Dulce Et Decorum Est
I would like to react to a comment made by Hannah Quick. She said “This may sound shallow, but war is about winning and if some people get in the way, so be it.” Unfortunately, I agree with this statement. I think that war is in no way over people. In fact I believe that the people are just tools. I think this relates directly to the poem for one reason. The humans are seen as tools and are not humans. This means that those humans are not meaningful to the country they are fighting for. I think this is directly relates to the poem because this is the main message of the poem.
For me, I learned that the most complex poetry can be the simplest. The last line of the poem is the direct message of the poem. This was interesting to me. I feel that I learned that these poems can be much more exact than metaphoric. From a lot of the previous poems that we have read, I was unimpressed with the delivery. This surprised me though. I really like the way it built a case out of words. It was vivid and blood-curdling. For example, the line “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!” sends shivers up my spine because I realize the real effect of the war. These lines lured me to the end where I saw the need for a solution. “Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori” was exactly what I was looking for. It pulled the poem together and I completely understood the message of the poem. This poem has made me more adrenalized on poetry in general.
No, I do not think it is ever sweet and right to die for your country. I think war is not about humans. In fact the humans are just the tools, and if the tool your using has to endure pain like “And watch the white eyes writhing in his face” it should not be used. Therefore since the humans are just tools, how can it be sweet and right? I think that the problem lies in the fact that people believe this. If war wasn't an option it wouldn't happen. So to combat the issue, I think we must attack it from underneath. This means removing the mentality that some humans would die for their country. If there's no one to die who will fight? Personally I think this could reduce the number of wars to a tiny proportion.
Seminar Reflection
The painting is a detailed view of America from a foreigners point of view. It is very detailed and has a lot of underlying messages. I think that it is trying to say that with America being so strong, it has moved the world directly. The painting was made directly after America was going into and in the great depression. I think this was showing how a growing country can effect everyone with just losing their economy. Further the Authors name seems Spanish, and therefore America might be affect Spain or Mexico more that other countries. I think it is Mexico though because Central America is being pulled apart in the painting.
Also, I think that the person coming out of America is a twin. This is because the belly button is facing forward and it is physically impossible to have those legs pushing in that direction. To me this means there could be more than one force pulling apart and pushing the world. I think this is implying that another super power of a country is about to emerge as well. This country will also change the world as we know it currently.
Another theme that I noticed directly off the bat are the two different ways the sun is pointing. I think this directly correlated to how the author is hinting at a the dawn of a new age and the setting of the another. One has a beautiful sunset which would signify the age coming to a close has not been bad. Also, I think the reason that we cannot see the sun rising, is because the artist does not know what is going to be happening. Therefore, he does not show us if the sunrise is colorful and happy or a dark gaping hole that could ruin us. I think this is to keep it suspenseful and give the reader a place interpret the painting. Also, it is useful in making the painting seem more realistic. It has shadows and a light source, even though they do not align.
As a whole, I disagree with the painting. I think that all of these affects add up to America pushing around the world too much. I think this is very true during some periods of time but during the time when this was made, I think America was not pushing the world too much at this point. Further, I think that America was not helping the world but neither was it hurting the world.
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
This was another difficult seminar for me for one reason. I don’t like having to define very tough subjects like happiness. When defining happiness, I disagreed with the groups point of view. I agree that you have to have a baseline of happiness before you can actually have happiness, but I do not think that the child would suffice in this situation. I think the feeling of pity vs. the feeling of sadness are completely different. I think that the child creates pity and not “unhappiness.” Therefore, I do not think this is entirely possible and even so the people would not be happy because of it.
I think this directly connects to our society. Although many people within our society may say that we are not happy, I think that we are happier than we realize. This is because we can see the difference between happiness and sadness. I think that we can take the good over the bad or vise versa. Therefore, I think that within our society we might be happier. I think this society seems fine on the surface but underneath, no one can enjoy anything because it is to perfect. Another example of this is with the beautiful description of the surroundings, how can they enjoy it without first seeing cities? This all relies on the fact that this is the first life. If this is a Heaven type place, this could all change. For example, to me this place seems so perfect that it could be a heaven. The flaw in this logic is that the child has to create a sense of unhappiness. Unfortunately, the author did not mention this at all. This is with the belief in heaven though.
The child in the closet represents two things. The first is sadness within the society. As the story said, all the people know about it, and it helps them have a visual of how great their society is. Even so, I don’t think that for me I knowing about the child would make the society better for me. For example, if I never had a mac computer or seen one, I would not want one thereby stopping me from ever having one. The same works here,. The people see the child but never experience real sadness.
I think the second thing it does is creates is a reason for the people to leave and a reason for them to stay. I think that for many of the people who leave, the child induces the feeling of desire or want for better. That is the reason that they leave. For example. They realize that you can’t be happy with just one person suffering and thereby decide to find a more fulfilling society. This child also keeps people there, because they realize how good they have it compared to the child. This is a direct tactic at keeping the society perfect. At the same time though, I am making big assumption on this society and therefore can’t make decided opinions.
Three Questions.
- (for the author) Do you have a real place in mind when creating this? Or did you just make this up to prove a point?
- What would it take to make our soceity “perfect”
- After talking to my parents about this a great deal, I have come to the conclusion that changing our society in any way would mess it up in another. I think that every change that we make in some way has another effect. Therefore, I think that our society is in a sense perfect because otherwise it will screw up.
- Why did we read this story
- Ask lori.
Being peace
This seminar was very tough for me in some ways. I really had some big disagreements with fellow students and I was not prepared to make the arguments agianst the other students. Regardless there were two main themes that I can’t seem to get out of my head. First of all I had a very surprised reaction to everyone in the class saying that we don’t see the world as other countries do. Ithink that Florian may have a misconception about “how we see the world”. For example, he said he reads the paper daily in Germany but has not read it once here. I would blame this on the fact that English is his second language rather than his first. That directly shows that while being in America, he has cut down on his informational source drastically. Therefore I am discounting his opionion on the fact. Honestly, I think that we see the world as well as anyone does in this day and age and with information traveling faster than humans, we can access just about anything by grabbing a computer. The other falsity that I knowticed in this argument was that information is more available in Germany. I also heard commentson how the news is on billboards. If companies are putting up advertising rather than news, I think that is more than acceptable. This is because we live in a capitalist society, I think that listing products is more useful for our economy then news is. I need to see real evidence that we would benefit from driving past a sign with a news bullitin on it. Personally, untill I can “see” the world as someone from another country does, I do not believe it.
Second, I was upset to hear that many people thought that killing over and ideoligy is okay or even remotely acceptable WITHIN WESTERN SOCIETY. I can’t believe that within our society people thought it was okay to disagree with violence. For example, in the USA if we were to have everyone in a gang and fighting each other over terratory then we would not progress as a society. Personally, peacefull protest seem more usefull in general. A great Example of this is with MLK . He changed America to the way it is today by peacefull protests rather than violence. I think his acomplishments should be even more widely respected than they are. These could help our society way more than mindfullness trainings could.
Could these mindfullness trainings help bring about peace?
No
I think that our society would never accept this way of thinking in many ways. First of all, all of these teachings take work and in our society we try to find the easiest way to do everything. This applies to me especially, I don’t think I could ever think that deeply about every action and remove most of my socialization. A great example of this is the metric system. People want to know why we don’t use the metric system. The answer is very simple in fact. When the angers of plants atre asked why they say “I’ve known inches my whole life and Ill let the young guys change it” (Jean Martin) When the young guys get to the top, they say the same thing.
I’m not even sure if I would want to change. Even so, if I did it, the question is would I ever feel the same way. Its kinda a catch 22. If I did it I would not consider going back, but that’s the reason I wouldn’t do it, because I like life the way it is currently.
Further, I think that following these mindfullness steps could ruin our economy. Currently our economy is built around things people like or for that matter don’t like. Removing these types of objects or thoughts could completely crash our economy. I think in order to follow these mindfulness trainings, we must first change our economic system. For example, with materialistic mindfulnes training, if people didn’t want to buy objects, our technoligy would stop progressing and we would stop as a society. Therfore I think in someways without the mindfulness trainings we may be better off in the long-run although our materialistic identity does not look clever.
I think one of these can aply directly to my life. It is the anger mindfullness training. In the seminar, I got very mad at some of the people participating, mainly because of some of the comments they were making and to me they seemed extremly off and dumb. Although they may not have been dumb, they angered me. I really had to keep my cool and breath through it. Many times I did not even respond to these comments but I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I hope to be able to bring this mindfullness training into everything I do, including driving. I think this could help me the most on a day to day basis.
Are these trainings a dystopia?
Go to the budhist country.
Are there legititmiate ways to achieve these?
Use statics to show effect on economy.
How are our current actions endangering us?
Ask a monk.
Slaughterhouse 5
I was very surprised by a specific comment. This comment was made by jenna, and
she said that she believes in fate. To me this is uterally incomprehensible. I think that
every singe decision is our own and therefore there is nothing controlling us. Therefore
I was extremely surprised anyone would say this. This put me into utter disbelief and
shock and I could not even come up with an argument to counter it because for me it
was so outlandish. Even so after she said it she brought up an interesting argument.
It is possible to predict someones actions by knowing the person. For example I will
choose to turn in this paper because I want a good grade. Almost anybody in the class
who knows me could win a bet that I will turn this in. Therefore after hearing jennas
argument I in some ways agree with her, but the statistical equation is much greater than
anything a human or computer could ever devise.
I think that my changes in thinking are stated above. As well, I did not change my
thinking in any other regard, my opinion of billy having ptsd was widely accepted.
Therefore my thinking about that part of the seminar isn't changed.
I think that the most obvious connection I made was about the fate subject and how one
can be predicted the choices they would make. Snother not so obvious connection would
be towards people living in our society. There are many people living with ptsd and it
would be interesting to see if any of them actually live in the same that billy pilgrim did
throughout his life.
For this seminar, I think that I did a very good job of achieving my last goal of not
getting into arguments with people over very specific topics. Even so I needed work on
a different area this time. I would try to bring people into the conversation at the wrong
time. Unfortunately twice I interrupted people to bring someone else into a conversation.
I did this accidentally but even so I felt extremely bad. Next time I plan to include
people in the conversation while I am speaking.
Jihad vs. Mcworld
I was very surprised how my opinion changed during the seminar. I started going into
the seminar with a very narrow view of McWorld. Coming out of it though, I had a very
different perspective. Rather than McWorld being no individuality, I think in some ways
it may have more. People within Jihad are all pushed towards a certain way whereas in
some ways in McWorld people can be more open. A great example of this I think is
that in some jihad societies homosexuality is forbidden, while in McWorld, with everyone
uniting under one society, being gay, although it may be looked down upon, is not
nessecarily such a huge crime. Even so, I had trouble understanding at conceptual level
the boundaries of each society which made the seminar in general hard for me. Even so, I
think I came out of the seminar with a much greater understanding.
Deogratis
I thought the most interesting idea from the seminar would be the fact that deogratis became a bad person from the enviroment he was in. The seminar helped me to understand the book and I have really made my connection in the work we have done this week about how people go bad by the enviroment that they are put into. Unfortunatly I did not have the understanding of the book that I would think is nessecary for the seminar and therefore was unable to get as much out of the seminar as I usually could.
I think our seminar went horrible. Many kids did not understand the book and therefore no one put out ideas as they usually would. For myself I would say that this is one of my worste seminars in a long time because I had not started to make the connections until within the seminar. Also because it was a picture book I had a harder time understanding it. This could be seen as interesting, but I think for myself the pictures allowed me to skim over the pages and not get the deeper meaning. As well, I did not achieve any goals from the last seminar and even missed quite a few goals from last year and the previous seminar. For me this was kinda a wake up call because usually seminar is pretty easy but for some reason I needed more of an understanding of the book to help with this onePost Seminar WWI Write Up.
Reaction: Identify a comment made by someone else during the seminar. React to his/her statement.
In this past seminar, there was one comment that was quite memorable. This comment was made by Johnathon Cannon. He said that if we were in society where we were in there were no weapons, different countries could cut each either other off by blocking their goods. He said that all the countries would start to cut each other off and then no one would import goods to each other. I disagree with this comment because I feel like we are already at this point with nuclear weapons. I feel that we already are at the point where invading countries is not a viable solution. To make up for this he said that boycotting a country would create a select few countries that would not have anyone to trade with. This part of the statement is what really got to me. I think that Cuba is already and example of this. The US does not trade with them but that does not stop other countries from trading with them. Overall, the idea that boycotting countries would create these deep conflicts throughout the world is an idea I disagree with.
Changes in Thinking: Explain how the seminar influenced or changed your thinking about this topic or text. How is your thinking now different than it was before the seminar.
I don’t actually think that my thinking changed during this seminar. Rather, I think that my thinking was reinforced. Throughout the seminar, I stayed strong on my arguments and never backed down. I think this shows that I had very strong arguments and that I did not change my thinking. Like the Israel subject, I have strong opinions, but unlike the Israel subject, my mind is open to change. Even so, I did not hear an argument strong enough to change my mind
Connections: Make a connection between the issues discussed in this seminar and another topic or idea (news story, novel, experience, event, personal experience, movie, song, article, another class...).
I think the most obvious connection that was made during the conference would be the connection to Cuba. Even so, there were a lot of other connections that could be made that aren't as obvious. For example, the connection to modern day war is not apparent but still there. With the Iran nuclear conflict it is very important to find alternate ways of handling war. The chance that the world will go into nuclear war-fare is growing as a strangely fast rate and the alternate ways of handling war are becoming more important to find.
Self Evaluation: What were your strengths during this seminar? What are your goals for our next seminar, and how do you plan to achieve them?
With this conference I think that I had many strengths and a few areas that need work. First of all, I think I did a great job of using evidence. I used it in my argument 2 times and used it again when someone else used the text in the wrong way. I really liked the size of the article we read because it made it easier for me to use evidence. My shortcoming in this seminar is that I would get into very deep arguments with specific people. I felt this could have slowed down the progress of the seminar in some situations so for my next seminar I my goal is to keep on subject and keep my individual discussion with people on the side.
