English 131 is designed to help you learn to read perceptively, write convincingly, and think critically, and this blog helps to meet these goals.
Entries should run about 150 words each, using appropriate tone and Standard Written English. Posts are due by class time on the dates indicated.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Essay Three Ideas
Choose the two essays you want to write about for Essay Three. In your post, explain why you chose those two and write a brief statement about each author's philosophy of free will. Due Friday, 15 October.
Im not real sure on the two essays I want to do. So therefore, I need to speak with you on that. But for the blog I chose the essay "Shooting the Elepant" as one, because I think this essay defines the meaning of free will quite well. The police officer had the right not to shoot the horse but because he was under so much pressure he shot it. So did the police officer really have free will at the moment? And the other essay I chose was "To the Lady", this essay defined the meaning of free will good too. Because during the time of all that was going on she could have stood up for herself, she probably would have gotten shoot but the point is she could've stood up for herself and this could have resulted in others standing up for themselves.
The two essays I chose for Essay 3 are "Shooting an elephant" and "The perils of obediance." I chose these two because both of these essays are about an individual who is being pressured by someone else to do something they don't want to do. They are in very different situations but they generally have the same problem. I think the author of "Shooting an elephant" would feel as though individuals do not have free will because of the pressures from other people. The author of "The perils of obedience" might feel as though we have the ability to make our own decisions but we would rather do what is easiest for us in the long run.
I chose to write my essay on "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell and "The Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram. I chose these essays because I feel as though I understand them well enough to write a clear and correct essay. In Orwell's essay he talks about how difficult it was to not shoot an elephant when he had an entire village of people standing behind him pressuring him to do it and in Milgram's essay he talks about an experiment that was conducted in which the subject was more likely to cause pain to another person when there is a higher official telling them to do so. Both authors seem to believe that is difficult to have "free will" when there is another force involved in the equation influencing your decision.
pg.956"To The Lady"-Mitsuye Yamada pg.896"Shooting An Elephant"-Orwell
I chose these two essays because they are the only ones I have liked and actually cared to read out of this section in our class. I understand the basics of what they mean and can grasp what they are trying to say.
Yamada: Her philosophy of free will is that everyone has a choice as whether or not to stand up for themselves. She says you can't put the blame on someone else when you also did nothing.
Orwell: His philosophy of free will is that it is greatly influenced by your surroundings and the pressures put onto you by others. He puts the blame somewhere else other than himself, who is rightly to blame; not another person.
The two essays I am thinking about writing on are "Perils of Obedience" and "Everyone is Watching You." In "Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram, he sees free will as something we have, but that is usually altered or held back by other sources. Depending on who we are influenced by determines whether or not we will use our free will. In "Everyone is Watching You" by Nadine Strossen, she talks about how we are all being watched by the government and do we have our right to privacy?
The two essays I chose for this essay are “Condoms: The New Diploma” and “A Pyrrhic Victory.” I feel like I really understand what these essays convey about free will. They have totally different opinions and I believe that contrasting makes for a more interesting paper because you are allowed to see both sides to the issue. And while it might be hard to see right now I am sure they do agree on some points no matter how small they are. In “Condoms: The New Diploma” I really feel that Rush H. Limbaugh III is conveying more or less that we are allowing too much free will when allowing such distribution. By not controlling this issue where we can and should we are letting teenagers think that they really know the safety of pre-marital sex thanks to a condom. Limbaugh philosophy of free will seems to be that, yes we have it and yes it can be abused. Just by saying, it’s my choice doesn’t make you any more informed about the issue then the next guy. So just because of that reason alone we need to “steer” children in the right direction and provide the correct help. By limiting one thing or rather choice of free will, or we need to expand their knowledge so that their options toward free will grow. However, in “A Pyrrhic Victory” Anna Quindlen seems to say there is not enough free will being allowed to teenagers where this issue is concerned. I believe she says it best when she says “This isn’t really about the condoms of course, but about control and the shock of adolescent sexuality and the difficulty parents have communicating with their kids and a deep understandable yearning for simpler times.” By saying it’s “about control and the shock of adolescent sexuality” she is saying that humans need control and by control we are determining one’s fate and thus taking away their free will. And by also providing “the shock of adolescent sexuality” she is providing that yes teenagers are making choices and should be allowed to do so because it is their free will. I can already tell that these two authors have very different opinions on the nature of the individual, but I think that there is some if not any things they might could agree on.
For essay three I am going to discuss the idea of free will between "To the Lady" and "Perils of Obedience." In my interpretation of these essays’ ideas of the individuals’ free will is heavily influenced by authority. Authority tends to influence people’s decisions, whether as an individual (“Perils of Obedience”) or as a society (“To the Lady”). Not many people would be willing to admit how much authority has affected their decisions in life. Authority can be something as simple as a researcher telling someone to continue harming another for the sake of research, or it can be the government telling society to separate themselves from a specific race and national origin with no one protesting against these actions. Both discuss looking back on the situations and what the desired outcome should have been and what really happened. People react much the same with authority, stemming from childhood and what society is taught from a young age about authority (not to disobey). To break that ideal and norm it takes more strength than the average person has within themselves, and even though we all assume that we have free will to choose what we do when we do, these readings prove that that idea is not necessarily true.
The two essays I chose are "Shooting an elephant" and "The Perils of Obediance". I chose those two because they are the two essays that I understood the most. They both deal with how free will are affected by outside pressures such as athority and in large groups. Orwell had to deal with the pressures from a large crowd when making the decision of whether or not to shoot the elephant, and Milgram's essay delt with the pressure of athority when deciding whether the person should continue with the experiment just because they were told to do so by the person in charge.
The two essays I chose to do are “In Defense of Testing” and “A Proposal to Abolish Grading”. I chose these two essays because I feel like I know the whole purpose behind testing is and has a good meaning of free will. I know how it feels to be tested as so does everybody else. “In Defense of Testing” says that the own will is that no one wants to be tested but the social demands is that tests protect us, show what we have learned, improve education, and have better knowledge and skills. In the other article, “A Proposal to Abolish Grading”, says that the own will is that we should forget that grade we receive on tests but the social demands is that students only worry about grade and forget about learning, hard to teach, cause bad feelings, and may cause cheating and plagiarizing.
Two essays I chose to write about, are "The Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram and "Everyone is Watching You" by Nadine Strossen... The reason for "The Perils of Obedience" is that I can understand what is going on with the people's opinion and determined problems with being pressure on by something or someone. Free will is what we can think and do what we are freely but being free? Our choice. And for "Everyone is Watching You", I can see someone is playing with us or our lives to be feared of something that could watch over us no matter where we can be, even if we are in shower! Free will in there seems like our decision for government to watch us or not if we want a job without watching us over everyday. Well, that's what I think. If I don't make sense, let me know before I begin essay, thanks.
For my third essay, I decided to choose "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and the poem "The Lady". I think king and yamada have 2 different views of free will. King makes it more serious while Yamada sounds like she was just joking around. I think that maybe the Japanese Americans could have protested their way out from being put into the internment camps. Since the Africans American succeeded for their rights.
The first essay I plan to use is the Rush Limbaugh article on Condom distribution in schools. I believe his stance on free will is that students shouldnt have the option to have sex when they please. That schools should teach them abstinence to force them not to have sex. I think he feels free will should not be allowed to young people. The second essay is Derek Bok's "Protecting Freedom of Expression on Campus." In this essay he is against the hanging of the confederate flag, however he defends free will by refering to the bill of rights and the right to free speech.
My two chosen essays: 1. “Perils of Obedience”- Stanley Milgram 2. “Everyone Is Watching You”- Nadine Strossen
In Milgram’s Essay he describes how under influence of authority people act without free will. He explains how in certain situations when lacking a personal consequence, one is more likely to continue an act they feel strongly opposed to, and continue allowing their free will to go invisible. I chose this essay because I feel Milgram gives the reader a plentiful amount of information to work with to defend his argument of free will.
In Strossen’s Essay she describes how a person’s free will can be corrupted with the use of surveillance cameras in everyday life. She brings several instances of evidence to the argument of minimizing surveillance due to a person’s personal privacy, and defends her opinion in a multi-faceted manner. I chose this essay because Strossen informs the reader with several details, and background information. I enjoy reading Strossen’s views and arguments toward this situation.
The two essays i chose are "To The Lady" and "The Letter from Birmingham Jail". These two essays in comparison are about a struggle for freedom but are two very different takes on how to stand up for what is wrong and the free will to do what you feel is right.
14 comments:
Im not real sure on the two essays I want to do. So therefore, I need to speak with you on that. But for the blog I chose the essay "Shooting the Elepant" as one, because I think this essay defines the meaning of free will quite well. The police officer had the right not to shoot the horse but because he was under so much pressure he shot it. So did the police officer really have free will at the moment? And the other essay I chose was "To the Lady", this essay defined the meaning of free will good too. Because during the time of all that was going on she could have stood up for herself, she probably would have gotten shoot but the point is she could've stood up for herself and this could have resulted in others standing up for themselves.
The two essays I chose for Essay 3 are "Shooting an elephant" and "The perils of obediance." I chose these two because both of these essays are about an individual who is being pressured by someone else to do something they don't want to do. They are in very different situations but they generally have the same problem. I think the author of "Shooting an elephant" would feel as though individuals do not have free will because of the pressures from other people. The author of "The perils of obedience" might feel as though we have the ability to make our own decisions but we would rather do what is easiest for us in the long run.
I chose to write my essay on "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell and "The Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram. I chose these essays because I feel as though I understand them well enough to write a clear and correct essay. In Orwell's essay he talks about how difficult it was to not shoot an elephant when he had an entire village of people standing behind him pressuring him to do it and in Milgram's essay he talks about an experiment that was conducted in which the subject was more likely to cause pain to another person when there is a higher official telling them to do so. Both authors seem to believe that is difficult to have "free will" when there is another force involved in the equation influencing your decision.
pg.956"To The Lady"-Mitsuye Yamada
pg.896"Shooting An Elephant"-Orwell
I chose these two essays because they are the only ones I have liked and actually cared to read out of this section in our class. I understand the basics of what they mean and can grasp what they are trying to say.
Yamada: Her philosophy of free will is that everyone has a choice as whether or not to stand up for themselves. She says you can't put the blame on someone else when you also did nothing.
Orwell: His philosophy of free will is that it is greatly influenced by your surroundings and the pressures put onto you by others. He puts the blame somewhere else other than himself, who is rightly to blame; not another person.
The two essays I am thinking about writing on are "Perils of Obedience" and "Everyone is Watching You." In "Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram, he sees free will as something we have, but that is usually altered or held back by other sources. Depending on who we are influenced by determines whether or not we will use our free will. In "Everyone is Watching You" by Nadine Strossen, she talks about how we are all being watched by the government and do we have our right to privacy?
The two essays I chose for this essay are “Condoms: The New Diploma” and “A Pyrrhic Victory.” I feel like I really understand what these essays convey about free will. They have totally different opinions and I believe that contrasting makes for a more interesting paper because you are allowed to see both sides to the issue. And while it might be hard to see right now I am sure they do agree on some points no matter how small they are.
In “Condoms: The New Diploma” I really feel that Rush H. Limbaugh III is conveying more or less that we are allowing too much free will when allowing such distribution. By not controlling this issue where we can and should we are letting teenagers think that they really know the safety of pre-marital sex thanks to a condom. Limbaugh philosophy of free will seems to be that, yes we have it and yes it can be abused. Just by saying, it’s my choice doesn’t make you any more informed about the issue then the next guy. So just because of that reason alone we need to “steer” children in the right direction and provide the correct help. By limiting one thing or rather choice of free will, or we need to expand their knowledge so that their options toward free will grow.
However, in “A Pyrrhic Victory” Anna Quindlen seems to say there is not enough free will being allowed to teenagers where this issue is concerned. I believe she says it best when she says “This isn’t really about the condoms of course, but about control and the shock of adolescent sexuality and the difficulty parents have communicating with their kids and a deep understandable yearning for simpler times.” By saying it’s “about control and the shock of adolescent sexuality” she is saying that humans need control and by control we are determining one’s fate and thus taking away their free will. And by also providing “the shock of adolescent sexuality” she is providing that yes teenagers are making choices and should be allowed to do so because it is their free will.
I can already tell that these two authors have very different opinions on the nature of the individual, but I think that there is some if not any things they might could agree on.
For essay three I am going to discuss the idea of free will between "To the Lady" and "Perils of Obedience." In my interpretation of these essays’ ideas of the individuals’ free will is heavily influenced by authority. Authority tends to influence people’s decisions, whether as an individual (“Perils of Obedience”) or as a society (“To the Lady”). Not many people would be willing to admit how much authority has affected their decisions in life. Authority can be something as simple as a researcher telling someone to continue harming another for the sake of research, or it can be the government telling society to separate themselves from a specific race and national origin with no one protesting against these actions. Both discuss looking back on the situations and what the desired outcome should have been and what really happened. People react much the same with authority, stemming from childhood and what society is taught from a young age about authority (not to disobey). To break that ideal and norm it takes more strength than the average person has within themselves, and even though we all assume that we have free will to choose what we do when we do, these readings prove that that idea is not necessarily true.
The two essays I chose are "Shooting an elephant" and "The Perils of Obediance". I chose those two because they are the two essays that I understood the most. They both deal with how free will are affected by outside pressures such as athority and in large groups. Orwell had to deal with the pressures from a large crowd when making the decision of whether or not to shoot the elephant, and Milgram's essay delt with the pressure of athority when deciding whether the person should continue with the experiment just because they were told to do so by the person in charge.
The two essays I chose to do are “In Defense of Testing” and “A Proposal to Abolish Grading”. I chose these two essays because I feel like I know the whole purpose behind testing is and has a good meaning of free will. I know how it feels to be tested as so does everybody else. “In Defense of Testing” says that the own will is that no one wants to be tested but the social demands is that tests protect us, show what we have learned, improve education, and have better knowledge and skills. In the other article, “A Proposal to Abolish Grading”, says that the own will is that we should forget that grade we receive on tests but the social demands is that students only worry about grade and forget about learning, hard to teach, cause bad feelings, and may cause cheating and plagiarizing.
Two essays I chose to write about, are "The Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram and "Everyone is Watching You" by Nadine Strossen... The reason for "The Perils of Obedience" is that I can understand what is going on with the people's opinion and determined problems with being pressure on by something or someone. Free will is what we can think and do what we are freely but being free? Our choice.
And for "Everyone is Watching You", I can see someone is playing with us or our lives to be feared of something that could watch over us no matter where we can be, even if we are in shower! Free will in there seems like our decision for government to watch us or not if we want a job without watching us over everyday. Well, that's what I think. If I don't make sense, let me know before I begin essay, thanks.
For my third essay, I decided to choose "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and the poem "The Lady". I think king and yamada have 2 different views of free will. King makes it more serious while Yamada sounds like she was just joking around. I think that maybe the Japanese Americans could have protested their way out from being put into the internment camps. Since the Africans American succeeded for their rights.
The first essay I plan to use is the Rush Limbaugh article on Condom distribution in schools. I believe his stance on free will is that students shouldnt have the option to have sex when they please. That schools should teach them abstinence to force them not to have sex. I think he feels free will should not be allowed to young people. The second essay is Derek Bok's "Protecting Freedom of Expression on Campus." In this essay he is against the hanging of the confederate flag, however he defends free will by refering to the bill of rights and the right to free speech.
My two chosen essays:
1. “Perils of Obedience”- Stanley Milgram
2. “Everyone Is Watching You”- Nadine Strossen
In Milgram’s Essay he describes how under influence of authority people act without free will. He explains how in certain situations when lacking a personal consequence, one is more likely to continue an act they feel strongly opposed to, and continue allowing their free will to go invisible. I chose this essay because I feel Milgram gives the reader a plentiful amount of information to work with to defend his argument of free will.
In Strossen’s Essay she describes how a person’s free will can be corrupted with the use of surveillance cameras in everyday life. She brings several instances of evidence to the argument of minimizing surveillance due to a person’s personal privacy, and defends her opinion in a multi-faceted manner. I chose this essay because Strossen informs the reader with several details, and background information. I enjoy reading Strossen’s views and arguments toward this situation.
The two essays i chose are "To The Lady" and "The Letter from Birmingham Jail". These two essays in comparison are about a struggle for freedom but are two very different takes on how to stand up for what is wrong and the free will to do what you feel is right.
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