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Final Blog - Awe

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....

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

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

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!

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

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?

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

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.

"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

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

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

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

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

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

Precarious Life II.

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.

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"?

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

'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

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

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

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

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! :-)

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

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

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

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.