Final Seminar Response

The book I liked the most was White Fang. This book was interesting and the plot was easy to follow. I like how the author gave the reader an understanding and wrote a lot about the beginning of the story of White Fang. I also enjoyed the transformation of the characters and how they played a role in the story line. Another reason I liked this book is that it was realistic fiction and could have easily happened unlike other books that we read.

The book that I least liked was the Dialogues of Plato. This book was long and didn’t really appeal to by interests. It was also kind of hard to read and understand what Socrates was talking about/explaining. I’m not the philosopher type and would rather spend my time on other things. I did find some parts interesting but overall the book was not all that appealing to me.

1984 Response 3

            In the documentary “Inside North Korea” one lady that they interviewed had negative views on America and she said that they had caused all sorts of problems that effected them. This is similar to how the party is trying to brainwash Winston into thinking one way that Big Brother is good and that 2+2=5. “No Winston, that is no use. You are Lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please!” (250) Also in the video, they discussed how the people weren't allowed to travel out of their own town and needed permission from the government in order to do so. This is similar to how Winston and Julia went out of town into the country but had to watch out for patrols for the party watched were you went. “We can come here once again. It’s generally safe to use any hide-out twice” (126). They also had to be careful not to use the same way twice to avoid attention from the party. The children spies who told on their parents were also the same in the book as the video. In the video, kids who told on their parents were regarded as a hero and did the state a huge favor. This connects to the book and how Parson’s kids ratted on him for being unorthodox to the party and he ended up in a cell with Winston. “It was my little daughter. She listened at the keyhole” (233).

1984 Seminar Response 1

            The concept of Newspeak is very interesting and fits in perfectly in the context of the book. The 1984 government/ruling body controls just about everything in the lives of its citizens in Oceania. This includes everything from regular police to thought police and telescreens to keep tabs on its citizens. One of the means that the government is suppressing the people is by inventing the language of Newspeak. So by getting rid of the words that cause thoughtcirme, it would eliminate a lot of their society's problems with people thinking "bad thoughts." A good example of this is in the main character Winston Smith and how he uses Newspeak in his work, but still thinks of it in the regular English. Winston doesn't like Newspeak while his colleague Syme enjoys destroying words. "Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller" (52.)

            One institutions in particular that have been distorting reality is ISIS. Even though ISIS is in the news a lot, they are excellent at distorting reality and convincing people to join their cause. They are able to convince U.S. citizens to raise arms and fight against the U.S. You can't just convince someone to commit treason and would be really hard to not do it without distorting reality. They create lots of propaganda, their careful use of words, and the distortion of the truth are great enough to convince people to join their cause of terrorism against the U.S. and other European countries.

            Another example of how a group of people have distorted the truth is the police brutality movement. Often people jump to conclusions before they think things through and make opinions based on their initial reaction. These groups of people have distorted what really happened and even make up stories as seen in the Ferguson case. So instead of making their opinions based on their gut reaction, they should put themselves in the police's shoes for a day before they distort the truth to what they think is right even though they didn't even know what happened.

Brave New World Part III

Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World” is a somewhat accurate description of society today nearly 80 years after it was published. In the book, consumerism is very strong and when something breaks, you just buy a new one. If you shirt or pants rip, you just throw them away and buy a new pair instead of fixing them because it would “look bad.” Huxley also accurately described today’s transportation. In the book there were helicopters that transported people around, today there are cars, planes, and trains that move people from place to place.

Even though Huxley was right in a few areas of the future, he was wrong with a lot of the social structure and society. In the book, there were major gaps between the various castes. Today, there are gaps between social classes but now days everyone is supposed to be treated equally. Even though this doesn't exactly happen, there is a lot more fair treatment now than is portrayed in the book. Reproduction is also another area that Huxley was wrong in. Huxley portrays society cloning people and genetically engineering every being so that they would be perfect for their predestined task. Today's society is far from this with reproduction occurring naturally and not artificially in laboratories being designed to be the best they can be. Although cloning is starting to make an impact on society now, it will be a long time till Huxley's future comes true, if it ever does come true.

I think Huxley's idea for the future is not all that realistic and doesn't accurately describe the future. I think that the future will be led by technology and ideas by the people, not lead by the government and the idea of peace. The public will always want to move forward and not want to be limited in what they know or do as in Huxley's future.

Brave New World Part 1

The future in medicine and the health care field is changing with every big innovation/invention that can improve the way we do things in the health industry. Cloning is one of the major technologies that is big on the radar with huge potential for its patients. When this new technology comes into practice, it will raise many questions and ethical problems. I think that cloning should be limited to therapeutic cloning and restricted to growing organs that would help patients who are in dire need of transplants. With every attempt or try to clone an object, uses an embryo, which is another moral road block for some people. We shouldn't be throwing away embryos just to try to grow new ears just because people think theirs are too big. It's just a big waste of time and resources and therefore should only be used for actual needs not wants like the lady in the movie who had no options for a kidney transplant. Once we start incorporating cloning in our every day lives such as in the food we eat, we are changing the human race. Our knowledge is very limited in the field so why should we take the chance by making a mistake and it ending up effecting millions of Americans due to a few scientists lack of knowledge on the effects. Sure cloning may look good now and seemingly have no side effects, but what about 20 years down the road, when genetics problems might show up and effect our children because they have been eating this genetically modified chicken and effect their children. There is just no predicting what will happen when cloning takes over our lives and the effect it will have on us.

            Next to cloning, designer babies are also another technology that is causing moral problems. I understand the desire for parents who have a long history of certain conditions that they don't want to pass down to their children, but who make the decisions of what will be done. Who will decide if two parents want their child to bad vision and their child turns out to have super vision, better than the average human. These little modifications to our children will change the way our society works and will have major problems down the road. Once the doors open for general designer babies, such as eye color and height, people will want to take it all the way, and design their children's interests and other things that would control exactly how their child will act. All of these things go too far and are not necessary and would cause lots of social issues down the road.

Seminar Response

Every baby in the book is predestined according to the caste system that they have developed. The five castes of their system are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Each caste is developed how society needs them and conditions them so that they are perfect for the job they are predestined to do. The advantage to this is that the workers are more efficient and when they use the Bokanovsky Process, it makes teaching the workers a lot easier and uses less resources. They are also conditioned to like their caste and not want to be higher up. Another benefit to this is that society is very stable with the desired number of people in each caste. A downside to this process is that if something major changes, castes will not be able to fill the position of other castes. If there was a situation where someone from one cast needed to do something that another caste did, then there would be a disaster. Also, there is a lot more work that is done if a society is using the caste system due to separating the different caste’s. Like in the obstacle course, there was another level just for the lower castes. Each caste has different housing and jobs which can be a waste of resources if you have two groups performing the same task in different area. Another disadvantage is that there has to be some overlap between the casts. The book doesn’t really mention this but I’m sure there is conflict there when the different castes interact. The only time we see this is when they are ordered to do things by a higher caste.

The Prince Seminar Response 3

One of the things that I would advise the president is that they should try their best to stop the problems at the source as quick as they can. Even though 21st century nations don't acquire land, they need to develop allies and friends that they can trust. They also need to develop relations with countries in which they disagree and try their best to make good terms with them. In order to do this, I would suggest as Machiavelli would and go to the region to visit the people and calm the public opinion. Addressing problems at the source is the best thing to do and that ensures that they won't get out of hand.

 

Another thing that I would advise is to be more feared than loved by the other nations. Sure they shouldn't be ready to go to war with you, but they should respect you enough not to mess with you and bother your interests. If other nations do this, then you will gain more national respect from nations all over the world.

 

The last thing that I would suggest to the president is that national pride is a huge thing to maintaining the national interests. Like in the book when Machiavelli said that national troops are the best and can be trusted, national workers and industries are important to national moral as a whole. And if you build up this national trust, people will be more open and support the government and their interests both domestically and foreign.