Week of 9-22-14

We've done a lot of work with OPVLs these past weeks. In class we talked about value, and how it depends on what you're looking for - in the example that Mr. Hoffman gave, we discussed how a historian probably won't care about leisure activities in Canada if what they're looking into is slavery. In other words, information changes based on your perspective. This human tendency of selectively intaking information can cause miscommunications between people. I know there have been a few arguments between my own friends that started because people only hear what they want to. Someone is in a bad mood, feeling sorry for themselves, and all of a sudden anything you say to them is taken as an insult.

Have you noticed this? When someone is feeling defensive, everything you say is like lighting a fuse. This obviously can have an effect on our personal, everyday lives. But it can also change our view of the past. Everyone has an opinion, including historians. Sometimes you can figure out what that opinion is based on what they read into the facts. How much do you think this affects the information we're given? I personally think there's a huge difference between learning information from actual documents, as long as you study a good variety, and reading a textbook. No matter how unbiased the authors try to be, they are always putting their own spin on the facts.

How much do you think what we're learning is affected by bias? Do you think your understanding is more affected by the bias of the people giving you information, or your own bias when you hear it?

Week of 9-15-14

For one of our journals this week, we were asked to consider what keeps America united. The fact that this is a question that warrants consideration says something big about the US. When our political parties were first created, the Founding Fathers warned against it. John Adams said in 1780, in a letter to Jonathan Jackson, "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties..." In my opinion, he was right to dread that. It seems these days as though the Republican party will automatically disagree with the Democratic party and vice versa, regardless of the issue. There is an automatic compulsion to take the opposite viewpoint of the opposing party, and it's tearing our country apart.

That said, there are things that bring our country together. The problem is that none of them are positive things. It feels as though we only unite in the face of tragedy. School shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters appear to be the only thing capable of bringing us together as one. Even then, our political parties think the best way to deal with this is to divide and conquer -  only I guess they forgot that in order to conquer you have to come back together, undivided.

I feel like in political debates, it has stopped centering around what people actually think, and depends more on which party they agree with. Maybe I take an exaggerated stand on political parties. Do you think I'm being pessimistic? Obviously at our age, we might not understand politics all that well. But it definitely feels like our country is being split down the middle by political parties.

How do you feel about them? What do you think are the pros and cons of having this system? Post a comment and let me know.

Week of 9-8-14

          Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." It's the basis of my upcoming essay, and it's gotten me thinking about what people are really scared of in life. In my opinion, fear can be categorized into three kinds: fear of what someone else's fear will cause, fear of the unknown, and fear of pain. Think about what you're scared of, or the fears of the people we've been studying (and I mean real fears, not getting bad grades or being rejected by your crush). War. Slavery. Being flogged/whipped/beaten. Death. The death of a loved one. Being alone or separated from your family. All of these fit into one of these three categories.

          The first type of fear is what FDR referred to. We need to be scared of other people's fear, and more so how they respond to it. Conversion, slavery, war; all things that might not exist if we as humans weren't so fearful. Having heard (or read, in our case) Jonathan Edwards' sermon, it's clear that in the Puritans' minds, conversion is directly linked with fear. In fact, the way they went about their conversion process was by threatening everyone with Hell and endless misery if they didn't become Puritan Christians. In other words, they scared people into following their religion. One could argue that slavery was borne out of various plantation owners being scared that not having slaves might put them at a disadvantage. Even war could be viewed as a result of fear. The people are scared either of God's wrath or of not having the land and resources they need, so they act on that fear by fighting with the opposing side.

          The second kind of fear is fear of the unknown. A lot of people are afraid of death. We don't know what comes next, or even if something does. I don't view this as something worth being scared of - it's inevitable, and it's actually strikingly similar to being afraid of the dark (meaning that we don't fear anything specific, we just don't like not knowing). If you knew what would happen, then you would know either to be scared of those events or not, but you wouldn't be scared of dying. The same goes for being kidnapped. If you think about it, are you scared of the actual act of being taken? Probably you're scared that your kidnapper's motivation (which is most likely related to fear) will cause him/her to do something bad to you, and you're scared because you don't know what will happen to you. Here, again, are the first two types of fear.

          The first time I heard that quote about fear, I realized that I agreed with it completely. I soon added fear of the unknown, but because that's not a rational fear I thought FDR had hit the nail on the head. There were only two kinds of fear, and I assumed all pain was somehow caused by someone else's fear. But then I thought again about death. Pain can only be caused by someone else's fear if someone has put you in that pain. If a loved one dies, or if you don't have enough money for food or housing, that is a pain that no one has inflicted on you. It just happens. If you're scared of a loved one's death, you know what's going to happen when they die, so it's not unknown. And even if humans didn't feel fear, the loved one would still die, so you're not scared of fear. This is the third kind of fear. You're scared of missing them. You're scared of not being able to talk to them any more. You're scared of the pain you will feel when they're gone.

          My thoughts on fear have grown a lot since first hearing what Roosevelt had to say about it. But I still don't know if I have it right. Do you think all fear can be shelved into these categories? What other categories do your fears fall into, or what categories am I missing? Post your comments below.