21st Century Agora

TOK?

2010-08-30T16:25:00.001-05:00

Remember when this was a thing that we did?
HOW DO WE KNOW WE EVER DID IT?????
What is time?
What is TOK?
What is kartoffelsalat?

Too much information?

2010-04-12T21:39:00.002-05:00

Over spring break, my family and I saw "Our Family Wedding" and one particular scene made me think a bit. (The plotline of the movie is that a Latina woman wants to wed an African-American male). The scene that made me think was an argument between the woman to be wed, her parents, and her grandmother. This dispute occurred in Spanish. For the most part, subtitles of the Spanish dialogue was given. However, in this particular scene, subtitles were prominently absent. It made me think that maybe perhaps I wasn't supposed to know what the dialogue meant; maybe I was just supposed to take in the angry tones, the irate faces, and the blame-pointing fingers.
Was I over-informed for knowing exactly what the people were saying in the argument? Since the producers deliberately chose not to insert the dialogue of that particular scene, I have to wonder if I had somehow ruined the effect of the scene for myself.
Of course, there are some Spanish words and phrases that most people recognize even if they take an entirely different language. "Como está usted" or simple cognates are rather well-known to most advanced, literate English students. So naturally, some crossover vocabulary would have been understood. But maybe that was part of the point: maybe I (as the audience) was meant to observe this scene play out as one of the members of the groom-to-be's family, not really understanding more than the general reference to "traición" Latino or the grandmother's emphatic "no no no".
Did I jeopardize my understanding of the movie by knowing too much? What do you guys think?

Problems With Justified True Belief

2010-02-28T23:13:00.004-05:00

Justified True Belief is the working definition of knowledge in ToK. The conditions for whether or not an observer "R" has knowledge of "X" based upon justified true belief are:

A: "R" believes "X'

B: "R" is justified in his/her belief of "X"

C: "X" is true

Just in case you had forgotten.

However, there occasionally arise cases in which conditions A,B and C above are all satisfied, but "R" doesn't really know "X."

For example, James (the observer "R") goes out to a party. Earlier James had spoken to his friend Chris, who said he would also be at the party. When James gets to the party, he sees Chris' identical twin Craig. James concludes that Chris is at the party ("X"). James is justified in this belief, because Chris said he would be at the party, and James saw someone who looks exactly like Chris at the party. Coincidentally, Chris was at the party, but he was in a completely different area than James. Thus, the conditions A, B and C for James to know via justified true belief are all met, but does James really know if Chris is at the party or not?

Just a thought.

~WG

Perspectives on History: The War of Northern Aggression vs. The American Revolutionary War

2010-02-23T23:32:00.002-05:00

The American Civil War and the Revolutionary War were similar conflicts with similar causes, but with drastically different outcomes and interpretations; the Revolutionary War patriots are oft viewed as the pinnacle of freedom, justice, liberty and the American way, while the Civil War rebels are scorned as the scum of the earth and a threat to the aforementioned freedom, etc. These conflicting viewpoints arise from one simple fact: the Revolutionary Americans won and the Confederacy lost.

As far as causes go, the two wars are remarkably similar. The primary cause of each was a reaction of one party against perceived unjust legislation by the other (excessive taxation of the Colonies by the British for the Revolution, antislavery laws proposed by Congress for the Civil War). Moral issues aside, the Revolutionaries and Confederates were fighting for the same principle, that being freedom from oppression. I would ask any who jump to defend the incorruptibility of the colonists to read accounts of the treatment of Native Americans prior to and during the Revolutionary War.

The word "secede" is never used to describe what the Colonies did prior to the outbreak of war; it's always "they declared independence from Britain." However, saying that the Colonies seceded from the British Empire is just as correct. Similarly, it is also correct to say that the Confederacy "declared independence" from the Union. Yet it's rarely, if ever, said that way in the history books. In fact, parallels between the two wars appear so infrequently that they seem to be avoided, considering the similarity of the two conflicts.

In each case, the injured party was the clear underdog at the outset; the Colonies were nothing compared to the might of the British Empire, and the CSA were inferior in population, infrastructure, budget, and supplies to name a few, to the Union. Both wars hinged upon foreign aid; had the Colonies not been aided by France, and had Great Britain not been engaged militarily with three other countries (The Netherlands, France, and Spain), they would have been mercilessly crushed and reabsorbed by the British. A key reason of Confederate defeat was the lack of foreign aid, which both France and Britain were willing to provide. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1862) turned the European powers off by making the cause of the war slavery. However, the Proclamation neglected to free any slaves in the slave-holding Union-controlled border states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware.; in effect, the Emancipation Proclamation only declared free the slaves over which it had no authority to do so (i.e., those slaves still in states under Confederate control). I'll leave the ethical judgment of Lincoln's action for another time.

Sadly, I haven't read accounts of either war by non-American sources. Thus I have no means of comparison to verify my hypothesis, but analysis of the evidence at hand seems to indicate that the American view of these particular events is incredibly biased.

Hopefully this doesn't come as a complete surprise.

I would even venture that there is no possible objective history; history by definition must involve interpretation and analysis. Thus, when dealing with history one must always consider the source; if bias is unavoidable, the best we can do is acknowledge it's presence.

Just something to think about.

Women in the Military

2010-02-18T20:46:00.002-05:00

Is there a "better" viewpoint between males and females as far as female membership in the U.S. military? This is something we discussed in class today and I know a few of us still had comments on the question, and I thought maybe Tuesday's class may like to get in on it.
In answer, I think not, and I may repeat some things people already stated in class as my own opinion as well.
I speak from the point of view of a female planning on attending a military college and thus serving in the military for at least five years after college. First of all, the way I have seen it as I look into the college I want to go to, they want more women and it is easier to get in as a female. (Of course, this is heavily due to a much larger competition among male candidates than female candidates.) However, females still are not allowed to serve on the front line, i.e. engage in actual combat. They go through training very similar to that of men, but cannot hold all of the same positions.
There is obviously still some stereotyping that women are too weak emotionally and/or physically to perform well in a battle situation. A friend of mine who is a male applying to Westpoint actually told me when I asked him why women are not allowed in combat, "Well, think about it. If I am on the front line and there is a man about to shoot me, do you think I want a woman for protection? No, she wouldn't have the guts to shoot him". Though not an extreme feminist myself, I was more than a little offended at the statement. I don't mean to group all men into one category, but the tendency seems to be that they still have a mentality that women are too weak for the military. Though hazing is illegal, women are still constantly harassed at several military colleges and some of these academies have only actually admitted women for the last few years. Can a man really see through the eys of a woman, though? Can he determine for sure that a woman would not be able to shoot under pressure?
On the other hand, females don't seem to have enough unity on the matter to come to any conclusion at all. There are some that say, "No, we don't belong in the military at all; I'm glad I don't have to fight", others who believe "I don't really want to join but we are equal to men and should have the right!" and yet others who really want to join and fight. The main conflict is between hating the stereotyping involved but being content not to be a part of drafting. In the end, we cannot reach a sound conclusion.
Females are just now really gaining ground in nearing gender equality to men. Though it is not perfect and stereotypes remain prominent, we have more opportunity and voice than ever before. The last U.S. military draft was for the Vietnam war and only lasted through the early-mid 1970s, long before the opportunity females have now took hold. Under current law, all male U.S. citizens are required to register with Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday. This becomes a military draft if the government deems that we need it for war, and these men are called to service. However, now that women play a much more integral role in the U.S. military than before, do you think that if the U.S. were to go to large-scale war that it would draft certain females as well? Do you think it should?

Relative Ethics

2010-02-15T12:52:00.002-05:00

According to relative ethics, moral "standards" depend on the individual or a society. If different people make different ethical judgments, they have different ethical values. According to relative ethics, if I believe strongly that it is okay to do one thing, and another believes strongly that it is not okay, we are both right and there is no objective truth. But what happens when this is applied to simple examples? If I strongly believe that a blue cube is in fact a yellow sphere but my friend tells me, "No, it's a blue cube", what does it mean? Does disagreement indicate loss of objective reality?
Is it even possible to live by relative ethics? I would say not. Here is a list of a few things that pure relative ethics does not allow a person to do:
1. Accuse others of wrongdoing. If it is right by them then it's okay.
2. Complain about mistreatment.
3. Blame others for anything.
4. Accept moral praise or take responsibility for any actions, good or bad.
5. Improve morality. If there is no set standard then there is no definition for improvement.
6. Say "it's wrong to be judgmental".
7. Hold meaningful moral discussions. So many decisions made by our government are based on ethical discussions that would not exist were we to live by ethical relativism. We could still discuss ethics, but the conversation would be pointless because without an objective ethical standard no end could be reached.
8. Determine what is right and what is wrong. There is no such thing.

Without objective truth, our society would fall into utter chaos.

What do you think?

Who Knows Me Best?

2010-02-03T22:44:00.002-05:00

On Monday we touched on a few different ways of knowing oneself. These were a couple claims made: 1. I know myself better than anyone else does. 2. We very often depend on other people teach us about ourselves. The given example for number two was something like this: Have you ever been talking with a friend and claimed something about yourself to which they responded, "wait, no you aren't" or "no you don't".
I do believe that I know more about myself than any other person does and that such is the case for the majority of people. People often tell us something about ourselves for whatever reason. Parents, friends, family, all telling us "You can be so selfish sometimes" or "You have a real talent for ______", or "You are very generous". The proper response for us to take for such comments is to look inside ourselves and say either, "Yeah, I guess I really can be pretty self-centered" or "Where did he get that idea?"
My question is, does the information about ourselves that we receive from outside sources actually teach us, or is it knowledge we already have? Is it possible that your best friend knows that you can be conceited but you don't? I ask because I believe that a lot of the information about ourselves that we "learn" from other people includes ideas and characteristics we already knew we had but ignored or forgot. Secondly, what we learn from others about ourselves tends to be things we do not want to be.
If I volunteer at a local nursing home because I care about the elderly, I don't think it would be difficult for me to realize that I am caring, kind, compassionate, whatever characteristic you would put on such actions. However, if I volunteer at the nursing home weekly BUT complain about it everyday at school and explain how I just need it for my college credit, I still may feel like I am a kind person for giving away my time to help others. In this case, it would take a friend to tell me, "No, you're not very caring at all. You just do it for the credit," for me to REALIZE that maybe I'm not the nice person I thought I was.
The key word is realize. I don't think it takes other people to teach us about ourselves. If I want to learn about myself, all I have to do is change my point of view a little and look to the inside for introspection. Sometimes it takes outside sources to make us go through that process of self-examination because someone will make a comment and we think "Am I really?" An extreme example, if someone were to say to me "Ali, you are extremely loud and talk out way too much in class", they would not be teaching me about myself at all. I may step outside myself for a moment and ponder whether I really am obnoxiously loud in class, which is where the actual learning process beings. I then learn by being honest with myself that, no, I am in fact typically quiet in class,and move on with my life.
Sometimes people who tell us about ourselves are correct, and sometimes they are not. However, most of what they tell us are things that we already knew but did not think about OR chose to ignore. As humans, we tend to be dishonest with ourselves, justifying actions so we won't be able to realize that we actually have negative characteristics. When we really can be honest, though, we learn what and who we really are and how we come across to others.

Different Moral Philosophies, Same Conclusion

2010-01-29T16:20:00.011-05:00

Why to save a bleeding, dying man near you - ethically.

In class on Thursday, Eli cited Utilitarianism - doing the most good for the most people - and Kantian ethics - the belief in the value of each human life - as the reasons why he would save the man. He stated that he would rely mostly on Kantian ethics.

I, too, would save the man. Of course. But I would do so from quite a different ethical perspective. I would save him, not out of Utilitarianism or Kantian ethics - but out of Objectivism and Ethical Egoism. Let me explain.

Objectivism - absolute moral truths exist. Or, more simply, it means doing the right thing. The universally right thing - call me crazy - is to save the life of a human being. Sure, I believe in the value of the man's life. But ethically, I place more importance on the fact that saving his life is doing the right thing. Even if I didn't place a value on this man's life (in particular), I would still save him; preserving life - or, more simply, living - is the morally absolute right thing. Death is not.

Ethical Egoism - doing what's best for yourself. Knowing that saving this man's life is the right thing to do, I could not imagine having to go on, living my life, with the constant reminder that a man died because I didn't do a thing to save him, with the constant guilt stemming from the fact that I could have saved a human life - but didn't. That would be hard to overcome; that would not benefit me; that would not be doing what's best for myself. I would save him because saving him would be better for me (and, well, him, of course). Not only would I not feel the guilt I would feel if I did not save this man's life; I would also feel the great satisfaction of saving his life, of not cowering in the face of difficulty - of doing the right thing. Simply, my life would be better off by helping him rather than by not helping him. In truth, helping others is often doing what's best for yourself. Being an ethical egoist doesn't mean only caring about yourself; it means doing what's best for yourself - in this case, saving the man. That's why I would save him.

Different moral philosophies... same conclusion. Interesting.

Hygiene, among other thoughts.

2010-01-28T23:11:00.004-05:00

(Click on it for a bigger, readable one.)

Is this important? Is the loss of sweet tastes worth the inclusion of deception in your daily rituals? Does this deception adversely affect you? Is it a good thing- that toothpaste keeps one from eating sweets as a preventative measure? Are comics capable of communicating legitimate philosophical thought? Am I just being silly? Is this post too short for the ToK blog? Discuss.

(Cat and Girl, by Dorothy Gambrell, is subject to an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Generic copyright. www.catandgirl.com)

How do you describe color?

2010-01-28T21:41:00.002-05:00

We all know of the vision impairment "color blindness" in which a person sees either only in certain colors or has a metaphorically "dyslexic" mental color wheel. I don't know exactly how color blindness works, but I want to know how we would go about proving that we are not all in fact color blind.
Lets say that I can see every color, but they are mixed up. However, from when I was a toddler, my mother told me that the color of the apple in the refrigerator is red. Now, because of my impairment, I see what most other people call blue. But, because I was taught for years that that is what red looks like, your blue is my red.
So how can we prove that we do not all have such impairment? What if, as we all look at a "yellow" box, I actually see orange, you actually see green, and another actually sees blue. We cannot determine that we see differently because we were taught for all of our lives to interpret the color we connect with that box to be "yellow".
I hope that makes sense, it is sort of hard to describe. But color is the same way- we cannot check to see if we are all seeing the same thing except to confirm that this object is a dark color and that object is a light color. You can't really describe yellow.
What do you think?

2 Questions (11 January 2010)

2010-01-11T22:22:00.002-05:00

Mr Perkins threw out a couple of questions near the end of the period that I find myself hoping to answer somewhat as a means to counter my presence onstage today.

The questions (paraphrased greatly)

1: How do you deal with a situation in which two parties involved in a contractual relationship are bound by different ethics?
--> In such a situation, where two different sets of ethics have produced tension upon two parties who had previously agreed upon a contractual relationship, I would consider the involvement of a third party to be the most desirable solution. This third party would have to be objective to both sides equally and would serve as arbitrator. Preferably, the new party would be familiar with the ethics of both parties in disagreement while the arbitrator itself would follow neither of these (for that might pose problems for the third party to objectively consider each issue separately and equally; reviewing one side with the supporting ethics while comparing it to the other side with the same ethics might create unnecessary dilemmas.

2: To what degree of experience does personal testimony make any account more worthy than any other?
--> Personal experience adds an emotional level to any account. I would consider a personal testimony more "worthy" in the sense that it addresses most acutely the issue of adding emotion with the testimony; the effects of emotion can be seen. This is rather important a distinction, for then the testimonies emotionally charged (through personal experience) can be compared to those to which no emotional connection was made.
For example, by addressing the stem cell issue raised in class, the controversy over cloning arises. The fine line of ethical morals and justifications is already paper-thin, considering that the cells are used to make food, animals, and (not yet, but possibly later in time) other humans.
Gregory Pence, professor at University of Alabama (Birmingham) supports the use of stem cells to make genetically altered foods. His research argues that eating genetically altered foods poses much less risk than consuming a hamburger.
A year or so ago (I can't remember when, exactly), a woman had her deceased dog cloned. Having previously acquired the necessary cells from her dog, she cloned the animal which resulted, basically to her, in a second life for her dog. Her emotionally charged testimony, affirming that cloning is well worth the expense and procedure, is an interesting argument when laid beside those individuals that consider cloning unethical.

Moral Responsibilty

2010-01-07T18:53:00.004-05:00

"One not only has a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws"
-Martin Luther King Jr.

I think that we can agree that the majority would say it is right to obey just laws. (Although from our discussion of cheating today, I'm not so sure...) We know that in the quote above, King was referring to the segregation laws in the U.S. and that as a leader, he encouraged some non-violent rebellion. King's time is an extreme case of his quote because it dealt with what now clearly view as an unethical set of laws. However, do we really have the responsibility to disobey "unjust" laws? If so, how do we determine which laws are unjust, and to what level can we exercise disloyalty to these laws? Where do we draw the line?

Regurgitation tests

2009-12-02T21:33:00.002-05:00

Recently I've slowly been making my way through posts on the blog from previous TOK classes, and today, the one that struck me had to do with school tests. (Thus, I give it credit for my post.) As I look back on my school career since kindergarten, many, if not most, of the tests I have taken were "regurgitation tests", or tests where a student must do nothing more for an A than use the cut and paste method. In my eighth grade history class on a test day, I would sit at my desk with a paper before me consisting of basic questions and answers provided for me- all I had to do was choose the "correct" answer, or the answer my teacher and textbook told me was right. Then there was the matching section that required little to no thought at all; again, answer choices were given with one answer per description leaving me nothing to do but rewrite the answers I easily could have memorized ten minutes before class. Ben Franklin was smart and did a lot of stuff, George Washington was the first president of the U.S., Honest Abe freed the slaves. So what? How does that affect me? Why do I need to know about random guys who have been dead for two hundred years?
It seems as though I was rarely taught about applications and how to have a greater understanding of the information I was slapping onto the page. It wasn't important to me to know WHY, I just wanted the A. I wasn't taught to have an appreciation for what I was learning because I couldn't make connections. Then, suddenly in high school, the teachers expected me to apply, reexplain in my own words, analyze. Yes, Hester in The Scarlet Letter sinned and had an illegitimate child, good for her- now what does that symbolize?
Middle school tests were mostly multiple choice, fill in the blank, matching, write-what-we-tell-you-to-get-the-A. Even band and orchestra tests were cut-and-paste: here's a scale, play it at this speed, get loud right there, don't mess up, go. Little room was left for interpretation. If I wanted the grade, I just had to memorize, memorize, memorize until the information basically rolled of the pen on its own. Then, of course, the majority of those facts had to fall out of my brain to make room for the next set of names, dates, and events. No need to keep the info because there isn't a final exam.
My question is, what was the point? Sure, I learned some basic things about the Pilgrims, compound sentence structure, and Colombus sailing the ocean blue, but how much did the regurgitation really help me? I can't tell you how many teachers have said, "yeah, I know they taught you that in middle school, but actually that's wrong and it happened this way."
Of course, this is all in the understanding that there are obviously concepts that middle schoolers can't really grasp at their maturity level, but could it have hurt to put in some application and analysis requirements? I think we would have retained more useful information had we learned to go deeper at an earlier point in our education.

sight, touch, smell, sound, taste as Ways of Knowing

2009-11-30T19:29:00.004-05:00

As Dr Schaefer spoke today, he mentioned in passing the usage of "tactile memory" as a means in which med students learn of human anatomy. (He spoke of learning the feel of "normal" or "healthy" organs in order to determine illnesses and abnormalities).
This brought to mind a series of questions: How do you distinguish memory of different senses? Is there even a distinction? For example, if the "tactile" memory remembers an item as soft, but the "visual" memory forces you to recall the same object as having a rough exterior, what trumps the other?
I list the five 'sense-based memories' as ways of knowing in this order: tactile, taste, visual, smell, and sound. My opinions are based on my own experiences with the senses; I'm curious to see opinions of others.
To explain my preference of the senses as WOK:
The first is tactile, just because so much information can be gathered from studying an object with one's hands. For example, taking an object in one's hands (with all other senses disregarded), one can learn the shape, a general idea of the material, one can hazard a guess from the shape at the usage of the object.
2. Taste. This appears quite strange in list of importance, but it makes sense (at least for me...) With taste, one can do similar tests as the ones possible with the hands. Putting an object in one's mouth can help determine the texture, (possibly) the size, an idea of the material (metal, for example, has a distinct taste to another material, such as wood or plastic), the durability of the object.
3. Visual. The eyes can determine color, identify shape and use of the object, possibly texture, material. The eyes are limited as to they cannot directly contact the object; unlike touch or taste, the eye is limited to only what the object "seems" to look like: if I had a pencil, for example, carved out of wood, painted like a generic Number 2 pencil, complete with lead colored paint, shiny metallic paint, and pink paint for the rubber, my eyes could be deceived into believing that it's an actual pencil. But by feeling it (or by tasting the materials) I would be able to determine that a) it does not taste like lead at its tip, the pencil lead is not separating from the wood at my touch (or in my mouth) , it must not be a real pencil, and b) the eraser is not textured correctly, this is not a pencil.
4/5. To be completely honest, I find that smell and sound are rather close in validity. The nature of both senses is so determinant upon the item being studied that I feel that there is no fair way for me to judge one more useful than the other as a WOK.

How do you disagree/agree with these orders?

Ways of Knowing the Truth (and a Lie)

2009-11-16T16:16:00.004-05:00

In TOK today, Mr. Perkins asked the question "what ways of knowing are used when lying?" and before I forgot how to communicate, this was my answer: ultimately, the same ways of knowing that are applied to a truth or even a belief are used for a lie. So, all ways of knowing are applied.

However, lying seems to involve both intuition and reasoning more so than determining the truth. Telling a lie entails understanding all perspectives of an argument so that the lie can be effective. Intuition determines how to phrase the lie while reasoning determines the extent of the lie.

Truth, on the other hand, can be "absolute," such that mere acknowledgment of the truth (just realizing that the truth exists) is enough and understanding the entire meaning is not necessary. The truth, then, uses all ways of knowing equally.

Same Teachers

2009-11-12T15:15:00.002-05:00

A quick question I threw out mere seconds before the bell rang:

In math, how much of an obstacle to understanding, a problem of knowing, is it to have different teachers for each level and branch of mathematics? Would it be a help to have the same teacher for several levels, especially levels in succession, as you often do when in foreign language study?

Incarnational Epistemology and Snow

2009-11-12T15:07:00.003-05:00

In class today we used the phrase "incarnational epistemology" to describe the way of knowing that comes about when a person moves beyond rote, formulaic, cut-and-paste methods to a deeper, intuitive, more personal and fluent way of knowing.

Along the way, I thought of the poem by Howard Nemerov's poem, "Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry."

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

How does that happen for you? When does your knowledge of an area or subject move from "silver aslant to random, white, and slow?" In other words, when does your knowledge become deep, true, personal, fluent? How does that happen? Assuming that it has happened for you, in what areas, academic (math, science, languages, music, etc.) or otherwise (social, spiritual, interpersonal, romantic-relational, etc.) has it happened? Were you aware of the point when it happened, or only aware now that you look back on it?

What is mathematics?

2009-11-10T18:40:00.002-05:00

This is in response to one of the questions posed in today's TOK class.

Which is the right answer:
Mathematics is the search for answers (with numbers/ of numbers/ by numbers).

I would argue that is is "by numbers" because the numbers only have meaning because we give them meaning. Mathematics, to me, seems to be a way for mankind to make abstract concepts like speed, predicting population growth, movement, etc. into concepts we can grasp. As a result the numbers help us quantify aspects of the world. The numbers allow us to make abstract concepts tangible and then understand their meaning. It is only by using numbers that we can think at a higher level.

You wouldn't understand...

2009-11-09T20:28:00.002-05:00

One of the question Mr. Perkins posed in class today asked if the argument "You can't argue this because you aren't_____(fill in blank with something such as a race, sex, religion, etc)" is a valid point. Bobby mentioned that he thinks this is true in the case of abortion- he does not feel that he can position himself against abortion because he is, in fact, not a woman and will never personally have an unwanted pregnancy. However, I would argue that men can have a valid opinion on abortion for a couple different reasons. For one, abortion in many cases is an ethics issue, often based on religion. Many Christian (and other religious) men see abortion as being morally wrong according to their beliefs, and opinion having nothing to do with their experience or how the woman may feel. I am not stating my own opinion on the abortion question, but I do see how a man could validly argue that abortion is wrong. Even a "non-religious" man may argue that abortion is morally/ethically wrong.
Many of you are in the same English class as I am and probably remember the discussion last week we had regarding racism/hate. To recap, we were discussing the Kincaid essay (about her experience in an English colony and her resulting negative view of England) when a girl in the class posed a situation, asking if hers was equal or related to Kincaid's. The situation was this: "My mom's friend, who is black, hates all white people because as a result of slavery, she is unable to find information on her family heritage and ancestral culture. She can trace her family history as far back as their trip in the slave trade, but beyond that she knows nothing." I argued that her hate of an entire race is not justified just because of the past, giving other examples and backup as well. My point now, however is not my argument, but the response I was repeatedly given by the teacher, even when I stayed after class for a few minutes the next day to clarify a few things. Every time, my teacher told me "Well, you don't see it to be justified, but you cannot possibly understand how it really must feel because you are white and you were not enslaved." I found a few different problems in her argument, but that one that hit me the most was that I supposedly cannot argue that hate is not justified if I have not been in the person's situation. Therefore, I found it interesting that the point was revisited in TOK.
While perfect understanding in its purest form cannot possibly be achieved as we are unable to put ourselves exactly in each others shoes and our thoughts on things are all subjective to experience, I think that it is necessary to agree on the validity of some level of understanding. Obviously, yes, I am caucasian and have never persoanlly been enslaved, beaten, or anything of that sort. Whether my argument in class was right or wrong, should its validity be based upon the that idea? Can I therefore not have a valid opinion on subjects dealing with races besides my own?
What if no one was ever allowed to express an opinion about anything they have not personally experienced in full? We would never get anywhere as a united society if we could only have negative opinions on things we've experienced. Women would only be able to discuss women's rights with women because any man's opinion on the matter would not be valid. We would always have to assume that the other party is correct if they have experienced something we have not. (I would consider that to be fallacy of authority in some cases...)

The Pilate Question

2009-11-09T11:58:00.002-05:00

In a comment on the previous post, stephaniee wrote, "since we have come to the consensus that there is only one truth, how can it be determined? it can't be by public belief. many people used to believe we lived in a earth centered universe and they were all wrong. so how can one determine among the many views what is true and what is not?"

This is a form of the famous question asked of Jesus by the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?"

My hat is off to stepaniee, for she has taken this discussion exactly where it needed to go, hence my copying of her comment to start a new post. I now leave it to you to discuss which ways of knowing are most useful in coming to determing the truth. As one guiding question, does it matter in what area of knowledge that truth is pursued?

Adjectives and Nouns

2009-11-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

What an exciting class we had today! As we talked about "justified true belief," a long-standing definition of knowledge, someone used the phrase "accepted truth." This led to a fascinating discussion. Consider two sets of phrases, each phrase being composed of a noun and an adjective.

Set A

blue circle, graphite circle, thick-lined circle, square circle, triangular circle

Set B

blue truth, pencil truth, thick-lined truth, my truth, half truth

In set A, the first three items made sense, but in set B, the first three items were non-sensical. A circle is completely capable of being described by the adjectives "blue," "graphite," and "thick-liend," but clearly those adjectives make no sense when applied to the abstract noun, "truth."

In set A, the last two items are non-sensical because, as one student observed, the definition of a circle precluded that word's being modified by either of these adjectives. By definition, one cannot have a triangular circle.

What, then, about the last two items in set B? We hear the phrases "my truth" and "half truth" all the time, but do they make any sense? Can the word "truth" ever be modified by an adjective, or is there something about its definition that precludes such modification?

Interestingly, when pressed to come up with something that was true for person X and not true for person Y, while avoiding mere opinion, the class was hard pressed to find something. An early attempt by one girl was the sentence, "I am a girl," which she said would be untrue if I, her male teacher, spoke it. I suggested that self-reflexive sentences were a category unto themselves (pun intended?) and that we would set them aside for the time being. I would encourage anyone interested in these linguistico-philosophical puzzles to check out Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas.

Another student suggested that the word "truth" in a particular area, such as truth in mathematics, truth in religion, truth in history, might or might not be capable of accepting an adjective.

So where do you come down on this? Can the word "truth" take an adjective?

"Popperian Sense"

2009-10-10T18:52:00.002-05:00

I was reading the IB Physics binder looking up information about the Group 4 project and I found something that I hoped Mr Perkins would clarify:
On Page four of the Diploma Programme the text reads, "There is no one scientific method, in the strict Popperian sense, of gaining knowledge, of finding explanations for the behaviour of the natural world..."
I surmised that this referred to Karl Popper's "Umbrell(a)ology" article. Mr Perkins: do all IB students worldwide read the same articles? If so, how were the five articles chosen?

Thoughts on Educational Elitism

2009-09-29T17:43:00.003-05:00

Today (9/29/09), a large percentage of the IB juniors were pulled out of their homerooms and instead lectured on the upcoming PSAT/NMSQT. Part of this lecture was that these students, who were selected based upon (I'm assuming) GPA/class rank, had a better opportunity to succeed than the rest of the students at North Central. This raised two questions for me: 1) Really? Just because we have performed well in the past does not necessarily mean that we will be able to consistently do well academically in the future, nor does it mean that we are necessarily better off than any other student at North Central. In my experience, academic success hinges more on the ability to jump through hoops than on actual intellectual prowess. Just because you can memorize something once for a test does not mean that you have learned it. I believe that this facet of the educational system tends to misrepresent students' aptitude. Success on a test should not hinge on memorizing miscellany, especially in an age where, in any real-life application, said miscellany could easily be looked up if unknown. A student who happens to be a bad test-taker could be just as intelligent as any of the Top 25, but said student's test anxiety keeps them from excelling in the educational system as it is. In my mind, this is no reason to dismiss the student as "less likely to succeed." 2) Why do we get special treatment? We have proved that we can do well on standardized tests (which I believe are not an accurate measure of anything, but that's another rant), so why do we need special attention now? Should not the effort instead be directed to helping those students who are struggling academically? Or have they already been relegated to a lower rung on the intellectual ladder? I believe this policy of giving the intellectual frontrunners another push forward while ignoring the rest is both illogical and immoral. A great Vulcan (well, half-Vulcan, technically) once said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." So then, is our "equal-opportunity" system of education really "equal?" Why are the test scores of the tops of the classes any more important than any other students'?

Admittedly, I do not have a full knowledge of North Central's PSAT/NMSQT policy, but I do know that the select few are being segregated from the rest of the student body during the testing. That says enough for me.

Senior Presentation- Organ Donors

2009-09-28T17:05:00.003-05:00

I loved the topic for today's senior TOK presentation, and want to see what everyone thinks of it. The main question is: Is it okay to pay organ donors?
The arguments were mainly based on the morality of the situation. The question then becomes, Is monetary motivation for organ donation immoral? Can we even define this as an absolute moral value? If so, does that mean it should not be done?

This was one of the questions I wrote on the back of my card:
If a man with complete kidney failure needs a donor to live, should we let him die just because the donor would be giving according to monetary motivation as opposed to compassion?

No Certain Answer

2009-09-24T20:58:00.002-05:00

I don't believe there is any right answer to this question although there may be some wrong ones. It is based solely upon human nature and how it differs in each individual. But what I hate about human nature and just don't understand is:

Why when then majority of the world advocates unity and even the steriotypical answer to a beauty pagent question is "world peace," why must we insist upon creating hate that will only create more violence and disunity?

Provocative Language

2009-09-24T15:27:00.000-05:00

I cannot say how wonderful the discussion was today with Group B in TOK. Incredible. Here are the questions that I wrote on the board that sprang up from your discussion. Take one or two and start new posts, delving into them more deeply. Be sure to use ways of knowing other than emotion and connect deeply with issues of language, thought, and perception.

1. Why is the language of the WBC more provocative than the language of other groups?

2. It was stated that the WBC profits from its provocative language. Comedy Central makes a profit from offensive speech as well. What is the difference?

3. How much is North Central responsible for the protest today?

4. Could the message of this play have been conveyed through a less controversial play?

5. By saying "X," am I imposing "X" on my listeners?

Best vs. Strongest

2009-09-23T20:38:00.002-05:00

When we split up into smaller groups last week, my group was given the task of deciding which way of knowing is the best. However, Mr. Perkins' original wording confused the discussion a bit when he first said "Which is the strongest way of knowing?", and later changed his wording a bit (I believe without intending to change the concept) in saying "Why is it the best?"
First of all, this pertains to interpretation because, while in Mr. Perkins mind he may have been thinking of the same concept in both sentences, I and another in my group were unsure of whether he wanted the best WOK, or the strongest.
Our group then began discussing first of all, whether or not there is a difference between best and strongest when it comes to WOK, and if so, would the best and strongest be two different ways of knowing?
I would argue that the "best" way of knowing refers to the most reliable, whereas the "strongest" would be the one used most often without taking reliability into account. I also think that these are represented by two different ways of knowing.
Emotion is, in my opinion, the strongest way of knowing. Emotion can overpower all of the other ways. How often do we hear about people who make rash and often foolish decisions because their emotion has clouded their reason? Stronger emotions can cause us to hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. They can alter our interpretation of ideas obtained by our senses. They often overrule conscience, common sense, and instinct. When we really want something here and now, the strong emotional desire may cause a lapse in reason so that a potentially bad decision is made on the spot. (Hence "impulse buys") This is why commercials are so effective- we see something really cool with its supposed benefits and played-up appearance on the screen and we want it, without really stopping to consider outside factors. Is the company reliable? Is it worth the money? Could I really use this? How much did the commercial embellish the product to make me want it? Strong emotions can (and will) quell most, if not all other more trustworthy ways of knowing.
Because it is extremely subjective to several factors (personality, background, situation, etc), however, emotion is not the most reliable way of knowing by far. On this, there was a lot of disagreement within the group as well as among the rest of our class. The class ended up with it narrowed down to two: sensory perception and reason. Which do you think it is? Or is neither the best?

Language and the Novel 1984

2009-09-22T19:47:00.003-05:00

The other day I was listening to the audiobook of 1984, written by George Orwell. The book tells the story of Winston Smith and his attempt to rebel against the totalitarian state in which he lives (cite). This government controls EVERYTHING, clothing, sleep, jobs, etc. Winston Smith works for the government and one day speaks with one of his colleagues, Syme. Syme is working on a new language called Newspeak, derived from English. For example; Ingsoc is a word for "English Socialism" in Newspeak. As one can see the language is a simplified form of English. The reason for this adaptation of English is so the government can have even more control over the people. The new language for example will not have words that have a connotation of dissension, so that there could be no dissension. The same goes for words such as "freedom" or "love". The government in the novel 1984 now has total control over the people because they have restricted the peoples' language. Furthermore, this falls in line with the article, Whorf (or Whore, depending on your eyesight) on Language. The restriction on the language also constricts a person's thoughts or perceptions. Just thought I would share this with you in the hope to prompt discussion.

The Power of Language

2009-09-22T14:23:00.002-05:00

Someone in Group A, which meets on Tuesdays, made a powerful observation. We were talking about the difference between denotation and connotation, and from this began to talk about the different rules that govern how we speak. I pointed out that there are rules that seem connotative in nature, rules that govern when to say and not say certain words, for example, for reasons of offense or politeness. There are other rules that seem more denotative in nature, rules such as not splitting infinitives in English.

My question regarded why we seem unfazed by the breaking of the so-called denotative rules, those typically taught in school, and why we are aghast when someone breaks one of the so-called connotative rules. The student who responded made the brilliant insight that the denotative rules are about form, but the connotative rules are about content. By breaking them, we say more than meets the ear.

So what are your thoughts? In what ways does language equal power? How does someone with an excellent command of written and spoken language have power over other less-skilled practitioners of the same language?

What We Know of Language

2009-09-22T14:16:00.003-05:00

One of our students posted the following as a comment to another post:

Why must perception, in its definition, state act of apprehending? Must one understand what one sees/views through senses or mind in order for it to be 'perception'?For example: a student who does not speak/read Greek leafs through a Greek text. Can't the student *perceive* that it is in a foreign language, while not *apprehending* its language?

This reminded me immediately of a piece in Plato's dialogue Theaetetus in which the character Socrates is talking with a young man named Theaetetus about language.

SOCRATES: Shall we say that we know every thing which we see and hear? for example, shall we say that not having learned, we do not hear the language of foreigners when they speak to us? or shall we say that we not only hear, but know what they are saying? Or again, if we see letters which we do not understand, shall we say that we do not see them? or shall we aver that, seeing them, we must know them?

THEAETETUS: We shall say, Socrates, that we know what we actually see and hear of them--that is to say, we see and know the figure and colour of the letters, and we hear and know the elevation or depression of the sound of them; but we do not perceive by sight and hearing, or know, that which grammarians and interpreters teach about them.

All this is to say, along with Rachel (I think), that I can know that the letters before me are whatever color. I can know that they have this and that shape, that some are straight and some are curved, etc. I may even recognize them as the letters of a particular language. Given all this, it could be said that I know what I see. I do not, however, as Theaetetus points out, know all that a teacher of the language could tell me about it.

2009-09-17T20:25:00.003-05:00

A while back Magister P asked the question what is thought?
To me thought is what you perceive. You cannot think or form a thought if you have not perceived anything. You perceive through your senses and then come to a conclusion. And one can have a thought about what one has already perceived in the past.
This also leads in to the perception, thought, and language problem.
Assuming what I stated earlier is true then it seems that it is a circle except that perception can't go directly to language. One must have a thought in order to have a message to convey.

2009-09-17T19:53:00.004-05:00

Language, Thought, and Perception

2009-09-15T16:53:00.003-05:00

Today in my TOK class, Mr. Perkins divided us up into 4 small groups and discuss a topic he gave us. My group had to talk about the relationship between language, thought, and perception, and to try and define how they were related. We talked for a while, but couldn't really come up with relationship that everyone agreed to.

Here's what the majority of my group came up with (we defined "lead to" as one thing coming before the other [ex. perception can come before language], and "affect" as one thing making someone reconsider what they thought of or viewed before [ex. what someone tells you could make you perceive it differently]).
1) the relationship between language, thought, and perception can be best described by drawing them in a triangle/circle.
2) thought can lead to language and perception
3) perception can lead to language and thought
4) language can lead to thought, but not perception
5) all have an impact on/affect the others

When we joined with the other group, some people didn't agree with what we had come up with. Other ideas were that the relationship is better represented by a line (language had to turn into thought to become perception and vice versa), and that language could directly lead to perception.

Any different ideas of how the relationship between these three should be defined/explained? Or does anyone agree with the ideas we already came up with?

Sufficient Persuasion

2009-09-08T09:17:00.002-05:00

Bjorn wrote in a comment to the last post, "I'm not completely sold on this concept at all. While examples have been raised, I don't find them at all valid. While my intuition tells me that sure, there are probably some ideas that cannot be communicated between specific languages, I think we need some more direct and accurate examples before I'm 100% persuaded."

Okay, what would it take for you, Bjorn, to be 100% persuaded on this particular issue? What would it take for someone else?

Bjorn, I think you have offered solid refutations of the arguments presented thus far. Do others find Bjorn's refutations successful in rebutting the arguments? Why or why not?

Language Barriers

2009-09-03T19:46:00.002-05:00

As we left class today, Mr. Perkins called us to think of various ways in which ideas, descriptions, words, and concepts are lost in translation when moving from one language to another. What are things you can say in one language that cannot be conveyed or are simply not used in other languages?

A couple examples we have already had include things such as objects specific to a certain culture and "splitting infinitives". What are others you can think of? How might they affect communication?

A less important and yet prominent example that immediately comes to my mind is the English contraction. I haven't studied many languages besides Spanish, but a lot of others don't use contractions at all. To say "Sarah's dog" in Spanish, one must lengthen the sentence and say "El perro de Sarah", which directly translates to "the dog of Sarah". In English, we also use contractions to combine words such as "does not", "cannot", "will not", etc. I would imagine that the concept is probably a bit difficult to grasp for those learning English as a second language, just as it would be strange for us to have to always say "the book of Jim".

I also want to refer to a statement made about insults. Mr. Perkins argued that swearing shows a lack of thought, displaying that one is too lazy to come up with a witty, effective comeback. I absolutely agree with this statement. I don't say this to rebuke anyone who cusses, but I believe that language has so many words for a reason, and that is to allow people to communicate thoughts and ideas on a very specific level. When one desires to respond with a negative comment, is it not more specific to have a well-thought comeback than an impolite "**** you"? First of all, if the goal is to demoralize the other person, which is what swearing at them is meant to do, wouldn't it be more demoralizing if one were to show superior intellect by coming up with something intellegent to say? Secondly, "cuss words" are so overused today that they have almost completely lost any coherent meaning whatsoever. For example, (and I only quote this in context), "sh**" is now not only a dirty bathroom word. It has come to be used as an exclamation, often even used the a paradoxical phrase "Holy sh**!", which makes no sense whatsoever. Even more recently it has gained a positive connotation substituted for words such as "cool", "awesome", or "tight". Instead of saying "It's really cool!", people say, "It's the sh**!". Therefore, the connotations of swear words have strayed so far from their original diction that they imply no specific meaning at all upon common use. Though strong words, "F you" cannot bring across a more direct meaning than a witty comeback, and is therefore less effective in the long run. Cussing seems to be a product of human laziness to come up with more polite and more descriptive words.

Continuation of the "Conscience Question"

2009-08-29T09:53:00.013-05:00

I don't recall us clearly defining "conscience" in class, though we outlined it marginally. Conscience, in today's world, is generally defined as the part of the mind (superego) that dictates and admonishes the ego. Interestingly enough, conscience was originally associated with religion (Catholicism), and it dictated precisely what was right and wrong in earlier times; however, modernization has caused society's idea of conscience to morph from the "devil and angel" idea into an "inner voice" telling a person only what is wrong.

Based on what others have said and the definition above, it appears to me that conscience, while universally relevant, is individual-specific in its interpretation shaped by one's religion, upbringing, family, and associated morals. Here is my claim: conscience is the most dominant way of knowing, the ultimate authority, per se, over any organism, and is a purely acquired characteristic.

To support this, I sought the help of the all-important Google search engine and found this article: http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/conscience.htm

Peter Kreeft, a PhD of philosophy at Boston College, has two premises: 1) that conscience is an absolute authority and 2) that the only possible source for conscience is an absolutely perfect will, a divine being. Kreeft continues by establishing four possible explanations for conscience (check out the website to see them explicitly). One example is that we all possess the “herd” instinct, the altruism that applies to our need to protect offspring in the face of danger in order for our “lineage” to survive. However, he specifies that a mother would do this to protect her children, but no other type, such as a child, man, or child-less woman, would do such a thing…I find the example to be more applicable towards intuition than conscience- what do you think?

The first of his premises is more or less a given; however, I disagree with the second. Frankly, my religion is different from the mainstream one in this country- that does not make my ideas illegitimate. As Ali suggests in her post, is what I condone what you condemn? Conscience seems to be something of an intuitive, second-nature, less of an analytical or intellectual by-product.

That then leads me to think whether conscience is really a way of knowing. If conscience is affected by religion, and other extraneous factors, conscience cannot be innate. Not only does each religion differ, but each Hindu’s interpretation of the religion is different as well, for example. To address the most basic level of this, my family, from Southern India, worships a completely different set of gods and beings than another family, from Northern India. Nevertheless, our collective beliefs are known to the world as Hinduism. While some tenets and ways of our religion are universally accepted, such as the respect for other beings of the earth or the pressing of the hands together to pray, there are slight differences in the bases of each family that affect our consciences.

The same idea is applicable in America: we all share a similar belief of right or wrong because of education and other factors. But at the same time, we all have different morals established by our respective families, religions, and other acquired ideals.

So. Do you agree? Or do you dare to disagree? =D Is it really a way of knowing?

Conscience- Natural or learned?

2009-08-28T19:32:00.004-05:00

On Thursday our class had to stop in the middle of a discussion on conscience and were left with this question- is conscience something you are born with, or does it begin to develop later in life?

I think conscience is something one is born with. However, because morals aren't learned from birth, conscience does not develop until understanding is present. Conscience begins to take a more defined shape as one matures and starts to discern right from wrong. It begins on a basic level with being taught by parents/guardians what and what not to do. (For example, the cliche "Don't take a cookie from the cookie jar without permission"). At this point, conscience is simply based on the information the child has gathered from his/her parent. As life goes on, the child becomes a teen and must begin to make his/her own decisions because they will soon move away from their moral teachers (parents) and live a more independent life. Conscience becomes stronger as the teen is forced to make his/her own choice of what morals to live by and the values become more personal. Often this choice is made based on the morals previously installed by a parent. The fact that morals vary from person to person is why one person's conscience may condone something another person's would condemn. On the other hand, widely-accepted values give consciences similarities. (For example, most people would understand murder to be against their morals)

Therefore, conscience begins at an early stage of life but develops and becomes more prominent as one ages, makes decisions, and learns from experience. It varies from person to person according to moral teaching and early background.

What do you guys think?

Atlas Shrugged and Knowledge

2009-08-28T19:30:00.007-05:00

Just a little while ago, I was sitting and relaxing in my room. Suddenly, I looked at my "bookshelf" - the floor - which houses some of my favorite books. The first novel I noticed was Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, one of the best in my opinion. It reminded me immediately of TOK and the topics we have discussed in class regarding knowledge and our ways of knowing. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand outlines the foundations of her philosophy - Objectivism - in the tome's climax: John Galt's radio broadcast to the collapsing nation. The statements in his speech are profound, and helped me better understand the concept of "knowing," and also reinforce the conviction that I do know... well, anything... and thus I resolved to post a few of them here:

"Man's mind is the basic tool of his survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its consent is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch - or build a cyclotron - without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think" (Rand 1012).

"To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. Centuries ago, the man [Aristotle] who was - no matter what his errors - the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A thing is itself. You have never grasped the meaning of his statement. I am here to complete it: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification... Whatever you choose to consider, be it an object, an attribute or an action, the law of identity remains the same. A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn all at the same time. A is A. Or, if you wish it stated in simpler language: You cannot have your cake and eat it, too" (Rand 1016).

Know Thyself

2009-08-24T06:16:00.003-05:00

The Delphic oracle in ancient Greece had two sayings..."Know Thyself" and "Nothing to Excess." Although the original sayings were in Greek, the first one was displayed in Latin, Temet Nosce, above the Oracle's kitchen door in the first Matrix movie. Several comments on the first post of the year started to move down this path.

How does one know oneself? Is self-knowledge the surest knowledge that we have? Can you be wrong about yourself?

What is Knowledge?

2009-08-24T06:12:00.002-05:00

Wow! Talking about jumping in deep quickly! One of the many comments on the last post was the following:

This brings up the question: how do we, collectively, define true knowledge? Is it knowing how people feel, what people think, or why people do things? Is it a perfect understanding of another's mannerisms or history? Is it any combination of the above, or is it all of them? "True knowledge" seems an inherently vague concept- which is odd, as it seems to imply utter clarity.

How do we define knowledge? How do you define knowledge? The question originally asked about a collective definition? Can there be competing or individual definitions of knowledge, or does the question itself require there to be a common, collective, universal definition in the way that there must be a common, collective, universal definition of a triangle?

Welcome IB Class of 2011!

2009-08-13T15:20:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the 21st Century Agora! I am excited to start exploring ideas with you, and I look forward to getting to know all of you. The question is, how should I do that? Should I use the same methods by which I have come to know that a classic Mustang is smokin' hot? Should I use the methods I employed as I came to know that the Latin verb portare means "to carry?" Do team mates come to know each other using the same methods by which a parent comes to know a child, a child comes to know a parent, or spouses come to know each other?

How, then, I am to know you?

Oh, and what methods will you use to know me?

Knowing Things Helps

2009-04-26T19:44:00.004-05:00

Comprehension is the better part of argument. Despite the tempting simplicity of spewing quotes, reading and understanding them first helps.

“While Ayn Rand retains the traditional classification of art as well as the idea that the arts are essentially mimetic in nature she rejects the traditional view that the primary purpose of art is to afford pleasure and convey value through the creation of beauty, which she does not regard as a defining attribute. In her view, the primary purpose of art is much broader: it is the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man.” My emphasis.

Well golly gee, that sounds awful like recognizing art that doesn’t meet typical standards of beauty may still reflect “whatever is metaphysically important to man," even if it is a blue canvas - but that's a separate battle. A “selective re-creation of reality” is anything mimetic; whenever you reproduce something, you’re picking something real (we’ve got “selective” and “reality”) and reproducing it (“re-creation” – check). Let’s review: while Ayn Rand retains that art is essentially mimetic, she holds that every piece of art is a “selective re-creation of reality,” a phrase synonymous with “mimetic”. Groundbreaking philosophy; too bad Plato didn’t copyright it when he posited that a = a.

Next: “Further, Rand holds that the distinctive character of each of the major branches of art derives from--is determined by--a specific mode of human perception and cognition.” Another shocker: modes of mimetic art derive from the way we perceive the world, almost as if we reproduce things in response to the way we perceive them. Which would mean that art is mimetic. Third time’s a charm.

Now we’re in the deep waters: “As a consequence, she argues that, technological innovations notwithstanding, no truly new categories of art are possible, only recombinations and variants of the primary forms which have existed since prehistory.” Eternally existing primary forms? If only Plato could get paid royalties (or at least get associated with a popular political movement so people would read him). Remember that whole bit about mimetic art reproducing existing elements of Plato’s realm of ideals? Probably not, but I promise, we talked about it in class for about two years. Ayn Rand sure is refuting our class discussions and the foundations of Western thought.

“According to Rand, art serves a vital psychological need that is at once cognitive and emotional. Only through art, in her view, can man summon his values into full conscious focus, with the clarity and emotional immediacy of direct perception.” The dead horse has been thoroughly beaten, so I’ll just point to that discussion we had stemming from Perkins’ book of aesthetics thought experiments, specifically where a student is told by her psychologist to experience art to regain peace.

And the big finisher: “Thus she not only identifies what art is, in terms of essential characteristics, she also provides an enriched appreciation of the importance of art in human life. Moreover, in so doing, she makes clear why much of what the artworld [sic] has promoted as the art of the past hundred years is, by objective standards, a perversion of the very concept." Forgive me for not being blown away. Not ONLY has Ayn Rand told us that art is mimetic, she’s also told us that appreciating it is important. Here’s where things get fuzzy for me though: If art is not only “selective” but its means of presentation derive from “a specific mode of human perception and cognition,” how is it in the least bit objective? If appreciation is an individual task unifying emotion and cognition in an effort to establish a unity in “human existence,” how does it reach towards anything transcendentally objective, especially when art is, by your definition with my emphasis, “the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man”?
If you had actually read your quote before posting it, instead of just skimming from a line with the word “art” to a line with the word “objective,” you’d know that these claims are redundant not only compared to Plato but also to what we’ve said in class.

UPDATE: If you want to find these exact quotes online, you can do it in three easy steps.
1) Google "ayn rand on art"
2) click on the first result
3) click on Introduction. Don't worry, it's on the top half of the page.

FROM THE EXPERT ON EVERYTHING!!!!

2009-04-13T17:49:00.002-05:00

The words to articulate this came to me this morning while watching cartoons and I decided they merit recording.

Here's Ayn Rand on Art....she refutes most of what we've said in class. INTERESTING!!!!!
From the Introduction What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand by Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi:

"While Ayn Rand retains the traditional classification of art as well as the idea that the arts are essentially mimetic in nature she rejects the traditional view that the primary purpose of art is to afford pleasure and convey value through the creation of beauty, which she does not regard as a defining attribute. In her view, the primary purpose of art is much broader: it is the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man. For Rand, every art work whether of painting, sculpture, literature, music, or dance is a 'selective re-creation of reality' that serves to objectify, in an integrated form, significant aspects of its creator's basic 'sense of life.'

"Further, Rand holds that the distinctive character of each of the major branches of art derives from--is determined by--a specific mode of human perception and cognition. As a consequence, she argues that, technological innovations notwithstanding, no truly new categories of art are possible, only recombinations and variants of the primary forms which have existed since prehistory.

"According to Rand, art serves a vital psychological need that is at once cognitive and emotional. Only through art, in her view, can man summon his values into full conscious focus, with the clarity and emotional immediacy of direct perception. For Rand, then, art is a unique means of integrating the physical and psychological aspects of human existence. Thus she not only identifies what art is, in terms of essential characteristics, she also provides an enriched appreciation of the importance of art in human life. Moreover, in so doing, she makes clear why much of what the artworld has promoted as the art of the past hundred years is, by objective standards, a perversion of the very concept."

My Aesthetic Philosophy

2009-04-12T10:40:00.004-05:00

The words to articulate this came to me this morning and I decided they merit recording.

Good art makes itself more than its medium. A masterpiece is not simply paint on a canvas; it expresses a Truth so real that its relevance to the sentient world renders it incontestably present. Hamlet is great because its characters and concerns exist transcendentally and are presented by a creative entity so careful and accurate that the Truths being presented resonate in their audience as if it has encountered a flawless embodiment of the idea. It is the responsibility of the artist to express a real Truth consistently and accurately but it is the responsibility of the audience to consider all of the elements of the art as potentially accurate and question whether an innovative presentation does not more accurately reveal Truth than the tradition method to which the audience may be more accustomed.
Craft exists separately from art because it subordinates the artistic ideal (the accurate incarnation of Truth) to some other factor, often utility.
Being innovative is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being good art; one can fail their responsibilities as part of the audience either with too closed of a mind (rejecting all innovation without respect to its potential effectiveness) or too undiscerning of a mind (admiring innovation for its novelty and not holding it to standards of efficacy). Some modern art may be bogus, but not because it's different - because it's bad.

deciding on important art

2009-03-24T11:31:00.007-05:00

People’s opinion in judging a particular artwork is often relative. However, most of the time, people agree on the importance of a certain artworks. Especially curators, who are often educated and have the ability to judge the value of artworks. Although people may have different tastes in picking their favorite artworks; the style, composition, texture, use of color, light and lines and so on all contribute to, and to a degree, determine the quality of an artwork. Using art elements and principles, curators might not be able to determine or agree on the best piece of artwork, but they can definitely determine what's a good/important piece. Thus, these curators are using what they learned from (possibly) school as their source. They are relying on authority as a way of knowing. Also, the importance of an artwork might not mean only the quality of this artwork, it can also suggest historical significance and so on. Curators also need to use their logic to decide on important art. A great piece of art may strike anyone as important. Like everyone else, curators can often rely on their common sense and intuition as sources. But most importantly, curators need previous education and knowledge about art, including art principles, history, to judge and to serve as a way of knowing.

touch as a way of knowing

2009-03-24T11:23:00.011-05:00

Touch is a necessary way of knowing in almost every areas of knowledge. It might not be primary, but definitely important. Since we are talking about art, I’ll use art as an example. Art is certainly an area of knowledge where I find touch to be a primary way of knowing. Besides viewing a piece of artwork, the texture of the particular artwork is also very important. Through creating texture, artists can often express their individuality. An artwork with texture is usually more alive and interesting. Van Gogh for example is known for his use of texture. While viewing an artwork, people, including myself, are often tempted to touch the work and feel it. Through touching an artwork, one can learn more about the art, including the style, the theme and so on. Texture is an important element of art, mainly visual art. In the museum, visitors are not allowed to touch the artworks in order to prevent possible damage. However, “the problem with this is that it ignores and leaves out all those many artworks that the artist intended to be touched, handled, interacted with and explored in many different ways, including multi-sensory approaches. It also ignores the exciting input that artists can have in designing and creating interactive, which can give unique perspectives on other artists’ work.” Touch is even more important while judging sculptures and potteries, since how smooth the surface of, for example, a ceramic piece, determines its quality and value. Touch is a primary way of knowing in art. It is, however, less relevant to abstract areas of knowledge such as mathematics since numbers and calculations are often abstract ideas that touch can not be applied to.

Important Art and Phenomenological Translation

2009-03-24T05:43:00.002-05:00

First, the ways of deciding what's important art have to be varied and complex, or we'd all be capable of being curators. We ain't. Although some of these decisions must of course be guided by critical response to the art, the requirements of establishing a significant collection, and the audience, there's of course some elusive quality that requires years of study. The arrangement of pieces within an exhibit probably requires similar insight.
Perhaps good art (perhaps not important art) all shares a quality of leaving a phenomenological impression that transcends translation. If you could fairly explain the piece without the piece, why would you need the piece in the first place? Some art can do this - either in its ambiguity (no one translation can capture the entire phenomenological experience of viewing/interacting with the piece) or in complexity (there's just no way of putting it into words - perhaps the piece is not static and no description remains adequate permanently). In any case, there's a connection between what makes art Art and what makes art untranslateable.

Can you feel it?

2009-03-23T20:27:00.003-05:00

As Magister P asks: what areas of knowledge do you find touch to be a primary way of knowing? And why is it a preferred way of knowing for you in that area?

Morpheus and Magister P think alike. What is real? We can touch what we "see", and the sensations tell our brain that it is real. Touch presents itself as the strongest sensory method for identifying if something is real. Therefore I believe touch to be a very strong indicator if something exists. Physical, concrete molecules pushing back against your fingers is a pretty strong resource telling you that it is real. Other senses can be obscured and altered by optical illusions and sensory confusion, but if you are holding on to what you believe is real, then who is it to tell you that it isn't?

The 100 Acres exhibit will be a fantastic experience for anyone. But what will make it THAT much better is the non-repressed urge to go over to the art pieces and touch them! Who wouldn't love to climb, slide, sit on, jump off of the sculptures and such that are to be in the park? Instead of staring into a canvas with colored oil paste blobs and being quiet and serious...we can feel the surfaces beneath us and enjoy it (and why not sit there and relax too and take in the world around you in nature with the noises that permeate the 100 Acres exhibit as well)!

REAL LIFE!

2009-03-23T16:32:00.002-05:00

I AGREE! It's hard to put your finger on EXACTLY what makes actually experiencing something so much more valuable, spiritual, and moving. It's a little like seeing the actual Declaration of Independence in its glass case in Washington, D.C...all I could imagine was the founding fathers' hands actually grasping the pen to write their names on this document 233 years ago. The experience could not compare to seeing a fake copy of the Declaration. Seeing the "real thing" or the "real place" allows one to experience it with all his senses; he is not limited to one. Yet in the case of the Declaration, this spiritual experience can be completely in our minds (imagining the history, realizing the historical significance, etc.). Either way, the experience is a spiritual one, and even if experiencing a work of art in real life does not offer us greater knowledge (I didn't really LEARN anything new from seeing the actual Declaration of Independence) it is an enjoyable experience that can lead to inspiration--the building block of art.

2009-03-22T21:13:00.003-05:00

I am in complete agreement with what Jill and Ben said in their prior posts, suggesting that there are many things that cannot be completely captured with a picture or a video. The old adage suggests that a picture says a thousand words, but seeing an experience first-hand sure says a lot more than that. I do not think any documentary on the Grand Canyon and adequately qualify the experience of seeing it -- this is why thousands of tourists go there every year even though they can google a picture. If pictures really did an experience justice, then there would be few reasons to get out of bed in the morning. I can find most things on YouTube, so what would be the point.

But! I think that it is unfair to totally disregard the relevance and importance of pictures and video as a way of conveying an experience. In fact, there are some things that REQUIRE pictures and video to actually convey a certain experience. I immediately think of the television show "Planet Earth" on the Animal Planet. There are scenes of the earth that range from tiny microscopic images to far-reaching clips of the entire planet. If you have not seen this video, take a minute (or three): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5eJkjMLIRM. In case you don't have the time, it is a slow motion video of a shark attack. I can say with almost complete confidence that I will never have the opportunity to see this experience first hand in my entire life. I do realize that the experience was unique for the photographers who shoot the film and could be classified as an "phenomenological experience" that cannot be fully captured. But what can be said about microscopic images that no one can actually "experience" or take in? For me, the media arts often fills this void, allowing me to see an experience that I will never be fortunate enough to see in person.

Cuz he's hot then he's cold..!

2009-03-22T20:34:00.002-05:00

So I think one of the most obvious examples of touch being a way knowing is telling whether something is hot or cold. Though it may seem simple and unimportant it does in fact have a lot of value. Neural sensors on our skin are one of the main uses of our brain so that we can directly perceive and interpret the things outside our own body. To know the world outside our own body is one of the whole purpose of knowledge and learning; understanding more about the world around us so we can understand ourselves and our purpose within it better. Though touch serves mainly just utility purposes it has another extremely important function. The function may not be an "accepted" or clear area of knowledge but area is the area of safety for our body. One can sense if something is causing us pain whether it be tearing or burning our skin it is vital that we know when these events are occurring in order for us to survive and maintain our health. So this way of knowing might not be important in some study or research area, but it is very important in everyday life.

Sports is an Art...Right??

2009-03-22T20:24:00.002-05:00

When I first heard the reference to the translation of a phenomenological experience I immediately connected it to sports. Though it may seem like a superficial reaction and one only fueled by my love of sports and not so much fine art, it still seems very valid and pertinent to me. I watch a lot of sports on TV: basketball, football, baseball, and especially soccer. Through my experiences from watching games on television and actually going to a game at the stadium it is clear to me why TV can never quite capture the ambiance of a sports match. For me this is especially true for soccer games. So much of soccer is about the atmosphere surrounding it, everyone tries to cheer as loud and as long as possible to try and help the home team gain motivation to play better. This is combined with the numerous displays of flags, posters, confetti, streamers, and even smoke bombs. But you don't get the same experience by watching a whole bunch of rabid fans chanting and waving flags as you do when you're actually there throwing streamers on the field while trying to cover your face and mouth from the smoke of the bombs going off all around you. So having seen the difference between these i can say that there is nothing more true than this statement by Dr. Freiman about not being able to capture beauty of art, or sport, in pictures and video. That is why i will never turn down an opportunity to see a game or go to see a famous painting or monument because the first hand experience is one of a kind and cannot be replicated by anything.

Translation of the Phenomological Response: You Have to be There

2009-03-22T19:39:00.000-05:00

There is undoubtedly an ambiance to a place that cannot be captured with pictures. There are so many subtleties to a location that cannot be captured unless one is there—smell, temperature, and texture, among others. But in terms of the park, or an exhibit, I think the element that pictures can’t capture is simply reality. In a park, or any beautiful location, you can turn 360 degrees and see different views creating the whole picture; you really are under the sky, there is a stretch of grass to every side, and if you wanted you could walk a little ways and get new views from the park. However, if you are looking at a picture (even a film), you are limited to what that picture shows; it simply isn’t real, and if you look a few degrees left or right, you view the wall next the screen the picture is on, or something equally successful in reminding you that you are indeed viewing an image of something real and beautiful but not the thing itself.

The same could be said for a story. You are hearing a description of an event, but not the event itself. There are even more subtleties that cannot be accounted for in a story—you can’t physically see it, you can’t hear it (you may be missing out on a lot of tone, if the story involves people speaking), you can’t grasp what went really went on at all. You are forced to rely upon a very flawed description: it is a recount of what happened, it is from an individual’s perspective, it is limited by that individual’s capability of expression.

The even itself, and places themselves, simply cannot be translated; they must be witnessed.

Sound of Silence Response: Silence v Noise v Pleasant Sounds

2009-03-22T19:23:00.006-05:00

First I think it’s interesting to focus a little bit on the idea of “noise” as a term. I don’t think of noise necessarily as the opposite of silence. Noise seems inherently negative in terms of hearing, just as sharp seems a negative touch, or bitterness a negative taste. I consequently think of something inherently positive like “pleasant sounds” to be opposite noise. “Silence,” on the other hand, is not only an absence of noise, but also an absence of pleasant sounds. Silence can be both positive—relaxing, peaceful—and negative—foreboding, uncomfortable.

Now to apply these terms to the given questions. I find there to be an absurd amount of noise in my life, everywhere. In the morning, the sounds of people getting ready for work and school; at school, kids yelling in the hallways, constant lecturing (which is not always noise, but often is), intercom announcements, constant chatter, too much else to name; in the city, sirens, more chatter, construction, traffic; at home, sounds in the kitchen, more chatter (let’s be honest, arguments), and too many televisions. I must admit to contributing at least somewhat to virtually all of the listed noise. Noise is part of nearly every second in every location.

Ideally, one would seek out an absence of noise and a presence of pleasing sounds—it makes sense to want to trade a desirable sensation for an undesirable one. However, this idea has two problems: one, it is difficult to find a location that both lacks noise and has pleasing sounds. (For example, I sit by this creek sometimes in Marrott Park because I like the sound of rushing water, but I’m always frustrated by the fact that I can still hear the traffic a few hundred yards to my right.) Two, even pleasant sounds can turn into noise. (For example, I have been listening to the same group of birds yelling for the past half hour, and while it was pleasant at first, I have half a mind now to run at them with my hockey stick.) The consequence of being unable to find an ideal location with pleasant sounds but no noise is the desire for silence.

As silence does in fact have the capacity to be peaceful, it is often better to have silence and no noise than to have pleasant sounds and noise. Silence thus becomes essential to escape the constant unpleasantness of noise. (As I type this, I now hear sirens in addition to the cawing birds and televisions and chatter, and would like nothing more than to shut it all out.) It becomes essential to have quiet places anywhere they can be available, to escape noise. At the same time, it would not be desirable to have quiet everywhere, for that would bring in the elements of discomfort and foreboding (lacking continually the noise we have grown so accustomed to), and thus make noise sometimes preferable to the silence.

I suppose what I have arrived at is that it is essential to find a balance between noise and silence, to maintain peace of mind. What I would really love, however, is a wooded stream away from people and traffic, where I could tell the birds when to and when not to chirp, and maybe hear some Red Hot Chili Peppers when I felt like it. As I don’t think this place will ever exist, I will settle for a few short periods of daily silence to contrast the constant noise.

Translation of the Phenomenological

2009-03-20T12:03:00.002-05:00

At one point in her evening lecture, Dr. Freiman mentioned that all the best pictures and video in the world could not adequately convey to artists just what kind of environment 100 Acres is. She commented on the impossibility of translating a phenomenological experience.

Okay, first of all, I am just enough of a word freak to love an expression like "impossibility of translating a phenomenological experience."

But more to the point, why is it that pictures, even moving pictures with sound, cannot seem to convey all that there is to a place? Why do people when telling a story sometimes add, "you had to be there?"

The Sound of Silence

2009-03-20T11:57:00.003-05:00

Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar is planning a piece for 100 Acres called Park of the Laments.

What role, if any, does silence play in your life? According to Jaar, this park is to be "a place where we can lament and purge the global atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries."

What noise is there in your life? How much noise do you contribute, both to your own life and to the world around you?

How important or unimportant do you think it is to have quiet space...in your life? in the a school? in a city?

Kinesthetic Knowing

2009-03-20T11:54:00.002-05:00

In her evening lecture, Dr. Freiman commented that one of the ways we learn in our society is through touch and the use of our kinesthetic senses.

It struck me that we had never discussed this particular way of knowing.

So...

In what ares of knowledge do you find touch to be a primary way of knowing? Why is it a preferred way of knowing for you in that area? What are its drawbacks in this or any other area of knowing?

Deciding on Important Art

2009-03-20T11:50:00.002-05:00

I had the opportunity to ask Dr. Freiman between her afternoon and evening lectures a question quite relavant to TOK. I asked, "How do you in your role as a curator decide what is important art? In particular, how did you determine which artists to invite into the 100 Acres project.

Before I share what her responses were...and she may share herself, since I have sent her an invitation to our blog...I want to hear from you. What ways of knowing do you think a curator would employ in making such decisions?

2009-02-12T15:33:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry if we sounded disrespectful or rude in any way concerning the obituary! I realize that if it was my own deceased grandmother/mother, I might not have found it so funny. But at the same time, the humor we found in the article was NOT from the out of body experience itself or the fact that she was forced to use her right hand, but rather in the way it was presented. It's like a politically-incorrect joke. My dad has a ton of jewish jokes; he learned all of them from his many Jewish friends while in college in Boston. The jokes are hilarious, but my dad is the farthest thing from anti-Jewish--some of his best friends are Jews. Yet his jokes never really cross the line, and he knows what should be a joke and what's not funny. However, they'll always be people who are offended at the slightest things. A problem of perception, maybe? Regardless, I thought the obituary was funny. I believe that I am in no way disrespecting the woman and the merit of her life. I would be embarrassed if anyone thought I was disrespectful, and I'm sorry if it appeared that way!

The Invention of TOK

2009-01-12T19:19:00.003-05:00

Take a look at this great cartoon that Alley M. brought to me today. Very TOK!

Excellent Finals!

2008-12-18T15:47:00.002-05:00

As I graded your finals, I could only think how wonderful your TOK papers will be. If you write your papers half as well as you wrote this final, you will be in excellent shape. I could not believe how thorough and in-depth your writing was on an extemporaneous essay!

Have a great break!

2008-12-10T21:20:00.005-05:00

In our recent discussions, we have talked about finding an equation to model everything in our universe, everything from the micro to the macro, the tangible to the intangible. I find this task to be taking on too much. I believe that capabilities such as finding the universal equation cannot be achieved because some things are not meant to be discovered. I don't mean this as in the moment that a person finds this equation that Zeus will strike them with a lightning bolt, but this desire to know everything has an uncomfortable feeling with me.

Heisenberg and other physicists in the first half of the 20th Century had researched to develop an equation to map the formulation of quantum physics. All though their main goal had been too find this equation, Heisenberg was constantly troubled by the variables. His primary concern to solve was that uncertainty is actually a property of the world. And in this it was physically impossible to measure specific momentum and particle positions to a degree that would able him to model an equation to quantum mechanics.

Physicists have come up with formulas such as the Schrödinger equation, and Heisenberg's matrix model, but how do these improve our society? Sure, physics and science play a key role and our advancement is dependent upon critical thought. But maybe the Schrödinger equation, and Heisenberg's matrix model are a little too much? Sorry about the location of the equation above, but I am happy living my life without worrying what that even means.

Asimo

2008-12-09T08:22:00.002-05:00

I apologize that this is extremely unrelated to the current topics at hand, but I saw this video and needed to share. It appears that robots (or at least this one specifically) are learning to embrace abstraction, an ability supposedly characteristic of humans. Here is the video for those interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18wSJs6LIc0

If you don't wish to watch the video: Asimo is presented with an object "Chair." He looks at its properties and can identify it as a Chair. He is then is presented with an office stool which he recognizes as another type of Chair. And then he is presented with a small table, which he recognizes as not a type of Chair.

Main point: we should warn Will Smith.
(An awful IRobot reference)

Hunger Articles

2008-12-04T05:50:00.003-05:00

Of all the information present in the articles on hunger, what I found most interesting was the statement made that hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. Diseases such as AIDS have no known cure; a diagnoses is certain death. However, hunger is not incurable. In fact, the resources used to cure hunger (food, obviously) is so overwhelmingly present in my life that I often throw food away without a second thought. When I was a child my grandmother always told me to eat all my food because there were children starving all over the world. While that argument seems stupid to me now (really, how is my food going to help them?), it has become obvious that food distribution, not food availability is the factor killing people in poverty. Everyday I hear of scientific studies to find cures for AIDS, cancer, and other diseases that are currently fatal. Hunger is fatal as well, but there is a known cure. Why then, do I not hear of scientists studies to discover ways to distribute the food that is already produced. The task seems much easier than curing AIDS, and the problem is much more widespread. I think the answer has something to do with the state of American poverty. Poverty in the United States is much less a result of food distribution than poverty in other countries. With all the cheap food available at WalMart and McDonald's we find it hard to conceptualize that food just doesn't exist in the abundance and cheapness in other countries as it does in the United States. Therefore many Americans, including myself, will donate food to homeless shelters or money to humanitarian groups. However, very few are able to recognize the need to research a way to eliminate this problem rather than merely donate. In effect, it is a problem of knowledge. Most of us only know about foreign poverty through articles and tv reports, very few have been able to see it or experience it. This knowledge is too removed, and doesn't allow us to realize the correct way to cure the problem of foreign hunger.

1 life + 1 computer + 10 minutes = -100 lives

2008-12-01T18:36:00.004-05:00

To be honest none of the information in these articles surprised me. I've seen similar facts and figures year after year but the numbers merely build. Even though I know I've seen it all before, I'm still shocked by what the articles have to say. I don't think it's the numbers and figures are what makes my jaw drop: it's because of the lack of help being done to prevent the rise in these figures. The articles focus on world hunger and especially, child hunger. What I don't understand is that so much focus has been put on world hunger that less attention is being put on our own country's problems with hunger. It may sound selfish but it's true. We need to learn how to balance between help in other countries and our own. In the U.S. Declaration of Independence, it promotes the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Isn't a part of life, food and water? If we don't eat or drink we die. It's as simple as that. We should have more than enough resources for everyone to have what they need; and we do. The problem is people are consuming what they want, exceeding what they need. In the first article (Blake), it said "everytime an American bites down on a steak or hamburger, they're contributing to global hunger." This is because this burger (probably soaked in grease, topped with too much bacon, and more than one stacked patty) is excess at its finest. You always hear the expression "Less is more," it's because less is enough. Less is the minimum and I don't mean minimum like minimum wage. I mean the minimum that you can survive well; you are fit, happy, and healthy.

The one aspect that also moved me emotionally about the articles was the mothers having to choose which child lives. They don't know the future of their child: what they will amount to, what they will acheive. However, the mothers have the power to end this one life by denying their child a basic right to life. It doesn't make sense that many individuals today are pro-life when it comes to abortion yet when it comes to hunger they fall short. During the election I heard so many campaigns about being pro-life or pro-choice but I didn't hear a mention of tackling hunger [national or world-wide]. I just don't understand how this inconsistency in support can be tolerated when I can't even begin to think about how many children have died in the time that I have typed this entry on the blog.

Why Help When Big Problem will Still Persist?

2008-11-26T12:12:00.003-05:00

People have been telling me and posting on the blog that the issue of poverty will never be resolved. Though that is true, the issue of poverty should still be tackled. Even though the problem with poverty will continue on the big scale, it might not persist on the smaller scale. What that means is this: when someone helps a family in need, they are alleviating that family's needy disposition. The problem of poverty, even though it will persist on the large and national scale, it will not persist for that family that was aided from poverty. People who claim that helping people in poverty will not eliminate poverty are being ignorant; they want to find an excuse not to help others because they find that the big picture matters way more than the little picture. All I have to say to that is this: without the little picture the big picture would not exist. By helping anybody in poverty you are alleviating some aspect of their suffering, even if the big problem with poverty still exists overall it does not exists within the aided family. So when it comes down to relieving poverty, keep in mind while you might not be able to change the overall condition of poverty you might be able to change the individuals that experience such poverty.

Life

2008-11-25T11:04:00.001-05:00

There is no arguing that poverty and hunger are major problems in our world. 12.2% of Americans do not currently have the financial stability to provide reliable sources of food for their families. I do not think there is an educated person on this planet that would deny that hunger and starvation are serious problems. The question then becomes what to do about this problem. As to the article about the Spanish Funds that were originally earmarked for Africa going to the United Nations, I find nothing wrong with this. If the Spanish Government feels that their own tax payers’ money would be of better use to citizens of Spain by going to the United Nations, then there is where the money should be going. It is, in the end, the Spanish tax payers’ money and it should help them. Anyone who criticizes this action should take a long look at the United States Budget and realize the hypocrisy in their statement.
By no means do I have a solution to hunger problem of the world. In truth, there is enough land and resources to provide food for every single person in the world. However, it is not economically practical. What benefit does a person have to growing food if they will not be reimbursed for their time and effort? Unless someone is willing to pay for the entire world to eat, then we are at a standstill.

NUMB=scary

2008-11-24T17:38:00.004-05:00

Ok. First I will respond to Mr. Perkins's post on Aristotle's view of resource redistribution. Hypothetical, dreamy, perfect, Utopian situation: We lived in a world in which every adult is responsible enough (when going through tough times financially) to use the help of others constructively to get back on their feet. When your neighbor just lost his job, you loan him some money, he immediately begins searching for a new job, he eventually succeeds, and even if he lands a minimum-wage-paying fastfood job, 7$ an hour is better than nothing. He eventually does not need your help anymore, and then little by little, pays you back for your good neighborliness. OH, WHAT A WORLD! But, Aristotle, I'm sorry. There are just too many people with their hands open and waiting for Uncle Sam to "give a little," and the problem is, most of them forget step 2! THEY DO NOT LOOK FOR JOBS. THEY KEEP ON HAVING KIDS. THEY DO NOT CARE THAT RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS ARE PAYING FOR THEIR WRECKLESSNESS. (I understand that there are exceptions, but I'm simply talking about the majority) Until the day government stops being so lax, lenient, and self-destructive (in a well thought out, gradual program which REDUCES welfare, but does not end it in one swift step, of course!) I really do not think that our society can ascend to the level of morality, logic, and courtesy which Aristotle assumes in his proposition.

The second thing I want to say is that I am utterly embarrassed (rightfully or wrongfully so, I'm not sure) that, when reading the hunger articles, i was honestly, completely and absolutely, NUMB to every single word. I felt while reading them, that every number and statistic did nothing but make the paragraph pass more quickly, and I comprehended not a SINGLE stat. It's not as if I read an article on hunger every single day, so I cannot plead over-exposure as the cause of my insensitivity. I almost think that it is the effect of detachedness. I personally have never faced hunger, I personally eat well more than my fair share every meal, and nobody I personally know faces a situation unlike mine. Nonetheless, it is a problem. And, as we have seen from the articles and further posts on here, there are many ways to fight the problem. #1) Doing something is better than nothing. #2) after researching further on the economic efficiency of the different ways of helping, one should act accordingly, helping the hunger problem by using the method found to be most efficient economically/ most convenient. (whichever trait causes more participation) I do tend to agree that a lack of food is not the problem, but the distribution is. Whether sponsoring livestock to be grown or sending money to Haiti, help is needed. And as for having to pick which child lives, there is NO WAY on this earth that I would EVER be able to do it, but once again, i don't need to.

Like Victor said, resources are finite. But that does not mean we can just ignore the problem, saying that "hey, in a few centuries there won't be food anyway, so why bother now?" People do not live for centuries. Their lives are finite, too, and in this case, more finite than the resources fueling them. Therefore helping is both logical and moral, as long as we are perpetually trying to fix the CAUSE of the problem, and not just fix the immediate and current situation. adlskfj I mean I guess the point of ALLLLL of this is that we aren't actually there starving, picking out whether little joe or johnny lives, and so all we can really do is go off of what we got (potentially chillling, yet frighteningly uneffective--for me at least--articles), make a judgment (am i going to help or not?) and then act.

Hunger Articles

2008-11-23T19:40:00.003-05:00

As much as i hate doing this...i have to refer to Carl Gibson. One day during his rants on something other than physics he showed us the iconic picture of the earth taken by the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon. He said the earth was not infinite, our resources are limited and will eventually run out. After reading these articles that picture jumped right into my head. At the time i was just hoping i could learn about kinetic energy but now i see what he was talking about. The population of the earth is increasing dramatically and by 2012 its expected to reach 7 billion. Our population increases but our resources are finite. I believe the human race will follow the standard population curve. It will continue to increase until resources dip to the point where growth cannot occur, at which point it will level off. But when will we reach this point? If you look at the human race one clear things stands out; our need to improve our situation. We develop methods, invent things, learn things all to better ourselves. In a way these have all helped us increase our chances of survival, they are a higher order animals way of passing on genes and acknowleging darwin i.e. "hey i dont like small pox...no worries ill just develop a vaccine" or "man i wish my crops would grow, no worry ive got slash and burn, along with fertilizers." But i dont believe there will ever be a method to solving the problem of the finite earth. Even if the population problem is solved, which is highly unlikely, we still are trapped to the parameters of this place. The only way to truly solve this problem is to get yourself a paradigm shift and get off this rock. btw this is Victor

Articles Response

2008-11-23T17:43:00.002-05:00

WHICH CHILD EATS WHICH CHILD DIES and HUNGER AMONG U.S. CHILDREN. I find the argument "even if we feed a few people the problem is going to exist, so we can't really do anything about hunger" to be exceptionally flawed. In addition to the large-scale solutions suggested by the article, I think another solution could stem from the idea that "2008 was a record year in terms of harvest. There's more food per person in 2008 than there's ever been in history. The problem is not food, but how we distribute it." It would take some innovation and will to solve the distribution problem, but it's not impossible. Hunger as a problem could be battled, not even taking into account the idea that helping individuals is as important--to those individuals--as trying to solve the overarching problem itself.

ART OR FOOD. I don't think it's useful to argue whether or not the $14 million should have come from taxpayer money to go to this ceiling; the representatives believed it was necessary, and it was effectually their call. The only aspect of the debate I can plausibly argue is that $1 million of that money was earmarked for African aid. Ethics aside, just looking at this from a governmental perspective, it seems quite clear to me that this ceiling does not constitute African aide. I suppose meetings held in the room may deal with human rights in Africa or something to that effect but really... when that $1 million were approved, I'm sure the intent was understood that the money would go to Africa. Not art. Throw back in ethics, and this expenditure is absurd. I have a hard time believing they could not find at least $1 million-worth more of private donors to fund the art.

response to the articles

2008-11-23T12:54:00.003-05:00

I think the comment made by Wolff in the first article was really chilling: something about how anyone who has been born into an affluent, not-starving family is just lucky. And I agree with whoever said that being born into such a family presents those lucky people with a duty. A duty to realize that we cant always apply our reasoning or circumstances to these sorts of decisions...yes, maybe people should get their acts together and work on birth control and stuff but REALLY!!! I guess I can understand how people say that large families are just asking for it. But I cant believe that! Its easy to say, from our perspective, These people are pathetic and lazy and lacking in personal responsibility. But thats a pretty wide judgment to make and I think there are people who have ended up killing off their kids in Haiti from no fault of their own. So isnt it better to risk helping some bums and provide aid to the people who really need it? And give them the benefit of the doubt that not all these large families are the result of carelessness or manipulation or laziness? I mean, yeah longterm we need to teach them to fish I guess. But whos gonna be left to learn if we dont just assume they were acting in their own best interest and help them out? Its kinda like giving money to those people downtown who I just know are going to use it for cigarettes and stuff which is totally lame but do I need the money all that desperately??NO!! I dont think thats naive. They might as well have it to spend it however they want and thats not really helping them (---1.theyre using it in a bad way 2.they wont get any food or anything from it 3.it doesnt teach them to work for themselves) but I think that everyone should get the right to have some money!!! (argh that is kinda naive and pretty scarily liberal but Im not all sorted out on my moral beliefs?!?!?!) I guess that is a stretch and not quite part of the "duty" We All Have To Less Fortunate People and stuff but sorta same idea.

SO Im not sure that makes any sense but to kind of sum it up.... We can sit here and say that these people should have made more informed decisions but I really dont think anyone who hasnt been in that situation has that right. We have a duty to realize that our sorts of reasoning dont always extend to their situations. (---flashback to our "best convo of the year" that one day in class---)

And then...the third article about the UN ceiling. I forget who said in class that its all about how it was TAXPAYER money, but I think that really is the key thing there. And how Jill said that it was assigned to be used for a certain thing and then wasnt used for that certain purpose. So if youre gonna push a load of tax money into a pot called Relief and then go paint a ceiling with it, youre taking something (rights??) away from the taxpayers and the people who were originally going to get relief, whether or not they depended on it. SO, not fair.

So I BELIEVE that before you call the shots on somebody who is starving and choosing children in Haiti, you go live in Haiti and see how you feel. Until then, we might as well help them out. And eventually teach them to fish.

from Keane Mossman

2008-11-20T12:43:00.000-05:00

The following is from Keane:

In regard to the first article concerning Hunger in Haiti, I do understand that hunger there is a significant problem, but the way the country historically has gone about solving the problem is not the right way to do it. As much as I hate to say it, if the woman there are worried about feeding their children than perhaps they shouldnt have as many children? Same pertains to the United States and a college education. Here we are pressured more than ever to get a college education but it is very expensive. So what is a woman in America supposed to do when her 5 children all want to go to college for 20,000$ a year? The solution is to think in advance. Morally it sounds terrible to say something like that I know, but as humans we cannot take on challenges that are bigger than ourselves if we have strong doubt that we cannot survive the struggle to reach the goals we set. The goals must be backed by something before they can be attained. In Haiti a woman should make sure that she can support 1 child, then if she can go on and support another. A person knows what kind of situation they are and what they are capable of doing and if they are in a very poor place with little resources bringing multiple people into the world only dispells the resources quicker. From a moral standpoint I believe we should help the people by teaching them how to grow or produce their own food rather than just giving it to them, but from a more realistic point we have limits in this world one way or the other and we cope with what we have and the key is planning for the future and learning from what you have...

2008-11-20T12:41:00.005-05:00

I always knew that hunger posts a big problem to the world. However, I was still surprised by the first two articles. "A child dies of hunger every six seconds, and hunger now kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tubercuosis combied." Everywhere, we hear about AIDS or other diseases. Although we all acknowledge the existence of hunger, at least to me, the problem of hunger becomes so obvious that it didn't seem as important as diseases such as AIDS. At first I thought, it is because I'm in America, where hunger is not as big a problem as in other countries. But after I read the second artical, I realized that, hunger is a big problem even to the U.S. I think the U.S. government has tried to help everyone in need with things like the foodstamp etc. However, is everyone taking advantages of the U.S. government? I have heard that, many N.C. students, who are in need, didn't even take advantage of our free/reduced lunch program.
Also, I didn't think even after I read the articles that the problem of hunger is food. Instead, I agree with Patel in the first artical that "the problem is not food, but how we distrubute it". U.N. Human Rights Council are spending $14 million on a stupid ceiling! Including the money ($1 million) that was suppose to be used in African aid. The problem is not that we do not have money, but we did not use the money well enough to help everyone in need. Also, it is ironic to me that the Human Rights Council are the ones behind this project. It is everyone's basic right (or even the most basic and important right) to be provided with food, like stated in the first article. If the Human Rights Council do not provide everyone with their basic rights, and instead, spending millions of dollars on an art project instead of food, then what the point of a Human Rights Council?

2008-11-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

I am addressing the issue of personal responsibility in Haiti. I think that the people in Haiti are very deserving of our aid and are in desperate need for food and other necessary supplies to provide them with adequate clothing and shelter. Just as the second article comments, the poor people at Haiti are not at fault for being born into an impoverished country. The only acceptable way to evaluate their personal responsibility is to judge the actions they have taken concerning their situation. I believe that no one should have to choose which child should survive when dealing out food; however, the parents do have control over the size of their families. I am not saying that people who are poor automatically should not have large families. I only think that perhaps they should take into consideration the repercussions of economic hardships on their children’s lives BEFORE starting their families.

I agree that the government should get involved in eliminating poverty to a certain degree, but I cannot honestly support a government system limiting the number of children a family has (as they do in China to try and eliminate a great deal of poverty and prevent over-population). I think that the individual families must make their own decisions regarding family size, and that it is their personal responsibility-not the governments-to insure they can provide for the children they choose to have or not have. However, I also admit that many of the families may have no accurate way of judging how many people they can reasonably support and that there are so many families who are already large, that an outside group or government or SOMEONE must step in to solve the already existing poverty.

I like the idea of teaching the native people to make the Medika Mamba in order to supplement a great deal of the nutrients needed. Although this does not solve the problem of poverty, it certainly is a start to a temporary fix in certain parts of Haiti by providing the community with jobs and food. Perhaps we need to have individuals and private agencies in the United States willing to step up and help these struggling people either by providing them with a small degree of education, decent-paying jobs, or enough food/money/other handouts to get the family back on their feet. As a way of giving back to the community for the blessings given to us as Americans, we need to help these other struggling people. This should be something we do out of goodness and willingness to help others, not to be dictated by the government. Honestly, if the government donates our money through taxes, we see little of its development and have no personal connection or knowledge to where the funds go---they could be used to purchase “300$ hammers” or other ridiculous projects. By donating money as individuals, we are upholding our personal responsibility to the rest of humanity. How sad is it that we have to have the government to take away our money and give it to the impoverished? How selfish are we as a nation that we cannot donate a few dollars through our own will? Donating privately also allows us to choose which charity/country/area/group of people/type of project we put our money towards. Once we see the results of our own endeavors, won’t we be more willing to support new projects in the future?

And as a response to the poverty project/ where the money is going; perhaps we should give the money instead to a program that purchases livestock for families in impoverished countries? For example, they purchase cows, goats, chickens etc so that the family can sell milk/cheese/eggs for profit and keep some of it for consumption? I will look more into the project and get a name and idea of how much money it costs. It may be a more direct way of getting involved, though

typical poverty article.

2008-11-20T11:59:00.003-05:00

The first article was well-done, but frankly, not surprising, interesting, or anything unique. It's a typical world-hunger/poverty awareness article. The problem does exist, like the article elaborately explains. A solution is given: "The problem is not food, but how we distribute it." Redistribution of food? He's right--the problem isn't the amount of food. The problem is the leaders of these impoverished countries and the poor decisions of adults to have children if they can't afford to feed them. Wealthier countries are wealthy for a reason. To solve this problem, we must rely on organizations that help curb world hunger and encourage representative democracies, capitalism, and true liberty. Succeeding economies reached through free markets mean more products and more food. On a more basic/personal level, parents need to be responsible for themselves, their lives, and their actions. Don't have kids if you can't afford them. In the words of Neal Boortz, "Don't buy a yacht if you can't afford one. Don't have kids if you can't afford diapers." The problem is a big one...and certainly one that concerns me. But redistributing wealth from one country to another is a temporary solution. Like the article mentions, teach them to fish, don't just throw one at them.

We can't change it

2008-11-20T11:21:00.002-05:00

This may make me a horrible person, but I wasn't moved by any of these articles. They're sad, but I was already aware of the dayly struggle for families to provide nurishment for their children. I have a hard time caring about people I don't have to interact with on a daily basis, problably like most of the students in this school who don't realize that students, sometimes their classmates, don't eat on a regular basis. As the world is right now, nothing can be done for the millions of starving individuals in the world, so I don't worry about something I can't change. My influence is limited and even if I attempt to help those dieing from starvation I can't help everybody. But I don't mean to say that nothing can ever be done. I just done believe a group of unknown highschooler can solve anything. Even if we feed a thousand people the problem will still exist. The root of the problem is the lack of resources which in this lifetime cannot be solved, so I didn't get worked up over information I already knew, and I don't think anything can change my mind.

2008-11-20T06:05:00.002-05:00

The first article had the strongest effect on me. I prefer to look at the problem of hunger and poverty using my emotions and not just focusing on the numbers involved-- how many people, how much money-- I think when people just focus on that it creates a disconnect between the people suffering and ourselves. Even though the second article was focused on poverty in the United States I felt the most disconnected with that information, because there were too many numbers too many statistics, and by the end those numbers could have been anything their significance got lost in the lists of all the statistics. I liked the first article because it included a real example. A choice that although I am not even close to being able to truly understand I can imagine to the best of my ability and it makes me feel bad for the people starving and the children dying. Also, I agree most with the method of aid the first article suggests. Teaching the people of Haiti to make their own food is the best solution in the long run, but I don't think the United States can really use the same approach to deal with the US hunger mentioned in the second article. In Haiti most people have land they can grow food on or they have agricultural communities but in the United States the people starving in the middle of cities, where are they supposed to plant their crops?I think the third article did a good job of putting the whole situation into perspective and illustrating how the aid funds aren't being used correctly. But, I'm not all that shocked by the amount of the money spent, because I feel like the United States is constantly throwing large sums of money around on things like war that I feel could be better used to help those suffering in our country. I think the difference in this case is that money was supposed to be used to help people and spain claimed that building this mural was helping people. I don't really know how I feel about this in this moment if I was one of those tax payers I would be upset, but I can imagine that 50 years from now when the economy is better the people of Spain might be proud of their mural in the UN building. All three of these articles do a good job for the most part of illustrating the problems with hunger and the problems faced in combating hunger, yet sadly none of it was stuff I didn't already know or haven't heard before. Hunger might be getting worse but it has been present forever and we've failed to fix it so I don't think unless there are some drastic changes in strategy that we'll be able to help combat hunger and starvation today.

Too Many People

2008-11-19T22:38:00.003-05:00

To me, these articles really just say that there are too many people alive today. The problem of hunger is only magnified by having more people; the arable space of the world is finite. Expecting to solve world hunger in the face of current overpopulation isn't realistic. We should deal with that first.

2008-11-19T22:22:00.007-05:00

Okay, everyone should read the articles and understand that hunger is a real issue both in third world countries and also in the US. However, I would be shocked if anyone was surprised to hear that people are starving. Yes it's a horrible truth that people die from starving, but these articles seem to just restate what we already know but conveniently forget: people go hungy everyday and die from starvation. I hope that people would donate to a soup kitchen or hunger charity and try to excite others to do the same instead of just complaining about people eating steak.

"The" Question

2008-11-19T22:22:00.006-05:00

The most powerful part to the articles to me is the end of the first article. That question that many people bring up, why in the shuffling of the soul deck was mine placed in the united states of america into an affluent white family. Thinking about this too much makes my brain hurt so i won't try to put it down into words but i will explain what effect the question has on me. I have a duty. When i am at all able, in the time i don't divide between school, my job, and other activities i have something else to be doing. That is to find whatever way i can to help the problems in our world. It is too too unfortunate for these people simply to be born into a place where they dont have any chance to change their life, they simply don't have food growing up. The world is already scary enough growing up, realizing how big it is and all the bad things in it but to be starving at the same time is tragic. Because of this i feel an innate sense of responsibility that i should be doing something, anything whenever i can. This ranges from donating money to donating my time to just learning more about the problem so i can better explain it to others so they can help solve it as well. My point to all this is that everyone in good condition should find time to do this, i truly believe this is our human ethical and moral duty to others as it is said that the right to food is a natural human right.

Article Responses

2008-11-19T21:52:00.002-05:00

Personally, the first article was my favorite out of the three. I thought that the employer in Haiti was very smart in her solution for helping people in a food crisis, by teaching them how to acquire their food. As the article stated, the solution does not solely depend upon each particular country. When countries collaborate, they create more powerful and effective solutions. It is obviously awful that parents have to choose between their own children's lives, but I do have to say that it is partially their fault. It is not always their fault that they don't have food, but choosing to bring a child into the world knowing that they do not have the means for feeding is too careless. I don't wish to get political about it, but it does bother me that women, especially single mothers have a child and yet decide to have another child without means for feeding him or her.

The second article is more specific to U.S. food shortages. These food shortages all connect to many other issues including poverty, unemployment, etc. In order to resolve the food shortage, it is necessary to try to reduce poverty. Simply feeding people is a temporary fix, and will by no means end the food shortage. The United States government needs to find a solution for all of the people in poverty instead of focusing on temporary fixes that aren't even working.

The third article confused me a little. I don't exactly know what type of art work they were putting up but I think that the artwork is being blown out of proportion. The desire for a mural on a ceiling does not mean that the people working in the Council are not doing their job. Of course it would be better if they used that money in order to help the people that need it the most but I think it falls into a completely different category. The city of Indianapolis designates a certain amount of money for different purposes. The money that is in a welfare program is not in the same area as the money for landscape designing. Could Indianapolis function without landscaping? probably, but it does not have anything to do with the people in Indianapolis who are in poverty. That is the way things work, and unless there is a complete change in the entire world on these principles, there will be no difference. There must be a complete paradigm shift.

2008-11-19T19:49:00.003-05:00

The first article provides a staggering perspective on the degree of poverty and hunger which is an everyday reality in the third world. The picture of mothers making a choice between their sons and daughters, deciding who will live and who will die, is enough to impress the grimness of the situation on anyone. If statistics are sometimes hard to comprehend and convert into meaningful understanding, this article provides a very real and very emotional description of what numbers might mean on the personal level. While I agree with Ryan on the immense weight of this experience and the impossibility of any of us to truly comprehend what it must be like, I think it speaks in a way that a number of dead on a battlefield cannot -- it gives us an example of the actual thoughts and pain which must pass through these individuals' heads.

The second article, focusing on poverty in the United States, takes a much more practical and statistical approach. Though its numbers are certainly alarming -- 11.9 million Americans went hungry in 2007 -- we are not given the same close and personal view of the problem. However, the article continues to impress the gravity of poverty -- it's not just a third-world issue, it's happening in staggering proportions right here in the United States.

These articles cast a negative light on the allocation of relief funds by the Spanish government described in the third article. While it is certainly important to build the infrastructure of international organizations, and the UN Human Rights Council is likely an appropriate target for relief funding, using aid funds for a $14 million painting is unacceptable. If the money were used simply to build the necessary headquarters for the council, funds intended for relief might be appropriate. However, a $14 million ceiling is an expression of decadence which is s distinctly unethical use of money clearly not intended for this purpose. When experts believe that "hunger can be conquered" and relief funding can provide mass quantities of valuable, nutritious food products like "Medika Mamba", there is no excuse for using aid funding for such a misguided purpose.

What is the source of the problem?

2008-11-19T10:53:00.006-05:00

Last Thursday I had the opportunity go see my favorite author, Greg Mortenson, speak at DePauw University. After reading his book, Three Cups of Tea last year, I have sided with Mortenson's beliefs that the only way to fix poverty is to build schools and educate children. However, his real emphasis is to educate the girls of these poverty stricken villages of rural Afghanistan and Pakistan. By educating the girls of these villages, these villages will have foundations upon which they can grow and become more productive. Mortenson says that over time, this procedure of educating WOMEN will significantly reduce poverty, and thus, reduce world wide hunger.

Robert Malthus projected that there would be a day when the population would surpass the food supply that this world is capable of producing. I completely agree with these Malthusian ideas. Overpopulation in this world is the base problem for the hunger dilemma that is sweeping the earth.

Using a combination of Mortenson's and Malthus's ideas, the conclusion can be drawn that women need to be educated about the effects of bringing new humans into this world when they have no chance of supporting them properly. In article I, Haitians are troubled by terrible hunger problems because they live in horrible conditions and continue to have multiple offspring. If the article says they know they are faced to make the decision between which child gets to eat, and which child dies, then it seems plausible to think that they would be able to make the decision on whether to have sex and risk bringing another child into the world that will not survive.

Hunger.......Its Real and What We Need to Be Doing to End It

2008-11-18T21:45:00.006-05:00

After I read the article that stated that "mothers in Haiti wait to name their newborns because so many die of malnourishment" I was like WOW, hunger is truly a terrible thing. When I wake up in the morning I usually try to eat breakfast. There are some mornings that I wake up for school late and then end up being in a rush and miss breakfast. I would go to school and as I sit there in Russell's class I would moan with hunger. Thinking back was I really hungry? Compared to these children and families in these impoverish conditions my hunger can't even be called hunger but rather meaningless complaints. These people go for days without the level of nourishment needed. They struggle on basic human needs, such as food and water. It is terrible what these people go through day by day, suffering the pain and struggle that is hunger. I find that the only solution is by education, not on math or science, but on food. We should teach these impoverish and hungry children and adults how to grow food properly,how to gather and obtain food, and the proper way to store the food for later consumption. We should also go about teaching these hungry individuals who are impoverish the art of properly financing themselves and their family, and just maybe, we can make them self sufficient and even hunger itself would not be an issue for them and their family.

Reconsidering Priorities

2008-11-18T20:50:00.004-05:00

For starters, I don't know if this was intentional on Mr. Perkins' part or not, but I suggest that everyone read the articles in the order listed on the post. It puts the last article in a better perspective.

I pulled some quotes that I thought were especially important to me. A lot of these fit PERFECTLY with the conversations we were having on poverty and welfare.

"They try to keep them alive by feeding them, but sometimes they make the decision that this one has to go" -- I can read this sentence, but I don't think I can actually comprehend this statement. To me, it is like reading that 24 people died in a bomb attack in Iraq. The number seems staggering, but I realize that I will never (assuming our country does not take a significant downturn) be able to understand what it is like to choose between two children. What kind of way of knowing would you use to pick between two children. I think there is none. If this does not illustrate the severity of global poverty, what will ever cause people to take action? For most people, I sadly believe that it takes personal exposure to the experience before you can empathize. I think this is why the poor give a greater percentage to charities.

"The right to food should be seen as a human right" -- this quote simply posed a question. Is the right to food a human right? It is not in our bill of rights, and people die of poverty and hunger in the United States. The government attempts to combat this problem through social programs, yet "one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately." We afford even the worst criminals the right to food and shelter. Should this right be granted to everyone, regardless of circumstances or will?

"Instead of throwing fish in the crowd, we should be teaching people how to fish" -- This strikes exactly on the issue of personal responsibility that we discussed earlier. However, I think this illustration is significantly different. Those in the United States often argue in favor of personal responsibility because welfare is a drain on the system. This is not the same as the premise of personal responsibility that we use to argue. Instead, this refers to the necessity of TEACHING people how to grow their own food. I would argue that most of the starving Hatians are not starving because of a lack of personal responsibilty. They have VERY few ways of providing for themselves or getting an education, regardless of their willpower. Does our principle of personal responsibilty even remotely apply to a country without the opportunites that we have in America? Where do you draw the line in order to define personal responsibility? All Americans are not equal, just as all Hatians are not equal, yet I doubt that many would argue that these citizens are not in need of handouts, at least temporarily.

"The government said these people have several ways of coping -- eating less varied diets" -- interesting point that we talked about. Those in poverty rely more on processed foods and have less varied diet. It seems like a vicious cycle leading to poor health, high healthcare costs, less money for food, and a less varied diet.

"$14 million of taxpayers’ money to the project, including nearly $1 million earmarked for African aid" -- taxpayers money going to the arts over poverty? I think that this really poses important questions about the frivolity of society in general, especially in light of poverty. Is this spending justifiable? Even spending originally marked for African aid. It really makes us reconsider our priorities.

In light of this article, it makes me wonder if our intention to raise money for mosquito nets could possibly be redirected. The World Food Programme states: "hunger now kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined." Though our idea is not bad, maybe this is a more pressing concern. Thoughts?

Read and Comment

2008-11-18T12:13:00.002-05:00

Your assignment is simple. Read each of the following and offer your comments.

Which Child Eats, Which Child Dies?

Hunger Among U.S. Children

Art or Food? (Note: Restrict comments to the first part of this article about the U.N. ceiling.)

Aristotle's Thoughts

2008-11-04T17:59:00.004-05:00

I was inspired by Victor's previous post and his reference to the practices of the Roman emperor Nerva. Interestingly enough, I was reading the following passage from Aristotle's Politics VI.5 today at lunch.

Where there are revenues the demagogues should not be allowed after their manner to distribute the surplus; the poor are always receiving and always wanting more and more, for such help is like water poured into a leaky cask. Yet the true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy; measures therefore should be taken which will give them lasting prosperity; and as this is equally the interest of all classes, the proceeds of the public revenues should be accumulated and distributed among its poor, if possible, in such quantities as may enable them to purchase a little farm, or, at any rate, make a beginning in trade or husbandry.

I will be interested to see what others make of Nerva's and Aristotle's ideas.

Some Things on Welfare

2008-11-03T16:52:00.004-05:00

In our discussions the question of whether welfare is solving the problem, or is the problem has frequently come up. Welfare dates all the way back to the Roman Empire when Marcus Cocceius Nerva instituted programs that gave land to Rome's most needy residents, made loans to wealthy Romans whose interest was paid to impoverished families and he outlawed a 5% inheritance tax. In short...his plans wrecked the economy. Nerva was attempting to regain public support for the office of emperor which lost public confidence due to previous tyrannical emperorships , however his plans spent more than was coming in. Debts amounted to the point where chariot races and other fantastic games (hallmarks of the Roman society) had to be suspended. This is the problem many see today with our system. People are afraid of continuous aid without anything in return. In the U.S. our welfare system is set up so that people who are truly in need do receive aid, however they must contribute something for that aid and must eventually be weaned from it. Obviously our system has its problems with hundreds of fraudulent cases occuring. If these people will go so far as to cheat a system which has a goal of at the very least suppressing one of society's ills, than it tells a lot about the human character. Throughout human history there have always been the "haves" and the "have nots," however that is not necessarily an argument for ending welfare. I do not believe that with these programs we will cure poverty but we can at least alleviate it. I believe that when giving out welfare, you cannot give too much or too little. In government we discussed supply-side economics with an optimum marginal tax rate where the population would be taxed just low enough for it to have an incentive to work and spend money thus stimulating the economy while still having rates that could cover the U.S. budget. I believe that welfare can and should be modeled after this. The rate cannot be so low as to make it unaffective, but not high enough for it to be taken advantage of. btw this is victor

A Graveside Test

2008-10-22T11:11:00.002-05:00

Today my wife is at the funeral of her uncle. When I spoke with her on the phone, she said her father, who is usually an emotionally reserved man, was nearly inconsolable as he stood at the casket, repeating his brother's name over and over. I do not know what he was thinking, but I can guess.

This relative experienced a tragedy early in life and in some ways never recovered. Although all the family members tried to help this individual over the course of his life, I can imagine that my father-in-law was thinking of what else he could have done to have helped his brother through the years.

With regard to our poverty discussion, I agree that people should work to their full potential. I agree that a person who is able bodied should not take a free handout. Yet I can never imagine a person standing at the graveside and saying to the departed, "I did too much for you." Consider the graveside test one more way of knowing.

Questions on Singer's Solution to Poverty

2008-10-20T20:32:00.002-05:00

Money is an indicator of how much society as a whole, however right or wrong, perceives an individual’s worth. To dispute the current impoverished situations of individuals, we must assume that society incorrectly values certain individuals, for example those in the entertainment industry. To propose a solution we must assume that we have a better system of evaluating individual’s worth. I cannot claim to assume or prove either. Yet I can offer some questions.
To focus on poverty in children: Others, such as Singer have pointed out that we ought to try to equalize the opportunities of children, gotten only through “biological luck.” Yet this “biological luck” includes far more than just the wealth of the parents. It is hair color, eye color, I.Q. and a million other characteristics. To equalize all the “biological luck” would produce uniformity and a loss of uniqueness. Is abolishing poverty the same as trying to abolish other signs of “biological luck” or if it is not, what is different about abolishing poverty?
Although, abolishing poverty may not have as an extreme affect as that, the ability of parents to raise their child has long been claimed as a right and to place the state or any other entity in charge of the child’s basic needs seems to infringe upon this right. Although it may be argued that the state or other entity would only intervene in times of extreme need-such as in child abuse cases-the other children would be affected by taxes or the moral obligation to donate. This organization would then influence all children taking from some and giving to others. Whose right is it to raise the child, and therefore who is responsible for the child’s basic needs?
Society gives an individual money, on the basis of a trade for talents or products, or on the basis of entertainment, or on the basis of being valued by someone (inheritance), in a bargain both sides made. Singer suggests that we have a moral obligation to give this money to impoverished children. He implies that the money is not the sole property of the individual but that others, on the basis of need can claim it from him. To give this money is not mercy on the part of the individual but justice on the part of society. Is the money given to an individual for some trade (of money for talent, products etc.) belong only to that individual or does society still have a claim upon it?

Responding to Friday's Discussion

2008-10-20T03:54:00.002-05:00

So for some reason Friday I found myself really frustrated with the discussion regarding salary. I think now it was because nobody was making any sort of distinction between what is ideal and what is practical, but most people's opinions were based around one or the other.

Perhaps this is just my interpretation, but it sounded to me like what the presenter was suggesting was at least some degree of socialism: equal pay for equal amount of work (as opposed to equal pay for equal type of work). I think this would indeed be ideal, if everyone who worked hard were rich. However, this is not at all practical. Everyone simply can't be rich, with inflation, etc (I don't think I have to go into the economics of it, it's pretty clear). And as for the suggestion of removing money from the absurdly wealthy to give to the hard-working poor, I don't think that is practical either: the principle of removing anyone's earned money would achieve only uproar from the people about the need to defy a communist government.

Then we move to the practical which is not necessarily ideal (and certainly is not, in my opinion). Those who pay for education and training in effect invest in themselves; they are paying money to receive what they hope will pay off in the future (through a good job and high salary). This unfortunately tends to result in a system where those with money are able to afford a rich future, whereas those without are unable. I think this is where the problem must be addressed, in INVESTING in people early, rather than trying to give them equal results later, which is impractical. Perhaps the answer is more affordable education for all, which may be a step closer to socialism, but at least it's not a dangerous leap into near-communism.

My Own View-A Look at Laziness

2008-10-19T09:45:00.005-05:00

For me this may be one of the most difficult topics to deal with. To come to a conclusion i have to combine viewpoints from both sides as well as address certain emotional ways of knowing from experience.
I do think we have a definite responsibility or rather should feel a responsibility to others around us not so blessed as most of us are. However, this responsibility should only go so far. There is a significant difference between helping someone and crippling their desire to work. I understand that most people on welfare have to get a job as a part of their program but the difficulty and performance at these jobs is extremely sub par. What makes me more upset than anything is someone who is in need of help, is getting help, but is not working their hardest at whatever it is they do to deserve and compensate for the help their receiving. It doesn't matter what you're doing a person should take pride in their work and try to do whatever they can to be the best at their job. When i worked as a busboy i knew that the job might not be the most prestigious job or that i had to work harder than anybody to keep my job or earn more or less but something within me wanted to be the best i could and work my hardest every night to deserve whatever money i was receiving because i know there are many people out there that would work even harder to get half of what i was getting. Why people in need or close to it don't adopt this attitude, i simply don't understand. So many times i receive help at all sorts of work establishments and the people either lack the desire or just don't do their job well. Why should i want to help someone that isn't willing to take their opportunities and do what they can with them.
These are my conflicting feelings of obligation and frustration with the condition of many of our people. From my experiences i see people that just want to get by doing as little work as possible and i just don't support that. And the sad thing is i don't know if there is any solution to how i feel about this at all but it definitely makes me hesitant to fully support either side of this debate. The point i will leave with is that there are some people that deserve legitimate help but there are MANY more that deserve to be where they are and they pass it on to their children by not instilling the right attitude in them from the beginning. While this may not seem fair to the kids, it is if you look at the fact they will probably do the same thing to their kids and continue the cycle. Somewhere the inherited laziness needs to stop and until it does on a large scale i can't fully support more or even the current funding and help we provide through the government and other organizations.

West Wing Quote

2008-10-19T08:44:00.005-05:00

This quote from The West Wing (Season 2, before Sorkin left)
comes from one of the White House senior staff, explaining why
a certain line (Tax cutsto the rich fund faster private jets
and bigger swimming pools) won't appear in a speech.
"Henry, last fall, every time your boss got on the stump and said,
"It's time for the rich to pay their fair share," I hid under a couch
and changed my name. I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year,
which means I paid twenty-seven times the national average in
income tax. I paid my fair share, and the fair share of twenty-six other
people. And I'm happy to 'cause that's the only way it's gonna
work, and it's in my best interest that everybody be able to go to
schools and drive on roads, but I don't get twenty-seven votes on
Election Day. The fire department doesn't come to my house twenty-
seven times faster and the water doesn't come out of my faucet
twenty-seven times hotter. The top one percent of wage earners
in this country pay for twenty-two percent of this country. Let's
not call them names while they're doing it, is all I'm saying."
Just some food for thought.
EDIT: Yeah, the formatting's weird. Whatever.

Now You've Got It!

2008-10-17T14:40:00.002-05:00

The past few posts, some with comments, have captured the very essence of the 21st Century Agora. I am absolutely delighted by the high level of discussion, none of which was initiated or mediated by me. So pleased was I with all this that I forwarded these posts to several friends, both in and out of NC.

Keep up the great discussion on this and other topics! :)

2008-10-16T14:59:00.005-05:00

I think I need to clarify what I said in my last post. I do not believe that we have an "obligation" stemming from some overarching ethical code to redistribute income in order to assist people in poverty. I do, however, believe that a realistic approach to modern society requires that we provide assistance to those living at exceptionally poor levels. If we want to fight crime and the other problems that follow poverty, a pragmatic outlook leads us to address the problem at its core. The "moral necessity" I spoke of is not a moral necessity to assist but one to protect the rights of all Americans (in all classes) who are threatened by the effects of poverty. If this requires money, it is no more inappropriate or contradictory to a capitalistic ideology than any other funding dedicated to programs like law enforcement, defense, and public works. To me, all of this is necessary to maintain a "social system that leaves men free to achieve, to gain and to keep their values." Dreams of total individual independence are utopian ideals which cannot be realistically cast upon a functional, modern society.

one more:

2008-10-15T20:36:00.002-05:00

"...This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to heolp otheres in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that nay help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental--as disasters are marginal and incidental in the course of human existence--and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life."

No "obligation"

2008-10-15T20:14:00.003-05:00

I agree with Mr. Perkins; I LOVE THIS TOPIC! I completely disagree with Erik. I think that we have absolutely no duty to help those in poverty. Those in poverty have no right to demand our help or even expect it. The thing that bugs me about the debate over how to solve poverty is that those who might agree with me are accused of being "un-American" or "arrogant" or "un-feeling" or "ignorant" or "selfish." I help people and give money to organizations I trust that help people in poverty because I WANT TO. It makes me feel good to help people that have not been blessed as much as I have. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I have had because of the hard work of my parents AND because of my own efforts. All of us want to end poverty; ALL OF US want to help those in need. The debate is over HOW.
To respond to Erik's position over our "obligation" to help others:

From Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness":

"One's SOLE obligation towards others, in this respect, is to maintain a social system that leaves men free to achieve, to gain and to keep their values."

"In the normal conditions of existence, man has to chose his goals, project them in time, pursue them and achieve them by his own effort. He cannot do it if his goals are at the mercy of and must be sacrificed to any misfortune happening to others. He cannot live his life by the guidance of rules applicable only to conditions under which human survival is impossible."

"It is medically possible to take the corneas of a man's eyes immediately after his death and transplant them to the eyes of a living man who is blind, thus restoring his sight (in certain types of blindness). Now, according to collectivized ethics, this poses a social problem. Should we wait until a man's death to cut out his eyes, when other men need them? Should we regard everybody's eyes as public property and devise a 'fair method of distribution'? Would you advocate cutting out a living man's eye and giving it to a blind man, so as to 'equalize' them? No? Then don't struggle any further with questions about 'public projects' in a free society. You know the answer. The principle is the same."

Cyclical Poverty

2008-10-15T19:57:00.003-05:00

During the last class we discussed the differences between cyclical and situational poverty. We came up with a definition for cyclical poverty that i dont think is correct. I believe that cyclical poverty is more personal and is essentially a events that transpire that force an individual deeper into poverty. For example a man who is in poverty but is working is laid off work, because hes laid off he cant afford his car payments, without transportation he cant find another job, cant find another job he cant pay the rent, he cant pay the rent hes evicted and because he cannot trace back and get a job to own property again he is now homeless. Now this example though extreme shows that poverty simply builds and builds. It may even build to the next generation, now lets say the man has no job, he cant send his kids to school, they dont get the proper education (what the U.S. maintains as equal opportunity in education) and they too are in poverty, all because of him being laid off. I believe that there is no difference between situational and cyclical, instead situational is one aspect in the circle of poverty. Poverty in the economic sense is cyclical in that it continues and transcends generations. The situational aspect could be the initial reason for the start of the cycle (the man being laid off, the example of Hurricane Katrine in class)...i dont think you can ever end these examples, however if people are open-minded and proactive early enough these cycles can stop very quickly.

Why we can't avoid welfare

2008-10-14T10:49:00.004-05:00

Ben makes a valid point regarding the necessity of welfare programs even in the face of freeloaders who take advantage of the system. Though most of us would prefer a "fairer" system in which only the people who truly deserve aid receive it, this is not a practical possibility in modern America. I'll go even farther about the necessity of welfare -- not only is it impossible to draw a line between laziness and necessity or between poverty within or outside one's own control, it is necessary to provide welfare to all of these people, even if they don't deserve it. In the end, we have to support everyone in our society, no matter how lazy, hated, or evil they are. America has always been about protecting the disliked and disadvantaged -- we are careful to ensure rights to even the most despicable criminals and reviled hate groups, because as soon as one person's rights are revoked, everyone's rights are threatened. We have to support people in poverty, no matter the cause, in the same way we have to pay for healthcare for someone who comes into the hospital having a heart attack, regardless of whether they caused it or whether they can pay for treatment. It is a practical and a moral necessity -- we cannot feasibly simply send people out on the streets if we want to maintain a peaceful and civilized nation, and we cannot morally lock them up or leave them to die -- even more than free money, this outcome would be distinctly un-American.

...the "e-mail"

2008-10-12T19:22:00.004-05:00

Top Ten Poorest Cities (250,000 or more population)

City, State, % People Below Poverty Level

1. Detroit, MI- 32.5%

2. Buffalo, NY- 29.9%

3. Cincinnati, OH- 27.8%

4. Cleveland, OH- 27%

5. Miami, FL- 26.9%

6. St. Louis, MO- 26.8%

7. El Paso, TX- 26.4&

8. Milwaukee, WI- 26.2%

9. Philadelphia, PA- 25.1%

10. Newark, NK- 24.2%

The following facts come from an article by Glenn Beck of CNN.

-What do the top ten cities with the highest poverty rate all have in common?- Democratic Leadership

-Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961.

-Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected on since 1954.

-Cincinnati, OH (3rd)-...since 1984.

-Cleveland, OH (4th)...since 1989

-Miami, FL (5th) never had a Republican Mayor

-St. Louis, MO (6th) ...since 1949

-El Paso, TX (7th)...has never had a Republican Mayor

-Milwaukee, WI (8th)...since 1908.

-Philadelphia, PA (9th)...since 1952

-Newark, NJ (10th) ...since 1907

Einstein once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

It is the disadvantaged who habitually elect Democrats - yet remain disadvantaged.