Final Blog! YAY!

1.) I enjoyed the unit we did on censorship because I never knew how complicated it truly was. The “Thin Gruel” article was fascinating and surprised me how much textbook companies cut from their books.

2.) The cloning debate was another favorite of mine. I always thought that cloning was overall a bad idea but the articles we read presented a positive side to it. Along with cloning, the gender selection article was an interesting topic that I never knew much about.

3.) The battle between teaching evolution or creationism in schools was another topic I enjoyed. I never knew that creationism had such a large following of people trying to get it into school curriculum.

My favorite book this year is a tie between “1984” and “Nigger”. “Nigger” really showed the power and the controversy that words can have over people, races and society. I never knew how complex the word was and all its meanings. “1984” was my favorite to read as a story with a plot. In my opinion, it was the best book we read about the future of societies. It required frequent breaks to simply think about what Orwell was saying; I loved how complex the themes were.

My least favorite book was "Heart of Darkness" because it was really difficult to understand. I did enjoy the parts I could understand and I think I'll go back and reread the parts that didn't make sense to me.

*that picture is me escaping :) *

North Korea- Neotiations

I can’t really agree fully with either side on this issue. I’m sure I don’t have enough information to make an educated judgment. In Kang’s piece his message that “A North Korea that feels threatened and perceives the U.S. administration to be actively attempting to increase pressure on it is unlikely to trust the United States” made me wonder why we weren’t trying to work with North Korean. But then again what kind of “trust” could North Korea give us?

There does seem to be a “spiral of mistrust and misunderstanding” that has clouded any treaties between the United States and North Korea. Kang points out that the U.S. will only back down once North Korea stops their military programs. That doesn’t leave a lot of trust in the equation. The author claims that North Korea wants better relations with the U.S. and the U.S. should respond by “negotiating a nonaggression pact with the North”. Another interesting point brought up in the “yes” article was that, just because North Korea has nuclear weapons, doesn’t mean they are “more likely to engage in unprovoked military acts now than it was before”.

Victor D. Cha also had valid points about North Korea. It could be very harmful to simply let North Korea “off the hook” because they did violate laws and there should be a consequence. It would only “validate their perceived success of the strategy”. Cha declares that it must be the North Koreans who make the first moves forwards a solution because any move from the U.S. would be seen as forgiveness. Then he says that if North Korea is unwilling to cooperate with other countries, “there is no choice but isolation and containment”.

I’m not sure either one is right because they both have good and bad aspects. If the situation in North Korea continues to disintegrate there might be a point where the U.S. has to pick the lesser of two evils; I’m not sure which one is worse.

Mitchell B. Reiss’ article focuses more on the alliances that the United States should be collaborating with to address the problem with North Korea. She has a three step plan that she feels would work best for the U.S. Those three steps recommend that the U.S. shouldn’t be going to the North Koreans for their cooperation, but instead building support with Seoul and Tokyo. Step one recommends that the U.S. should but patient in their solution.

Philip Zelikow’s article (“Be ready to strike and destroy North Korea’s missile test”) said the solution was to take action quickly the first time. He feels that the U.S. should sit around and to see what happens but should take action to disarm North Korea. However, his article did have a similarity with Reiss’ because both acknowledged the need for repaired alliances to fix the problem in North Korea.

Censorship

While I knew censorship was quite political, I never realized that it was so wide spread and so varied in its reasons. Most of the time when I hear about censorship it deals with the “Right” side’s viewpoint. But, after reading “Thin Gruel”, I realized that the “Left” side censorship is just as influential (if not more). Both sides are assuming that kids will model “their behavior on whatever they read” but, because nothing can ever be censored enough, they might as well be saying kids shouldn’t read at all.

The “Right” side seems so old-fashioned in their views and it was interesting to note that textbooks 100 years ago had many of the stories they now object to. Diane Ravitch makes a good point that kids “confront, sooner or later, the reality of death and loss”. Censorship from the right focuses on “protecting” kids from the “harsh” reality of life, but they are sure to encounter that reality soon anyway. Plus, by never reading any stories about those tough situations, kids might feel as if they are the only ones going through those emotions, making them feel isolated.

The “Left” side seems to have a justified reason to censor books (after all who wants sexism, racism etc. in their books?) but the truth is that, by being too politically correct, they’re almost moving backwards. As a feminist I see the need for equality but do we really need to cover up the truth? I completely disagree that people in a minority group are the only ones who can write about that group. Different perspectives are what make stories so interesting sometimes. Plus, some women really are passive and some African Americans are athletic so censoring stories so those traits are never represented, we are denying children the right to see all kinds of people. By trying to hard to make everyone equal, the “Left” side is wiping out individuality. (As author Nat Hentoff said, “…political correctness would stifle free expression”).

“Literary quality became secondary to representational issues”. The purpose of these textbooks is to improve kids’ reading skills. I highly doubt that by simply reading a book or story a child will be scarred for life. There are so many other influences that kids have too (like television and video games) that are probably worse than a book. I think the real problem is that people tend to think kids are stupid. But that assumption that kids can’t think for themselves is creating a world similar to the one described in 1984. I don’t think people are really protecting the children, I think they are protecting themselves. By limiting the children’s’ selection of stories we’re only hurting their future, not ours.

1984 Blog #1

What are the Party mottos? What is unusual about them?

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Their mottos are complete contrasts and they contradict each other. They are oxymorons by our society’s standards.

What is Newspeak? What is its purpose?

It’s the language that the people in Oceania now use instead of the traditional Oldspeak. In the Newspeak words are shorter and less descriptive. The whole purpose is to control people even more because they won’t be able to commit thoughtcrime when using Newspeak.

Why is it essential for the Party to rid the language of synonyms and antonyms?

Again the whole point of Newspeak is control. Synonyms and antonyms eliminate all words except one word from a feeling/etc. In this way, thoughcrimes couldn’t even be possible and people wouldn’t have to be “vanished”. People couldn’t even comprehend rebellion.

How does the Party control history? Why?

They have workers who go into the old newspapers, documents, etc. and change records so that they fit the propaganda that Big Brother is currently representing. They also destroy records of people who were “vanished” and sometimes create people. The history is altered so that people always believe that Big Brother is right and their lies become the truth.

Who is Emmanuel Goldstein and how is he presented to the people of Oceania?

He is a leader of the opposition of Big Brother. His face is used in the “Two Minute Hate” where people are forced to watch his speeches against Big Brother and taught to hate him. He is shown as a sheep in Oceania and at the end of the “Two Minute Hate” his face is shown baaing.

Cloning: "Right" or "Wrong"?

I used to think most cloning was wrong but, as with any grey-area issue, there are positives and negatives. I think that the cloning used to help patients is a good thing because there could be life-saving effects. But I do understand that it could be seen as harvesting humans for our own gain. I’m honestly torn between the two sides and I don’t think I’m in a position to say whither it is “right” or “wrong”.

The use of cloning to protect endangered species is one type I’m for. But I think that only species who are endangered or extinct because of our doing should be candidates for cloning. If we bring back naturally extinct species we will be messing up the natural order of nature. I know the opposition to this kind of cloning says that people will feel less guilty about destroying habitat knowing the animals that live there can be cloned, but I think those people will destroy habitat no matter what. The only real problem with this is the fact that the cloned animals might not have any habitat or niche to return to in the wild anymore.

As for the cloning of humans, I am completely against that. Call me conservative on this one but I just think that humans weren’t made to be duplicated in that way. I also don’t think that pets should be cloned for no reason. Cloning is a scientific tool that has a lot of power and I don’t think it should be used lightly.

Who knows? The future might look like Brave New World. For now though I think there are a lot of moral and ethical questions that need to be answered before cloning takes the next step to humans. Then again, everyone’s moral and ethical range and tolerance is different so human cloning might not be very far off.

Ecstasy and Soma

The problem is that the mind is such a powerful and complex mystery that it seems unlikely that any society or drug could completely control every mind. The problem is that the drug soma is only creating fake happiness instead people having complete happiness. The problem with having truth and happiness combined together is that they can’t always co-exist all the time. Truth can lead to pain and unhappiness but it can make the happiness all the more important.

People like Bernard and Helmholtz probably feel a part of that truth and so they can’t fit in with the happy society. Ecstasy is similar to soma in that it is a hallucinogen. Soma and ecstasy also both raise heart rate and, while soma won’t kill a person in the short-term, they both have long-term effects. Ecstasy can make a person feel temporarily happy but increase depression and anxiety afterwards. Soma doesn’t seem to have that effect. Both create a false happiness that isn’t based on anything.