Is Franklin Too Bold?

After reading Franklin's "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduce to a Small One", I couldn't help but think that perhaps Franklin was being a bit too bold. If I were a British politician, I would feel that his incessant use of sarcasm is simply obnoxious. Does anyone else get a similar impression of his work? And if so, do you think this was Franklin's intent?

-Bryce Cody

Ben Franklin's Warrant

I had been meaing to ask in class today about Franklin's what the warrant of Franklin's letter was. His audiences were, as we stated in class, English officials, the English public, and the American colonists. But if we look at the letter as an argument through the Toulmin model, what would his warrant be for these audiences? Would it be the same for all or different for each? Does it have anything to do with the cake analogy?
-a confused emily

Translations

I remember a few months ago we discussed Chief Seattle's speech and how its legitimacy was questionable since it was translated first into a different Native American language and then into English. Well, over the past few months of translating Latin, I've come to the decision that Seattle's speech as we know it is all but useless in understanding what he actually meant. Why? Because even in translating from Latin to English, Western languages with the same alphabet and other large similarities, huge gaps in understanding emerge. (e.g. "Theseus himself chose to put forward his own body for the dear Athenians, rather than such deaths of Athenians not dead bodies be brought to Crete" -translated from Catullus 64) Half the time, I can barely understand what the translation means and the other half the time the translation is very awkwardly worded.

Now, if going from Latin to English creates this many misunderstandings, I can only wonder what going from a Native American language to English does to a work. And on top of this, Seattle's speech was also first translated to a different Native American language before being translated to English. So, in the end, I must admit that I've lost all faith in our English version of Chief Seattle's speech and that I feel it can hardly be treated as a trustworthy historical work.

-Bryce C.

As promised, one hypothetical dilemma

The Situation:

Three days ago, nuclear war broke out around the world with massive attacks in all heavily populated areas. For the first 24 hours, radio broadcasts reported tremendous damage and loss of life in all areas, including the near-total annihilation of most of the earth's population.

For the past 48 hours there have been no broadcasts. Fortunately, the people listed below were able to reach a fallout shelter in time to take cover and survived the initial devastation. They have a radio transmitter/receiver, through which they were able to make contact with you,  a scientist working alone at an isolated government monitoring facility that is still intact.  Having heard nothing to the contrary, you can only assume that those in the shelter are the only other survivors left on Earth.

The dilemma: there are currently 12 people in the fallout shelter, but there is not enough food, water, and other supplies to keep them all alive until the contamination in the atmosphere has dropped to safe levels. To survive, the people must stay inside the fallout shelter for at least three months. The problem is that if all of them stay in the shelter, all of them will starve to death or die of dehydration. There are enough supplies to allow 7 of the 12 people to survive.

Your task is to decide, based only on the information given, which people will be allowed to remain, and which people will be required to leave. They have all agreed to abide by your decision without question or debate, and will leave peacefully if they are ordered to do so.  

At stake is the survival of humanity. If human beings are to repopulate the Earth, such re-population will begin with those survivors you choose.

The Survivors:

James Stanley [M]
Age: 43
IQ: 112
Health: Good
Education/Training: 2 yrs college, 2 yrs military
Work Experience: 15 yrs farming

Janie Stanley [F]
Age: 13
IQ: 120
Health: Excellent
Education/Training: 8th Grader
Work Experience: None

Gerald White [M]
Age: 35
IQ: 98
Health: Fair
Education/Training: High School Diploma
Work Experience: 4 yrs army infantry, 10 yrs construction laborer

Martha Gray [F]
Age: 25
IQ: 142
Health: Good
Education/Training: PhD in Music Theory
Work Experience: 2 yrs teaching college

William Gray [M]
Age: 8
IQ: 150
Health: Good
Education/Training: 3rd Grader
Work Experience: None
 

Wanda Brice [F]
Age: 50
IQ: 140
Health: Fair
Education/Training: Master's Degree Psychology
Work Experience: 15 yrs mental health case-worker, 10 yrs director of mental health counseling services

Bill Waters [M]
Age: 27
IQ: 104
Health: Excellent
Education/Training: Tech school graduate
Work Experience: 10 years heavy construction and welding

John Davis [M]
Age: 33
IQ: 125
Health: Fair
Education/Training: Dual college degrees - Chemistry / Education
Work Experience: 12 years high school chemistry teacher

Michelle Patterson [F]
Age: 19
IQ: 105
Health: Fair
Education/Training: High School diploma
Work Experience: 3 yrs retail

Marjorie Blaylock [F]
Age: 39
IQ: 133
Health: Poor
Education/Training: Medical school graduate
Work Experience: 10 yrs general family medical practice

Ray Wilson [M]
Age: 69
IQ: 127
Health: Good
Education/Training: 4 yrs college, business major
Work Experience: 10 yrs bank teller, 20 yrs bank president

Fred Frederick [M]
Age: 54
IQ: 132
Health: Excellent
Education/Training: advanced training - electronics (master rating)
Work Experience: 25 yrs U.S. Navy electronics technician, 10 yrs private electronics repair

Communist Candy

This is kind of random, but it has to do with the whole red scare communism thing, and I thought it was funny, so I'll share it with you guys.

On Saturday my family went to visit my grandmother in her new apartment-type building. She grew up in Poland and was sent to a labor camp during World War II, and is a bit crazy now, but in a good way. She was talking to us about someone who visited Poland and brought back candy for her but when she ate it, she didn't like it. She said, "it was very bad, so I thought it was Communist candy." My mother and I started laughing at this and asked her what she meant by Communist candy, but she didn't really have a reason for calling it that. She didn't think there was anything wrong with making that assumption.
I was telling Tara this story, and she said that materials or goods made by communist countries were often considered sub-par, so maybe that is why my grandmother thought the bad candy was "communist." While this may be the case, I also think she has a very anti-communist bias, and the whole situation just made me see how ingrained biases can be that 60 plus years after the war, "communist" is still basically a synonym for "bad" to my grandmother. Thoughts?

-Alexa

The Omitted Scene

If the omitted scene of The Crucible were not omitted, the play would have been more realistic. The scene can explain the girls' strange behaviors when they faced Proctor and Mary Warren, since Proctor visited Abigail the night before and told her what he was going to do. This gave Abigail a chance to prepare for Proctor's accusation toward her and she probably planned the show with the girls. This scene can explain the odd behaviors of the girls and make the play more realistic, but why was it omitted?

Is reality important in the play? Or is reality not needed to get the point across?

-Joanne

When the Puritans, the Beatles, and Karl Marx meet

I was re-reading the essay in The Beatles and Philosophy that I am reviewing for the assignment when a certain line caught my eye. The essay is about Marxism and the Beatles, and the specific paragraph I was reading was talking about Marx's take on religion and how it relates to John Lennon's song "Imagine".

"Furthermore, when Lennon asks us to imagine no religion, he further reiterates Marx's efforts to counter religious ideologies that divert human conciousness from unjust socio-economic realities with promise of divine rewards in the hereafter."

This sentence screamed "Puritans!" all over to me. Of course, there are many reasons for the Puritans' religious fanaticism, and the "unjust socio-economic realities" of their original home in England and then their adopted home in America is definately a contributer. The Puritans had to go to so much trouble just to survive in the early days of their American settlement that would have driven their already extreme faith to new levels.

-Audrey

Back to the National Anthem

So if you've been watching the Superbowl (go Saints!), you probably saw the opening ceremony. And if you saw the opening ceremony, you watched Queen Latifah sing "America the Beautiful" AND THEN Carrie Underwood sung the national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner". And if you, as an AP English III student, saw all this, you probably gave your head a little scratch.
Why sing "America the Beautiful" before the national anthem? Why was the opening ceremony opened by a black woman who was followed by a white woman? Is this symbolic of the ushering in of a new era in America? Will "America the Beautiful" be replaced as our national anthem? Will the Saints win? (as I type they're down one)
(emily)

The Repeated Reign of Terror

There is certainly an archetype with fear and terror that has been seen through history. The French Revolution, with its Reign of Terror, set the stage. There were leaders of the Reign of Terror who accused people of being traitors and enemies of the revolution. The accusations often had hasty trials and unjustly led to executions. The leaders turned on each other, when Robespierre killed Danton, Saint-Just was killed, and then Robespierre was killed himself in the Thermidorian Reaction. The same events repeated themselves in the Salem witch trials. Certain leaders of the movement claim that their neighbors are witches left and right. Some accusers were accused themselves, and the trials were mostly unfair because they involved pressing the accused to confess (like Giles Corey in The Crucible) and suspicious evidence like fainting and supposed effects of witchcraft. Then the archetype was seen again in McCarthy's Red Scare. McCarthy is known for accusing without evidence, and in some cases not even having tangible names of the accused. And then the pattern manifested itself in the aftermath of 9/11, as we talked about in class. All of these movements were based solely on fear. One could not speak out against the ludicrous, irrational nature of the events for fear of being guillotined, hanged, or sentenced as Communist next. Fear and terror are clearly effective techniques in achieving certain goals. But why can't humans stop the pattern from recurring, if the source of the problem can be identified? Is it merely because when there are no foreign enemies, a given population will turn within themselves?

-- tori

The Red Scare Now and Then

I just wanted to continue our class discussion on Friday about the comparison between McCarthyism and the current "anti-socialism" movement. To me, the parallels between now and then are quite apparent. Both are group movements involving a demagogue or group of demagogues who appeal to people's fears and emotions. In the case of the 1950s, it was McCarthy who stirred up fear of the Soviet Union by emphasizing the internal threat to the United States posed by government officials and college professors taking orders from Moscow. Now, however, its media reporters and radio broadcasters such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh stirring up fear of "socialism" and "government takeovers."

How similar would you guys say these two movements are? The biggest difference I would note is that McCarthyism was more of a national movement while today's "teabaggers" are a certain passionate minority. Thoughts?

-Bryce C.

Puritans in Elementary Schools

Yesterday I was talking to my 11 year old cousin (5th grade) who lives in California. We got on the subject of school, and she mentioned that she was learning about the Puritans. Of course, I took this wonderful opportunity to find out just what she knew about them. To her, three things really stood out about the Puritans: they prayed a lot, they read a lot, and they were ALWAYS nice to each other. I actually laughed when she said the last one, thinking about the witch trials (which they haven't learned about yet). Other than that, her class hadn't learned anything else about them, other than the basics about why they came to America. They certainly had never learned about the "fire and brimstone" Puritans, which I found interesting, since that is the general Puritan stereotype.

This really reminded me of back in the fall when we were talking about history being sugar-coated for young kids. So, what do all of you think? Is it better to not tell kids about the fire and brimstone things, or should they get a mix of the good and bad? Also, I was wondering about the difference of the east and west coast education. Do you think we might have a different view of the Puritans than kids in schools who are further in location from the Puritans' original home?

-Audrey

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

During the "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," I think that ethos play the most significant role among the other factors. Jonathan Edwards does use some logos with the verses of the Bible he included in his sermon, but his selection and his explanation of those verses are highly opinionated. He purposely includes certain kinds of excerpts from the Bible that portrays the "Angry God" and although he does use the Bible as a source, his sermon does not seem very factual.

Edwards's sermon could be emotional (pathos), but during the class discussion, we found out that the way he delivered the sermon was calm and somewhat less passionate. Therefore it could be said that the greatest factor of his sermon was ethos.

In order for an orator to drive fear out of his audience, he needs the ethos. If it were somebody random delivering the speech, it might not have been so affective. The sermon was so affective because the speaker's reputation and his social rank enabled him to drive fear out of the audience.

-Joanne

Some Semantics

http://www.smh.com.au/world/obama-enforcer-to-take-r-word-pledge-20100204-ngaa.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liane-kupferberg-carter/the-r-word_b_443627.html

Today my friend was talking about the R word, and I wasn't really aware of what it was, and that it is sometimes treated like a curse word (like the F word). That surprised me, because I don't think I've ever really consciously witnessed the evolution of a word in this way. The first link above is for information on its current controversy. The second link leads to an article that reminded me of Hayakawa, especially the last two paragraphs. The author says, "And I know that if we banish this word from everyone's vocabulary, something equally noxious will probably take its place. But the malice behind this word is palpable and ugly and heart constricting." We have talked about how affective connotation is added onto words. Words describing race with added on connotation are particularly sensitive words. We also talked about how the symbol represents something and even when the symbol itself is gone, the thing symbolized doesn't necessarily disappear too.

The author of the article says, "I am asking for no less than a basic cultural shift." This goes back to Hayakawa as well. I remember talking about how it is hard to create a change in language because pragmatically, people would have to start thinking a different way before speaking a different way, unless thoughtcrime and telescreens existed (which didn't even work out in the end anyway). Hayakawa used the example of Mussolini trying to get people to use the word "voi" instead of "tu" and failed, because language is hard to control when it's in the hands of the people. But I am really interested to see if the R-word campaign will eventually accomplish its goal of eliminating the use of the word from everyday speech. I remember reading about how some economic growth was retarded in the American Pageant last year and being surprised because the word was used in its dictionary-definition intended use, with only the informative connotation. So many words are skewed with connotation and are ruined from then on.

-- tori

Popularity as Value

Today while I was reading "Harry Potter and Philosophy" for the term paper essay, I came across this passage in the introduction:

"British pilosopher Bertrand Russell once claimed that, given the general silliness of mankind, a view's popularity is sure evidence of its falsehood. Clearly Russell overstated the case. Something's popularity is decisive evidence of neither its truth nor falsehood, neither its value nor worthlessness."

It goes on to say that since something is popular, it has clearly "struck a chord of some sort."
This reminded me of the discussion we had about Anne Bradstreet a few days ago and what determines what belongs in an important collection. I definitely agree with this quote, but understand where Russell is coming from. The majority of people are not scholars, and therefore if something is popular with a majority it doesn't mean it is a classic work or has heavy literary weight. However, it must have some sort of significance or value to society for being so popular. I think if a work is extremely popular, that doesn't mean it should be immediately disregarded for inclusion OR immediately included in such a collection. It just means that it should definitely be considered. Thoughts?

-Alexa