April Monthly Blog

During the month of April we continued our Monsters vs. Self unit. Of the books we read during this part of the course, I enjoyed The Stranger, by Albert Camus the most. I decided that for this monthly blog, I would expand on one of the Socratic Seminar questions from that composition.

Question number nine stated;

Argue for one of the following statements:

a) Meursault’s execution is just punishment for murdering the Arab

b) Meursault lives more in prison than while a free man

Personally, I believe that both of these statements are relatively true. Meursault brutally murdered the Arab man, at point blank range. He fired the deathly shot and then consciously fired four more. He also was able to give no real reason for his actions while on trial, he found excuses in the glint of the sun and the hot weather of the summer day. I believe that he should have been found guilty, as he himself even admitted to the crime. However, a life sentence in prison might have been more effective than execution, as Meursault would be forced to think about his actions on a regular basis. Execution did not phase Meursault dramatically, because he viewed death as simply a part of life.

While in prison, Meursault is free to his own thoughts. In solitary confinement, there is nobody around constantly to influence him. He is even able to give up smoking, which benefits his overall health, although it torments his mind during the first couple of weeks in jail. He also has many desires that only a free man could achieve, such as going swimming and sleeping with Marie. Obviously Meursault cannot do these things from his cell, and they trouble him. However, Meursault is still the same man that went into prison. He continues to feel indifferent to the crime he committed, and refuses to accept any form of religion into his life. I believe that this indifference proves that he did not grow as a person as much as others might possibly believe.

March Monthly Blog

During the month of March, our class held a discussion on the Cult of Domesticity, and how those ideals, developed in the 1800’s, still have a powerful effect on women today. I thought I would use the opportunity of my Monthly Blog to expand on some of the ideas brought up by my classmates.

  While many of the ideas brought up in class demonstrated a desire for change in the way that society treats women, there was one idea that I thought pushed women farther back. One classmate said that she had chosen not to have a boyfriend during high school, claiming that it would have negatively affected her grades and that she would have spent her time making sure she looked good for her significant other. This opinion shocked me, and I could not help but to compare this attitude to that of the characters in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. As a culture, I had hoped we had far surpassed opinions that would have been common in the time that A Doll’s House was written, back in 1879. Nora constantly felt like she needed to be the perfect girl for Torvald, and that is what I felt like this classmate was hinting at. 
Other examples that students brought up showed society progressing into a more accepting world for women. One classmate showed a Buzzfeed video about the definition of feminism. Although the video was probably directed at an audience less overall liberal than our class, I enjoyed the positive message that it displayed towards the feminism movement as a whole. Another classmate showed an advertisement made by Always. It defied the stereotype “like a girl”. I thought that it made sense for a feminine product company to put out such an ad campaign, so I decided to look more into other advertisements that sent out a similar message. I found an ad from Nike called “American Woman” that aired during the Women’s World Cup. The commercial showed strong, powerful, independent women. Coming from an athletic company such as Nike that usually caters towards males, I was glad to come across this video displaying such prominent female empowerment. I hope that our society moves onto bigger and better things for women in the upcoming years.

February Monthly Blog

Since we have continued our gender studies unit throughout the last month as well as completed the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, I decided that for this blog post I would research the struggles that women in Afghanistan are still facing in the year of 2016.

I learned that women in Afghanistan are still fighting for a place in peace talks being held by their country. These women are demanding a say in shaping the future of their nation, and are possibly quite close to getting it. In October of 2015, the national Afghanistan security council reported that they did in fact notice the continued absence of female roles in the government, and they pledged to change that situation. This is a promising situation. After reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, I really do feel for the women of Afghanistan and the hard struggles they are facing. I could never imagine living in such a restricted place myself.

Some women fear that their government will give up on this pledge for more woman's rights in an attempt to compromise with the Taliban. I hope that the Afghan government is able to hold it’s ground and successfully complete these “peace talks” while still holding woman’s rights in a high regard. Again, A Thousand Splendid Suns also opened my eyes to this issue.

This leads me to discuss one of the Socratic seminar questions that asked about how our view of the middle east changed following our reading of this book. My personal views towards the middle east always came from a generally uneducated point of view. My only view of Afghanistan and other middle eastern countries was from  major news stories whenever they were broadcast on CNN. After reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, I feel a little more educated, and a lot more intrigued. This book has made me want to look into the middle eastern culture more, as it is an interesting, culture filled, and beautiful place.

January Monthly Blog

For this blog entry, I would like to expand on one of the essential questions our class discussed for our upcoming gender studies unit.

To what extent can a culture be defined and/or understood by the positions of man and woman in the society?

This inquiry is extremely relevant in today’s world. Personally, I believe that the more freedom women have in a society, the more advanced that society is. In advanced countries such as the United States, although ultimate gender equality has not been reached, women generally have the same opportunities as men. In places that are not as far along in their ideals and technologies, women routinely have less freedom. This is proven by many middle eastern countries.

Saudi Arabia is one middle eastern country that is at the forefront of modernization. They have just held their first election where women were allowed to vote. This is roughly eighty years after the 20th Amendment was passed in the United States, guaranteeing suffrage for women. For a country that is considered to be leading the modernization of the middle east, this is an impressive statistic. Perhaps other nearby countries will follow Saudi Arabia’s example.

Iran is another setting of gender inequality in the middle east. While as a country they are technologically advanced enough to create nuclear weapons, Iran still places extreme restrictions on their woman citizens. Women are not permitted to watch male sporting events, leave the country without their husband’s permission, and face serious discrimination involving child custody, marriage, and divorce. There have been many cases where Iranian women have spoken out against this awful discrimination and found themselves in jail as a result.

Although restrictions placed on women have largely been lifted worldwide compared to previous centuries, there are many countries that still have strides to go. I believe that one can safely assume that the more rights women have in a country can reflect how advanced that society is.

December Monthly Blog

Slaughterhouse Five is undoubtedly a novel about war. Although it is mainly an anti war novel, at least half of the text focuses on Billy’s war experience either directly in Germany, or the post traumatic stress disorder that has a large effect on his life following the end of World War II. It is clear that Billy suffers PTSD. He suffers from nightmares during multiple scenes in the story, and even kicks in his sleep while in Germany. In chapter three, he hears a siren and thinks that World War III is upon him. This quickness to startle is evident that Billy suffers from PTSD. Since Billy was clearly so distraught that he felt the need to visit another dimension, I decided that I would further investigate PTSD and the effects it has had on soldiers today.

I found that one in three United States troops will be diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder following their return to their normal life. This causes an increase in depression, suicide, and homelessness among veterans. Roughly 9% of homeless people today served the country at one time. Although this number is down from the outrageously high percentage of 67% in 2009, I still believe that there is room for improvement.

Looking further into developments surrounding post traumatic stress disorder, I found a recent study that proved that PTSD is caused by an imbalance in two signalling systems in the brain.This could improve medicinal treatments and benefit many veterans in the long run. It also proved that each person suffering from post traumatic stress disorder struggles differently than others. The change that people experience is not universal, and is unique to the individual. The imbalance in the signalling systems causes a delay. I cannot help to believe that this delay could have been the time that Billy spent during Slaughterhouse 5 travelling to Tralfamadore and thinking that he was suspended in time.

November Monthly Blog

Following my reading of James Rachels’ article “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism,” I cannot help but to agree with many of the statements that he made throughout the composition. His argument that there can be more than one right answer can be applied to any aspect of life, from traits as trivial as fashion sense to differences across cultures.

As I read the article, I tried to think of my own example where I could relate to the situation of having a different opinion than somebody else. Immediately, I thought of clothing. If I wore an outfit that I viewed to be cute or flattering on myself, it would not guarantee that everyone around me would feel the same way. This is simply a matter of personal opinion. I believe that by referencing the Eskimos, Greeks, and Callatians, Rachels was proving the same point. One group may have a different opinion on a certain practice than another, and neither of those opinions are wrong. This is similar to asking two people their opinion on a dress. One may love it and want to purchase it in every color possible, and the other might want to put it immediately back on the rack and leave the store.

The article easily relates to many of the practices mentioned in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Practices such as yam planting and the sacrificing of humans are unquestionably distinct attributes of the African culture. These practices are highly unlikely to ever take place in more developed areas of the word such as the United States. However, the absence of these rituals is not entirely based on morals. Yam planting, central to African survival and culture, is simply not practical to participate in in the United States because of the climate- and this holds true for many other places in the world.

Other occurrences, such as the sacrificing of human life, are most definitely a moral and religious issue. This practice would never be accepted as an ethical practice in the western world today, because we do not believe in sacrifices to the God’s as the tribes of Africa once did.

I think that the world has made great strides in removing the prejudice that could result from cultural relativism. Not once during my reading of Things Fall Apart did I have negative thoughts toward the African practices mentioned. It is easy to understand that the culture I have grown up with living in the United States and the African culture in the novel have innumerable differences- and that is perfectly acceptable.

October Monthly Blog

Good versus evil is a prominent topic in the story of Beowulf. Representing the good, Beowulf manages to fight off forces considered evil such as Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, and although it leads to his demise, the dragon. In the real world, this is a popular topic. Many wars have been fought over the years based on one good belief and one bad, or evil belief. However although Beowulf's actions were daring and rewarding, the motives of Grendel are completely disregarded. Despite the fact that he is a monster, Grendel was completely banished from society and has every right to be avenging his feelings. Grendel’s mother also has very good reasons for her own violent actions. She has lost her son, and has every right to be angry at the brave warrior who killed him- as well as those around him. The dragon also has his own personal reasons to attack the citizens. A runaway slave stole his golden chalice and he was simply acting out in rage following this act.

I believe that this common conflict can be related to many issues today. Current racial tensions are often twisted to pit two forces against each other, even if neither forces represent a definite good or evil force. In the popular Ferguson, Missouri conflict, Michael Brown was deemed the good force- he was an unarmed man who was apparently not looking for a fight. On the other hand, the officer who shot and killed him was deemed the evil force. Sadly, nobody will ever get to hear Michael Brown's side of the story. I personally believe that what the officer did was wrong, but in that moment of tension, he did what he thought he had to do. He may not be directly comparable to Grendel in the sense that he was banished, but his motives hold true. This incident has ignited huge conflicts based on race, which have since then spread throughout the nation.

Racial tensions are another theme present in Beowulf. The Danes, the Swedes, and other groups of people are always wondering when they will be able to attack somebody next. They build up their army and train men to be great warriors, and are led by a powerful King. As proven by Beowulf, the King is the most important part of their culture. As soon as Beowulf dies, Wiglaf immediately predicts Geatland will be attacked by people of neighboring nations. The tribal society present in Beowulf and the quasi nationalistic pride each warrior has for their land is very similar to the racial tensions present between different cultures today.