Arguementative Freedom vs. Saftey

In contemporary society people want to be free over safe. It’s the slave fleeing his master, risking his life in hopes of the slim chance he may reach freedom or it’s the American colonists rebelling against the kings tyrannical rule to achieve their own freedom despite the jeopardy of their well being, that prove people want to be free more than anything else. This fact is evident in every aspect of our culture; from movies and songs to news reports, so much of what we (humans) do and who we are stems from the need we all have to feel free. The value freedom holds in our society puts safety second. In so many stories of our history and present we hear courageous stories of people sacrificing safety for freedom.  If something is sacrificed it means it is deemed less important than what it is being sacrificed for, again showing that the average person values freedom over safety.

Freedom is the opportunity of people to do as they please, while safety is the idea of people being protected from harm and in a state of well being. The two ideas often contradict each other. People can’t be completely free without overwhelming someone else’s or their own safety. We see this in crimes all the time. The burglar wanted to be able to take something that was not in his possession. He has the ultimate freedom to do as he pleases and so he robs his neighbor’s house. In doing so, in acting upon his freedom, he sacrificed his well being. All crimes occur with this ideology. People act on their freedom and sacrifice their wellbeing again proving that people value freedom over safety.

Freedom is found in every essence of our society. Not only does it dictate many of our decisions but it is apart of what we choose to express. So many of the arts have inspiration rooted in the process of oppressed people achieving freedom. We find it as the pride of America’s national anthem, “Land of the free” has been a lyric of the utmost pride for generations because of the incredibly heavy value we place on freedom. Movies describing civil right movement, most recently Selma, have been immensely popular in America and around the world because at their core is the same idea of achieving freedom. The arts for so many years have surrounded the idea of freedom and achieving it because it touches something within us all. There is something so indisputably human about the quest for freedom that we all can relate to because of the heavy value we also place in it.

The argument that people would rather be safe than free is an inaccurate representation of the human spirit. People are constantly sacrificing safety for freedom, evident in the millions of people who flee their homeland in hopes of finding a place to live freely or in women marching for their right to vote or people in Egypt attempting to overthrow their dictating government. There is case after case of people acting in exact contradiction of what this quotes suggests. Beyond that, the less courageous people who do not sacrifice safety for freedom may have other things to be considering. A mother is not likely to flee her controlling husband if he pays for her children’s education. Despite, freedom being a very valued trait, love and friendship will often be valued above it, this does not mean safety is valued above freedom , simply that when it comes to the love between two people freedom will often be sacrificed if it means to better the two. Freedom is not always valued above relationships but is above safety.

One of the best example I can think of having to do with the choice of freedom over safety was seen in the split instant decision making of those working in the world trade buildings on 9/11, who chose to put their lives in their own hands and jump to their deaths. There are photographs of the jumpers on the way to the ground and the defiant, free spirit within them all is so evident. In those panicked moments, those select individuals chose freedom over their safety. They took the ultimate sacrifice just to die in their own way, to die, as they hoped to have lived, freely. The free and defiant spirit of human nature comes through so strongly in this story where we see people, terrified and in a terrible situation but still possessed by a longing for freedom in their final moments. These people chose freedom over whatever potential fate was awaiting them, showing once and for all the incredible lengths people are willing to go to have their freedom.

All in all safety is an easy sacrifice when in the shadow of freedom and H.L. Mencken has some rethinking to do because the incessant longing for freedom so easily by simply being alive, we hear it in the stories of the past and the current, we hear it in sad songs and see it in the looks of an old man’s eyes when he tells his stories. It’s a part of what makes human beings so unique and beautiful, the fact that we sacrifice our lives, or the state of them, to be able to do what we feel we have a right to do. It’s a noble and courageous trait of people as a species and greatly misunderstood by Mencken.

Response to Austin and Clarence on Gun Laws

I tend to side with Clarence not only on the logic he proposed but also in the development of his argument. While in Clarence’s argument there was some generalization and assumptions everything was backed up with explained logic and was clearly stated. In Austin’s argument generalizations and jumping to conclusion made his claim much harder to agree with. The argument with statistics on police corruption and homicide rates do not at all support his argument against gun regulation but in many ways do the opposite. The US is an incredibly developed country and being ranked 103 out 200 is to good in correlation to how we rank in other aspects. An obvious solution to high homicide rates is to decrease the number of guns permitted to US citizens. This statistic counters Austin’s argument. Also, the comment made of shooting being blown out of proportion can be viewed as rather offense and is a hasty generalization. Hearing of four school shootings in the past four years is not a good statistic to state because with in these shootings countless lives were lost. I believe gun regulation is vital to the safety of our schools and society as a whole. The fewer guns the smaller chance there is for shooting it is simple logic. And while it is true that guns don’t kill people, people kill people guns do aid people greatly in doing said killing. A person walking into a school carrying a knife or attacking people with their bare hands does not have the ability to kill countless people in minutes as seen in shootings such as Sandy Hook. While people may feel a sort of protection through owning a gun, the sense of security provided through tight gun regulation out weighs that greatly. Over all, I side with Clarence’s argument not only for its sentiment but the way it was executed. Clarence has strong arguments such as his statistics comparing the US to Canada and his statements on how difficult it is to dissuade someone set to kill other than to lessen their chances of possessing weapons. Gun regulation is vital to our safety and should be implemented in the US as stated in Clarence’s blog post.

Argument response to Scotty

The premise of the claim that people will inhabit Mars in the near future is based upon faulty logic and incorrect assumptions. To start off, the largest issue I found with this claim is the fact that it relies on the assumption that the technology required is at all obtainable. While people have accomplished incredible things there are boundaries to what we are capable of. There is to this day, no technology ensuring that people will be living on Mars. Claiming that we can live on Mars based on the patterns of our previous development is no way evidence of the validity of this claim. We might as well be claiming that we’ll be traveling back in time because we have airplanes. As much as our history does not support this claim the trend of NASA funding does more so. Cuts have been made to NASA’s budget the past several years, the most alarming was made in 2014 by the proposed Congress budget for NASA which included at 24% cut to education, a 28 million dollar decrease.(www.slate.com/nasa_budget2015) This trend in budget cuts shows the increasingly unlikelihood of men inhabiting Mars.

Also, another piece of supposed evidence to back up this claim is a quote from Michio Kaku. Kaku in the world of science is a highly disputed figure. He appeared on John Stewart making another claim, similar to his human colonization of Mars, that we will soon be able to ‘download’ information into our minds instead of having to learn it. (http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/6zj4ki/michio-kaku) This is another incredibly disputed claim and shows Kaku’s lack of qualification to be used as evidence for the claim of men living on Mars. He also made claims of the feasibility of parting the red sea and parallel universes. While an incredibly intelligent man he has a history of wild and unproved ideas and in no way helps support this claim.

Next, in the argument is the claim that people will benefit financially from this. That is based on very faulty logic due to the fact that funding for this development of technology would cost the world trillions of dollars. These trillions of dollars will not appear out of thin air but be taken from funds more desperate for money. We have people starving and unable to read but according to this we must fund space development because there is the possibility that it may, if successful, generate income. In the all unlikelihood of development being successful the financial benefits would only affect the most affluent people. A single mother of four in Sub- Saharan Africa can’t afford bread for her new born baby let alone a space ticket to Mars, a some 300 million miles away.

Last, the statement that our colonization of Mars would have a minuscule change is incredibly wrong. That claim is impossible to make as we have no idea the consequences of our actions in space. A hundred years ago we had no idea the ‘miniscule’ affects of burning coal. Point being, we have no definite way of telling what our actions in space will cause and the changes that may occur must be taken into consideration.

Arguement Presuasive

Our primitive years are more so based on the praise we receive, then the apple sauce at the end of dinner. For children, trophies are the ultimate form of praise. It is every tangible word coming together to say, “You did well.” Taking away that praise has zero benefit for anyone and in fact could prove to be very harmful to the confidence of upcoming generations. We do not ‘praise’ our children too much through participation trophies and middle. Unknown to you, that participation trophy truthfully does mean all that. We are not bestowed at birth with a sense that we are worth something; it is through a process of constant encouragement that we find a sense of self importance. If trophies were taken out of children’s activities there would be an incredible decline in enjoyment, willingness to participate and self-confidence in upcoming generations.

There’s very rarely such a thing as a child being over confident. Confidence is the belief in one’s own abilities and is not synonymous to blind arrogance. A trophy in no way encourages blind arrogance, simply instills a sense of pride in kids regardless of talent. There are no false claims on a participation trophy, it does not lie to children by telling them they are the best. A participation trophy is exactly what it is said to be; praise of a child for putting in effort. That praise is priceless in regards to what it does for a child’s confidence. Receiving a trophy regardless of losing every game teaches a child to have pride in themselves, no matter what and that is a crucial to living a happy life. We are all worth something, despite failures and flaws. This can be a hard lesson to learn, but if from a young age we are enforcing this idea through trophies, we will most definitely see happier and healthier generations to come.

From a young age we shape our behavior on the praise of others. I’m not sure about you, but if I’m a one year old taking my first steps and I look up to see my mother smugly standing over me saying, “That’s alright, but I’ve seen better.” I’m not going to be walking till my fifth birthday. As creatures we are attention craving junkies, literally unable to run without the praise of others. Thinking back on it, we’ve received countless ‘trophies’ throughout our lives. When learning how to speak our parents spoke to us with the utmost joy and praise in their voice, telling us ‘good job’ and ‘we love you’ at every audible syllable slightly resembling an English sound. There is no sense of, ‘but that baby can…’ or ‘Your emphasis is a bit off’ because these achievements are wonderful and individual, therefore deserving to be treated as such. Children, like grown people, are not good at everything they try and, in fact, for some of us it takes quite a bit of time to find things we are good and enjoy. Trophies and other forms of encouragement project a safety net for kids. So what he didn’t score a goal all season, that’s sure not going to hold him back from piano lessons because at the end of that soccer season his coach called his name and handed him a gold little statute and despite the fact that he was the worst on the team, he felt pride in himself as he so deserved. That pride is what enables us to try new things; it keeps fear at bay and encourages us to proceed without the fear of failure.

The sense of confidence instilled by trophies in children becomes increasingly important as kids age. According to the CDC suicide is the third leading cause of death in people ages 15-24. This goes to show you the extent in which confidence can play apart. While suicide is a complicated mental health issue, instilling in children an undeniable sense of self worth would undoubtedly lower suicide rates. Children grow up very quickly and the friendly world of handing out trophies disappears frighteningly fast. When a child is young and innocent it is so crucial to their well being that we encourage and enforce their sense of self appreciation because very shortly they will be out on their own needing to rely on that confidence. Trophies are a simple thing with a priceless outcome; a child’s pride in self is worth all the cheap plastic in the world.

Trophies are a tangible sense of praise that instill in children an undeniable and deep rooted self confidence that benefits them later in life. The importance of this confidence is very obvious in the world around us through the competitiveness of everything from sports, to school, to arts. Confidence is key in all walks of life and by a simple act of handing out trophies to children we are teaching them the importance of participation and effort. While silly, trophies benefit future generations in countless ways. That gold plastic soccer ball sitting on the little boy’s shelf is so much more than a remnant of a failed career; it’s the beginning of a lifelong pride in himself despite life’s difficulties.

 

Journal Entry 12

In my opinion, one of the best books ever written was “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles. The book carries many, many literary devices. In an overall view of the book, there are incredible examples of allegories and conceits. The entire book can be argued to be a conceit. For the author is constantly referring to the ‘war’ that he and his class mates must enter once they finish high school. Through out the book, it seems the author is referring to world war two when he is discussing the ‘war’ but by the end of the story it becomes very evident that he is not speaking about the actual war but of the awful reality of growing up. This is also an example of allegory because everything with in the book has a deeper meaning than what is stated. This example is incredibly elaborate and well used. Every detail in the book is dedicated to this conceit. Everything from the boys discussing their classes supposedly preparing them for ‘war’ to when they discuss the affects of the war on their already graduated friends, it is all in support of the idea that the war they are fighting is not the one in Europe but rather between their own innocence and whatever monster of the real world that haunts them.

Also in the book, there appears to be example of situational irony. The story is of two boys in high school, one of which is seriously injured. The injury of the boy, Phineas, was to the fault of the narrator, Gene. Phineas after the injury finds out the truth and when storming away from Gene falls down steps, eventually leading to his death. In an analytical stand point the story line sounds ridiculous and silly to a point. But the situation irony adds a lot to the author’s message. The author was trying to relay the truth in the horrors of the adult or ‘real’ world by bringing the tragedies of them into the lives of young boys in the innocent state of high school. While, the story line out of context seems ridiculous the irony of the situation helps the reader come to understand the heartless degradation of innocence John Knowles was trying to explain.

Beyond these broader literary devices the book is dripping with others. In one scene Phineas and Gene are at the beach. Gene says “ This kind of sunshine and ocean with the accumulating roar of the surf and salty adventurous, flirting wind from the sea, always intoxicated Phineas.” In this quote the author uses personification to give the nature surrounding the characters life. By doing so the author again creates an allegory or deeper metaphor. The lively ocean is a reflection of Phineas himself, while the author goes on to personify the ocean, saying, “The ocean looked dead too dead gray waves hissing mordantly along the beach.” The personification of the ocean is a reflection of Gene and his pessimistic outlook on things. By personifying these thing the author makes it more obvious to the reader what he is trying to compare on a deeper level. Through out the book, the author uses literary devices such as here to help explain the often complex and abstract ideas he is trying to portray.

Journal Entry 11

Language is constantly evolving and changing as the culture does. Most influential years, is that of modern technology on the way we speak. New phrases and lingos have emerged through texting and Facebook but I think one of the most interesting and reflective contributors to modern language is that of twitter. Twitter is an odd social media compared to the others popular right now. Like many other websites it is another way to stay in communication with people you associate with elsewhere but there is also a large movement on twitter to follow the accounts of people you do not know for entertainment purposes. At the for front of this movement are poetic twitter accounts. While that sounds a bit ridiculous the accounts are a very good reflection of modern culture and language.

These accounts use a wide range of language and literary devices. For example, one of accounts I follow, tweeted “Lipstick 330: the blood of the men that made a ‘women in the kitchen’ joke”. In just this one tweet we see many aspects of language. First, the reference to ‘lipstick 330’ is something of the modern world. Most women today understand this reference and it brings an element of empowerment to the tweet. Women empowerment is an incredibly strong movement in today’s society. This is very evident in this tweet individually and twitter as a whole. The diction used in the tweet very clearly displays the message of women empowerment. The reference to women in the kitchen plays on pathos as it is offensive and aggravating to women reading the tweet and further enforces the empowerment of the tweet through the anger it creates. There is also a sort of sexual element in the tweet through the mentioning of lipstick and blood. Both of these object have the connotation of sexual things and that is reinforced when looking at Twitter culture as whole because much of what is tweeted as sexual innuendos.

Another good example of twitter using literary devices is a tweet stating “she looks like drugs”. This tweet is a simple simile but carries heavy messages and themes. This tweet goes along with many other themes in twitter culture. Here the simile is implying many things but clearly stating that the girl is addictive as to addiction is the most common association with drugs. This tweet plays greatly on the connotation of ‘drugs’. Drugs are often pleasant on the surface but have an underlying evil or darkness to them. With the use of drugs we are exposed to feelings of dependency and craving. Comparing the appearance of someone to drugs is incredibly powerful and fits perfectly into the sort of angst that goes with much of twitter. There is also a sort sexual theme to this tweet that again comes with the use of the word ‘drugs’. The tweet also plays with the ideas of sexual intimacy and personal connection by the impersonal use of the pronoun ‘she’. Using ‘she’ again fits the twitter culture in that there is much discussion of the morals behind sexual relations. Overall the diction and literary elements of tweets, as humorous as it sounds, is a great window into the youthful generations use of language.

Journal Entry 10

This poem is here

because I am alone,

And the books don’t have the answers I want,

And you are so far from me,

too far from me

This distance between us is here

because words can only travel to certain places,

and my fingers close around your wrist

only to be met by such nothing

This nothing is here

because I’ve never been able to sit still through an entire movie,

And my nose bends in the wind,

while my hair lies flat

despite the tornado gusting behind me

And this tornado is here

because of empty liquor bottles,

and smiling exhales of cigarette smoke

no longer making me cough

And that echoing chuckle is here

because you are you,

but, in fact, not real,

And I am more alone than your wildest dreams,

And what is more humorous than that?

In this piece I focused on using anaphora. I started each stanza with a similar phrase. Using ” This _ is here”. I also attempted to use parallelism when listing the causes for each stanza. I used anaphora in hopes that it would create a sort of desperate and depressed mood. I used the anaphora to go about the poem in a logical sequence before arriving at the last stanza. In the stanza I didn’t use “this” but instead “that”. I felt that with using the word ‘this’ it made it sound like the speaker had control or possession of what ‘this’ was. But when using ‘that’ the laughter seemed like it was out of the speakers control and hopefully added the idea that the speaker is not entirely sane or in a good state of mind.

Journal Entry 9

I am not my own person and not in the cowardly sense of the phrase simply in the fact that there is nothing within myself solely from myself. I have my Uncle Jimmy’s eyes, my mother’s nose, and the lips of my grandmother. Even in a deeper sense, I am the product of too many James Taylor Songs and days spent outside. I am Richard Bach books and baseball games. Every aspect of me is from that of another. And that other got it from another and back and back and back until we reach an end. The same sort of end when you realize you can’t define every word in the dictionary or every theorem in geometry.

But that’s where you come in, for you are every postulate and predetermined word; you are before God, before the universe. You are the beginning and the end. I’ll base every theorem of my existence off of you and I’ll pass every Geometry test by simply printing your name across my page. Or maybe I’ll just show up to class and my teacher will see your name on my lips and he’ll say “Go Anna, see the world.”

So he’ll send me off with an ‘Adios’ and I’ll head to Spain just to find out Sole has been teaching me Japanese. So I’ll call up my cousin living in Japan and we’ll make small talk until I see your name engraved on his eye lids. Because, you didn’t kiss him of course, he’s a married man!

And now wherever I look I see your name on everything; gracing every limbering tree and faltering dandelion. From you, this world has bloomed and blossomed. You are at the center, the beginning of everything. Doesn’t it feel nice to know that every note ever sung and every hand ever held was because of you? Or, rather, does it sting a bit more to know that you are to blame for every tear ever fallen and every loved one ever burried?

With this writing I was attempting to use literary devices to explain a rather abstract idea. I did this by way of an allusion. I think in writing it is important to relate and reference other things to help give context to the theme one is trying to produce. In this I decided to use the Allusion of a postulate in geometry and defining things in a dictionary. I believe referencing something as defined and set as math, adds to the theme of rebuking structure. Also, I decided to use a conceit along with the allusion to further create the attempted theme. I think using a metaphor partially helps explain a kind of incomprehensible idea but also adds to the tone of abstract ideas. I wrote the poem like that as to have it able to relay whatever message the reader desires.

Journal Entry 8

George School has always had a sort of language of its own. And while being part of the community keeps you up on the lingo when coming back from summer vacation I was quite a bit behind on new words and phrases. Among these, was “sad story”, used when describing someone or a situation which is annoying or unfortunate. When used to describe a person it is often with an insulting intent because it means the person is a downer or boring to be around. When describing a situation it actually can mean literally what it says. When a friend complains about a situation which was unfair or frustrating it does make sense to reply with,” That’s a sad story.” The phrase can be a little confusing when describing a person but I do believe the connotations it carries makes it a very useful and applicable phrase. It reminds me of the phrase “sob story” used to describe people coming up with stories in which they dramatize the difficulties in their lives for attention. “Sad story” carries the same type of feeling with it; that of an overdramatic and unpleasant person and for that I actually enjoy the phrase because it describes those type of people without using such harsh words. I think the phrase has a fair less malicious intent than calling someone melodramatic or boring. The phrase being short and not too blunt is probably part of the reason it caught on. People can use it without coming off as rude or condescending but still getting their opinions across about someone they don’t particularly enjoy.

Journal 7

She is the tree you drive by everyday, with its withering branches attempting to pull off something resembling the forest we all destroyed. She could pluck every lash from your eye without you having the slightest of blinks. But one day, when you run out of your house screaming crying, you’ll see her. And she’ll be sitting on the curb opposite your house with a daisy in her hand and the look of every possible giggle in her eyes. For, she is your mother and your sister and the girl down the street who doesn’t come out to play ever since her daddy came home. Despite that, she is the taste of water and the sound of moth’s wings colliding and the answer to every riddle to pass your ears. But you don’t see the frozen flames behind her warm eyes until you sit down on the curb beside her and run your hands down her thigh, only to be pricked by her every thorn. For she is not simply present in the breeze today, she is the storm in the distance coming to destroy it all.

Metaphors have the ability to relay meanings more than regular descriptions because they leave much of their interpretation up to the reader. I attempted to describe a girl using only metaphors because metaphors can be a very powerful descriptive and it is important to be able to manipulate them to have the meaning you’re trying to relay. In the first metaphor I am trying to let the reader know the girl’s substance is greatly underappreciated and that she is more observant than the world around her. By using ‘trees’ and ‘you’ it brings to mind the number of trees constantly surrounding the reader and makes the metaphor very relatable.  In the second metaphor, I am trying to stress to the extent she is unnoticed, especially through the using of ‘slightest’ to describe the blink. In the next metaphor, I again make it something very relatable by using the example of your house. This brings the metaphor closer to the reader to point he/she could almost imagine it. The next metaphor is very similar, again relating her to things everyone can understand to help stress that despite that she is different , on the outside she is as average looking girl. In the next metaphor I used more abstract ideas to show that the she is mysterious and confusing. The last metaphor also shows that, with the same type of common place language.