pro abortion, but in reality it just caused me to stand in the middle because I don’t feel like I could stand at either extreme of the spectrum. Even though I’ve never had to deal with thinking about abortions with the people around me I always had a say that abortions were fine to a certain extent, which is the case with most things. This is because I believe that there will always be an after effect to the choices that you make in your life; with either going through the abortion or not a person will either not have to worry about having a life to deal with to having another mouth to feed. Going back to the experience that this nurse has with the same routine of having to do abortions one after another, there gets to a point where it all just ends up being a question if this is the right thing to be doing or not. As the essay ends with the nurse “closing the freezer door, I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is” just shows how in their point of view having abortions is a necessary process throughout the world as a whole. The essay filled with the brutal imagery of abortions just pushed me closer and closer to the middle where I stand with this issue that affects the world.
After reading "On Going Home", I only thought of one thing; what it would be like for me when I returned to my own childhood home after setting someplace else. The big differentiation that is apparent is that of the words "house" and "home". While you live and experience life in different houses, there is really only one home in a person's lifespan. A house represents shelter and the place you sleep most nights, while a home is the place that made you who you are and the place you can act as your true self. The narrator mentions falling into her family's ways, which I think all people can relate to. Visiting with those that you grew up around brings back that person you were during that time in your life. Different people bring out different reactions and comfort levels. One acts completely different when with their family than they would with friends that they have not known nearly as long. The narrator's home brings out a different side to her because she was different person, perhaps her real self, when living amongst those she has none for her entire life. Now that she has moved away, she has become accustomed to acting a certain, different, way because she is no longer around those that most likely know her best and have influenced her for most of her life. There is a tangible sense of distance that the narrator now feels from her home and loved ones. She feels isolated in a way and cannot get back to the comfort she once knew because she has not only emotionally, but she has also physically distanced herself from her home and those that inhibit it. I feel that one should never distance themselves from their real home because that home itself represents the kind of person you are.
Personally, I firmly believe that the ability to "think" with fervor and passion and to utilize the beautiful cognitive functions of the ever so complex human mind is the trait that has allowed humanity throughout time to progressively analyze the world with increasingly cultivated eyes. Throughout his essay, titled "Thinking as a Hobby" William Golding describes the evolution of his own thinking and rather ingeniously separates "thinking" into 3 strata, beginning with grade 3 thinking, which Golding summarizes not as thinking but rather the expression of unadulterated, internal human emotion. Further up is grade 2 thinking, described as s state of noticing but not solving. Finally, the ultimate form of thinking according to Golding is Grade 1 thinking, which I would describe as deep thought, followed by application.
While I do believe Golding's classification of thinking is justified and does indeed become more sophisticated as one ascends towards grade one thinking, I notice that Golding exalts grade one thinking, viewing it nearly as the perfected expression of the incredible human mind. However, I would like to question Golding on his hierarchy of "thinking." I may be misconstruing his argument, but it appears to me that as Golding ascends to the higher stages of thinking, the traits of the preceding forms of thinking are abandoned. This would imply that each grade of thinking is devoid of the qualities of the prior grades, culminating into purified, inviolate grade 1 thought. I find myself unable to believe that grade 1 thinking alone is "perfected" thinking. I would rather argue, that a hybrid of the 3 forms of thinking would produce the most profound and closest to perfected form of thinking. I think it is impossible (as well as detrimental) to be bereft of the qualities of grade 3 and grade 2 thinking. Without the questioning nature of grade 2 thinking, grade 3 thinking would cease to exist. Likewise, thinking is meaningless if it lacks emotion in my opinion, for it is our ability to think not through our emotions but rather in combination with our emotions that creates passionate thinking that empowers us to apply our deep thoughts into the palpable world. It is this passionate thought that allows us to think beyond the invisible parameters of our mind, that allows are erudite thoughts to become expression, and it is this expression that give our thoughts meaning. After all, what is the purpose of meaningless thought? Thought that does not touch our own hearts, and will inevitably fail to touch the hearts of others, will ultimately crumble in solemnity, trapping us in an eternal realm of meaningless thought, sinking us further into an abyss of nothingness, steadily causing us to lose the very trait that makes us human.
Ultimately, I disagree that all of humanity must be grade 1 thinkers in order to most accurately utilize are nebulous minds. Rather, I challenge humanity to simply find something that is dear to them and to never cease to think about why that thought has inflamed their heart in passion, and to utilize those searing flames to create their passion and allow it to shine like a beacon in the world. Our eyes alone see only what is put before us. It is the eyes, fused with our incredible minds, powered by our unyielding and passionate hearts, that see not just what is put before them, but see what they desire to be put before them.
Being a Mexican-American, i find it difficult to know what's wrong and what's right. I could be in advance Spanish classes in the U.S and be seemed as a fool in Mexico. Using words such as “chequear” ,to revise, instead of “revisar”, would make me seem like a fool when i would go visit to Mexico. I understand that there are two different sides to every conflict, and I believe that both arguments are correct. Spanish speakers ,such as Mexicans, believe that Spanglish is going to destroy the culture. I don't blame them for thinking that. The Aztecs had their own unique culture but immigrants destroyed it. When a native-Mexican sees a Mexican-American speaking Spanglish, it could be frightful. Frightful because they don't want history to repeat itself. Now, change is inevitable. Change is good. When Mexican-Americans began to use Spanglish as their normal language, Many people began to revolt against them but, they did not stop using their own new language. Mexican-American were able to show the union of two different races and evolve from it. As science has taught us, evolution is good. Because of the evolution of Spanglish in America, the united States has been able to build a stronger bond in order to make sure that there is peace within their people. After thinking about this issue more, i categorize myself with Mexican-American who want to continue to speak Spanglish. Being able to speak Spanglish should be something people are proud of. They are able to combine two different languages and use them together. Maya Angelou once said, “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.”If many native Mexicans don't like Spanglish, the only thing they can truly do is accept the fact that its part of a culture now.
To many, thinking is not a conscious action. I know that I definitely don't remember choosing think a certain thing, I just do. This is not true in the case William Golding who from a young age took thinking as a hobby. In this parable of sorts, Golding's caustic yet amusing recollection of his findings prompts the reader to reach for a higher level of thought. From the third level at which emotions take the wheel for one's morals, to the second level at which one takes in the flaws of the world, and finally to the first level filled with new ideas all on their own, everyone has a category to belong to according to Golding.
Personally, I felt that I agreed with this sort of conclusion. There are some people I feel have let their thoughts and actions be overcome by raw feelings. There are some people that strive beyond this thought and find faults in the arguments presented by parents and leaders. There are some people that reach higher and through this become pioneers for all sorts of things. I agree with this. However, felt hesitant to include myself r other in any of these categories like Golding did. I feel it is unfair to dump someone in a category when I feel my own thoughts don't adhere to a single category. And while I am sure everyone strives to reach that first category, I feel that I would not want to be there forever. To let my emotions drag me to make decisions is sometimes for the best. To only be a trailblazer and trendsetter seems exhausting to me. In truth, I enjoy exploring the trails made by others as much as I love making my own. To debase someone else for that same thought would be hypocritical. For that reason I feel that Golding's essay is enlightening though it must be applied to one's own life carefully.
Super late, I know I'm sorry.
I skimmed through some of the essays to figure out which one I wanted to write about because I’m a very indecisive person and I started reading one about thinking yet I got really bored and uninterested like half way through it and so I moved on. the one that really caught my attention was 'how to tame a wild tongue' I thought that the way it started off with being at the dentist was out of the ordinary especially after you keep reading and figure out that part has nothing to do with what the essay is actually about. I found a lot of truth in what Gloria was writing about and how she described there to be so many different types of Spanish subsections. I think, I for the most part speak English the majority of the time and when I’m home I speak Spanglish. Yet I don't speak it because I want to specifically it’s more of what she refers to as us becoming more Anglo. I felt a sense of connection with her referring to how through time we lose our culture and are conflicted with how to identify ourselves. I think that in teens it’s very common due to the fact that per say our parents are Mexicans yet we were born here in the United States so we can’t consider ourselves fully Mexican nor fully white we're technically Chicanos. also it doesn't really matter anymore if your parents start speaking Spanish to you as a baby or not because children now a days are bound to lose it fairly quickly because they spend most of their time in schools where English is the prominent language, God knows I am no longer as fluent in Spanish as I used to be when I was younger. one thing is for sure though she is right we will keep fighting for our language because there will come a time when people won’t care for our mistakes we'll just evolve into the type of Spanish that's most popular now, but we'll still speak it.
I was flipping through the packet, half-heartedly to be honest, and then the title "We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse's Story" instantly caught my attention. I always try to remain neutral to a topic until I have assessed both sides of the story; and so I did with the topic of abortion. I tried my best to be open-minded and to reserve my judgment until the end after I had read the WHOLE essay, but I found it quite difficult to do so. As I was reading, I would often stop at a sentence that had me swaying my head in disapproval. I would re-read the same fragment several times before moving on in hopes of finding a logic to the Pro-Choice side, yet for one reason or another I could not. After reading "We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse's Story", I can’t help but side with Pro-Life activists.
To be honest, the narrator did not seem that reliable to me. Sallie Tisdale would sometimes find herself disgusted by abortion and then in seconds she would be composed and ready to go through another abortion procedure. Her indecision made me question the credibility of the Pro-Choice side and whether or not I could take her opinion in account as a reliable source and weight it against that of the Pro-Life activists. That was the first flaw that drew me back.
Also, Tisdale’s argument of women having the “right” to abort a child based on believing an unborn baby to be a “parasite” leeching off the mother’s body, did not make sense to me. In a way, we are all parasites bleeding the Earth dry of its resources, yet does that make murder okay? No. Neither does the baby’s dependency on its mother give her the “right” to abort it. Abortion is not a "right", it’s a choice. A selfish one, in fact.
Lastly, I was able to agree with Tisdale in that abortion must be seen as a case by case thing. Abortion, I agree, is not a one-size-fits-all situation. And that is why I also find myself in disagreement with her when she states the abortion industry is “too busy to chew on morals”. So what I’m getting from her is that she wants abortion to be facilitated to all. Sure, there are medical cases when an abortion is needed . . . maybe even in cases of rape. Yet, to have an abortion for selfish reasons? That is absurd! It is not the baby’s fault that a guy and a girl are promiscuous and irresponsible, or that the condom’s atomic structure was not like that of steel’s, or even that the pill was still hung over from last night’s beer-pong tournament and didn’t do its job. If it’s not the baby’s fault, then why should the baby carry the consequences? Oh, because both parents are too selfish to assume responsibility.
Overall, I don't think I can support abortion.
It is interesting to think a house and a home could have completely different meanings. A house is just a place you reside in compared to a home which holds the deepest memories of your life. Often, we are molded by our homes and the beliefs and morals that are upheld by the people there. The essay On Going Home by Joan Didion describes a women who has left her home and stared a new life with her husband. The woman states "marriage is the classic betrayal" when she returns to her family. It is an eye opener to hear this. You leave all you have ever known, everything you have been raised with to start something completely new with a person who is different and new. Though you don’t necessarily leave your family, you add on a new addition that is completely you’re choosing. I think it’s the deciding who you will marry that can seem like betrayal. You do not decide your family, you are born into a scenario that is completely out of your hand and it is universally known that a family, no matter what it looks like, always tries to work to be one, though that is not always the case. Being able to choose your future life partner is the part that could be taken as choosing a new life and leaving the one you already knew. Reading this essay has made me think harder on this year to come. It will most likely to be my last year living at home, or my childhood home before I feel like I have built my own. It has always been a dream of mine to venture off and I have never really thought of it but Houston and my family will always be my anchor. No matter where I go I will always come back to my family. It is scary to think that the people closest to me now might not understand the life style I choose in years to come but it’s good to remember as I proceed in the direction I am headed. One thing I believe is that it is possible to create a second home. Sure there will always be the sentimental value of where you were raised and it won’t start off easily, but as you build a life on your own whether you are married with children or just on your own, I think after time you can make new memories that don’t exactly override your childhood but mark a different chapter in your life.
The voice of a human being is priceless. How do you tame a wild tongue? The answer is… you don’t. One cannot control the unadulterated flow of the human thought because it is only natural to think and to communicate. Call it God or human evolution, but the human brain is inherently manufactured to think, to ponder upon things that the rest of the living world cannot do. With thought comes opinion, with opinion comes voice, and with voice comes power. A single man can spark raging fires with mere words, for opinions so educated and fervently developed can inspire the masses to act. No one man or entity can calm the thirst for power and voice.
People will speak their minds for as long as they can think, people will express their essence and spill their identities for each human has the extreme and unyielding desire to be individual. Distinctive, different; from a world of seven billion human beings, we all hold the thought, however miniscule in the dark corners of our minds, that we are not all the same--we are special.
The vivid struggle for the cultural individuality of the Chicano people, crunched between two colossal cultural giants (the Latinos in the South and the Anglo-Saxon Americans of the North) is perhaps one of the most hotly contested “oppression of a wild tongue”. Over the years the Chicanos of the Southern and Western regions of the United States and the Northern regions of Mexico have developed their own distinct culture, tongue and identity having borrowed from both of the cultures that are virtually crushing them from both sides. Myself being part of both these cultures, I have for so long fervently opposed the creation of this Chicano culture and Spanglish tongue that they have developed; that it, I used to oppose it. I have come to realize that identity is unique and essential to each individual no matter how unlike or how odd it may seem from the other surrounding it. After all, who am I to judge what is the correct identity and the incorrect or improper image? As I have stated before, the most precious gift one may receive is the haven of free thought and mental exploration; as the ideas of the people now known as Chicanos slowly formed into cohesive and mature identity for themselves, all one can do is celebrate the ultimate expression of free thought and the struggle for individuality.
Everyone has different hobbies that change over time. In "Thinking as a Hobby" William Golding emphasizes how he likes to think. After meeting Mr. Houghton he explains how he thinks with "his neck". Golding's thought process shifts from open to anything to biased and favoring things he likes, which was influenced by Houghton. Therefore this essay could have been shown to serve that other people could influence the way you see and think of certain things.
As a skeptic one never fully understands why things happen. No fact can ever put to rest the sensation of being unsure. Annie Dillard describes the examples of her mother's skepticism in "An American Childhood" where we see the introvert Dillard's mother is. By no means am I saying she is shy but definitely a bit self centered in her own ideas of the world. I see a lot of myself in her because of the way she goes about life making the point that the most valuable asset we have is free thought. As a mother she only wants her children to be their own person and make perceptions of what is going on around them based on their own values and concerns. Because of the idea that she tries to instill in her children that one should think for themselves I would title the piece "rounding up all the Jews" because it is a clear moment in history that she quotes that demonstrates the concequences of being a blind follower. Who knows if someone actually had to courage to think for themselves in that situation and take a stand against the ideas being spread to protect their own a whole lot of people could have been spared. Dillard's mother is trying to tell her children that not having ideas of your own or even questioning the present ideas leave you helpless in a cruel world.
Often as an American people, we quickly and easily issue blame to our political leaders, experts, research studies, but rarely on ourselves. rarely do we now question the status quo and even more rarely do we actually confront it. in Allie Dillard's, An American Childhood, the reader learns about the narrators mother, an innovative and confronting woman. This mother invents new products, she forms her own opinions, and she enjoys having fun at the expense of others. What I soon begin to notice in the margins is that the essay was first published without a title. That brings up a new question, Why is " An American Childhood" a fitting title.Clearly what makes the narrators childhood special is the fact that it is American. In the 1950's when this essay takes place, America found itself in a unique position. America emerged, for the most part, unscathed from WWII. America prospered like no other country because of the people who built the country that way. The people who built America that way were citizens like Dillard's mother. Entrepreneurs and innovators built America.
The largest takeaway for me was noticing how people like the narrator's mom became part of a dying species of human. People like her mother are very rare to find nowadays. It is very rare to find a person not willing to conform. It is difficult to find a person who can have fun and can get work done. It is difficult to find a person who can defy societal norms and opinions while having a legitimate voice at the time. This is what made the author's childhood "American" Dillard was exposed to the core American values of freedom and noon-conformity in her household.
Lastly I will point out how difficult it can be to recreate a household like such nowadays. we live in a world where our youth would much rather keep up with celebrity lives rather than with the latest world news or politics. we live in a world where our government spies on us, tortures american civilians, and attacks innocent civilians across the globe, and very few choose to speak up against injustice. We call ourselves crusaders of justice when we re-post grueling images of children casualties in the latest armed conflict on social media, yet little else do we do to remain informed or even attempt to be part of a solution.
America is a different country from what it was 60 years ago, and unfortunately, I don't believe it has transformed for the better.
Some people always have a home away from home and in the case of the woman in the short story “On Going Home” by Joan Didion. Throughout the story she speaks of her home, her origin, in a way that shows that it is precious to her and that she considers it a home away from home. A place where she can be with her family not just her husband and 1 year-old daughter but all of them. However her husband is not used to the way that her family works. When she speaks of her home in Los Angeles she speaks in a way that shows how she feels it to be an imprisonment instead of a home full of love and care it is made out to be a home where the love and passion they once had is gone. When she is asked whether she likes living in Los Angeles or not, she responds yes but we know she is having problems and that she is saddened and depressed wanting to visit her actual home because she mentions the house in Los Angeles as “the house where my husband, and I and the baby live” not a home. Home is a word that usually has the context of being a warm place full of love and affection where one can be themselves and no need to pretend to be something else. Her family seems to be a detached in their relationship which is why she cried before after having talked with her parents back home and having had reminiscent memories of her home with her family. Didion tells this story to tell us that a home is not a place where you live with your family. It is a place that your heart can be true, a place where you can honestly be yourself cheerfully.
We live in a society where a lot of us are censored to sensitive subjects such as abortion. The reality is many of us don't understand the complexity of the situation. The people who perform or help perform the abortions have so much responsibility to make sure the patient is adequetly taken care of. Reading We do abortions here: A nurse's story a lot of perspectives I had never considered come to play with what I agree is right and wrong. I personally cannot agree with abortion but I can tolerate it. When you read that undeveloped body parts of a fetus are sucked out of the uterus it is hard to accept that it is okay to perform such an act. On the flip side when a patient wants to see the aborted underdeveloped fetus and a nurse lies to her and says it is not allowed you get a sense of compassion so overwhelming you forget that you where even against the procedure in the first place. The issue with controversial topics such as abortion is that it affects everyone involved. The social stigma on the doctors, the nurses, and the patients is abusive. The nurse says she imagines a world where abortion isn't necessary but then returns to one where it is to once again show that divide where people don't wish to see the act happen but understand it's purpose. What struck me the most is the lack of power of the male. Hypothetically speaking if my girlfriend got pregnant and I had no say in her decision to get an abortion I would go insane and probably do something very illegal to ensure it doesn't go through. At the end of the day the women have the power of life men merely provide the seed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of my favorite writers and always has been. The way in which Emerson expresses his thoughts seems to be philosophical. He wrote “I am sure of this, by going much alone a man will get more of a noble courage in thought and word than from all the wisdom that is in books.” That’s somewhat strange for me to read seeing as I have read numerous poems and essays that he has composed with the hope that I would acquire some wisdom from them. Emerson had what I believe to be a beautiful outlook on life, and it his perspective is one that I would hope to emulate to an extent. He believed that we should all be well-rounded people by being well-rounded thinkers, similar to an idea presented in Thinking as a Hobby by William Golding. Emerson explains that our lives are gifts and we are to work towards making the lives of others easy. Additionally, he states life is not always going to be pleasurable and everything eventually comes to a conclusion. I would probably agree with ninety-nine percent of Emerson’s philosophies and they are incorporated into my daily life. I think that we often fool ourselves living in an individualistic society that America has adopted and promoted throughout its lifetime. We are trained to believe that we are only accountable for ourselves and we should all have a common goal to work towards being successful people. While I believe that we should be independent individuals, I firmly believe in community. I acknowledge that a community does not have to be large to necessarily be a community but I feel like many do not value thinking collectively in a community setting simply because we were groomed to believe that it is better to do things on our own.
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