Omelas Seminar Reflection
I felt that the seminar yesterday went very well, at least in our group. I came out of the discussion with a lot of food for thought and some challenging ideas and personal questions. When the question of “If you were in Omelas would you be able to walk away and leave it all?” was asked I thought that for sure I’d be able to, even though it’d be hard. However as the discussion progressed all of our answers changed, including mine. This occurred when one of us took the question and applied it to real life, asking if we would truly be able to just stand up and walk out the room, down the street, and beyond, never to return, and without looking back. After a little bit of a debate over this question we came to a pretty unanimous decision that we would all love to say that we would be able to say that we would, but in reality we probably wouldn’t do it. I think that we’re all a little bit too attached to the modern everyday commodities and wouldn’t want to leave them. I’m not saying weather this is good or bad, I’ll leave that up to you, I’m just stating what I think is a common fact.
I believe that the child in the closet plays one general roll in their society. The roll I think is to be the “whipping boy” of Omelas. What I mean by this is that in my opinion (and others) you can’t have happiness without suffering, so this boy represents the suffering in the town. If you think about, technically you can’t have happiness if you don’t have something to base that happiness on, as in something to compare to in order to say your current condition is better than “that”. So for the town of Omelas to have constant, never ceasing happiness there has to be a bench mark and the child is that bench mark. No boy, no happiness, it’s just like how you can’t have a slave without a master or a lender without a barrower; the two coexist and always will. The thing that will get to you though is when you apply the position of the child to the real world, and realize what people are stuck with that position. So I know saying that there is no happiness without suffering is a tuff thing to swallow, but if you really think about it, it’s true.
So the child plays a role in their society, but he also plays a roll in ours; I believe the whole town is a representation (metaphor) of our society because of multiple reasons. In the story, everybody is a marvelous time as they begin the festival of summer, while out of site and out of mind there is terrible suffering occurring. I can bet that no one in the crowd was thinking about this child while celebrating, nor wanted to, and this is very easy to relate to our society. Take Haiti for example, the story was all over the news and everybody was feeling great sorrow about what occurred, until and American oil rig exploded in the Gulf and the aftermath was going to strongly effect Americans. After this the only thing on the news was cleaning up the oil, how many American fishermen would be affected, and who was responsible. Then 33 miners were trapped in Chile and that was what the news covered next. This is all an on going process, like it was in Omelas. Someone would go see the child for the first time, cry for a day, or maybe a few, then forget all about it and go back to living life in wonderful Omelas. Of course you always have “those” people that never forget and it affects then greatly, but in our society they aren’t very know. So in my personal opinion the child can represent any type of suffering that occurs in our society, and that is often forgotten.
The outside connection I made with this reading is the idea I just shared with you. I feel that the whole idea of the child in the corner can be equally compared to occurrences in our society that really get people’s attention for a short while, but then drop back under the radar and almost everybody forgets about it. I’ve already shared my examples in the previous paragraph, and they were examples from 2010. The issue I didn’t address was the people that don’t forget about it, and those people are like the people who walk away from Omelas in the story. During our seminar the idea that these people are the Buddhist monks of present day and I agree with this. In my mind monks completely remove themselves from the suffering that surrounds almost everything what we do and what we buy, so they match up perfectly with the people who leave Omelas due to there overwhelming guilt felt inside of them. So every part of this story I felt was very applicable to our society and making a connection to this reading was very easy, and that was a nice change.
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Dulce Seminar Reflection
Ian Bowers made a comment that I really liked a lot and it was, “A picture says, do you see? But a poem says, do you understand?” This statement practically sums up a discussion that went on for 5- 10 minutes into 13 words that still make people really think. What we were discussing is how pictures showing the intensity (blood, death, ect) of war would probably never be allowed to be shown while poetry is a way to get under the radar because their “just words” and “aren’t as graphic”. So thing that this statement shows is that even though people think these things are true, they are almost the exact opposite. When you look a picture you can glance at it or focus on one part of the picture that may not even be important, but when you read a poem you basically have to read and process all of it, and you can’t skip over anything. Also a poem can tell a story that just one picture couldn’t even dream of doing, and sure you could watch a video that shows the topic of a poem, but you wouldn’t be inside the authors head the same way. So the main thing that this statement is saying is that even though people thing pictures are more powerful than poetry, there are cases where it is the opposite.
The biggest thing I learned from this seminar process about how to interpret poetry is to really look up and research terms or phrases that I don’t really know the meaning to. What I’m referring to when I say this is when the poem said, “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin.” Before coaching, every time I read this poem I just read right over this line, not really knowing what it meant but not worrying about it at all. But after we did the D/C journals, during coaching, Chad told me what the phrase meant and that added a LOT more to the message of the poem. So I know that teachers always tell you to look up things that you don’t understand but I never have cause I’ve been to lazy, but there is a higher chance that I will look things up now because of this occurrence.
Is it ever sweet and right to die for your country? I bet there are lots of people who think so, and even more that don’t think so, but personally I sit with the first group of people. Think about it, I didn’t say is it always right, or never right, I just said is it ever right to die for your country, and there are multiple situations that I can conjure up in my head where it would be sweet and right. For instance, if you are part of the company that makes the final push into Berlin during WWII that ended the war and you were killed during that I think that would be a case where it would be right and sweet due to the fact that it was in the fight that ended WWII. I realize that even this example could be argued since it is from so long ago, but I think it is still a good example. An example that’s a little more recent would be being apart of the brigade/battalion that took Bagdad in the beginning of Iraqi Freedom, but even this example would meet strong resilience. So no, I don’t think that it’s always sweet and right to die for your country but I do think that in some cases it is completely sweet and right.
Being Peace Seminar Reflection
During the seminar we came to the topic of could a person live simply in modern America, and lots of different opinions came out. Some people obviously didn’t think anyone could, but others said you could, but the only way they thought it could happen is to live really “old school”. What I mean when I say “old school” I’m referring to growing all of your fruit and vegetables, having animals to get meat from, or perhaps just be vegetarian, grow your own cotton, make your clothes from this cotton, ride a bike or walk everywhere, and just really extreme examples like this. I thought that indeed you could live simply in America, but you wouldn’t have to go to the extremes I just shared. I think that you could still drive a car, buy groceries at a store, buy close from a store and things like this and still be considered to live a simple life. In my mind, living simply means something different for everyone, depending on what there “requirements” are. The reason I have such an opinion on this matter is because I think that my family lives simply. However if some people saw maybe the material things we have and such they would probably say the opposite, but I think we do because we live stress free and aren’t very eccentric. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I guess it’s just a matter of opinion.
I my opinion all of these principles relate to everybody, Buddhist, Christian, Islam, Atheist etc. Yes these are “Buddhist teachings”, but I don’t really think very many of them apply specifically to Buddhism.”…We are determined not to take… nor to accumulate wealth while millions are hungry and dying”, this is the fifth mindfulness training, and I think we could all agree that this should apply to all people. Some millionaires give away very large sums of money, but you don’t even have to be a millionaire or billionaire to give away unneeded money I my mind. The sixth mindfulness training is another that almost everyone agrees with. To sum it up quick it’s about not becoming angry and when you do become angry don’t act on it, rather breath slowly, think about, and just relax. Since 3rd grade I’ve known/knew kids that would go to anger management once or twice a week. Also I know that there are “institutions’, for lack of a better word, all across America and the world that help people work on their anger. Yes some of these are spiritually oriented, but not all are Buddhist. Mindfulness training number nine discusses choosing your words wisely and not lying or gossiping. Personally these are two things that I look down on. I’m not going to be hypocritical and say that I never do any of these things, but I try my hardest to abstain from these things.
So as you can tell I find relevance to these trainings from everyday life and I also try to apply them to my life even though I’m not Buddhist, these teachings line up with what I’m taught through Christian teachings. I think that everyone likes to see these things in other’s lives and also try to live some of them out. A person could even be atheist but still follow these rules in my mind.
“They are not doctrines to fight, kill, or die for.” This is part of the first mindfulness training which as you can see talks about how people should not die over Buddhist teachings, doctrines, or text. It’s a little weird but when I read this I almost instantly thought about how Islam teachings are almost exact opposite. When I say this I’m referring to how Islamic people are taught to kill the “infidel” or the opposition/enemy in order to receive Allah’s blessing and reach paradise. I think this came into my mind so quickly possibly because of how the news is always talking about the war in the Middle East, what I interpret as a war against Islam. Now the news doesn’t share all of what I just said but due to my family’s occupations, I understand pretty well. So I understand that this is a strange connection to what we read, but it’s the connection I developed.
Jihad vs. McWorld Seminar Reflection
Today’s seminar I believe was my best. Lots of ideas where thrown around and they where all very interesting. One of the questions asked that was intriguing to me was “Is the shift of where people find their identities from religion, culture, and nationality to a working identity good or bad? This is something that I really know my opinion on, but strange enough I don’t really know how to completely explain my position. Personally I would rather have people find their identity by their religious beliefs are, cool things they’ve done, what sports they play, or maybe their ancestry and stuff like that. The main reason for this is I believe it adds more to a person’s individual identity, and makes it more interesting. A person finding their identity in their job just doesn’t sound as nice to me. Thinking about people describing themselves in this way makes me think of the “typical” corporate American description (how high in company can you get), and that is to boring for my liking. I know that I still need to refine my explanation and you can call me weird if you want but it’s just my opinion. So all in all I really enjoyed the seminar today, and it challenged lots of my view points.
Slaughterhouse Five Seminar Reflection
1. There were a lot of things said during the seminar, and lots of them stuck out to me; however I can’t identify who said most of those things. One thing I can remember is when I believe it was Kelsey who said something about how soldiers often try to forget traumatizing events that they experienced during the war they took place in and maybe even trick their mind into believing things that aren’t true to replace those events. How this would apply to Slaughterhouse Five is it would explain where the Tralfamadorians came from and make the accusation that Billy Pilgrim made the whole thing up to replace the events at Dresden which I imagine where very traumatizing.
2. On the topic that soldiers try to forget traumatizing events that they experienced during the war they took place in and maybe even trick their mind into believing events that aren’t necessarily true, to possibly ease their mind, I believe is very interesting . I guess this statement didn’t really change my opinion on anything, but it defiantly influenced my thinking about why war veterans can be so traumatized and why they come back so changed sometimes. Before this, I probably acknowledged that war could extremely change you mentally (especially if the veteran went through something like the bombing of Dresden) but I didn’t think that war would be the reason of making up crazy stories like Billy did. So from now on I will give a veteran the benefit of the doubt before I call him just right out crazy if I hear him/her tell me some crazy stories.
3. A connection I that I made during the seminar was on the topic of free will. She asked if we believed in free will and even though I didn’t really voice it, I do. I’m a Christian and firmly support everything I believe in, so my connection is a spiritual/biblical one in which what I believe implies that there is free will. For example, Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins, so that we would have the chance and opportunity to go to heaven, but this was a gift in which God states it is our choice to accept or not accept, and there are also other instances across the bible that talk about you having the choice a lot of things. So this is really the bases of my belief in free will and this was something that instantly popped into my head during the seminar.
4. The category that I believe I fell under during this seminar would probably be communication because with most of the questions I tried to put in my opinion, answer questions people asked me and ask others questions of clarification. The thing I want to improve on most is bring in outside and personal connections to the seminar. Something I could do to achieve this goal is study the material that we will be discussing to maybe think of connections beforehand that I could then use during to seminar.
"Roots of War" Seminar Reflection
1. During the first seminar Kenja said something about how he was raised by some of the biggest anti-war “hippies” that he’s ever met, and wasn’t really even aloud to know what a gun was. But after all of that, what he does for a favorite sport is MMA, which as you is a pretty violent sport. What he was saying is that it doesn’t really matter how or where you grow up, humans are naturally violent. Then I think it was Kenny that added on to that talking about how in first grade or kindergarden he got into a fight pretty much before he knew what a fight was. These were things that stuck out to me the most.
2. Now just to let you know, I wasn’t actually in the discussion group that was arguing weather humans were naturally violent, but those statements caught my ear and stuck out to me. At first, I would’ve had to disagree with Kinja in the sense that I believe where and how you grow up influences how violent you are, but when I heard him say what he did it got me thinking. Now I partially agree with him, that sometimes people do turn out opposite of how they’re raised. Where I still disagree is that where you grow doesn’t affect how violent you are, because I believe a kid raised in North Vietnam or The Congo would be more violent, or more used to war then a kid from the UK or the USA. I did agree with Kenny though when he was talking about already knowing how to fight another person even before he knew what a fight was, because human’s are naturally violent.
3. The thing I’m being reminded of as I’m thinking about how where you’re raised affects how violent you are is the countless stories I’ve heard from men/women that have overseas in Iraq and places in the Middle East. A story that all of this especially reminds me of is when a young boy will walk up to a platoon or squadron of soldiers that have has a bomb strapped to him that his dad put there, but the soldiers don’t think to search him because he’s a young boy. Now I’m not saying that he decided to do this by choice, but it’s pretty common to see bombs and explosives over there, so he doesn’t think anything about it. Where this as to do with anything is that I believe that a young boy in the US or UK would be more likely to freak-out if someone tried to do this to him, because he’s learned that they aren’t good things and isn’t desensitized to seeing them. I’m not saying this happens a lot, but I think it serves as a pretty good example for what they were debating about.
4. From the categories listed I believe I was the strongest in was probably “clarification”. This was my first Socratic seminar so it was a big learning experience for me, but I think “clarification” is what I did the most. The category I would most like to improve on for the next seminar would defiantly be “new ideas”. I think to help me do this I need to think outside of the box more when it comes to the conversations we’re having. This was the biggest thing I think I need to improve on, but I still know I need to improve on them all greatly.
Deogratias Seminar Reflection
Asking the question, “do all foreigners cause turmoil in countries that they visit?” was something that stuck out to me when Mrs. Fisher asked us this during the seminar on Tuesday. The reason it stuck out to me was because it made think further into the book and even connect the book the article we read beforehand. Even now, almost a week later, I still can’t come up with an answer I fully support. I do believe that in some cases yes, but also believe that there are lots of exceptions, so I’m not really sure what I think. This helped me better understand the book because like I stated earlier, it connected the book to things that I’ve previously read and studied. I think my group’s seminar went ok, I mean it wasn’t the best we’ve ever had, but it also wasn’t the worse. There were several interesting thoughts that were presented, and one I’ve already discussed. On top of this one was when we’re asked the question of who was most responsible for all of the deaths in the book, and when Kelsey brought up that even if someone may not have killed the person, if they watched them die they will feel the same affects as if they did kill them