April Blog: Prisons in the United States

The Stranger’s ending brings up the question of whether or not the prison system harms its’ prisoners rather than provide them with the necessary rehabilitation provided to succeed in society once they serve their sentence. By showing Meursault come to a revelation while being in prison, The Stranger goes against the current view in American society about prisons. In today’s society, especially in the United States, the prison system is becoming more and more criticized for its harsh punishments for minor crimes, taking people completely out of society for life for a crime that did not deserve to do so. The United States prison system has led to millions of people losing job opportunities because they have a felony on their record as well as leaving these same people with mental liabilities for their rime spent in prison. However, The Stranger reveals Meursault’s coming to life and reality as he finds his purpose in his prison sentence to be executed. Instead of harming Meursault, prison actually helped him realize his only purpose in life. By no means do I think the United States prison system provides everyone with a life changing revelation, but I do feel that there’s a lot more benefit to it than the majority of Americans view it has. I feel that our prison system does provide certain people with a better outlook on life as they are able to change their life around due to seeing how rough life can be as a criminal. However, I do feel that the prison system overall is a bad system as too many prisoners end up ruining their lives over petty offenses due to their prison sentences are too lengthy. I believe in getting punished where a punishment is due, but I feel like the overcrowding of United States’ prisons occurs because of strict punishment. Meursault had no problem with his punishment because he knew he committed a heinous crime. This is why he didn’t lie to protect himself because he had no reason to. The United States prison system should strive to imprison people like that instead of imprisoning people that still can contribute to society.

February Blog: Knowing Your Roots

The easiest action to undertake in the middle of a crisis is to run away. Removing yourself from a hard situation represents the easy way out. However, most people see running away from a problem as a cowardly act and I would have to agree with them. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, Laila and her family decide to escape Kabul because it has become unsafe to live in. However, she ends up returning because she wants to live out her life in the place where she was born and raised and where she saw so much of her life happen whether good or bad. The longing to maintain at home amidst a crisis is one that I have seen throughout modern culture. For instance, after the September 11^th attacks in New York, most people decided to remain in that area instead of running away. After seeing something so dreadful happen to their beloved ones or their beloved home place, many people refused to leave because of one bad occurrence. The people of New York bonded together instead of departing in several different ways, showing how society strives to get through hard times together by staying true to their roots. For me, staying true to my roots is something I take into consideration with every major decision I make. I always want to be around my family because that is where I know I’ll receive the most help and care from. For college, I am trying to stay as close to home as possible because that’s where I feel most comfortable. Similar to Laila and Kabul, I see the Philadelphia area as my home where I know where everything will be. Yes, there might be some conflict and some hardships, but at the end of everything, my family will still be in that area, which means I will be a part of that area. Too many people nowadays run away from conflict to leave behind their past experiences. I understand that some of them are leaving to search for a better life, but I believe that the best life that most of them will cherish will be to work things out where they are comfortable in.

January Blog: Appearances vs. Happiness

Modern society tends to focus on appearances rather than happiness. Many people today care too much about how they look to others and too little about how they look to themselves. As a result, the world has focused on success, looks, and surroundings rather than happiness. To me, this is why too many marriages fall apart in today’s world. In A Doll’s House, Helmer tells Nora, “Now it’s just about saving the remains, the wreckage, the appearance”. Helmer wasn’t interested in happiness from a marriage, but he wanted Nora to stay with him so his business appearance would stay the same. Nora, on the other hand, was tired of giving up happiness for a good appearance, causing her to leave Helmer and carry on with her life looking for true happiness. Their marriage focused solely on appearance and involved little emotion. I think in today’s world, more people are trying to achieve something other than happiness through marriage. People are trying to gain an advantage by marrying someone who could help them succeed more in life rather than focusing on the qualities of a partner. I feel like this is the problem that has led to a higher divorce rate. I have also seen the focus on appearance rather than joy and happiness in several other areas of life. For instance, up until this year, many people feared for their life to announce they were homosexual. They feared their appearance would be ruined so they wouldn’t reach out to obtain true happiness. In fact, many homosexuals still are in fear of coming out even if it has been ruled to be legal. The world is driven by what makes one look good and not by what makes one happy. Too many people are caught up in making money rather than living life. I get it, everyone wants to fit in and be successful. But why should people give up happiness to achieve these things? While Nora wasn’t exactly a great character in the play, I feel that more people need to stand up against social trends and start focusing on what makes them happy, not what makes the corporations, executives, and so many others happy.

December Blog: Importance of the Past

In Slaughterhouse V, author Kurt Vonnegut raises the question of, “Should humanity look back on the bad times like war or just forget that war ever happened?” Vonnegut seems to think that humanity needs to remember what tragedy has happened in their past, as he praises Lot’s wife for looking back in the Bible to see what bad things have occurred behind her even though she knew she would be punished. Vonnegut has been through war, and knows how scary and how harsh treatments not only Americans received but also what other country’s soldiers and civilians went through. Like Vonnegut, I too feel that humans need to pay more respect to all of humanity’s tragedies to celebrate those who lived through them as well as to celebrate the many lives lost fighting for our countries or who just happened to be victims of a tragic situation. Humanity needs to stop running away from our flaws in the past and need to realize that we can’t continue to make the same mistakes. Modern society is moving more and more towards recognizing the rough times of the past, specifically in the United States. New museums and memorials are being opened and dedicated to the tragic events of the past so the people of today can reflect on what the people of yesterday had to go through. For instance, a new Holocaust museum opened in Washington D.C. as well as a new 9/11 museum and memorial opened in New York. Many people see museums like these as being too graphic and representing the “evils” in the world. In reality, these museums are representative of the fighters that protected our country even if they didn’t realize what they were apart of. For me, museums like these two provide an opportunity to learn about the past even if it’s something we shouldn’t be proud of. Like Mary O’Hare pointed out in Slaughterhouse V, people need to see that eighteen year olds were being shipped off to war and put in concentration camps. People need to see the struggles of the past to prevent the same struggles from reoccurring in the future.

November Blog: Cultural Relativism

In today’s world, it is hard to understand the premise of cultural relativism. It’s hard for me to understand how the Islamic culture, for instance, has any meaningful use in society and how it relates to the Catholic culture I grew up in. After reading James Rachels’ article “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”, the one thing that stood out to me was when he wrote, “There is no ‘universal truth’ in ethics- that is there are no moral truths that hold for all peoples at all times”(p. 53). I found this statement to not be true as the one thing I found that I could relate to throughout all cultures was the common goal that every culture shared. Each culture’s people are supposed to be set out to have the goal of helping others to advance their culture and people in society. Whether it’s the new, technologically innovative culture of the United States or the rugged Eskimo culture where infants are killed, the common goal of the culture is to further the people’s place in society to increase their chances of surviving. By no means do I agree that killing infants is good, but I can see that the Eskimos do this so no child has to suffer and don’t force others to suffer as well, therefore strengthening the culture instead of hindering it. I can see the common goal of all cultures in Things Fall Apart as two distinctly different cultures both look to strengthen their culture and to help other members’ out. The Umoufia clan, with their sacrifices and war history, use violence to make peace with their Gods so the clan, the families, and their crops can continue to prosper and not falter. Sacrificing a son, like Ikemefuna, keeps the peace so the multiple people can prosper instead of just saving one life. The Christian missionaries, on the other hand, focus on peaceful promises to attract people away from violence and to provide a safe place for the outcasts. Two different cultures both with the same goal to create stability and peace throughout their culture. Personally, I don’t see any positives to killing infants, sacrificing kids, or sending terrorists to kill others for their faith. However, I do see that these actions are believed by these cultures to be actions that better their culture and their society.

The Need for Monsters in Today's Society

Present day society is always looking for someone to praise. We, as humans, are looking for someone to protect us from evils and fulfill the role of hero that society feels comfortable with. I felt that Question 20 on the Beowulf Socratic Seminar brought my attention to this. I feel that society needs the monster and has always needed the monster to make society run. A monster presents society with a reason to collectively join together to defeat the monster. In the present day, the biggest monster we face is terrorism. While everyone points to terrorism as the reason why society cannot be stable, I feel that the terroristic attacks to the United States have brought society together. Yes, terrorism has proven to be able to perform awful damage and has ruined so many people’s lives. But without terrorism, the United States would most likely turn to fighting against other countries and end up entering another major war. I can see this progression in Beowulf. Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon all represented what terrorism represents in the world. These monsters actions were brutal and almost ruined a society like terrorism does in the world today. But at the times when these monsters were present, the Danes and the Geats combined together as one, instead of turning on each other. Once when the dragon was dead, the Geats were left vulnerable to attacks and war. In the present day, I look to 9/11 to represent what the monsters in Beowulf did. 9/11 scared all of the country. But instead of terrorism ruining a society, I saw the United States strengthen and advance as a society. We started implementing more precautions to make sure 9/11 never happened again. As a country, we focused on helping each other, rather than being at war with each other thanks to a tragic event. In no way am I defending terrorism but I feel that without an evil in the world, society wouldn’t know what to do with itself. Evils, such as monsters and terrorists, keep society thinking about the worst, which in turn creates a better society that will protect itself instead of being open to attacks.