Fall 2010 Self, Community, and Service: Ethical Theory and Practice

Welcome!

2010-08-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

As a test, can everyone please write a post that

Final Blog - Awe

2010-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Rediscovering Awe

When I first read this piece I was uncomfortable with Schneider’s repetition of “the problem is” which sounded a bit like he was preaching.
Schneider’s ideas definitely resonate with me. The over use of the cell phone computer and other electronic devices has “dumbed” down the American. This is especially true of young people who can’t seem to live without being online for enormous amounts of time.
Schneider refers to “the capacity to be moved is the least appreciated pillar of child development.” Children are not taught to pause, feel and wonder. Having worked with small children for a very long time, I find that when they are about one through six, they do have a sense of wonder. Once they are subjected to school where they are taught to push for excellence, children get lost in a mire of preconceived notions that learning comes first, thinking comes later.
At the MYC students are given the opportunity to pause and ponder. While making a video whose premise was to produce a talk show, each girl contributed ideas. They chose the “hosts, guests “and what commercials they would do. (the commercials were made up from their own ideas.) With the help of their counselor they were able to discuss the process and what the outcome would be.
Schneider goes on to state that “the amplification of children’s capacity to feel is not the same as cultivation of their capacity to be moved.” Referring back to the girls at LUNA at MYC, I can see how this is true. The girls were too busy swirling around making plans, what costumes to wear, and who would say what. In my observations I did not think that “being moved” applied to this particular situation.
Schneider gives the reader many ideas of what needs to be done, but does not tell how we should do what he suggests. I wonder, with more and more technology, will there be a place to “pause and wonder?”

Isolating Awe....

2010-05-10T01:04:00.000-07:00

The beautiful thing about awe is that it is uncompromising in its jarring you into the present moment. Awe grabs your attention and shakes all the loose thoughts out of your mind. Sadly, most of us don’t have time for awe. We don’t have time for the moment of captivation, because we are so concerned with where we’re going and what it’s going to be like then. I’m really not an Aerosmith fan but in one of their few songs there is a line, “Life’s a journey, not a destination” that came into my head as I was reading this chapter on Awe. We have lost our appreciation for the journey in our expectations of how much better it will all be once we’re there. I see this with many of the students at MCCS. They are in such a hurry to grow up, be tough, be cool, be accepted, be popular. They are always in a hurry to be something or prove something that I wonder if they would even know when they achieved whatever it is that they are striving for. I want to say to them: “slow down. Put down your phone and think. Your friends aren’t going anywhere. You don’t have to be in a gang to be accepted. You don’t have to destroy your life to be loved. Slow down and think. Think about your life and what you want it to mean.” But all that comes out is: “First you have to isolate X, then you divide by 10…” And when I look up they are texting or pretending to shoot one of their classmates. Sometimes I wonder if I am only making matters worse by trying to force math upon them. Am I only reinforcing their disdain for school? In the reading, the author said something that really resonated with me. He suggests,
The point is that if we are to respond with depth, attunement, and embodiment, then we will need to engage with as many sides of a problem as possible. We will need to immerse ourselves in the ambiguity if we are to emerge with conviction, intention and integrity. (p. 171)
This experience at MCCS has made one thing very clear: The problem isn’t just their math. Shit, the problem is probably everything and anything but math. So am I really benefiting these kids by tutoring them in math? I don’t know. I know that I’m trying. I know that if I wouldn’t have been a math tutor, I wouldn’t be asking this question and I wouldn’t now understand that sometimes inability to isolate X isn’t really about X at all. Sometimes it’s about everything but X.

Rediscovery of Awe

2010-05-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

I think everyone to some extent needs to be in awe of something. It keeps us humble, centered and grounded, so that we have some sense of boundaries in life. The sense of awe that I referring to is a positive one, not one which would cause us harm.

Children are indeed inundated with so much technology now, until we have allowed them to become in a way in awe of objects and concepts. (pg 150) Naturally the high tech industry would be very appealing to Young people, it was designed to be that way, if i twas not no one, not even adults would be interested. I think that we as the adults (parents) need to do a better job of regulating the exposure and or use of technology. The High tech business is very useful, we just need to decide what things we will and Will not let our children use and how they use it. I think children still need the experiences of intellectual stimulation in their lives, because these are necessary components of human development in this world ; in order to be a well rounded individual. Technology can be integrated into this developmental process, but it should not take over and be in lieu of the basic skills.

I have found that people who have no faith tend to not fair well when they are faced with problems, dilemmas, issues, dilemmas, or in some cases basic decision making. If there is no sense of inner peace, the rest of your life is generally out of place for most people. They don’t have anything to hold on to when they are in need. Money and objects usually do not provide long term (life long ) solace. Most people without faith are always usually searching for something, wondering what is missing, never having a sense of long term contentment. Faith can give you what you need to keep you centered and have long term peace in your life.

Blog on Awe

2010-05-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

This piece starts "[T]he most important thing...to know [is] that beyond the absurdity of one's own life, beyond the human viewpoint...there is the fact of the tremendous creative energies of the cosmos that are using us for some purposes we don't know"(Awe, 8). This quote is simply to say that beyond what we know as human beings we are also being pulled to a greater purpose. This makes me think of the work we have been doing with our community partners. No matter who we have been working with, we have been striving to do something good for the community around us. We started this to do our hours for service learning for ethics but hopefully most of us have gotten much more out of this. By trying to work with these community partners we have been opened to something that could possibly be our calling. Perhaps some of us would have never been turned on to helping other people had we not been asked to work with them for class. This higher calling that we are unaware of could be to help people such as these. To save animals, provide clean needles, helping students to succeed, or making the economy greener, this class could well have sent us on our way to becoming the people we are suppose to be. Whether we are meant to stay with these community partners or move on with the knowledge we gained from this, we have effected the lives of many. Whatever it is that our higher purpose may be we are now better people for what we have done. Whether we acknowledge what it is we are suppose to do or follow the mondain drag of everyday life we now know what it is like to be a part of a bigger goal that the "cosmos" have pulled us towards; a goal meant to better hummanity.

The big picture!

2010-05-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

Ok something just popped into my head in the reading and since this is extra credit...I'm going to rant a bit.
In the reading when talking about a world made smaller by adhering to one religion or one belief the author said "We cannot flourish in such a world, we cannot soar." (p.165)That is when it hit me. What these kids need is to understand the world outside of County, the world beyond graduating high school! I succeeded because I understood "ok get through high school, go to college, become a famous singer" All these things were seen as necessary steps. What the kids at County see is "get out of county so that these teachers and parents will stop bugging me." That is why it is so important to have them stay in touch with the outside world by visiting colleges or having guest speakers with different professions come in or by doing community service. If they don't see a world outside of this school...why even try? All their friends are here and the only future they are seeing is later that day...not the BIG PICTURE!
ok...
So I also see that some of the kids "get it". They see that they need to do their work to get the credits to graduate...but that is just the first step...they also need to actually DO the work. "The shock and the awakening are only preparatory. The next crucial question is how and whether one pursues, engages with, and emerges from one's struggle." (P144) A lot of the kids can see what they need to do, they just don't do it. All of the students are intelligent but not all of them have been awakened mentally as to what they need to DO to succeed. The students see the struggle ahead of them but are not willing to do the work to make it so that it is no longer a struggle.

Extra Credit--prompt for Rediscovery of Awe

2010-05-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'm sure there's many ways you might connect this reading with service but here are some ideas if you want to use:
Schneider writes about the concept of a fluid center that "provides an alternative to [the] debilitating extremes" of "extremist-fundamentalist religions and . . . postmodern free market anarchy" (143). He explores the idea that ambiguity is one of the essential elements of our condition and requires an ethic that "calls upon the deepest energies of democracy, the fullest engagement of dialogue, and the keenest perceptions of context" ( 146). He calls this ethic, "awe-based" and states that the "capacity to be moved" may be the catalyst for opening oursleves to the complexity of our ethical being in the world (147).

Are there ways in which your service has opened you to ambiguity, to the gray areas, and at the same time expanded your capacity to grapple with this complexity in forming your own views? Do you have an example of an exchange or moment when you understood this challenge?

Responsibility--" Linked with mystery is responsibility, the challenge to respond. It is precisely out of uncertainty that we are called to responsibility. . .But what does it mean to face uncertainty [ambiguity] head on? It means that individuals (as opposed to outside authorities) must bear the brunt of decision-making, but it also means that there is a dimension beyond which individuals are able to make decisions. . ." (161-162). I hear echos of many of our other readings, especially Arendt. What have you learned from your service about this challenge to respond in the face of uncertainty, unknown outcomes? Can you describe a situation in which you began to experience the depth of complexity that surround the meeting between our personal values and the collective social issues with which we are faced every day?

Story or Lie?

2010-05-03T14:10:00.001-07:00

People are myth making creatures. What I mean by that is that we try oh so desperately to explain the unexplainable, as a way to make it seem less distant, perhaps even connected to us. Our ability to tell stories has served us well in the beginning of our development, but as we developed in our thinking, our story telling abilities also grew. We began to reject these stories as lies and began to make new stories to fill the void we have just created. Now for me the question becomes an obvious one; at what point does the story we cherish and embrace now become the lie that we ridicule and call backwards thinking?
In the Precarious Life, the issue of censorship and justifications we try to make towards the evils committed during wartime and other times of conflict. I see this as our myth making ability in full effect. Instead of embracing the world as is with all the evils we have created, we try to hide them from public view. We tell ourselves these stories of how it’s not as bad as it seems, or that our actions are justifiable and other types of stories that distract us from the truth that is sitting right in our faces. We deliberately try to pull the wool over our own eyes so we don’t have to see the mess we’ve created. But sadly to say, these myths cannot last. Just as we dismissed the myths from our barbaric times, so too will these myths dissolve. Soon our stories won’t be able to cover our actions, and when that happens those stories will be tossed aside and replaced like the Greek gods were.

Language and Violence

2010-05-03T13:07:00.001-07:00

While reading “The Precarious Life” by Judith Butler, I found her discussions involving language and justifications for violence to be very interesting. This inspection of how we use language as a means of violence was a consistent theme through out the reading. When explaining the interactions between Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and New York major Rudolph Giuliani, Butler illustrated a great example of how United States politicians as well the United States media changes the meanings of words around to create a reason for violence or use it as ammunition for their agenda. In this scenario, Alwaleed offered the Word Trade Center relief ten million dollars and stated, “the United States takes a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause” (12). Giuliani quickly rebutted this statement by refusing the money and saying the World Trade Center attacks “had no moral equivalent…” (12). What really upsets me about this interaction is that there are multiple moral equivalents to this attack. Yes, the United States itself has only come under attack less than a handful of times, and yes many innocent people died that day, but what is unfair about this whole situation is that events like this occur everyday in other place. This statement goes along with my favorite quote of the reading: “Will those hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives lost in the last decades of strife ever receive the equivalent to the paragraph-long obituaries in the New York Times that seek to humanize-often through nationalist and familial framing devices-those Americans who have been violently killed?” (12). This quote brings up the point that our self-importance as a country has greatly affected how we respond to world events. And such behaviors have caused us to ignore other countries that have suffered greater than our own. This rhetorical question also shows how language was used in the media to invoke emotion and a sense of “patriotism” within their audience. Butler also takes explains how the word “terrorist” has been consistently manipulated and misused to justify violence. The Bush administration and media has used the word make the country look like a victim defending itself. This use of language was able to manipulate most of the United States to lead them to believe that violence is the only way to defend itself.

2010-05-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

"Those who commit acts of violence are surely responsible for them; they are not dupes or mechanisms of an impersonal social force, but agents with responsibility. On the other hand, these individuals are formed and we would be making a mistake if we reduced their actions to purely self-generated acts of will or symptoms of individual pathology or 'evil.'" (Butler, 15). That quote struck as the type of thing people say when a person commits a violent crime and then blame it on the t.v. show or video games they watch and play. Those arguments always irk me a little, okay a lot. I have played violent video games and have watched violent t.v. shows, but I am not a violent person, except the five years of football and eight plus years of hockey I played. I am not sure this was the point the quote was talking about but it is what I thought about. I feel that if people where that brain washed by video games we would have a lot more plumbers in the world with how popular Mario Brothers are. I just feel that when people use movies, t.v. shows and video games, heck even "Catcher in the Rye" as a reason for a violent act it's a cop out. I read "Catcher in the Rye" and I was excited thinking this book must be great with how "controversial" it is. It was extremely boring! I couldn't believe it. I think that people need to learn how to take responsibility for their actions, that also goes for parents. Parents need to take responsibility for their kids actions. The last is also a thing that bugs me. Parents just plop their kids in front of a t.v. or video game and don't take part in the child's life anymore. I think the main point I am trying to get at is being responsible for ones actions and do not use random things as a reason for ones stupidity.

Precarious Life

2010-05-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

While reading through the Precarious Life I was caught off guard by the way the author was "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists" (2) This is a prime example of positionality. I don't agree with this statement at all, there is more than just two options to one situation. After the September 11 event most Muslims were discriminated against. While the Muslim culture faced endless problems and harassment most Americans didn't feel safe. When something takes away a countries safety; people take things into their own hands. This causes country spread fear and havoc!

"United States has brought this state of events on itself. "(9) I also don't agree with this quote. I know every country has their enemies and problems but no country deserves to loose as many people has the united states did on September 11. Nor does a war fix what has happened. But I guess by human instinct it is survival of the fittest. This brings the egotistic people who think that they are better than anyone else, when in the end we are all human fighting for the same thing.

“We do not need to ground ourselves in a single model of communication, a single model of reason, a single notion of the subject before we are able to act” (48). Think about this in relation to in relation to your service-learning experience. Can you use a specific or significant moment to illuminate? This relates to my service learning at the because in order for us to save animals we have to go about it in several different ways. There isn't just one way to do things, not one "single" way to treat wounded dogs and cats. The possibilities are endless when it comes to saving animals and getting them adopted out. There is no single way for anything to happen in the rescue world. We can't ground ourselves to a single notion or communication because then when things don't go accordingly we wont know how to handle life.

Precarious Life

2010-05-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

While reading Precarious Life, I was struck by the way in which the author described the attacks on September 11. There was a national feeling of terror after September 11, and people no longer felt safe in the United States. After the attacks, many Americans saw all Muslims as terrorists. Because of the acts of individuals, an entire culture and all people of Middle Eastern origin were targeted and labeled as "evil" people who would stop at nothing to end the spread of Western Civilization. A good thing for everyone to remember is that not all Muslims or all Middle Eastern people have the same way of thinking as those who committed the attacks during September 11 or other acts of violence. And even these people were conditioned to act this way.
"Those who commit acts of violence are surely responsible for them; they are not dupes or mechanisms of an impersonal social force, but agents with responsibility. On the other hand, these individuals are formed and we would be making a mistake if we reduced their actions to purely self-generated acts of will or symptoms of individual pathology or 'evil.'" (Butler, 15). It is true that all individuals who commit acts of violence should be held accountable for their acts, and there is no reason other than acting of their own accord that people finally choose to commit these acts. Before people start to make their own decisions about other cultures based on the actions of individuals who have taken their beliefs to the extremes of fundamentalists. People who commit acts of violence such as those that occured on September 11 have their own way of thinking about things. It is not neccessarily the same thinking as everyone who is a part of that religion or culture. It is almost similar to the whistleblower discussion. The whistleblower believes that everyone holds the same ideals as he or she does. When the whistleblower finds out that this way of thinking is not true, the whistleblower's ideal of the organization is destroyed. The whistleblower makes the mistake of thinking that everyone in his or her organization is thinking the same way, but in reality they aren't. That is how my dad felt about the company he worked for when the ideals he upheld were not upheld by the rest of the company. It is dangerous for people to believe that everyone from an organization or culture is of the same way of thinking as the people with the highest ideals or the most fundamentalist view. When people think this way, it causes animosity towards an entire group of people because of the views of individuals. People need to realize that not everyone in any one area think the same way. The author does a great job of describing the way that people take things the wrong way and mass paranoia errupts. People are easily manipulated by situations, and need to stick to their own ways of thinking and realize that everyone has their own thought process as well.

Precarious Life

2010-05-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

While reading the excerpt from Precarious Life I became interested in the idea that ever since the terrorist attacks of the past there has been increased levels of government intervention; so much so that it is quite possible the sovereignty of the media has been compromised like never before. Although thisis a nation of free apeech and press it is not always so obvious nowadays. With this rise of terrorism in the past years the media has been left with two options "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists"(Butler 2). If a newspapaer or reporter speaks out agaisnt what is happening with our government and thier handling of foreign affairs these reporters must face the "consequences" of what they have written. This "binarism" has created a not so "free" America, where instead of freedom of press, the media meets with much censorship and legal red tape for things they may say or write.
According to Judith Butler these reporters must take one of two positions, see "terror as justified" (Butler 2) and therefore are allowed to continue reporting, or supposedly "[feel] sympathy with terrorism" and have their name tarnished. The way the media is being treated today makes it seem like they are working for newspapers from some other country. If we start with mild censorship, who knows, it could one day grow to become a "big brother" nation instead of a land of freedom. Once we promote a lack of speech in any area of this free society, there's no stopping this rolling ball before it spins out of control. It is true that in society one must watch what they say or face the consequences, but when a reporter writes their opinion on a topic and is chastised for it, that is not living the American dream. America is the land of many oppportunities, not a nation where "only two positions are possible"(Butler 2).

Precarious Life

2010-05-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

Being a business major was the reason I decided to help out at Marin Link. I was curious of learning what an organization like Marin Link did and what a green business really was. I have heard about people speak of sustainable business and how sustainable practices were beneficial but I was never a believer of these statements. In the contrary I dismissed the statements firmly believing the traditional practices of business should continue to be instituted and applied, if something worked why try to change it. Something unexpected happen while working at Marin Link, I began to see things in a different perspective and began to think differently about everything I once knew, especially about business.
A quote the stuck out to me was “perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps one should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance…one can try to chose it, but it may be that this experience of transformation deconstitutes choice at some level (21). My mindset when deciding to help out at Marin Link was to learn more about sustainable business and seeing whether or not I would choose to implement these practices in the near future. Although I was not in mourning my experience at Marin Link lead me to a type of transformation of who I was as a person because not only did I get to help with the business forum but with Project Homeless Connect and the Northgate Promenade Celebration which helped me learn new things about myself. What I find true about the quote is when it speaks of undergoing a transformation and not knowing the result in advance and not having total control of the outcome. I believe every experience one has causes some type of transformation for the person although the person may not know what that transformation may be. I have really began to question everything about myself and the future plans I once had because this class and Marin Link has really caused me to begin questioning things while involving myself in a more in depth thinking about things. My mind was opened to learn new things and to respect the ideas of others and I believe this is what lead to my transformation as a person because I was opened to the idea of changing my views. A transformation is good in all types of situations because one changes as a person and begins to see things differently in life.

Kavita Ramdas: Radical women, embracing tradition | Video on TED.com

2010-05-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

Kavita Ramdas: Radical women, embracing tradition | Video on TED.com

Precarious Life II.

2010-05-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

Grief is such a powerful emotion. It is one that can literally consume you, leaving an empty void that is attached to a big pause and or silence. It seems that the world as you know it in a sense stops for a period of time. Those who do not consider themselves emotional, are even surprised by the effect grief has on them. I think it is the most powerful of the emotions. It can take your breath away. For some they never figure out how to fully recover or deal with these feelings, and are unable to totally return to what is normal for them. I feel that your mind set, if you were deeply attached to the person, never returns, completely to the way you were before. The level of the relationship you had with the person, definitely determines how grief affects you. When grieving, I think emotional pain can feel and affect you like physical pain. (pgs 22,23)

Political grief can show itself in the actual loss of another’s life, either physically or emotionally; a loss is a loss grieving is the natural process that follows. Losing an election can put one into a grieving state. You have lost something that had become your life for a significant period of time in your life. The Al Gore presidential election was a good example of this process. In a sense there was a form of political violence or violation with the way the election was handled. (I.e. possible foul play.) I’m sure he felt very venerable with a deep sense of hurt, pain and loss. 911 created grief for many people in this country. People mourned the lives of others as well as the incident itself. Politically is served as a reason for George Bush to go to war, thus using the people’s grief to spur them in to wanting to fight back; staring a war that the people may not have ever agreed to so easily. Emotional grief was part of the catalyst. Bush took this emotion and told the American people to put away the emotions (grief) and let’s fight back. (pg 29)

Causalities of war are mostly grieved for by their people. I feel that these deaths come under the heading of political grief; except we on this side, the Americans, don’t grieve them, this was referred to by the authors. (pg 34) There is no kind of attachment, and no type of relationships in these situations. If the press were allowed to photograph or video the devastation and killing, especially of small children, and the aftermath of their parent’s grief, there would then be an attachment and some form of grief on our part; which would probably prompt the majority of us to call for an end to the war. This may not be what the political process in action would want to happen. How often do you see these types of press reports in the news? Grief as I stated before is a very powerful emotion One minute everything is fine, in the next moment, the world can be changed drastically; for one, a few, or a whole nation of people, depending of the source of the grief.

Precarious Life I.

2010-05-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

The picture that has been painted in the United States about Muslims is not a good one. From my understanding, the true faith does not consist of violent killing of innocent people. I think more people in the US and around the world would come forward and speak to this, but with the current world climate, there is a lot of fear of retaliation of the real terrorists. You notice that when some incident occurs, Muslims groups will gather to talk about it; and someone usually states that the type of violence that occurred is not what people of their faith participate in. Being Muslim does not mean you are a terrorist. This image of Muslims has fueled the fire in the eyes of the US public, to help get them on board to accept that we needed to go to war.
The view of what the US does in the war could possibly be skewed. We only see what the press puts out, which is sometimes engineered by politics. We needed the public on board to continue their war support. (pg 6) The United States is a big world power. We tend to take the lead in most issues, especially if we directly involved. We tend to be very persuasive when need the assistance of other countries to back what ever it is we feel needs to happen. This works out fine, unless it is for something that mostly benefits us. The reason for going to war was an example of getting everyone’s backing under false pretenses, for our own agenda. (pg 7,14) Don’t get me wrong the US is a great and wonderful country to live in; I would not choose any other as my permanent residence. We do a lot of good, and are capable of doing more, so it is important that more of us get involved in the political process in our country. I think the US in some ways helped to create Bin Laden we see today; he once had a previous affiliation with the CIA. (pg10) Guiliani could not possibly have taken the money of the very rich Arab prince. I don’t think the US government would have allowed him to accept it; even if he were considering it, because it would have sent a message to the American public that would be contrary to the existing program for war that had already set in place.
Being such a large world power, we are in a position to do a lot more good for the entire world. We are involved in many worldwide efforts that provide a great deal of help for others. In a perfect world, in the instance of terrorism, it would be optimal if we could as a world, all start over again, and fix where it all went wrong.

Why are teachers the "enemy"?

2010-05-02T17:46:00.001-07:00

As I read our PDF on “Precarious Life” I was contemplating why the kids that I tutor are instantly against authority and go as far as to act out against it. What I see with my students is that everything the teacher says is seen as against the student. Through the reading I did find something that may explain this. “Our fear of understanding a point of view belies a deeper fear that we shall be taken up by it, find it contagious, become infected in a morally perilous way by the thinking of the presumed enemy.”(p.8)

The students are seeing the teacher (and all other authority figures/adults at the school) as an enemy. To be on the enemy’s side is, for them, going against their side (that of the students). The kids are afraid that if they even take into consideration what the teacher is saying then they will be going against their own kind. What the students don’t see (right away) is that the teachers are on their side and the discipline is all for their own good. Sometimes I see change in the students; they allow themselves to see things as the teacher sees things. Once the student has done this enough times their fear of being on the “dark side” goes away and they are left with students and teachers all working toward the same goal.

In speaking with one of the teachers at Phoenix I learned that it isn’t entirely the kids fault for being as disobedient as they are. She said that in meeting with the parents she found out that there was often no discipline or rules in the kids home life. When a kid is brought up being able to do whatever they want without the parents caring, one can’t expect them to show respect to any other adult in their life. “Our acts are not self generated, but conditioned. We are at once acted upon and acting, and our ‘responsibility’ lies in the juncture between the two” (p16)

We are the result of how we are brought up. We learn right and wrong from who we spend most of our time with. Our parents are supposed to tell us what is right and wrong…and if they don’t it is up to us to find the people who will tell us. Obviously we cannot blame bad parenting for everything that a kid does wrong, the kid does make the choice to do this action, “The forces that act upon us are not finally responsible for what we do.”(p.16) What we need to do, as a community is show kids through our own actions what is right and wrong. As for the parents, they need to go to some sort of camp that teaches them some good techniques of how to be a good parent!

Precious Life

2010-05-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

Butler’s use of obtuse language almost hides the reasons for her writing about the atrocities that American military and media try to cover up regarding the September 11 attacks. Yet her points are well taken and can be used not only for a poor administration at that time, but an ongoing tragedy of visible censorship.
Butler wrote “Precious Life” at a time when the current American policies governing the war in Iraq, the treatment of Palestinians and the state of Guantanamo prisoners were being over militarized. She argues that the destruction of the World Trade Center did not justify these violent measures. As she puts it: "those US boundaries were breached, that an unbearable vulnerability was exposed, that a terrible toll on human life was taken, were, and are, cause for fear and mourning. Butler’s Precious Life is an attempt to create a sense oppositional voices that are not feared or degraded but valued. Butler mourns that America cried for war and gave up being a part of a global community by heightening nationalist discourse and extending surveillance mechanisms.
Butler explains the reasons why certain people’s voices cannot be heard, certain images cannot be shown and certain people’s lives cannot be grieved publicly in the post-911 in the U.S. is due to the operations of a form of racism that is directed at “they” cannot be counted as normal human beings like “us."
Butler discusses in this chapter the way in which human beings are tied together to one another even in the form of loss and vulnerability. She reminds us of the simple truth that we can be injured and that others can be injured as well. The human condition of interdependence and vulnerability should be the basis of reimagining instead of destroying the possibility of community.

Precarious Life

2010-05-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

“Let’s face it, we’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something”(p. 23).

I was pretty excited this last Friday when a girl in the math class I am tutoring asked me for help. Outside of the few students I tutor each week on a one-to-one basis, it is very rare for any of the students to be interested enough in the work to actually do it, let alone ask on of “them” to help. I say “them” because the feeling inside these classrooms is very similar to the “us against them” mentality that Butler describes as a catalyst of dehumanization. To illustrate this point, let me tell you about what one of the kids said this last Friday. For one reason or another, on this particular day, there were only 6 students in the class, while there were 3 teachers and 3 tutors. When one of the administrators walked in, one of the “harder” students looked up and said: “Great, they have us outnumbered.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of being a student paying $30,000 a year - in large part to have such a such a hands on experience in my education- and being considered to be one of “them” as if I was there to perform some sort of water-boarding rather then teach them the factor tree.

But I’ve digressed. Let me return to my original point and the girl who went against the grain of the majority of the Community School Students and asked me for help. I helped her remember the concept of factorization and she started working on a problem. She made it halfway through the problem, then turned her attention to a nearby conversation her classmates were having about who was drinking what, at which party that night. I got her attention refocused on the problem and again she made it about halfway through the problem and then became engaged in an eraser throwing war with the same nearby students. This continued on for the greater part of the period. When the bell rang she had completed three problems that probably could have been done in a focused environment in less than a minute. Her attempt and her need to do her work had been “undone” by those she was surrounded by. However it was not the intentional acts of those that she was surrounded by that prevented her from remaining focused (they did not divert her attention intentionally). Rather it was her own feeling that she was “missing out” on something that kept drawing her back into their conversation and away from her doing her work and benefiting herself.

You’re right, I can’t help but think of events in my life that make me shutter when I read that quote. As much as I’d like to blame my teammates for costing me my basketball scholarship and my lifelong dream of playing professional basketball, it was my own feeling that I was missing out on something that diverted my energy from my own life and goals and lumped them together with the choices and actions of my teammates. I realize that I am taking this quote in a context different from how the author intended it, but it is this interpretation that allowed me to make a connection to my service learning, my own life.

I agree with the author’s suggestion of our interconnectedness and that our ability to more clearly “feel” this connectedness can be enhanced by loss and subsequent grieving of this loss. In the words of Butler,
But maybe when we undergo what we do, something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that these ties constitute what we are, ties or bonds that compose us. (p. 22)

While I find this point by the author to be valid and real, I find the inverse to be equally interesting and powerful. Perhaps it is our ability and willingness to separate ourselves from others and grieve, mourn and grow from the resulting feeling of loneliness that allows us to find who we truly are, and frees us to do the right thing. As scary as it is to think of yourself as at odds with the actions of your own country, community or family, perhaps it is the ability to accept your independence and grieve the loss of identity and acceptance based on these relationships that allows us to do what is truly in our hearts and find our true identities based on belief, acceptance and action and not geographical location. Along these same lines, had the girl been willing to accept her independence from her classmates and grieve the loss of them as her community, maybe she would be able to remain focused on her work and not the destructive behaviors of her peers. Maybe she could graduate Community School and move on to college and a life she never would have if she remained interconnected with her current community at the school. There comes a time in many relationships whether it be romantic, religious, school, political or familial, that the relationship no longer serves you and prevents you from being the person who you desire to be. Identifying and separating yourself from these relationships is truly difficult, but it is the grieving –which allows you to remain separate and move on – that is most difficult of all.

Prompt for 5/3 Precarious LIfe

2010-04-23T08:23:00.001-07:00

I have just taken these straight from the reading notes that I have posted on blackboard . ..
“Who counts as human?” (20). Why are the experiences of loss, vulnerability, grief, mourning integral to Butler’s thesis? Do we agree that these are universal human experiences that might be a source of moral response? Can you illustrate with your community experience?

and/or

Awe: “Let’s face it, we’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something_ (23) Do you have a significant moment from service that illustrates this? I’m sure that everyone has a life experience that makes you tremble a bit when you read this.
Significance of the discussion of identity/autonomy/the body (24-38). Tie back to other points. This leads into important discussion of vulnerability—how does she then tie this back into the previous points she has built? Can you illustrate with your community experience?

and/or

Dehumanization of the Other 32-49. Crucial points here and she weaves in all the other points.
“We do not need to ground ourselves in a single model of communication, a single model of reason, a single notion of the subject before we are able to act” (48). Think about this in relation to in relation to your service-learning experience. Can you use a specific or significant moment to illuminate?

Someone should blow the whistle at county

2010-04-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Tutoring at phoenix has really opened my eyes as to why students don’t always seem to succeed in school, life or work. At phoenix allot of the students are there because they are told that are the worst kids ever. That they are going to fail because they are in gangs and take drugs. When reading about the narcissism in this book I came across something that made me connect the dots. “The narcissist wants to be whole, good, pure, and perfect. There are two ways to do this. Either one lowers one’s standards of wholeness, goodness, purity, and perfection until they correspond to one’s miserable self” (p. 63). Allot of the students at county and phoenix because they themselves have either lower their standards and they are the reason they can’t succeed. Because they are trying to live up to being one of the cool kids who doesn’t listen to any one or thinks that being bad is cool. Although that most of us in class agreed that if they themselves don’t raise their standards it makes it almost impossible to succeed. However, I have another theory that this kids in county are not completely there because they themselves have put themselves in that position. But the kid’s teachers friends and family members I think they have influenced them to be what they are today. For one example I had a teacher say that her students are one of the worst students ever and that they are not very smart. Or that this student is one of the most dangerous students we have at this school so be careful when tutoring him. In hearing this all I could think is what kind of example are you putting for these children. No wonder these kids are they way they are because their own teachers and family members always put them down especially with the constant reminder of how bad they are. What will keep on happening is not change for the better but for the worse. These students will probably think well then if I am so bad then I should start acting bad. My youth mentor from my church always tells us that if our parents or anyone we know starts saying that we are bad people, troublemakers any negative he says to rebuke those words. Because the word has power and if we take in those negative words it slowly starts to affect us and we begin acting like the words we were called. So it be really interesting to see who blew the whistle at county and stand up against all those teachers who are not there to help out these students and are just there for the money. I think it’s a really sad thing to see how this “true organization” is slowly starting to fall apart for the students because they are not being helped the way they are suppose to

2010-04-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

Whistleblowers – Part 11
Being a whistle blower has a great deal of responsibility surrounding it. Many are considered martyrs for their cause. Whistle blowers find unjust situations that they find deeply unethical and want to correct the situations.
Alford states that “Filling one’s ego ideal with cultural values not only requires the ability to recognize one’s imperfection, it also requires the ability to sustain a heightened sense of imperfection….) this made sense to me.
Take for instance Linda Tripp, a former White House staff member who disclosed to the Office of Independent Counsel than Monica Lewinsky committed perjury and attempted to suborn perjury, and President Clinton committed misconduct, by denying the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship in the Paula Jones federal civil rights suit. Now Ms. Tripp did get a lot of publicity, going so far as to have some facial surgery. This whistle blower was in my opinion using her status to entice Lewinsky into a situation that was used by Tripp to gain credibility for her. Not only did she lose her reputation, she lost her job. She did come out on top, so to speak, since she sued the government and won. This whole incident was messy and confirmed to the nation that trust in our government is weak. Did Tripp realize her imperfections as she recorded Lewinsky’s conversations? Did the responsibility she took on come from an ethical background or was she just trying to make herself look good.
This statement could be debated for years, but the clandestine way in which Tripp set traps had nothing to do with ethics. She saw that a legal situation had risen and she wanted to be certain she was not caught in her own trap.

Alford also states that,”The ability to tolerate this heightened experience of imperfection, coupled with the recognition that time and work may lessen but never eliminate the gap, is the best definition of the distinction between mature and immature narcissism.”
Tripp is just one example of an immature narcissist. I am certain there are others. When disclosing negative information about government, companies, etc., a whistle blower needs to have very thick skin in order to shield them from retaliation. Tripp did have this. She was fired.
Presidents have a tremendous amount of power and have most likely for year’s hidden affairs. Of course John Kennedy was notorious for womanizing. No whistle blowing there. The ingrained deceit an lies that are used to cover up affairs makes me wonder, how does this affect running our government?

Whistleblowers

2010-04-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

The idea of narcissism moralized was an interesting way to start out this reading. When one usually thinks of narcissism, one thinks of someone who is vain and obsessed with oneself. When one thinks of whistleblowers, one tends to think of someone who is standing up for what is right regardless of what it will do to his or her self. The two notions do not usually overlap. In fact, I had never before fathomed the term used by the author of a whistleblower being narcissistic in a moralized way. According to the author, "Shame is wounded narcissism. To be overcome with shame by the acts of others is to be wounded narcissistically by being associated with corruption. Doubly wounded, as one was too weak to do anything about it" (Alford, 76). There is a sense of shame lurking in most whistleblowers for being involved in or having knowledge of something that could harm another person or groups of people. It is completely logical when the author describes the whistleblowers as being unable to live with themselves having the knowledge that they posess. In my opinion, this is a good way to describe a moralized narcissism. The whistleblowers in this sense are acting because they cannot live with the guilt that what they are doing or have knowlege of within their company. This is brought up quite a bit in my service learning. It is amazing to think that there are people working for the sanitary district who would have no problems with not telling the public that there was a sewage spill in the creek, but it does happen. When I heard the amount of spills that were not reported to the public throughout the past few years, I was appalled. There is no way that I, personally, could live with the knowledge that hundreds of gallons of sewage get dumped into the creeks annually without the attention brought to the people who live in surrounding areas. It is amazing that there are people who can sit by and watch children go into the creek after there has been a sewage spill and not say anything about it. This comes back to the whistleblowers. Some people of course will be unhappy with the term narcissism being used to describe whistleblowers. It is not a vain, self-helping situation. The term that needs to be paid more attention is the "moralized" portion of the term. There is a completely moral and ethical responsibility that whistleblowers feel toward the people who they want to help, and that is why they blow the whistle on the companies for which they work.

Whistleblowers Ending

2010-04-19T11:37:00.001-07:00

After finishing this book I now sympathize more with whistle-blowers than I did before. Originally I thought whistle-blowers where just people who where ticked off with their company or their job duties and found problems on purpose to complain about. I honestly have no idea why I felt that way but it kind of irks me now that I think back on it. It may have to do with the first job I had was union and they did the whole song and dance to let them know if we felt the company was miss treating us. I came to realize that the company and the union where very much working together. If an employee would go to the union with a complaint, one that was supposed to be anonymous somehow a manager would still find out who it came from. The end results would usually lead to a forced transfer to another store, or working unfair shifts say one day you would work 6 pm until 3 am and then turn around and the next day work 10 am until 7pm. The company knew they couldn’t do anything but make the person go crazy (not literally) and quit. I think it is a similar way as to what was mentioned in the reading. (106) “in a word discipline works through diagnosis.” I find that unfair to send someone to a shrink just because they stood up for what they believe in. The fact that company’s get away with this is just wrong. I feel that if someone stands up and makes a complaint or brings something to light that was hidden they should be interviewed, just not by a shrink to say their nuts. The other way that company’s dealt with things to say it’s over your head or not your department (106). Just because someone is not in a position of power or may not be in a certain area doesn’t mean they are wrong. After reading and thinking about all that was brought up in the book, I feel that whistle-blowers will always get the cold shoulder. Companies will always find ways to either sweep it under the door mat and bury it or make the person blowing the whistle go away.

Whistleblower Blog 2

2010-04-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

'Of course, we don't all have to be whistleblowers and sacrifice all that is good in our lives for our ego-ideal--the values that we believe make our life worth living. In the service that you do for this class, hopefully you have more to gain than to lose--especially as the hope is that this experience, if nothing else, will deepen your learning in this class."

This prompt really relates to how i feel about my service learning. Yes I am not giving up my life like a whistleblower, but I do feel that what I am doing gives me great relief that I am helping make the difference in this animal overpopulated world. Lynne who is the founder/director of The Milo Foundation, has given up her life to do this. For the past 15 years she has saved over 15,000 animals! And the numbers keep rising. She gets about 250 plus emails a day. She is usually on a short sleep schedule. She has really sacrificed having a life, like a whistleblower, to do what they love. Though a whistleblower might not like what they are doing they still give him their lives to keep doing the job.

This brings me to moral maturity. (69-70) To bear the criticism is what I have had to do at my service learning. This criticism that we will never be able to do enough. But I can turn it around and say at least we are doing something. This moral maturity is what I believe a whistleblower lacked. They took the rough job and bared the judgment through authority. The whistleblower's felt shameful due to them working for a company that really didn't care about the public. (73) This is one thing I am not. My service learning has opened so many doors for me. I feel proud at the end of the day knowing that I got to be apart of finding an animal his/her forever home.

"The worst thing I can think of to say about a whistleblower is that he or sh has become a whiner." (122) This made my jaw drop. For someone who had to bare so much emotional and self punishment don't you think they deserve to whine. I do. I agree that if they want to take action against a company then they would have to have courage and they can not let disagreement bog them down. I think that they should get to tell their stories, hardships, and self grief. In the end its a hard thing to judge just based off positionality.

Whistleblower Blog

2010-04-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

During the reading a found passage that not only stood out to me but find it to be relevant to my service-learning. “One might argue that although whistleblowers are not connected to those they benefit, the structure of their imagination for consequences is nonetheless the structure of all empathy: taking up in one’s imagination the place of the other” (68). The realization a person has when understanding the decisions being made at the time are enough or the wrong ones, that something must be done in order to prevent disaster from occurring. Seeing the bigger picture and not being able to stop thinking about what could happen if he/she doesn’t speak up and do anything about it. Having the non-stop inner dialogue of how people we will never know, will be affected by decisions made by others. The characteristic of empathy I believe is what allows the individual to make better decisions in life to stand up for what they believe is right even though they are told to drop the subject. My service-learning partner is Marin Link in which I am helping in the 2010 Marin Green Business Forum with this year’s theme being “How Sustainable Business Practices Create Opportunity and Jobs.” A lot of controversy has surrounded the issue of global warming with people being skeptical of whether this problem actually exists, whether is manmade or naturally occurring. Although skepticism may exist among this issue there are people who believe global warming is a problem and will only get worse if we do not take action now. This year Marin Green Business Forum will inform the community the steps companies are taking to become green and how some people have started sustainable business and been successful. People who worked on organizing the Marin Green Business Forum are doing it to inform the people and to protect the planet for future generations. Global warming is affecting everyone and will affect the people that live after we are gone; it is the inner feeling of not being to stop thinking about the others and the future we have left them.
Helping with this year’s forum has showed me there are people out there taking steps to fix a problem that many people aren’t willing to acknowledge or willing to fix. Instead of waiting for others they have taken the initiative to take on the problem head on while informing people of progress that is being done. While walking through 4th street asking businesses if I could post posters promoting the 2010 Marin Green Business Forum I saw how some people thought it was good this type of event was going on. Working for Marin Link is important to me because I realize and see firsthand how an organization is taking into consideration a big problem and is actually doing something about it. Whether is helping with the mailing or putting up posters around town I am glad to be a part of the project because instead of waiting around for things to get worse we are taking action now. I continue to learn more with everyday I work with Marin Link of the importance of seeing the picture of the problem and then going about to find solutions. Businesses are established to make profits and few businesses have attempted to transition into becoming green but hopefully with more people realizing the advantages of going green more and more businesses will be willing to make the transition. Once this happen the ideology of profit coming first over anything will change and the number one importance will be the people and the planet.

Whistle Blower Blog

2010-04-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

Unless a whistleblower did what he did for some personal gain i.e. money promotion etc., I still think they were justified for doing what was right. The author addressed this issue ( pg 64). Everyone should stand for something; not taking a position at all is worse. What kind of society would we be without ethics?

I am not completely convinced that all whistleblowers are moral narcissists. Some may lean towards this tendency, but not all. The environment, in which we are raised, plays an important role in the type of choices we make; this has a direct effect on our decisions. (pg 69) If you grew up in a community that taught you to help others, and taught you to treat people with kindness and respect, does that make you a narcissist, to want to do the right thing? Having moral convictions and ethics makes us human; totally destroying a person emotionally, physically and financially, because they were trying to stop people from dying, is much worse act, than blowing the whistle. The arguments presented to explain narcisstic moralization, could have some merit, depending on how you look at it, but I don’t feel it rings true for all of the whistleblowers. There are some people who truly care about children dying and not just their own children; in some communities people believe in looking out for all the children. I could see this type of person blowing the whistle. I guess the term moral narcissism is more what I have a problem with. The whistleblower is not according to the author, a narcissist in the true sense of the word per say. (pg 63) His discussion (pg 79) gives what I feel to be a better depiction of a person in relationship to using the narcissist term, for an individual who is doing the right thing.

I am reminded of what it means for a politician, an elected official to work for the people. You take on the responsibility of looking out for the interests of the public. You are the people’s voice. If there were some sort of environmental danger to the people of the community, which the candidate that I am volunteering for represents and he did nothing, he would not be fulfilling his commitment. It is his job to see that the people he represents are taken care of.

Moral Maturity by: Elizabeth O'Neill

2010-04-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

This quote stated by Anna Freud really summed up an important part of this weeks reading. “An early stage in the development of conscience, identification with the aggressor occurs not just when we are scared of others but when we cannot bear their censure. We internalize the criticism, but rather than directing it at ourselves we turn it outward becoming the critic because we cannot bear the criticism. Moral maturity is reached…when we become able to turn this criticism back against ourselves” (69-70). It is easy for a person to see a fellow employee participating in deeds that are unethical and set themselves apart from them, saying they are not like that employee. But for that individual to set their self apart from the employee is avoiding the bigger picture. That person should asking why are they doing that, and is it really for the good of the company? And if so, am I too acting unethically? This line of questioning is at most times hard to face, and it is easier for an individual to lash out on others instead of themselves.

By participating in classes where Service Learning plays a key role, the student participating is taking his or her steps towards moral maturity. They are doing this by acknowledging that they can be a solution to a huge problem that affects the community as a whole. For me at MarinLink, I am participating indirectly in trying to help with bringing down pollution and the use of plastic products. My job has been to help think of ways to reach consumers so they have the information to make consumer decisions that is not only beneficial for them, but for the environment as well. When participating in any community organization that has goals to help solve major issues, that volunteer is looking at the big picture. They are acknowledging that they have to look at themselves before they point fingers at others. And instead of placing the blame, they are taking the steps to help the people around them be aware of the situation.

Whistleblowers part deux

2010-04-18T01:42:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I should speak only for myself, but I think to say that any of us are doing our volunteer work solely as a result of our own ethical prerogative, would be complete fantasy thinking and a feeble attempt to preserve the primary narcissist perfection ( I do it because I am a good who only does good things for good reasons) we all pine away for. The truth however I believe lies in who and what we are surrounded by. Here is my argument:

The author describes the ego ideal as “a substitute for primary narcissistic perfection, but a substitute from which the ego is separated by a gulf, a split that man is constantly seeking to abolish” (p. 77). A short while later, the author continues, “The question is only how we seek to abolish the gap. Do we idealize the ideal, filling it with the greatest cultural achievements in which we can then share? Or do we fill our ego ideals with our own grandiosity?” (p. 77). The author then goes on to describe the ego ideal as the avatar of narcissistic perfection. Finally, the author proposes that moral narcissism depends on whether or not our ego ideal is moral or not, “Narcissism moralized requires that the content of the ego ideal – that is one’s ideals – become moral” (p. 78). The bottom line is everything points back to the ego ideal and how we fill it. Is it filled with the influences and ideals of our culture or with our own selfish grandiosity?

I believe that as social animals, we are most apt to fill our ego ideals with the influences of our culture. What happens though when the culture that influences you (fills your ego ideal) is offbeat with mainstream culture or the ideals of our society? I believe this is the case with the majority of the students at MCCS. The immediate culture of these students is their peers and in some cases their family (which are often extremely dysfunctional). What then fills up these ego ideals of these teenagers? It is mostly rebellion, drugs, sex, cursing out the teachers and being tough and cool. Once one becomes entrenched in this culture, it becomes more and more difficult to return to the mainstream, because the ego ideal is increasingly filled with these aspects of life considered most important. Thus a life is pursued based on these ideals.

Those of us who survived the corrupting culture of our families, high school or whatever other distractions came along the way and find our way to college are entrenched in a culture that values learning, understanding and development of the self and our society. We are the lucky ones who are part of a culture that teaches, structures and motivates. We can fill our ego ideals with the knowledge and concepts of those who have more experience than we do. I believe it is the purpose of MCCS and those of us involved there to offer an alternative culture to the one that the students are a part of and/or have created amongst themselves. Hopefully in doing so, we provide alternatives views, ideals and material for the students to assimilate into their ego ideals and hopefully into their lives. As the author postulates, there are two options for the focus of our ego ideals; our community and culture or ourselves. While it is true that we are all engaged in actions focused on our community, I believe it is very unlikely that we would be engaged in such actions if it were not for the influences of our immediate culture.

I always post first! :-)

2010-04-16T18:01:00.001-07:00

Directly in the beginning of this week’s reading something popped out to me as relating to my service learning. “The narcissist wants to be whole, good, pure, and perfect. There are two ways to do this. Either one lowers one’s standards of wholeness…until they correspond to one’s miserable self. Or one raises one’s miserable self as high as one possibly can so that one comes a little closer to these standards.”(p 63) This is a problem with most of the kids at County and Phoenix in a general sense (not just morally as described in the book). There are students (a majority of them) who have decided that they are in this school because they can’t do any better and their lives are already doomed. Then there are the students who understand that they can do better and become like the students at regular high schools. These are the students that eventually leave County or Phoenix with a degree or transfer back into the traditional school system.

What I feel my main goal as a tutor there is to show the students that they are better than they think they are. These kids don’t need to be “bad students,” but that is how a lot of them see themselves. I love it when a student can answer something that I can’t, in class because it shows them that they are of just as high of an intelligence level as a college student. The students at County think they are there because there are the “stupid kids” when in actuality, they have the potential of being smarter than students that come out of a regular high school. My job is not to show them this, but to have them figure it out on their own.

Loyalty is very important to the kids at County School. One reason is because of the gangs that exist and allegiance to one’s gang. The other allegiance is to the other kids that they are in school with. It seems like it is all of the students against the teacher. No one would ever want to be on the teacher’s side. Either all of the students are working or none of them are. They seem to do things as a pack. This might be the opposite thinking of whistleblowers. “Whistleblowers blow the whistle because they dread living with a corrupted self more than they dread isolation from others.” (p 90) The students I work with do fear isolation. It seems as though a kid at County would rather follow what the group wants to do rather than do the opposite (even if they know that what the group is doing is wrong).

I would like to propose an experiment. We hire some young people (after graduating high school of course) to come to County and pose as students. For a few weeks they talk with the kids and gain their trust and act similar to them. After a few weeks has passed what if these students (making up roughly half the class) started to do their work and listen to the teacher…would the rest follow?

prompt for week of 4/19--2nd reading in Whistleblowers

2010-04-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

Again, the purpose of this prompt is to encourage you to think about textual concepts in relation to your work with the community (as this is what the final paper is all about!)--at the same time, the expectation is that the class discussion will engage many more points in the reading. The more textual concepts that you can bring into your posting, the better, but we will be covering more in the class discussion then you probably be able to unpack in this blog.

Alford talks about Arendt's "suspicion" that ethical behavior is grounded in our imaginative ability to "take others into account"(60). What Arendt means is that although we are subjective beings and can only experience reality through our own set of conditions--we have the capacity to imaginatively project ourselves into the reality of others. Thus, identification, humanization of the other, becomes a source of or motivation for ethical behavior.

Alford elaborates on the whistleblower's challenge using Buber's idea that "empathy is like a bridge, thrown from 'self-being to self-being across the abyss of the dread of the universe.'" He adds that for whistleblowers, "one end of this bridge must be supported by an imaginary abutment" (60). He uses the experience of the rescuer to unpack this distinction, explaining that unlike the rescuer who deals with particular persons, the whistleblower is driven to act by abstract ideals, not the concrete presence of the other.

He goes back to this idea at the end of Chapter 5: "Morality stems from empathy, in which we are deeply affected by the sufferings of others. . . It is easy to feel empathy for the sufferings of others, even when fear and ideology often team up to muffle this feeling." He sums up: "In a sense morality is easy, if by morality we mean feeling empathy and concern for others. What is difficult is acting on this basis when the self must pay a terrible price. . ." (95).

Of course, we don't all have to be whistleblowers and sacrifice all that is good in our lives for our ego-ideal--the values that we believe make our life worth living. In the service that you do for this class, hopefully you have more to gain than to lose--especially as the hope is that this experience, if nothing else, will deepen your learning in this class.

There are many different ways you could go with this prompt--if you are doing indirect service, you might reflect on the resources you have drawn on to address a larger ethical concept than that embodied in the presence/suffering of another individual. Even if you are doing direct service, you might find the larger issue to be the true motivator.

Or, you might describe the ways in which you have experienced that bridging to another human being or a cause that Buber describes. Or, you might reflect on the ways you have seen others do so in your service. Or, you might think about what you or others you work with sacrifice for shared ideals.

Basically, I am hoping you will think about your own resources for ethical action, and/or what motivates those you serve with, and how you or someone you serve with bridges the gap between nice idea and lived reality. . .

Responsibility and Guilt

2010-04-05T12:42:00.001-07:00

I believe I have a very sensitive conscience. If I have done something wrong or haven't completed my work I cant sleep, and often get very fatigued. AS stated on page 147 of Responsibility and Judgement, "Guilt singles out; its strictly personal." I feel this all the time. With my service learning I often feel guilty about the dogs we don't save. I feel this guilt because I have singled them out for a reason, either they weren't cute enough or too big. I feel the guilt for the ones who die who I didnt choose. Its a very hard thing to live with.

In contrast, "The question is never whether an individual is good but whether his conduct is good for the world he lives in." (151) This is the other side of what I feel. I feel good for the ones i save. I am not doing this for myself I am doing this for the community of the animals who have no voice. "Powerlessness which always presupposes isolation is a valid excuse for doing nothing."(156) this quote grabbed me! I feel powerless most of the time. I feel that there is not enough in this world i can do to help all the animals. But I am not powerless nor can i think i am. Like the author stated it is a valid excuse for doing nothing. With my service learning I am doing something. I am making changes. I am picking up after the irresponsibility of another human. Being in the rescue world someone had to breed that dog that now sits in a kill shelter watching his/her time pass by. It's frustrating as hell that people cant take responsibility and kick their strong willed dignity of breeding out the window.

On page 160 it talks about evil doing, and whether it is just sin based. I don't think it is. Breeding a dog is not a sin but it can be considered an evil doing in the world that my service learning pertains too. Responsibility can be so problematic for some people. They just cant grasp the idea of owning up to their evil doing or what problems they have created in this world. In the world of animal rescue the same people who are helping the animals are only picking up what the irresponsible people have left behind. Thousands of homeless animals with not enough people to love them.

Lifes Choices

2010-04-04T23:12:00.000-07:00

It has long been established that we willfully make choices. I believe that we are the product of our environment and our life’s experiences; which plays a big part in how we choose to do whatever it is we do. If the world is to change we must like Jane Goodall said start with our young. (Respect for Life PDF Pg. 10 ). It is important to teach about and create an environment that speaks to saving and making our world better; both physically and emotionally, or we will destroy it as we know it, and certainly make it worse. We are at a turning point; we can turn things around, before it’s too late. I was fortunate to grow up in an environment, which promoted fairness, and being humane to one another, as well as taking care of our environment.

I benefited from Jane Goodall’s beliefs. I know first hand that she lived her life practicing what she believed in. I attended a school as a young person that she visited and personally supported. I had the opportunity to meet her on several occasions, when she visited my school to speak. Jane Goodall was impressed by the way my school taught us to respect others and our planet. We were learning in the type of environment, she spoke of as being, one in which young people needed to live in. This school played a vital part, in the way I view the world today. Like Jane Goodall, I feel that our environment and life experiences, has a lot to do with shaping us to be who we are; which I feel in turn, is a determining factor in the choices we make.

My project involves getting a candidate elected, who believes in making the district a better place for all residents who live there, as well as the city as a whole; thus creating a healthy environment, and giving the peoples interests first priority In the end, it is all about humanity and saving our world.

thoughts of county

2010-04-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

No one lives in solidarity. We all are forced to interact with one another in some form or matter to even conduct our day to day business. This being a fact how then do we create our own personal responsibility, when so much of your life is dependent on your interactions with others? In the readings Arendt talks about this idea of collective responsibility and while there is no direct contribution on your part you are still held responsible. This I believe applies to the mentality that I see in County. This idea that “we are all guilty” (pg. 148) unites the students with one another, since they see each other in the same place in life. This unity is great for creating and defining a community, but the problem that arises counteracts exactly what the community stands for; individual responsibility. In a community where “everyone is guilty”, in reality creates one where “no one is guilty” (pg.148). This is where my question arises; how do you create an environment that promotes individual responsibility, when the very community that is formed seems to promote the opposite? I don’t know the answer to this question and it vexes me when I see it played out at County. Yet at the same time you can see those students we don’t identify with this group mentality and it makes me smile when I see students try to make a difference. I bring this up because it proves that this problem of group thinking isn’t impossible to overcome, but we still need to fix the institute so that group think isn’t only overcome by those of the strongest of wills and inner discipline.

Guilt responsibility and sins

2010-04-04T22:11:00.000-07:00

In reading the chapter on collective responsibility i was able to relate guilt and responsibility to phoenix academy at county. Could us as not only us citizens but as human beings be responsible for taking care of our community and youth. I would think yes to a certain extent. When I see the the students at phoenix struggling with an addiction or just simply trying to solve a simple math problem I cant help it but to feel a bit guilty. Even though I have not caused the problem towards these children i feel a bit guilty. This could be the reason why maybe so many people help out their community. Because we are apart of this country and are apart of this government we tend to feel guilty because our government does not do anything to help. thats why many of us try our best one way or another. either by running for mayor to make a difference in your city or just by simply volunteering at a school. I related this even more when Arendt stated that we are held accountable for the sins of our fathers. Because there is so many problems in our country or community because of what our fathers did in the past and now not only do we feel guilty but we have a responsibility to help out and change our community for the better.

An Unacknowledged Freedom

2010-04-04T21:58:00.001-07:00

While reading Collective Responsibility by Hannah Arendt, I found the most interesting topic she brought up was the conflict between the responsibility of one’s self versus the responsibility of their community. I feel this is a conflict that every person struggles with. This is why organizations like MarinLink are so important. MarinLink lends a hand to local nonprofit organization to offer them legal and business advice so these positive organizations can flourish. MarinLink and the organizations that it helps allow citizens to fulfill that responsibility to their community to create a better environment for their neighbors and family. One aspect of this that really got my attention is when Ardent discusses how it a right for citizens to NOT participate in politics and their community, and that this is a right that most people take for granted. In the reading she states:

“…in free countries a certain group of citizens may not want to participate… simply because they have chosen to take advantage of one of our liberties, the pone usually not mentioned when we count our freedoms because it is so much taken for granted, and that is freedom from politics” (154).

I find this quote so powerful because it puts into light how much Americans take for granted the right to speak out against a politician or simply not walk down to the voting booth. Ardent brings up examples such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union when under the power of Stalin. When faced with this type of situation, members within these communities face a death sentence for something that anyone living in the United States would not think twice about doing. This reading opened my eyes to on going conflict within each member of a community and the fact that they have a choice at all to decide whether or not to participate is freedom unacknowledged.

Blog for April 5, 2010

2010-04-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

Blog for April 5, 2010

The students at the MYC are a group of young people who, working with adults are increasing their potential in all areas of art, music, computers, and life skills.
Hannah Arendt states on page 163, that “our desire to know opens up further horizons of knowables.” She goes on to state, that our desire to know stems from several things, one being curiosity.
The youth at MYC are reaching for knowledge not only by showing up each day or each week, but retaining what they have learned. They are learning to pass along to others what they have learned as a result of their practice in different skills of computers and video.
The Luna group has been learning software programs that can be used to implement music into a video and cartoons to superimpose onto film. The knowledge these girls learn may at some point in their lives become a passion that leads them into the computer world, TV, film, or even teaching. It may also become a hobby that they can pass along to others.
The girls in the Luna group are also learning how to work together and follow directions. This past week while making a video, one of the girls suggested making Q-Cards. Not only did this help the “actors” that were on screen, it was a lesson in learning to co-operate with each other. This decision was made with just the girls with no adult input.

Thinking at County...

2010-04-02T16:43:00.001-07:00

At County School I see a lot of peer pressure and kids doing things just because the other kids are doing it, or not doing things because the other kids are not doing it. As part of a community there the kids feel safest by doing what everyone else there is doing. “Non-participation is actually a form of resistance.” (p 155) When the student I work with often, Mariella is in class without her friends she is willing and excited to do what the teacher and I ask her to do. She will sit down and complete her work with no fight at all. When Mariella is sitting next to her friends she will talk to them and goof around instead of work on the class work. Also, whenever I see her coming to class, she comes alone. When she has skipped school I see her outside of school grounds hanging out with her friends. If she were to not participate in the side conversations her classmates have during class or not participate in skipping school, she would be resisting peer pressure; which I wish she would. In this case not participating is harder than participating.

Non-thinking really pops out to me as an issue in every part of my life. What the kids at County are doing is “non-thinking” when they adhere to the rules of their community. Their governing body is not their teachers, but the other kids that go to school there. The rule is, “hate your teacher and hate learning,” and to go against that is showing some personal thought on the part of the student. I am so happy when a student actually works to learn something or listens to what the teacher says because they are breaking away from the rules. “By shielding people against the dangers of examination, it teaches them to hold fast to whatever the prescribed rules of conduct may be at a given time in a society.” (p 178) Several times during a class period I see kids break away from the non-thinking peer pressure of the school and look forward toward learning and an educational future.

Prompt forApril 5th

2010-03-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

For the rest of the semester, my prompts will focus on the connections between textual concepts and your experience in the community. As there are so many interesting and relevant ideas and formulations in this reading, I expect that our discussion will be much broader in class, so use this post as an opportunity to articulate your insights and thoughts about the application of Arendt's formulations to your service.

Please be aware that I am pulling quotes and not providing the full context. When using any quotes in relation to your service, or otherwise, you need to look at the context in which the statement is made in the larger reading in order that your interpretation honors the author’s project (at least to the extent that you understand that to be).

Consider how one or more of these statements/ideas are manifested in your service experience Think about the actions of those you work along side with in your organizations--those who run the organizations and/or the other participants, such as those whose interests are recognized/served etc. (For more ideas/questions that you can be asking yourself to aid your reflective process, please refer to the Tips for Text/Service Responses that I have posted under assignments).

Hannah Arendt writes in the chapter "Collective Responsibility": "we are always responsible for the sins of our fathers as we reap the rewards of their misdeeds, either morally or legally, nor can we ascribe their deeds to our own merits."
She continues in the next paragraph, "We can escape this political and strictly collective responsibility only by leaving the community, and since no man can live without belonging to some community, this would simply mean to exchange one community for another and hence one kind of responsibility for another" (150).

At the conclusion of this chapter, she writes that the "vicarious responsibility for things we have not done, this taking upon ourselves the consequences for things we are entirely innocent of, is the price that we pay for the fact that we live our lives not by ourselves but among our fellow men, and the faculty of action, which, after all, is the political faculty par excellence, can be actualized only in one of the many and manifold forms of human community" (157-158).

“I tried to show that our decisions about right and wrong will depend upon our choice of company, of those with whom we wish to spend our lives” (145-146).
And here is an extra interpretive challenge-- from, “Thinking and Moral Considerations”—can you use your service experience to help illuminate what Arendt means?

“Human consciousness suggests that difference and otherness . . . are the very conditions for the existence of man’s ego . . . For this ego, the I-am-I, experiences difference in identity precisely when it is not related to the things that appear but only to itself” (184).

One kindness

2010-03-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

Prompt:Thus, kindness has an internal tension—it brings us pleasure but it also reminds us of all that we fear about ourselves including change. (There is also an interesting discussion about whether kindness requires selflessness—hopefully we will discuss in class as this is important and a theme that will come up in C. Fred Alford’s book on whistleblowers.)Like most people I fear change. Change brings the good and bad out into your life. And when change is happening in someones life they are either happy or miserable. This reflects to the above prompt as also being an example of the internal tension of kindness. To some people it will kill them to be kind. These people are by nature mad or angry. So why is that? How could being considered kind be so hard for people. To me being kind is part of my lifestyle. Going into to medicine career i cant be rude or not kind. Its part of my way i choose to live my life.

"But if Self-love was validated by the Enlightenment, selfishness emphatically was not." (p.25) The Enlightenment brought dramatic changes for the society and the cultural views. It was looked upon as you would be selfless, rather you would seek pleasure without hurting anyone else. After this quote it talks about no man could get the greater pleasure from acts of kindness and charity. When people started being "less" selfish was a touchstone for humanity. As the Enlightenment thinkers proposed this idea of being kind and doing acts of charity for the greater good was a huge turning point for human kind to have sympathy. (also expressed on page 29) Sympathy is defined as having pity or compassion. (p.28). To me i would have never known the word "pity" would be used in the definition of sympathy. To me sympathy is having compassion, or mutual fondness for someone or something.

"For ones mind to yield pity is an effect of affability, gentleness, and softness." (pg 40) This quote was followed by emotions are works for the weaker being. This weaker being in this time period was a women. To be kind was a feminine act. This sexist statement stuck with women until the modern age. For men to be kind back then, it would be an act of being a women. Men were still considered the ruling sex. With women having the maternal love and kindness showed that they knew the feelings and needs of others than just men. This was a ego shot to the men. This introduced new gender distinctions. Where women were reflected to being spontaneous with unreflected modes of kindness

2010-03-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

On Kindness
It was interesting reading the first chapter about kindness and how some people seemed to be against kindness or were suspicious of act of kindness. In which the book claims “most people appear to believe that deep down they (and other people) are mad, bad, and dangerous to know… that our motives are utterly self-seeking, and that our sympathies are forms of self-protection” (4). If this is the view people have on kindness and why some people choose to do acts of kindness then it would explain why some people have a negative view on kindness or are suspicious of acts of kindness. The reality is that we do question the true motives of people such as celebrities when they donate to charities, visit children at hospitals, or do any act of kindness. What stood out to be was that “kindly behavior is looked upon with suspicion; public espousals of kindness are dismissed as moralistic and sentimental” (7). I believe this statement is true because I have questioned the kindly behavior of others as have others have questioned mine. There is a sense of suspicion in which we are not doing this because of the kindness at the bottom of our hearts but because we will gain something from it. Kindness is a concept that is being lost because we grow up in a society in which being competitive is important and are rewarded for being the best. In which we are told to try harder next time and we begin shifting into a mind set of only caring about you and forgetting about others. I know realize that many of the things I did before what not acts of kindness although I believed they were but more like showing that I was better than others. Volunteering, helping or getting in involved in projects competing against friends and classmates everything was a competition between us and nothing more. But that feeling does not comparative to the feeling I get from doing some kind act. On Friday I helped to do the mailing for my service learning at Marin Link and although all I did was help in the process of getting the mailing done, it felt good. Not only because I got to help out but because it made me feel happy to be part of the Green Business Forum and being able to mail the letters the same day. I’ve worked on projects and events before but I’ve never had that feeling of peace, relaxation, and happiness like I did on Friday, the other times I just felt like getting it done and moving on. It might be that I have changed since my arrival at Dominican in which I view life differently but the feeling of doing something to help out someone other than yourself is an indescribable which just brightens your day. While another reason people might refrain themselves from doing acts of kindness could be the belief that “women [are] naturally prone to sympathetic incontinence, while men, as the ruling sex, had to retain self-command” (40). For guys it might seem like a sign of weakness to be kind especially when you’re surrounded by people who mock you whenever you do something kind or question your kindness. Kindness does not discriminate among genders or is a characteristic that only belongs to one particular gender. People should move from caring about what others may say or think and maybe then people will be more kind or not think twice before giving in to kindness.

Kindness Post

2010-03-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

Kindness and Empathy are things that affect us on an almost hourly basis. We all make choices everyday that have so affect on others whether it be by six degrees of seperation or face to face. I know I see at least two or three people asking for spare change. I usually don't give them anything because I think they are just going to by alcohol or drugs. It is because of a few that I came up with this stereotype of beggers. But, at the same time what else could I do that could benefit the people looking for the help? I was once waiting at a red light in the parking lot of the Santa Rosa Costco and Best Buy, there was a man holding a sign in the median saying he was a war vet and needed any help. I then noticed that the car in front of me waved the guy over, I didn't see the drive of the car hand the man money, but instead it was a book, a Donald Trump how to get rich book to be precise. I actually thought it was a sick joke and so did the vet. As the vet looked like he was about to chuck the book back at the guy the drive told him to open it... inside was a $100 bill! I was shocked, and all of a sudden felt like that could make some change (no pun intended) in his life. I also once worked with a manager at Safeway that would not tell the people out front asking for change to leave but instead brought them in and gave them a soda and what usually chicken strips or jalapano poppers. I know I don't have the resources to give out $100 bills or sodas and fried food, but I could at least hand out a dollar.

I think something that everyone needs to realize is that we are all dependant to some extant. We all know that the majority of us were dependants until out late teens, and then in some wierd circle of life we get to take care of our parents when they get old. But on a larger level we also rely on others. I mean look at school! We couldn't teach ourselves all the things we must know to get our degrees (no matter what we may say while in class). Without professors we would be s.o.l. Then on to another big thing that everyone has and usually needs self-confidence and self-esteem. To me it's just wrong for those to be called "self" when it usually is based off of what we feel and sometimes know other feel about us. Either way we all need the every now and then stroking of our ego. That leads us to the friends and loved ones we rely on to give us this confidence, because without this confidence and esteem, we might quit things we are currently doing or working on. It is because of these reasons that the following qoute sttod out to me: "Self sufficiency is an impossible fantasy." p 30. If we were all self sufficient, things coudl get done every now and than and for a short time before things would go down hill. To me I feel that would also mean not having anyone to boast to or show off earnings, or awards. So all in all I think we all depend on one another, one way or another.

On Kindness First Reading

2010-03-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy this book. It makes a lot of sense in the realm of humanity. It is interesting to read about the way in which people are amazed at the way they feel after demonstrating random acts of kindness. A quote that I have been thinking about a lot is in the beginning of the book on page four. "Reading these stories, we begin to wonder why people today are so surprised by the blindingly obvious. Why do the pleasures of kindness astonish us? And why are the stories about kindness often so corny or silly, so trivializing of the things that matter most to people?" (Phillips, Taylor pg. 4). When I read this passage, it really struck me and made me think about the types of kindness that are heard of in news stories and by word of mouth. Each time somebody does something kind or unselfish, it becomes a big deal.

People are flabbergasted by the sheer kindness that is done, or they completely take it for granted. From personal experience, I know that a lot of people are simply astonished by random acts of kindness. I work at a drive-thru coffee shop, and occassionally, someone will pay for another person's coffee even if they are previously unacquainted with the other person. The person who's drink was paid for will be very happy, and sometimes pay for someone else's drink. It's a great feeling being a part of making someone's day a little bit happier. Personally, I think that it is random acts of violence and anger that should be more astonishing to people. Kindness should be a part of everybody's lives without question. There should be nothing astonishing about someone paying for a coffee just because they felt like it. It should be nice, but not something unheard of in the realm of every day reality. If people focused more on performing acts of kindness instead of consuming themselves with their own lives completely, this world would be a much nicer place in which to live.

On Kindness

2010-03-21T13:25:00.001-07:00

For me, this reading was personally relevant and often directly expressed feelings that arise in my own mind on a daily basis. The reading catalyzed introspection that was at times scary and at other times hopeful and inspiring. I was also struck by the passage early in the reading that Professor Van Der Ryn opened with in the prompt. The authors, Phillips and Taylor, assert:
Most people appear to believe that deep down they (and other people) are mad, bad , and dangerous to know; that as species-apparently unlike other species of animal – we are deeply and fundamentally antagonistic to each other, that our motives are utterly self-seeking, and that our sympathies are forms of self-protection. (p. 4)
What struck me about this thought is that when put into words, it sounds so sad and hopeless, but at the same time it is often how I feel about myself, and others.
For me it is important to look at this topic (kindness and interactions between human beings) not as an idea of absolutes, but rather as a result of many interacting factors. By this I mean that I do not believe that people are always kind or always malevolent, but rather, I believe that peoples’ treatment of others is s complex interaction of genetics, upbringing, mood and surrounding. The author suggests that kindness is what makes people most happy and content. “His astonishment is echoed in headline reports of studies of “what makes people happy,” which show kindness registering much higher on the happiness scale than self-focused behavior” (p. 3). This is a point that I totally agree with, but at the same time, in light of my own experience, calls for further exploration.
As I thought about this reading, I began to recognize my own patterns of kindness and more commonly, lack of kindness and benevolence (my most common description of myself is that I am a “misanthropic f***”). What I realized is that I am much more likely to act kind and feel a connection to humanity when I am happy and feeling positive about my own existence. When I am feeling badly about myself or the state of the world, I tend to project negative traits onto others and thus am much less interested or motivated to act kindly. In fact, when I am stressed, I often act antagonistically towards others and seek out confrontation. I guess my question is what comes first, the kindness or the happiness? I would suggest both. Not only does kindness result in increased happiness, but happiness results in increased kindness.
Another component that is critical to kindness is the belief of interconnectedness of all humans. My educational background is mainly in psychology and biological sciences and in both these disciplines, the idea of altruism is largely discounted and at best met with a great deal of skepticism. One reductionist view is that we are nothing more than vehicles for propagating our genetic material from one generation to the next. However, I don’t believe this is our innate drive, but rather a biological vulnerablility that has been exploited by businesses, media and Government. In light of these two critical components of kindness (happiness and interconnectedness) it logically follows that kindness has dissipated in our country. We are living in an age of ruthless corporate capitalism in our country, which not only creates economic divisions, but also is inherently competitive. So in a sense the connectedness we should feel to one another is being replaced by something that is deemed more important, power and status. The result is that we see fellow human beings as competition for a diminishing and already limited pool space and resources. In addition, happiness has become intimately tied to possessions and things. Marketing schemes and businesses now supply an endless stream of new releases, new versions and upgrades. By placing your happiness in things, it remains always in sight, but just out of reach. As we become more advanced as a nation, we have simultaneously become less and less happy and content. This is an idea suggested by the authors, in which they state, “…but entry into society with its vicious inequalities and rivalries, transforms this innate self-concern into amour proper, a “hateful and irascible” egoism based on the envious comparison of self to others” (p. 31).
I do not believe that we are innately malevolent, hateful beasts as the authors pose early in the reading. However we are clearly not saints who are impervious to the influences of this world. We are complex interactions of our genetics and our environment and we are incredibly social beings, as we have seen in other readings. Ironically, I believe it is this drive to be accepted and surrounded by others that has driven us away from kindness. We have come to believe, over years and years of brainwashing (I’m hesitant to use this word, but at the same time, I believe it is a form of brainwashing) that resources and power are the most important “traits” of a person. It seems that money and power has replaced moral integrity and personality as the basis on which we judge people. Being successful (in a fiscal sense), important and powerful has become the surefire way to be assured that you can have some control in your social surrounding. It is the setup of our society that makes us believe that kindness will be counterproductive toward reaching these goals. As Rousseau stated, “society corrupts.”

ON KINDNESS FOR BLOG 3-22-2010

2010-03-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

It is absolutely possible for one to be kind and selfless at the same time. Taylor and Phillips have a good argument but are not looking at this subject head on, but using history and psychology to skirt the issue of kindness.
Why should someone feel ambivalent about “our instinct for kindness?’ The authors present the idea of ambivalence starting with the teachings of Christ being misrepresented by those that followed. I find that this could have been the downfall of kindness as a selfless flaw in human behavior. True, the idea of kindness can be “hazardous” when based on the susceptibility of others and believing “pleasures and kindness are inherently perilous.” What then of the people who went to New Orleans to help dig out people and find ways of ferrying them to safety? What then of those that went to Haiti to help rescue those still under the rubble? Perhaps some did go for personal gain, but I believe that out of kindness for those in dire trouble the American people took to the challenge out of concern.
Taylor and Phillips state that we deny ourselves the pleasure of being kind because we are suspicious. Going back to previous years, it was men, not women, who had the ideas that kindness was either only from God and not man, or, someone wanted something in exchange. This is all learned behavior. When raised with kindness and the belief that we should be kind without being reciprocated in some way, the example we are taught becomes part of our human make up and follows us through life. This is not to say that the book by Taylor and Phillips is wrong, it is just their interpretation of what kindness is.

Does selflessness exist?

2010-03-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

Can we be kind and selfless at the same time? No, I don’t think it is possible. If people didn’t depend on me being there and if it didn’t affect my grade, I would not show up. I have a lot of studying to do and sleep to catch up on that I am missing out on by being there. Even though that (in a way) I am being forced to be at County against what I really want/need to do, I get an incredible about out of it. I could skip a day to sleep in without any consequences, but if I do I am setting a bad example for the kids. I get an amazing feeling by setting an example for the kids there. They seem to think I am “cool” and they also know I show up everyday and on time, hopefully that influences them.
Today at County, I was helping a student read through a chapter on the British Tea Party and helping him answer questions about it. In the beginning all I could think about was the test I had to take in an hour and how I could be studying for it. After the student started to read through the book and I could hear him trying really hard, I was all about focusing on him. I was able to use my basic knowledge of reading to help him understand the chapter he was reading out loud to me. I joked around with him and helped him answer the post-reading questions and I couldn’t help but feel good. I was being kind against my own will (in a way) but I got SO much out of it.
I believe that people are naturally kind. No matter what “society” does to us, we still want to be nice and help people. If humans were not naturally kind, we all would have killed each other by now. “Kindness is always hazardous because it is bases on a susceptibility to others,”p.5 if kindness is hazardous, why do we keep doing it? There is something deep within us that asks us to be kind, and most of us follow it religiously. When we checkout at the grocery store, we wait in line (this is kind), when we leave the grocery store we say “thank you: (this is kind), when we pull out of the parking lot, we look around for pedestrians and other cars, (this is also kind). If one really thinks about it, most things we do have kindness dwelling at the root of it.
The author asserts that, “Self sufficiency is an impossible fantasy.” p30. I believe that this is true. No one is self sufficient as a child especially since food and shelter are provided by a parent. After childhood one depends on either teachers in college or on bosses in the working world. No matter if it is a personal or business relationship that you have with a person, you are somewhat dependent on someone. If a person lived in the woods and lived off of the land completely separated from society, they would be dependent on nature to provide food for them and most importantly oxygen. This is far fetched and taken way too far, but think about it, could you truly live a solitary life?

For 3/22--Prompt for On Kindness

2010-03-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

In a sense, this is more than a prompt, it is also a bit of a reading guide to help you, hopefully, get to the crux of the ideas presented here--try not to react to the premise of these ideas but to reflect on the philosophical implications.

1. Against Kindness

The authors' thesis (you may not agree but try to see this on a societal level, not from your individual perspective) is that, “[m]ost people appear to believe that deep down they (and other people) are mad, bad, and dangerous to know. . . our motives are utterly self-seeking, and that our sympathies are forms of self-protection” (4).

The authors suggest that although many of us live the kind life in “instinctive sympathetic identification with the vulnerabilities and attractions of others. . . but without a language in which to express this, or cultural support for it” (4)

(Again, remember, at times we have to over-generalize in order to be able to examine collective issues, and if we look at the state of our own country in the moment, there may be some evidence that supports these claims.)

One of the reasons, that the authors suggest, for our ambivalence about our instinct for kindness, has to do with our own vulnerability, not wanting to experience our own weaknesses: “Bearing other people’s vulnerability—which means sharing in it imaginatively and practically . . .––entails being able to bear one’s own” (11). In a sense, what we have in common is our vulnerability (an idea that Judith Butler will elaborate on in Precarious Life).

Thus, kindness has an internal tension—it brings us pleasure but it also reminds us of all that we fear about ourselves including change. (There is also an interesting discussion about whether kindness requires selflessness—hopefully we will discuss in class as this is important and a theme that will come up in C. Fred Alford’s book on whistleblowers.)

Think about these ideas in relationship to your service. Can you illustrate through an experience that you have had already or in relation to your own process of starting this commitment? Use other parts of the reading to make more connections and elaborate. Such as:

2. A Short History of Kindness

(To continue the discussion of selflessness vs selfishness) Two Enlightenment views of kindness: “For most of pre-modern history . . . kindness was seen as a solution to a problem: the problem of other people”(27). Kindness was seen as a bridge between separate entities in which the motive was more about surviving as an individual. The alternative view did not see people as separate entities but as interconnected (28). The authors illustrate this view with Adam Smith’s philosophy of “fellow feeling” and “imaginative projection of self into other” (29).

Continue to probe and unpack these ideas and use other parts of the history to explore and connect these ideas. If we are interdependent, is it selfish to be kind? And if we are interdependent, is it possible to be selfless? Maybe you can connect to your ideas above about your service experience.

The Divided Self

2010-03-14T16:37:00.001-07:00

I was particularly captivated by the ideas contained in The Happiness Hypothesis. The image of the man trying helplessly to control a wild elephant really resonated with me as I often feel my brain is working against itself or toward diametrically opposed goals. Even as I read, I noticed how often my mind would wander, often to memories or thoughts that were anxiety provoking or unpleasant. Despite my frustration and intention to prevent this, it continued to happen. While I have spent the majority of my life painfully at odds with my own mind, over the years I have learned that you cannot force your own biology to change and it is better to try and find inner harmony than to fight what you can’t willfully control. I have come to realize that we cannot completely reign-in and control our mind, but at best we can learn to monitor our mind more efficiently and in doing so, learn to keep it focused on what is productive for us, rather than the random ramblings or often destructive thoughts the mind often conjures up. According to Haidt (2006),
The automatic system was shaped by natural selection to trigger quick and reliable action, and it includes parts of the brain that make us feel pleasure and pain (such as the orbitofrontal cortex) and that trigger survival-related motivations (such as the hypothalamus). The automatic system has its finger on the dopamine release button. The controlled system, in contrast, is better seen as an advisor. It’s rider place on the elephant’s back to help the elephant make better choices. (p.17)

Reading this chapter really helped me feel as though the internal conflicts I often feel are justified and valid, but more importantly, this sense of acceptance was also accompanied by a feeling of motivation and hope. I like the author’s view of “emotional intelligence” given on page 18:
These thinking skills are an aspect of emotional intelligence – an ability to understand and regulate one’s own feelings and desires. An emotionally intelligent person has a skilled rider who knows how to distract and coax the elephant without having to engage in a direct contest of wills.
This section of the chapter left me with a new understanding and general feeling about the distinct divisions and drives that make me as a person. The way the author articulated the aforementioned points, I realized that managing yourself should not be a battle in which you inflict pain or harm unto yourself, but rather a game in which you intelligently learn to manage your biology and environment in a way that best suites you.
While I did not find the Living By a Love Ethic or On the Way to Good and Evil to be as personally relevant, I found that the combination of the three readings led to some interesting questions and insights. An interesting point brought up by Needleman seems to insinuate the largely counterproductive effects our intentions, religious and philosophical doctrines have had.
All we can say is that our religious ideals, our moral resolves, our ideologies, our campaign, however honorably conceived, have not prevented-and perhaps have even hastened-the arrival of our world and our lives at the rim of despair and destruction. (p. 99).
What the author is saying is that despite our best intentions (and it is probably the benefit of the doubt to call them “best intentions”), perhaps we are actually creating a worse existence. I mean think about it, if we were created by God, as most of the religions I know preach to one extent or another, then why must we spend so much time and energy and so many resources in “improving” our existence. The more I am disappointed by the attainment of material goodies and the less time I have for myself because of my drive for the “American Dream”, the more I begin to think that we inherited paradise (from God?) and took a big dump all over it, in the shape of freeways, skyscrapers, Wall Street, Big Business, Capitalism, The information superhighway, Politics etc. We have effectively replaced, happiness, sustainability and contentedness with the fantasy of one day attaining these states. It’s the progress paradox. The more “developed” and technologically advanced we become, the more miserable, anxious and hopeless we’ve simultaneously become.
We have transitioned from a people of feelings and experiences to a people of things and possessions. As implored by Williamson, “Yet we do not question why we live in states of extreme anxiety and dread. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination” (p. 93). Michael Moore recently said that he felt Capitalism was inherently wrong and I am beginning to agree. At what point do we stop seeing the growth of the prefrontal cortex, the establishment of the ego or any other term pinned to our “evolution” as inherently good and start seeing it as a adaptive coping mechanism as a result of a external world we’ve created, but in which we are not meant to live in? At what point does too big of a brain, too robust of an ego, too much technology and too many “things” become dangerous to our existence, if it hasn’t already?

The Divided Self

2010-03-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

The Divided Self, Living by a Love Ethic, Why Cant we Be Good

2010-03-01T13:30:00.000-08:00

The Divided Self I loved the beginning. The fear of the horse and rider. It tests the relationship the rider has with the horse. Clearly here he states, "The horse knew exactly what she was doing. She had walked this path a hundred times...."page 2. I have horses and this relates because a horse may spook as in the story and we always challenge why they did. I also say stop acting up. What I need to realize is trust the horse there must be a reason. As in trust in any other relationship. Which most people have a hard time doing with some one else. The paragraph describing how the mind used the freud metaphor was amazing. I have never thought of it into that text before. I was deeply drawn into the 3 parts:ego, superego, and ID.
Weakness of the will. Weakness of being able to trust (in the horse, or relationships). Weakness to admit that we are in the wrong. Weakness to have selfish desires. Weakness to have the mind vs. body ideaology. This all weaknesses that most humans and people have. I will say i have all of the above. Ethically no one wants to be wrong. That would allow in doubt and regret. Which are closely related to sadness.
Are we all automatic? We wake up go and do our daily rituals. "Controlled processing is limited-we can think about one thing at a time only-but automatic processes run in parallel and can handle many tasks at once."page 14 I always say when i get stressed I have so much on my mind! well know after reading this section I am doing automatic processes. I am focusing on many things instead of being controlled and focusing on one thing at a time. This truely grabbed me because I commit to a lot. I work 2 jobs, have 3 horses, 2 dogs, school, and watching my nephew. That is a lot and i now understand why i am doing automatic. Its almost as if I am on autopilot and not really living life. Hmmm........
Values: Living by a Love Ethic was directly relating to my life in many ways. I have had the same boyfriend for 4 years. Only to find out recently about lies that he has been telling me. Since I love him i have let my gaurd down, my domination and obsession with power have been gone, until now. I have realized what it takes to take stand, and dont let love run you down. Just because you call it love doesnt mean your voice is gone, which i have been feeling. "Love is the only sane and satisfactory response to the problem of human existence." page 92. When someone is in love they are typical happy, glitzy, showing the effects of love. From day one of our lives we ask and need love. We first experience it from our parents then in the future go out to find that particular loveable partner. Towards the end about power, the media, life enhancing values. We let all those influences effect our love. Not just our love but also ability of loving someone or something.
Why Can't We Be Good was harder for me to relate to. The quote, "the goodness above the goodness within,or, as it sometimes expressed, man is a microcosm." A microcosm being defined as a small minature model of something. We humans are a microcosm. We try to be good but we all cant be good. Why is that? Different upbringings? Different perspectives of life? What would life really be like with no bad? The real question is what is good, what is bad, what is ethical? I have my opinions and some people may agree and others may disagree. That is ethically okay. We can all have our good and bad opinions on every aspect of life. We all can't be good because then life wouldnt have difference. We learn from making "bad" choices. We expand from that to make this world a "better" or good place. We all cant be good because then there would be no need for justice. Or would justice even exist if there was no bad?

The Happiness Hypothesis

2010-03-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

The reading of The Happiness Hypothesis was interesting but what stood out to me was the reading of Failures Of Self Control. In which after his experiment conducted in 1970 with four year old children, Walter Mischel concluded “that the successful children were those who looked away from the temptation or were able to think about other enjoyable activities. These thinking skills are an aspect of emotional intelligence—and ability to understand and regulate one’s own feelings and desires” (18). I can relate to this because as a person we are all confronted with temptations, some which could be seen as good and others that can get you into trouble. We are always confronted with decisions, like to either study or go out to party. In which having the skills of emotional intelligence will show which person has their priorities and goals straight. For me it has been beneficial when I have used my skills of emotional intelligence but that was not the case when I did not used it. Throughout high school studies always came first, so I missed out in a few weekends when I had to study for an exam or work on a project.

For the most part I have had control my feelings and desires but sometimes those two qualities get the upper hand on me. These are the instances that have gotten me into trouble in a couple of occasions; experiences which have helped me mature and become a better person. The desire to prove I was a better driver than my best friend ended up costing me six months of probation and my car getting towed and impounded, the feeling of overconfidence lead me to cut classes an instead of ending my Jr. semester with all A’s I ended up with all B’s. I had friends who did not see the point in school and ended up in gangs, drugs, alcohol, and eventually dropped out of high school. Reading Mischel’s conclusion of his experiment makes me realize that it is true, people with the ability of understanding and controlling their feelings and desires in life will be the ones that will succeed. I know from experience that falling into temptations in the past and even know have gotten me into problems or at least felt a sense of regret the next day.

I believe that everyone should think about every decision one makes and try to embrace the concept emotional intelligence. The results could be beneficial not just to the individual but to society as a whole. Maybe people will realize that money, power, pleasure, and greed are not essential to a good life or that we should not aspire to these things. Today people have fallen to temptation in which money became the number priority for them and everything else did not matter. Everyone should have desires in life but one should be patient and understand that it takes time and work to obtain them. If we are able to focus on other things instead of obsessing over one single thing or object maybe as people we would not make so many unwise decisions.

Living By a Love Ethic

2010-03-01T03:00:00.000-08:00

“Any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature” (Living by a Love Ethic pg. 92). One would think that with such a foreboding prediction people would be more willing to move toward this communal love ethic that the author says is necessary for human survival. However that is not the case. As you can see within our own society we are driven by our capitalist inspired individual needs and aren’t particularly concerned about others. Our society is full of nay sayers who claim that “sexism is here to stay and the rich will never share their resources” (Living by a Love Ethic pg. 89). And those who feel as the author does and wants to see change lack the courage to actually stand up for what they believe and do something about it.

I don’t mean to sound pessimistic but what the author implies of everyone simply embracing this love ethic, just for the purpose of feeling more “human”, simply won’t happen, at least not in the way that the author wants to. I draw this reasoning from the Divided Self reading. This author paints a very vivid picture of how the brain works and how we struggle with our desires and distractions. The author uses the symbol of the elephant and rider to describe the human brain. The elephant symbolizes our wants, desires, intuition, and all other types of automatic thinking that we can’t truly control. The rider symbolizes our conscience actions and thoughts. Their relationship was described as one where the elephant is powerful and self centered while the rider tries to coax it (not always successfully) to its will. using this symbol I am able to understand how people are unwilling to act on a communal level. If the problem isn't directly affecting the person, it is hard for the rider to coax the elephant to move since its comfortable where it is. What the author from Living by a Love Ethics implies is that people should be motivated to move toward the love ethic since their most human side desperately seeks after it. Again I point to the symbol of the elephant and rider. While the rider may see the need to act and fervently tries to move the elephant towards the goal, if the elephant doesn’t want to move, it won’t move.

Yet I still remain optimistic about a society that is driven by love. While this self initiative model won’t work for the entire society, since only a few would be inspired to move, I believe that there is a way to move the elephant within everyone. It’s somewhat simplistic; make the elephant uncomfortable on a national level. The only way to move an elephant is to make it so that what it wants is leading towards this love ideal. I don’t know what type of catalyst would be needed to move the nation’s elephant, but I'm sure that it would have to be enormous.

2010-02-28T17:48:00.000-08:00

Needleman is a religious scholar who tackles a major dilemma facing twenty-first century people: we know what is good and yet fail to do it. Now more than ever before, we have access to the ethical, moral, and religious resources of all the wisdom traditions to guide us in our choices.
Needleman is a philosopher who knows that the contents of our minds — our ideas about history, language, the body, war and peace, time and space all have an impact on our will to do well. Yet something else is preventing us from moving forward with love and kindness and that is the overwhelming evil in the world brought about by the human propensity for power, greed, selfishness, depravity, and other dark impulses.
Needleman warns us, however, that "Conscious suffering must not be confused with what we ordinarily speak of as 'guilt.' What we are speaking about here is a full experience of seeing, a full confrontation with our being; a vibrant acceptance of our incapacity to do what is good without masking the truth with self-pity or futile vows--an acceptance of the fact that our actions and all our manifestations are a result of our level of being. This act of seeing is the movement that brings the two worlds toward each other--the inner world and the outer world, the world of inner aspiration toward love and justice, and the world of outer action and behavior.
The above is quite a mouthful! Yet I felt that this is one of our greatest faults. Why fault you say? When being raised by our parent(s) we learn how to “do the right” thing, yet there are so many variations on this. If a parent is prejudiced, then we grow up being prejudiced. Needleman tries to give us an explanation as to why we “violate our most cherished values and beliefs.” I agree that we need to listen more, be silent and listen, and yes we do have the freedom to love and act honestly and fairly towards other human beings.

Happiness Hypothesis

2010-02-28T12:42:00.001-08:00

At the beginning the author was talking about riding a horse. The story reminded me of the first time I went horseback riding, and how during similar situations I was freaking out, but the horse could have cared less and knew the path by heart. Anyways on to the rest of the reading, I like the idea of metaphors being used and being created to in my mind dumb down old philosophies. I grew up playing sports. The sports world is full of metaphors. But its not just sports, everything has metaphors and I think its really good to have them. Having metaphors in an area one is comfortable in make them easier to understand.
Now about the incest on page 21. I found that really weird and disturbing. I don't care what the reasoning is or circumstance I feel siblings should not have sex, let alone the though of having that kind of a relationship with each other. While I do think that, I also agree with what the author says that I have a hard time explaining why. I think its not as much a moral issue as the way we are brought up. If you were raised to feel one way then you would most likely stay that way. Either way I find it disturbing to think of a sibling that way.

The Happiness Hypothesis

2010-02-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

The reading of The Happiness Hypothesis was rather interesting. The most interesting part that I came across was when the author was talking about love making. The quote on page 21 of the reading is a question that is brought up quite a lot in ethical thinking. "Do you think it is acceptable for two consenting adults, who happen to be siblings, to make love?" Most people would say that, no, it is not acceptable. There are cases of genetic defects in children born from siblings who engaged in love making, and it is also socially unacceptable. No person likes to think of two siblings engaging in sexual intercourse. It is a social taboo to even think of it. When most people think of siblings who engage in sexual intercourse, it even tends to make them feel uncomfortable and awkward when it comes to the subject itself. In the reading, the author pointed out that there would be no offspring from the one-time occurance of love making because they used two forms of birth control. Was that still just as wrong as if they had gone into the experience expecting to create offspring? According to those asked, it was just as wrong. Even though they were unable to explain exactly why, it was just wrong. In most cultures, engaging in any type of sexual act with a sibling is considered to be socially wrong. It makes sense to most people that it is unacceptable and should not be participated in due to the social unacceptability of it. Personally, I think that it is not something that should come up regularly, but it is highly possible that sexual experiences between siblings does occur. It is normal to think that children brought up outside of the social taboo of certain cultures may attempt making love with each other even if they are siblings, but as adults, it might be a more rare occurence.

In ending, it is not neccessarily the worst thing that could happen for two consenting adults, who happen to be siblings, to make love with each other. As long as they were not planning on producing offspring and it was a one time occurance, it should not bring up too many problems. If it strengthened their relationship as siblings, that is actually a good thing. Sometimes it takes a strange and socially awkward occurance for siblings to become closer. Personally, I am inclined to shy away from the thought of siblings engaging in love making, but that is how I was brough up in society and raised from a child, so that is what is normal for me.

Is Evil an unessesary stain on history?

2010-02-27T16:02:00.000-08:00

"On the way to good and evil" was a bit over my head, but a few things did stand out to me. The author states that "The stain of human evil covers the earth and seeps into all man's achievements in art, science, and in the institutions of society." This seems to be completely true! I do a lot of theater and I do not know of any play that does not have any evil in it. For example, the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare has evil in it, the animosity between the two houses is the main evil that we are aware of in the story. There is also killing of people's friends and death of beloved characters, these also represent evil. This story would not be as compelling if there were no forces of evil in the story. Would anyone watch a play about two people who fall in love, have no relationship issues, their families get along, they get married and everyone from both weddings attend the wedding in a joyous celebration? Maybe, but it would not be as famous as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Socrates told us that "We may understand intellectually what is good, while yet desiring and choosing to do something entirely different-and vica versa." This is pretty much the main issue that many of us deal with every minute of everyday. We know we should be doing homework, but instead we watch that one episode of Lost that we have been meaning to watch off of our Tevo. We are happier watching Lost, but we know we should be doing that blog for our Ethics class! We all desire things that we shouldn't have and most times (hopefully) we don't give into these desires. I am allergic to wheat, but I desire bread, yet I do not eat the bread, but I still desire it. Why does my mind work against itself by desiring things that I shouldn't want or have?

Love Ethic seems too hard!

2010-02-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

Life would be better with more love, of course it would. When we go through our daily lives doing everything with a love ethic, ultimately everyone's lives who we come into contact with will be better. The auther suggests that "Awakening to love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination." I try to live like this already, but I still find power and domination to be somewhat necessary. In my world power and domination take the form of competitiveness. As a stage performer I go to a lot of auditions, and often have to perform a dance combination within a group of people. When doing the dance I have to work to be better than the people around me and to stand out or else I will not get the part. I can work with the people I am auditioning with to make them look good as well, but ultimately I want to "dominate" the auditioniers mind as the best for the role.

Instead of considering using a love ethic as a big 180 degree change in our lives, I believe it should instead be seen as a filter that we do everything through. In all of our daily activities we can look though this "love filter" and re-think our actions by adding in some love. Ultimately if everyone one day actually would live their lives with the love ethic that the author discusses, then we would all be happier and in a much better world. I am just skeptical of doing it completely myself for fear of getting hurt emotionally. I feel that if I live with a love ethic around a bunch of people concentrated on power and domination, that I will appear weaker. The author emphasizes that "'There is no fear in love.' But we do fear and fear keeps us from trusting in love." I believe that this is part of my issue, I'm too afraid to live completely with a love ethic.

I find that I am most able to apply the love ethic to my relationship with my boyfriend. I don't fear getting hurt and I know that if I embrace the love ethic when it comes to him, only good can come out of it. "Embracing a love ethic means that we utilize all the dimensions of love-'care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge'-in our everyday lives." I always try to keep these things in my mind when I am around my boyfriend and especially when we fight. If there isn't love in what I say to my boyfriend or what I do for him, then I know we may not be ultimately happy.

I think the love ethic is a great idea and I want so badly to live in a world where evryone embraces it.

Prompt for March 1st

2010-02-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

( Two of you beat me and started posting--great, thanks! So, read below this prompt also)

Read the chapter, "The Divided Self" (Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis). Read the chapter, " Values: Living by A Love Ethic” " (hooks, All About Love) and/or the selection from Needleman's Why Can't We Be Good. These readings are not long or difficult, so I hope you read all three.

Haidt writes about the dualities present in our humanness that influence our thinking, our actions, and our capacity for moral being. He also really deconstructs the mind/body split that traditional philosophers have usually reinforced--Needleman also speaks to this, the power of embodiment . Haidt also writes about the role of the emotions in our rational thinking and hooks plays this out a lot more in her chapter in her thoughts about love as a source for community building and openness to the reality of others. You can use these connections between the readings and unpack them further and/or see what other connections you make. Extra credit for working with all three readings!

screaming obscenities & herds of white bears

2010-02-25T19:03:00.000-08:00

What I loved in the reading about the divided self was when the author brought up mental intrusions. My best friend and I have discussed at length how we sometimes feel this urge to do something completely inappropriate for the situation and consider what would happen were we to do it. For example, when I watch a play I often wonder what would happen if I were to take off all my clothes and run onto the stage. I have never seen this compulsion to think of these things actually written down and spoken about by a scholarly source. The author states "Whenever I am on a cliff, a rooftop, or a high balcony, the imp of the perverse whispers in my ear, "Jump.'" My "imp" does the same thing, while cutting vegetables I sometimes look at the knife and think "What would happen if I just shoved this into my side right now?" I know I am not crazy and that I would never actually act on this impulse, but it boggles my mind to think about the fact that at that moment I could stab myself, no one but myself is stopping me. I used to refer to this compulsion as "The urge to run on stage during a play" now I know to call it "Hearing the imp of the perverse."

Trying hard not to think about something is always an interesting exercise to try. If I tell myself not to imagine a purple lamp, then that is all I can think about until I forget about my project of trying not to think of that darn lamp. "Whenever one pursues a goal, a part of the mind automatically monitors its progress."as explained by the author. When a person is consciously trying to do something, their mind will be focused on that goal and it is therefore impossible not to think of a white bear when one tells them-self not to do so.

The mind is a huge and complicated place!

The Divided Self

2010-02-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

So I guess Im first

The Divided self was a very interesting chapter, especially because I am a psychology major and was able to comprehend and relate to the divided self.

I found it really interesting how we as humans are always trying to have full control of our mind. We try to stay away from things we know that are bad and do not benefit us only to our flesh. For example we know that we shouldn’t be having unprotected sex but there are so many people out there who still do, why? Because it feels good to do it. However, over time their consequence appears to them it the form of a pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease. Another example would be eating. We know that its bad to eat too much sweets and fats, but sometimes we just can’t help it and eat whatever we want. And as a result of that we can become obese and get diabetes. I didn’t know why we as humans sometimes cannot control our brains and resist temptation and just simply listen to our conscience. But it turns out it has to do with our brain and how it functions. Our brain is very sensible and if one thing goes wrong in our allot is affected in our body. When I read about the schoolteacher who had completely lost the ability to inhibit inappropriate behavior and to think about consequences all because of a tumor was surprising. Its scary to think that a human who doesn’t have a way to stop himself from committing a crime or felony just because the human has lost control of its mind. Even though we may try so hard to do good in our lives in can all come to an end when we lose control of our brain and commit horrific things we never thought of doing.

The Psychology of Compassion

2010-02-19T17:30:00.001-08:00

Interesting op-ed. . . last night I watched the documentary about Nick Kristoff called Reporter. They talk about his methods in which he pays a lot of attention to how to best get the attention of the world--by telling individual stories which don't cause the kind of psychic numbing that people get when they are confronted by the numbers and data related to genocide, poverty, and other social horrors.

Reflection for Reading 2

2010-02-09T09:56:00.000-08:00

I truthfully did not know what was going on in the reading. It was extremely confusing. I understood that there needs to be active learning. If you don't continue to improve upon what it is that you know, there will be no learning happening and knowledge will continue to be unattainable. It is one thing to go in and teach someone what it is they already know, and another to go in and attempt to teach something that someone knows absolutely nothing about. The trick in teaching is to find what it is a person does know and continue to expand that person's knowledge into something he or she never thought they would know. It is impossible to force someone into knowledge if they are not willing to learn or bend their thoughts to fit with the knowledge they are being given, but as long as you keep trying, it will eventually get through to someone, somewhere.
I do not agree with being unable to change the heart of a person. I do not believe that the best way to teach is simply to change the structure. People rebel against dictators, and it is overall an inefficient way to teach people. The best way to teach someone is to relate what you are teaching to something that the person holds dear to them. If you succeed in that, the person is more likely to understand what it is you are trying to teach and will become more amenable to different methods of teaching in the future. If you simply force a person to do something, they aren't really learning. The person will simply be acting like a robot and resenting every minute of it. In order to truly teach, one must get to the heart and go forward from there.

It's funny how things work

2010-02-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I really struggled with making meaning of this weeks reading. While I enjoyed the readings individually, I had a hard time finding my understanding of what was being said in We Make the Road by Walking and I struggled finding meaningful connections within the readings from The Impossible Will Take a Little While. Ironically it was the short paragraph beginning chapter 35 (which was not part of our reading), by Cornel West (who I love and think is a genius in his ability to speak to the younger generations), which gave me some inspiration for reflection. West writes:

The quality of our lives and the integrity of our souls are in jeopardy... The lethal power of global corporate elites and national managerial bosses is at an all-time high...The precious system of caring and nurturing are eroding...And out public life lies in shambles, shot through with icy cynicism and paralyzing pessimism." (p.293).

These words inspired me to rediscover the content and meaning of the readings. I believe our souls are paralyzed as Mr. West suggests. As a society and as individuals we hump along to the metronome of drumming provided by a mindless, heartless Bureaucracy that doesn’t apply to us. It is so big and so advanced that it carries the illusion is that it knows best, when in fact it really doesn’t care. We are fueled by consumption and advertising, which carries the empty promise of happiness, sexual gratification, individuality and superiority. We no longer feel with our souls, but rather with our hands and our eyes. We have disconnected from our own souls and spirits and thus disconnected from the interests of our fellow humans. In The Impossible Will Take a Little While, Dr. martin Luther King writes:

I must confess that over the last few years I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is no the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” that to justice (p.282).

I believe that Dr. King’s point makes sense not only in the Civil Rights movement of African American’s, but in a larger civil rights movement that is on the horizon, which is people reconnecting to their souls and doing what is right in the context of all humanity, not just for them as individuals. Mr. West is right, we have become docile, tricked into immobility by a life that is not bad enough to have the NEED to change it, but not good enough to allow us to feel as though we can change it. I believe the beauty and the genius of the Civil Rights Movement was that it was not immobilized by the few and largely meaningless concessions occasionally made by the powers of the time. Its beliefs were not convoluted and it’s vision not blurred. Things were so bad and so clearly unacceptable that change could not wait. Dr. King writes “Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity” (p. 284).

2010-02-08T12:27:00.001-08:00

What stood out the most to me out of the readings was the concept of how one must truly understand oneself and the cause they are fighting for. To identify who they are as a person and what their true values and beliefs are. So many people believe in a cause worthy to fight for but many times those people begin to lose sight of their beliefs. Myles Horton co-founder of the Highlander once decided to leave Highlander to become an organizer for textile workers. Horton explains he was a good organizer except his success for mobilizing crowds brought him a sense of power. A sense which lead him to believe he was doing everything right until he realized and asked himself, “What the hell am I doing? What is this? ...I was thinking about the feeling of power. I was a little scared of it, and yet I was fascinated by it” (Horton, 110). Horton later decided to quit being an organizer and decided to get back to education.
In The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear speaks of Billy Wayne Sinclair a who was serving time in jail for killing a store clerk and was offered to buy his freedom for $15,000. This was not the first time people were given the opportunity to buy their freedom but as Sinclair said “ he’d spent half his life struggling to become, as he puts it, a ‘moral man,’ and finally had been able to see someone other than a ‘convicted murderer’ in the mirror” (Loeb, 280). Even during the Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King Jr. noticed that people did not truly understand the true reason of why African-Americans were fighting for equal rights. King said he had expected southern religious leaders to understand they were not being extremists in the sense of violence but extremists in the sense of love, truth, and goodness. When visiting Birmingham King realized that “numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, ‘Follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother” (Loeb, 286).
I believe everyone in one point or another is confronted with a situation in which they must ask themselves if they are proud of what they have accomplished right now and if they have not undermined their values and beliefs. It is easy to get overwhelmed with power and throw everything away, to take the easy way out and not pay the consequences for ones actions.
I remember during my first summer of Upward Bound all the first time students had to do some kind of community service. I was in the group who was responsible for cleaning up the local parks and doing gardening. There were fifteen students and our supervisor and out of the fifteen students five of us had done some type of experiences in gardening. We were divided into groups and given different tasks to accomplish, we decided to stick together. Point is we were “good”, we got our tasks done and finished rather quickly. Because of that we got to use tools the other students could not use and were given other tasks. We got complimented for our work and we felt like the big shots in our group. So much one day we finished our all our tasks early and were told we could leave early because we had done enough for today. All five of us did that without hesitation instead of staying and helping others finished their tasks so we could all leave early.
I felt bad later that day because I did something I usually never do which is forget that we were a team and we should of helped our fellow students. I felt like I was better than them because I had prior experience and it was easy to be in that mindset because I had four other friends who felt like that. It was more like proving how much better we were compared to them more like a competition to show off that five of us could do much more than the rest put together. I knew it was not right, I felt bad and something in me was bothering me. Although we had permission to leave I could stayed but decided not to. For that reason I decided to help out whenever I could and always stayed behind to help out the others even when my duties were done. It felt good, I felt better about myself and understood that because I had prior experience I should never think I’m better than others. I believe one should never make decisions that they will later regret, always stay true to yourself and you will always be grateful for how you live your life.

My thoughts on the reading

2010-02-08T01:41:00.000-08:00

Many things stick out to me from the readings. The idea that stuck out to me the most is this one of active learning. Active not merely limited to engaging the students in the subject, but relating the subject to the world. There was a point that one of the speakers made when he said “I wasn’t interested in being good but rather interested in being good for something” (102). Teaching should be relevant to the world that we live in, regardless of the subject, and its applications in the world should be known. This goes beyond the idea of what jobs you can get with this degree. It goes into a deeper question of how does your job affect the world and how can you change it. It is from this viewpoint that I understand the author and his conviction that there is no neutrality. If you truly want to make a difference, then you can’t merely detach yourself, your job and the world we live in. The author limited this scope to only include teachers and leaders. I believe that this really can be applied to everyone in a sense.

Every person, whether it’s a dishwasher or the President of the United States, is connected in a sense to the system. If these lower parts of the system were to put their actions in retrospect to the world, then they could make a substantial change. Now the author may disagree with me and say that “you can’t win the hearts of men”(103) but I believe that in order to make true lasting change, that’s what must be done. The author brings up Marx when he talks about structural change, but if you were to go deeper into Marx you would see that he advocated more than structural stability. He wanted a perfect communal society, where the state disappears and reaches for the same communal goods. Now how could you possibly bring up this type of philosophy and say that you’re against winning of the hearts?

"Being Neutral" by Elizabeth O'Neill

2010-02-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

When reading excerpts from both “We Make the Road by Walking” and “The Impossible Will Take a Little While” many common themes were discussed such as leadership, education, and the importance of societal change. While these topics are very important, one issue was discussed that I believe is the most important, neutrality. In both of the readings, the writers discuss the dangers of neutrality and how it can negatively affect society as a whole. In “We Make the Road by Walking,” Myles Horton states his feelings on the subject: “It’s a code word for the existing system. It has nothing to do with anything but agreeing to what is and will always be…Neutrality is just following the crowd…Neutrality, in other words, was an immoral act” (pg102). Horton’s statement on neutrality opened my mind to the idea of this topic and changed my perspective. I started to think about all of the elements in our society that made being neutral a good thing, most commonly in newspapers and news channels, even Switzerland is viewed as a great country because of their reputation of remaining neutral.

The argument of the dangers of being neutral was further proven in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” In his letter, King discusses how the white citizens who remain neutral and silent is the biggest obstacle facing the success of the Civil Rights movement. King says “…the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is…the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…”(pg 282). This quote from one of the most famous and known Civil Rights leaders, shows he saw the danger in neutrality and how it keeps citizens following the majority instead of what they believe in. Neutrality keeps people from fighting for what they want out of life and their society. When talking about learning and social change, Horton says, “…you’ve got to take sides. You need to know why you take sides; you should be able to justify it” (pg 102). Horton is saying that to create change and be an active member in your society, one has to know what they are fighting for and why.

The readings taught me a to look at situations and issues more critically, and that being neutral is not always the best policy. Instead of going with what everyone else believes is right, I have to take it upon myself to discover what I believe is right and search for the facts and reasons to back up my beliefs.

"We Make The Road by Walking"

2010-02-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

The title of this book is so appropriate. As Mr. Freire states in the first paragraph, “Do the people have the right or not, in the process of taking their history into their hands, to develop another kind of language as a dimension of those who have the power?” This statement is one of the most powerful insights I have ever heard on the topic of education.
What struck me in the first paragraph was the simple intensity of the statement. Mr. Freire has obviously studied the dynamics of education and its outcomes. The belief that a good education requires three basic elements: love for people, respect for people's abilities to shape their own lives, and the capacity to value others' experiences. Mr. Horton expands on this theory with his idea of “starting where people are,” not where he is. What a concept. Teaching in the lower grades has become so wrote. Teachers are teaching math and they are not mathematicians, teachers are teaching music and they are not musicians. How can education be an education when each child is so individual and their learning abilities are on different levels? If education is to help with social change, especially for poorer students whose ability to learn has not been valued, the system needs to be radically changed. As each of the authors pointed out, it is not just for one child, it is for the “universal right.”
One of the questions we are to answer is: “Is there knowledge without practice?” Knowledge encompasses experience that we garner when we are educated. Acquiring knowledge involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning According to Mr. Freire no, there is no knowledge without practice. This makes perfect sense to me. If we are being taught, say math, if we do not practice it, we will not have the knowledge we need to do the problems.
The question, “how do we change ourselves in order to change the world,” strikes a chord within me. If we are tolerant, listen to other ideas, be patient with outcomes, become involved with making a difference in our communities and stay committed to these beliefs, we can change the world one step at a time.

Prompt for week of Feb. 1st. . .

2010-02-03T19:10:00.001-08:00

The frame for this week's reading is provided by the discussion between Myles Horton (founder of the Highlander Folk School, that educated Rosa Parks and many others in civic engagement, non-violent protest etc.) and Paolo Freire (Brazilian educator/philosopher/activist, a major proponent of popular and critical education). There are many themes present in their discussion that are supported/illustrated by Paul Loeb's writing about "Radical Dignity" and the other pieces that I have included from his book. What are some of the threads that you see running between these pieces, such as the relationship between theory and practice, leadership, education, universal rights and responsibilities and individual moral calling? You don't need to pull in every reading. Write about what struck you and use quotes from the pieces your refer to.

Testing the Waters so to speak

2010-01-31T16:17:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take a moment to try out the Blog. I am very excited about this class. So much to learn. I am very happy we are getting out into the community. I have volunteered over the last several years for Novato High Safe Grad as co-chair, 20 years with the Mountain Play, 8 -10 years with Marin Shakespeare, (right on our campus!) and Ross Valley Players. I have also been involved with Homeward Bound of Marin.
Now I think I understand "blog!!!"

Op-Ed: Swiss Ban On Minarets Intolerant

2009-12-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

This 20 minute discussion on Talk of the Nation was very illustrative of Appiah's points about the conversations that need to happen and the dangers of counter-cosmopolitan thinking:
Egyptian-born writer Mona Eltahawy urges Europeans to use the vote as an impetus to address long-simmering questions about how they treats immigrants. She also argues that Muslims must examine the bigoted policies of many of their own countries.
You can listen here--it is a very interesting conversation--also because of the caller comments.

And you can read her Op Ed piece here. . .

Great TED Video that emphasizes points in Cosmopolitanism

2009-11-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

East vs West--the myths that mystify

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Stangers

2009-11-14T15:20:00.001-08:00

I've decided that I don't need to give you a prompt. You all do a great job at engaging the text and linking to service--so, I'm leaving it wide open. If you find yourself struggling to link--email me and I will give you a prompt, no problem.

Here's my quote for the day that relates to relativism and whether or not there ARE universal moral truths:

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
- Flannery O'Connor (a great Southern novelist)

Inspirational 7 minute video

2009-11-12T12:32:00.001-08:00

Bioneers and social justice issues

Prompt for On Being Authentic and Flesh and Standing for Something

2009-10-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

In the final 2 chapters of On Being Authentic, Charles Guignon makes a few statements that should help us synthesize his proposal that authenticity might more fruitfully be considered a social virtue, as well as a personal virtue He has described the historical movements in intellectual thought that brought us to our present crux where we place high value on the development of our individual being. Yet this understanding of self-fulfillment, as an ends in itself, tends to conflict a bit with the democratic understanding that rights come with responsibilities. Our individual survival is interconnected to the condition of others.

Additionally, Chesire Calhoun, in “Standing for Something” reinforces Guignon’s final point that authenticity can be most fruitful understood as a “social virtue” (156) in which the personal undertaking of seeking to be and act authentically is “made possible by a social world in which certain democratic ideals have emerged.” Thus, “when the ideal of authenticity is understood in terms of its social embodiment [the ways in which we engage with the world] it is clear that being authentic is not just a matter of concentrating on one’s own self, but also involves deliberation about how one’s commitments make contribution to the good of the public world in which one is a participant” (Guignon, 163). Calhoun similarly argues that “integrity” can and should be seen as a social virtue for similar reasons:

Integrity calls us simultaneously to stand behind our convictions and to take seriously others' doubts about them. Thus, neither ambivalence nor compromise seem inevitably to betoken lack of integrity. If we are not pulled as far as uncertainty or compromise, integrity would at least demand exercising due care in how we go about dissenting. (260)

Please think about these ideas and one or more of the following statements in relation to your service using other quotes and concepts from the text and specific illustrations from service:

From “Story-Shaped Selves”:
Guignon describes Charles Taylor’s views:

To have an identity––to be able to answer the question, ‘Who are you?’––you must have an understanding of what is of crucial importance to you, and that means knowing where you stand within a context of questions about what is truly worth pursuing in life…To have an identity is t have some orientation in what Taylor calls ‘moral space,’ where the term ‘moral refers to whatever gives meaning and direction to a life. (136).

From “Authenticity in Context”:

G. summarizes the philosophical views of Bernard Williams:

“It is only through the our social interactions that we become selves whose inner episodes are given enough steadiness and cohesiveness so that our relations to others can be built on cooperation and trust” (155)

Outcasts United

2009-10-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

So, what did you think?
Tried to add this to a comment after Joanna's but I couldn't paste the link in.
Go here to find out what Luma was able to do with the support that came after the exposure she got from the New York Times pieces written by Warren St. John, the author of this book. . . . Just as with Farmer's work, media exposure is very important to being able to implement change in a bigger way. . .

Prompt for On Being Authentic, Chapters 5 and 6

2009-10-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is a big one--bite off what you can!

Guigon continues, in Chapter 5, to describe the ways in which our world and self views are influenced by “two deeply opposed conceptions of what life is all about” (78) and the ways in which these conflicting views have contributed to a kind of split modern personality and a series of binaries which we, consciously or unconsciously, use to understand ourselves and our relationship to the world. Guignon states that “most of us deal with the conflicting demands on us in the modern world by being instrumentalists in public and Romantics in private. That such an existence is polarized, that it breeds confusions when the private comes to be colonized by instrumentalist tendencies ––these are seen as inevitable problems of living in modern circumstances” (79-80). He goes on to say that what is of interest here is to consider the ways in which the “modern outlook is shaped by a distinctive set of binary oppositions that governs the way we sort things out in everyday life” (80). Use this chapter to explore (briefly) the implications of these opposing conceptions of selfhood and any examples you have from your own life, especially your service experience, this semester. But don’t stop there!

In the beginning of Chapter 6, Guignon sums up the concepts and ideas that he has presented thus far and then goes on to detail the post modern conception of the self which is really a non-self. Basically, the postmodern view, in this depiction, is an extension of the idea that society is a social construct–– now the individual is a product of that construct. Yet, while Guignon dismantles much of this view, he also shows how this “undoing” of the individual is also useful to countering the ways in which the ideals of individualism have gone astray in leading us to strive for an autonomy and “freedom” from worldly constraints which is neither possible or necessarily desirable. Guignon notes Richard Rorty who believed that a recognition of ourselves as socially conditioned was important for helping us to question and challenge that conditioning, even challenging what we think we believe or, as Rorty called it, our final vocabulary. For Rorty, it was important to be an “ironist”—doubting and questioning what we think we know, what may seem like the basis of our identity—for him this was the counter to fundamentalist thinking that has no room for doubt and is dangerous in a world filled with so many different worldviews.

Towards the end of the chapter, Guignon presents a “remedy” that puts the meaning back in a self and that helps us to think about the “unfinished” self that is the catalyst for Freire’s work.

To this end, Guignon introduces the concept of the dialogical self developed: by Mikhail Bakhtin. He tells us:

“The conclusion to draw from the dialogical nature of experience is that we experience the world through a “We’ before we experience it through an ‘I’…The dialogical conception of self has the advantage of making social interactions absolutely fundamental to our identity. It lets us see that being human is inextricably being part of a ‘We’” (121).

Can you illustrate ways in which your own identity has in any way been shifted/morphed/altered through any aspect of the interactions that you have had with others through service-learning?

Prompt for On Being Authentic and Flesh in the Age of Reason

2009-10-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

In our reading from Ethics of Authenticity, Taylor points to the ways in which the moral ideal of authenticity was morphed into a focus on self-fulfillment that focuses only on the self, as if meaning/authenticity/true selfhood can best be "achieved" through a solitary process requiring a kind of retreat from the mundane, the everyday aspects of our lives (think Siddhartha as an aesthete). But, Taylor suggests, that in order to find the meaning we seek, that true self, it is important to understand that "we exist in a horizon of important questions" not just our own. We are embedded in a larger and very significant context. Maybe not all good or ideal but part of who we are and the self-defining choices that we make. He writes, "To shut out demands emanating beyond the self is precisely to suppress the conditions of significance, and hence to court trivialization" (40).
Guignon basically takes up Taylor's argument right there by examining the self-help movement and the formulaic approaches to "finding oneself" (again, think Siddhartha!).
Both of this week's readings deal with the tension between different ideas of selfhood and the striving for meaning/authenticity. Taylor and Porter begin to outline two different and often conflicting conceptions relating to the ideal of "being true to oneself," what it means to be "authentic," to "know oneself" that Taylor circled around. Both are extremes: self-denial/self-emptying/self-loss/self-abnegation/releasement vs self-possession/enownment/author of your own destiny.
Porter writes, "Thus, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the sense of self needs rethinking" (16). Guignon believes that the "very notion of an intrinsically good, substantial self lying within becomes increasingly problematic in the contemporary world" (xii-xiii).
Use the texts to explore and illustrate the different, if flawed or extreme, ideals of selfhood that the authors describe. Many of you didn't quite catch the nuanced way in which Taylor forms his arguments, he lays out different perspectives but this doesn't mean that he is defending or putting out these ideas himself. You will see that Guignon does this also, he talks about this methodology in the preface. Philosophical writing is complex, so please try to understand what the authors are saying, what their project is, before deciding to argue a point. Critical thinking/reading is about investigation of and interaction with the text to increase your understanding of the concepts, if you disagree then be sure to use quotes to argue your point and make sure that you understand the larger context from which you pluck them. . .

Prompt for Pedagogy of Freedom

2009-09-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

So, I want you to continue to think about what Freire is saying about education as something much broader than what we normally think of which is formal education. If we think about our ability to be both teachers/students in all aspects of our lives, Freire's points are still very applicable. If we are curious, then we also have to maintain a certain kind of openness to new information, and to experiences that challenge what we think we already know. This is a way of being which, I for one believe is a vital ingredient for moral growth as individuals and as societies.

Let's go back to an important concept that Freire poses in the beginning of last week's reading. He writes: "One of the biggest difficulties about this [the fact that we are always vulnerable to the transgression of others, meaning we can be violated by the unethical choices of others] ethical grounding is that we have to do everything in our power to sustain a universal human ethic without at the same time falling into a hypocritical moralism" (25). He goes on to say that this universal human ethic "calls us out of and beyond ourselves" (25).

Think about the idea of how we build understanding and trust of our shared humanity in relationship to Freire's concept of education, especially as he describes in this week's reading. Find places in the text that help you to understand the implications of his views in relationship to how we might build our capacity to find universal ethics related to human rights while not becoming "authoritarian" or dogmatic. Next, are there any ways that your service experience may already be deepening your understanding of this possibility or the complexity thereof? Or how do you anticipate that it might? Or ?

From Alford's upcoming book. . .

2009-05-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

In the introduction to After the Holocaust: The Book of Job, Primo Levi, and the Path to Affliction (to be published this year by Cambridge University Press), Alford writes:
Is is good to know and accept one's nakedness and vulnerability before fate and might so that we do not become what [Simone] Weil called a Pharisee, one who worships the empire of might, social power in all its forms. This is perhaps the hardest thing for humans to do: not to confuse goodness and might––that is, not to worship might because it is might. Yet it is essential if we are to become just and good. "Only he who knows the empire of might and knows how not to respect it is capable of love and justice" (Weil, from The Illiad or The Poem of Force)

From the mouth of babes--speaking truth to power

2009-04-21T21:00:00.001-07:00

Choices and the Fear of Being the Victim

2009-04-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

When thinking about a historical moment usually a divided world does not come to mind. The decision we make becomes historical. Alford writes that we choice; however, "we have already made the choice a thousand times before in similar, less dramatic situations, even if we did not know it at the time" (70). It seems reasonable to access that since people make decisions based on past experiences our choice is already made. As we mature and experience more we might make better informed choices, but they all stem from our morals and those do not change. Our choices present a pattern for our beliefs and ideals which we continue to follow in all our choices. Alford states, "we have chosen by how we have lived our lives up until this point., Then our lives choose for us" (70). All the past choices we have made we have made based off of our morals so when we are presented with a more dramatic dilemma our choice is already made. Our actions throughout our life become the basis for our choice yet now the decision is made unconsciously. It's as if all the decisions we have mold our think tank and it goes off of past decisions.

As Alford talked about siding with the aggressor, the reason behind it struck me as simple, but one I had not thought of. He says, "We don't help because we are terrified of helplessness, a terror that our competitive culture does little to assuage. Perhaps it is fear of being substituted for the victim that leads so many to side with the aggressor..." (71). I believe that most people in our society are afraid of becoming a victim. It has a negative connotation. When one thinks of a victim, you think of someone who is weak and vulnerable. Nobody in our society wants to be percieved this way. Since our society looks down on victims I believe this is why we do whatever it takes not to become one. Whistleblowers, on the other hand, are becoming the victim. They stand up for the others and instead of the others becoming the victim, the whistleblower takes the heat. The whistleblowers act of becoming the scapegoat establishes his status as a victim. The whistleblower is subjected to losses such as his job, career, home, and family, attributed by the organization. The losses inflicted on the whistleblower by the organization make him the victim. In the first part of the quote, I personally relate to Alford when he says we are terrified of helplessness. A couple months ago my friends grandpa got diagnosed with cancer. I see her grandpa often and look up to him. He works down at my barn fixing small things for my friend. When he came down one day, I noticed that something had changed. His face had lost the color it once had and he seemed in pain. He has choosen not to have chemo and I could see in his eyes that he had already accepted defeat. As I noticed all this I just wanted to leave. I didn't want to accept the helplessness of this man and I myself did not want to feel helpless. I think the two go hand in hand; not only are we afraid of helplessness but we are afraid of being helpless. I didn't know what to say to her grandpa because I felt I didn't have anything to say that would be insightful about what he was going through. I couldn't relate to his experience or his decision and that made me terrified because I was helpless

choiceless choice is important

2009-04-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

choiceless choice is an integral part of what makes a whistleblower because without it, the one blowing the whistle might not have the ability to stand behind the decsion they make. In Whistleblowers, Alford interviews one whistleblower by the name of Bower, who concludes, "Im glad i didnt have a choice. I dont think i could live with myself if i thought i chose all this." (42) Choiceless choice is essential to the keeping of a whistleblowers own sanity it seems, and without it i can see that whistleblowing might not occur nearly as much, or that is would not occur at all. they need this assurance to stand behind their actions.

Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of Insight

2009-04-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

2009-04-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

In Precarious Life, Butler emphasises the tension and contradiction that humans face. She proclaims that this tension is killing. Quoting Levinas, Butler writes, "the face of the other in its precariousness and defenselessness, is for me at once the temptation to kill and the call to peace, the 'You shall not kill'" (pg 134). One reason explaining as to why people would do this according to Butler is vulnerability. However, I do believe that some people find others weaknesses and vulnerabilites, I do not think that humans have a temptation to kill. It is not as if when we find out someones vulnerability we seek to eliminate them completely. People do use others vulnerabilities to get ahead of others. An example would be someone witnessing a crime. If the person who has committed a crime establishes that the other person is a "weak" individual, the person who has committed the crime may be able to threaten the person who witnessed the crime into not going to the authorites. Butler goes on to say that the face that prompts the reaction to kill is also the one that makes us refrain from killing. The face she writes, "at once tempts me with murder and prohibits me fromacting upon it..." (135) It is easy for humans to make such choices such as killing when they do not have to look at that person directly. Out of sight out of mind relating to unethical feelings relate. Once you have to look at a person, killing does not seem like the right solution, since that person is like you. When we are looking at someone and they acknowledge us we can relate to them and feel their suffering. The story of the soldier not killing his enemy when he runs into him is an example of this. Soldiers are faced with this dilema everyday. It is a lot easier for a human to kill and not see their target. Looking someone in the face gives that person an identity; therefore, changing our perceptions about them and our ability to do wrong against them.

Has CCS got it right?

2009-03-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

So i was doing my pwrpoint presentation for this class and i was thinking: has CCS really got the right idea with these kids? it is great that they graduate this place with a high school degree, but what becomes of them afterword? With no viable skills it seems like they are just a burden being passed on. Granted, there are doubtless a few students who have ended up really shining, but for the greater part I'm really wondering what happens to them. So for my project i suggested that CCS collaborate with unions and the trades in order to get graduating students into strong careers and high-paid work. Some of these students might end up supporting their whole families in the future, and the harsh reality is that with the low skills they have, the current job market is holding success far out of their reach. If they turned around a got trade skills as part of their general education, i think we'd see a lot more long-term success on the part of the students. Yes, many do graduate, but what do they graduate into? without some better options, i see a bleak situation.

Watch this!

2009-03-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

Azar Nafisi 4 minute video: Is crisis good for America?

collective responsibility

2009-03-13T12:28:00.001-07:00

Arendt opens this weeks reading with collective guilt and responsibility. Although I do not come in close contact with gilt while doing service learning at the hospital, I see collective responsibility in affect. At the end of the day the whole hospital is responsible for how patients have been treated and how many survive. No doctor is blamed for what might have gone wrong. That is not the way a hospital gets its reputation, in fact it is through collective responsibility. Even though I am not a doctor or nurse and can not practice directly on patients, while I serve at the hospital I have the responsibility of maintaining all codes of conduct and enforcing our mission. The hospital as a whole is “held responsible for what has been done in its name” (149). It is the community Arendt gives an example of on page 150 and describes that we cannot live without a community. I can leave the hospital community, but without a doubt I will be entering another and exchanging "one kind of responsibility for another" (150). This goes further to prove that we all work together and without our togetherness we would not have the communities that help us thrive.

The ability to think

2009-03-10T23:33:00.001-07:00

In this reading, Arendt focuses on the ability to think and how it affects other aspects of life-moral judgments, guilt, responsibility, etc. For my service learning, I have been working in a preschool where "thinking" as defined by Arendt does not necessarily ever take place. Children follow directions and the group (the so called mores and customs) and do not have an internal dialogue to decide how they feel or what they believe. Arendt writes: "Cliches, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention which all events and fact arouse" (160). So by the children adhering only to their observations and the environment around them, are they in a sense being protected "against reality"? Or, could it be that first children must absorb the environment around them in order to later think and make their own judgements and reveal a reality? Does Arendt's writing on thinking only apply to adults or does it reach out to all people regardless of age and background?

More about Responsibility and Judgment

2009-02-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

"Responsibility and Judgment consists mainly of lectures on practical philosophy delivered in the 1960s, concentrating on the relationship between the world of public politics and that of personal morality. Arendt argued that the two worlds had a lot in common, in that neither political issues nor moral ones could ever be settled definitively, or by the mechanical application of ready-made categories: The truths of morality and politics were to be brought into being by a process of deliberation rather than discovered by acts of reasoning or observation. Moral and political dilemmas were like artistic ones; they both called for what Kant called "judgment," or the kind of infinite thoughtfulness that is willing to expose its own standards of assessment to the challenge of the issues it encounters. On the other hand, there was also a fundamental difference in that moral judgments are concerned with the self, or the kind of person one wishes to be, whereas political judgments are concerned with the world, and the kind of society one wants to live in. Having established an analytical distinction between public and private life, Arendt went on to warn of the dangers of blurring it in social action."

(http://hannaharendt.net/reports/whateverII.html)

from Lauren

2009-02-24T13:47:00.000-08:00

Arendt wrote, "the total moral collapse of respectable society during the Hitler regime may teach us that under such circumstances those who cherish values and hold fast to moral norms and standards are not reliable...much more reliable will be the doubters and skeptics, not because skepticism is good or doubting wholesome, but because they are used to examining things and making make up their own minds."
This idea that people who cling to values and standards are more dangerous than those who are freethinkers makes a lot of sense to me. I think a lot of people spend all of their time making sure that their actions agree with the moral codes they have set up for their lives, even when that code may not necessarily be fitting in a specific situation. Perhaps morals and norms have a "blinding" effect on us when we take them too seriously and choose to live our lives based largely on our moral codes. Times and circumstances change, which is why I believe so strongly that the tendency to question authority and to have facts is so valuable.

moral dilemma

2009-02-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

what i got from the reading is a very interesting message. it seems to say that while we of course can hold blame over those who commited attrocities in the past, the blame itself is easy to mismanage. Why should a whole country take the blame for what a Facist military force did two generations ago? Of course the blame should remain on those who commited the acts, but for the whole nation to take the blame seems like the family of a murderer taking the blame for the murder, even if they did only find out at the trial. it is commendable, but is it right? it might help to assuage certain feelings, but i dont know how morally right it really is.
Take an example, if it turned out that dominican was funneling our tuition money in waterboarding at Guantanamo, would the students feel responsible, especially if we never knew? How far would the guilt run? would we try to disasociate ourselves from the school, or try to repair its tarnished image?

Arendt's Responsibility and Judgment--kick off discussion

2009-02-20T09:02:00.000-08:00

Arendt writes, "There exists in our society a widespread fear of judging . . .behind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence the doubt that anyone is responsible or cold be expected to answer for what he has done" (19). Can you connect this point to past readings (I am thinking in particular of Kaufmann but you may think of other authors) to help us understand Arendt's concept of judgement and then also unpack this idea further with other points that she makes? What is the connection between our ability to judge and the modern liberal notion that we are all moral agents that must cultivate the internal authority to know the difference between right and wrong? How does she elaborate and support this argument?

Universal morality

2009-02-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

I was struck by the truth found in the statement that there can be no absolute or universal morality, much less a strict definition of morality itself. When confronted with that, I tried to see if i could count any of my morals as universal, which i could not, and i even found that a couple of the author's chosen virtues could not be counted universal either. Those virtues are among the best, and yet at times like war and struggle, times when morals are often turned against themselves, these morals would be better if postponed. So it seems that there can be no permanent moral code for all people to follow at all times, but rather a code of rotations. Morals that are to be used as the situation permits, but that should not be used to cover all situations. tell me what you think.

Paul Farmer/Partners in Health--health care as a human right

2009-02-15T14:38:00.000-08:00

2009-02-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

polemics - the practice of argumentation and refutation of an opponent’s opinions, particularly in theological and philosophical writings.
www.sastor.com/Glossary_P.html

So, the point is that--yes--Humanism is a counter point to religion for many non-religious people. I think that Eugene's point in his post is very well observed and I agree! My own conclusion or view of humanism is, as I suggested in class yesterday, it presents many universal values that people across cultures/faiths share. The big point of contention always has to do with things like the story of creation vs evolution--religious "truth" vs scientific "truth"--is God real and did God give us a purpose or do we need to create that purpose? These are the polemics that we will never resolve and have probably produced some fruitful debate and questioning in some historical moments--but my own personal view is that we don't need to be stuck here any more.
Here is a funny example (I think) of a polemical view:
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/b-humanism-is-religion.htm

Humanism a religion?

2009-02-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

the Richard Norman reading, "On Humanism" was great, but i was confused by the fact that he kept pushing humanism in comparison to religion, even as he told us that many humanists wished to make it quite separate. In watching the news, I also found that modern day atheism is treated by the country as a religion, which seems to defeat the purpose of the whole idealism, since religion is classified in the reading as a belief in a higher power, especially a god, goddess or gods. My beleif is that if movements like this wish to be taken seriously, they should take a unique stance and ally themselves with science and the modern world, rather than trying to look like a religion in order to attract the religous. Leave the religious alone, and seek out those who will more likly join the humanist cause. then once the movement is strong enough, others will come at their own accord. What do you think? Is appealing to the religous a good idea for the humanist movement?

2009-02-08T14:20:00.001-08:00

Barzun poses a statement about being independent without being rebellious. I was wondering if any of you had any comments about this statement. I personally believe that it is impossible. If I want to be independent I am rebelling against the influence of others' ideas over me, whether this is at work, school or some other environment. It may not be the intention that I have, but never the less is a form of rebellion. I believe that most of the time we are being rebellious subconsciously, without realizing it or wanting to. What do you think? Can you think of times when you have been rebellious without it being your intent?

New Ideas. . .

2009-02-04T16:18:00.000-08:00

Eugene said...: Okay, so... new post for this week, but i cant figure that out. Anyway, based in the reading "We make the road by walking," the authors say that teachers must teach in a way that gets the point across and gives specific examples out of social context, but does not impose the ideas of the teacher on the student. my question: remember a time when a favorite teacher may have imposed their ideas on you. has it affected the way you think today? For me, i had an english teacher that was a vegan and very liberal. comming out of her class, i not only inexplicaly loved Bruce Springstein, but looked at the world in a more sensitive and naturalistic way.; February 2, 2009 6:07 PM
sally said...: I finally got this to work.

I guess I'll comment on Eugene's comment, which I found to be very true. In high school, it was almost a rule for teachers to prevent themselves from imposing their beliefs on their students. But I had a very liberal English teacher (who had recently moved here from Australia), and she was always trying to persuade us to follow along to her beliefs.
I found it almost offensive, but I tried not to let her opinions influence mine. They definitely got me thinking a lot more though.; February 3, 2009 1:36 PM

How to participate in the weekly discussion

2009-01-14T20:24:00.000-08:00

I will kick off the discussion with a question. Each student will then use the "comment" to add to a string of comments. Don't add a new whole new post, just use the comment button.
So, let's test it with this post. Add a comment, put your name, tell any moral "code" that you consider almost a reflex, it doesn't matter how simple it may seem--and if there is a source that you connect to this. For instance, I never kill a spider on purpose. I will kill a mosquito but never a spider and it all goes back to Charlotte's web.