Jihad vs. McWorld
McWorld is the concept of a social world where few people supply the rest of the world with what it wants and in return these people decide the rules of the world. These rules are made to keep world at peace with itself and to keep the people of the world happy in order to keep the power to these few people. McWorld is like a religion where the god is money.
I chose MicWorld because I thought it would be the easiest to do and a I strongly believe in world peace. And I chose to support MicWorld because even though I love my identity I do not believe the Jihad is the way to go because at the expense of keeping my identity the world is ravished with war and it slows down the advancements of human knowledge. But sense we only had National Geographic magazines it’s hard to make an ante Jihad.
My poster is supposed to show the benefits of MicWorld. I used these symbols to try and trigger a reaction to the people seeing it. For example the things in the no sign is supposed to trigger a strong reaction to whatever person is afraid of and how MicWorld doesn’t have it, the girl represents starvation, the plain war, and the people in ponchos is homelessness. Towards the bottom middle of the poster is represents how people around the world can stay together. Like the lady in the plain being able to be in an American city, also the women from somewhere else living the life of a African lady, and the two guys playing sports represents a community around the world and how we would not be able to compete with other people in different communities without MicWorld. The scientist represents the science that comes with Micworld because of the communication and the ability to become smart through the world, the doctors represents medical science that keeps people healthy and other things, the scientist represents other science things that we take to granite like cars and the ability to make the world more functional. The word luxury and necklace represent the beautiful things that MicWorld creates that we can us. Like Boats that you use to travel the world in, jurally, clothes, and lazy boy furniture. The statement we know a good idea when we see it means that MicWorld is a good idea for people around the world.
The Ones who Walks Away From Omelas
There is a question in my mind and that is why some people stay in Omela and other people walk when they see the child in the basement. I believe it is the way they view the kid and how deep there sympathy goes. I also believe that the kid is a test and depending on weather you walk or not you pass or don’t.
I think that the people that see the child can live with the fact that his pain is what makes the town happy. They don’t care what the kid feels looks and acts like because they are happy and he is the retched one. They see that his pain is what makes his life so great. I also believe that some people that stay feel like they owe the kid to be happy because his pain is what causing his happiness.
The people who walk away feel horrible because of their happiness is coming from the pain of a child. I believe that these people walk away because they cannot live with their happiness coming from the pain of a child. But they also feel bad because they cannot do anything for the child because it will apparently bring darkness. So they walk away from Omela happiness because it is the due of the child’s pain and they cannot live in a place like that.
I believe that the people who walk away from the town of Omela pass the test. I believe this because I believe Omela is a place where they try and make world peace possible and the only way to do that is by wassailing out the good people and the really good people. The people who walk away are the really good people because even though they had a home that was pretty much perfect they couldn’t live their because of the child, bringing together the really good people of Omela. And if you stay you are a good person because that is what Omela does it makes good people but you are still not good enough to pass the test of the child in the basement.
Being Peace
What is happiness? I believe happiness is the fact of being at peace and joy with oneself life at the moment they are experiencing a heightened joy. I believe that there is two kinds of happiness and these two different kinds of happiness as Dan Gilbert said, “Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don’t get what we wanted.” I believe that synthetic and natural happiness are equally as powerful in the ability of making any one’s self happy. Happiness is what the mind tells you how to fell towards a certain aspect object or experience that you are thinking of or experiencing.
In a Way I do believe that fallowing the trainings can make me happier. I believe that fallowing these trainings can make me happier because what I have gotten out of the readings is that bhudism trainings focus on synthetic happiness, which is just as powerful as natural happiness. For example the trainings have you focus on the present and as Dan Gilbert said, “… freedom to change your mind is the enemy of synthetic happiness.” Basically if you look towards the future you no longer use synthetic happiness. I believe that these training make you happy because they ignore natural happiness, and when you ignore natural happiness you ignore the possibility of being unhappy.
Violence vs. Nonviolence
All Quiet on the Western Front
Goey said that this book is not an anti war novel it is just a regular war novel. This caught my attention because so many people did believe that it was an anti war novel so why was Goey’s opinion different. Geoy’s opinion was different because he felt like felt like it wasn’t a story that was saying boo war it’s terrible. Goey said that this was just a war story. I listen to What Goey said and I realized he was is right this story was just a war novel. But it was told through the stand point of a solder, and it told the truth of a solders life. Making it seem like an anti war novel because the truth can be ugly. In telling the story from the stand point of a solder it makes it seem like an anti war novel, because of how the war is for Paul the solder. But if the story was told through the stand point of someone ells like a general it might seem like a pro war story.
One of the questions in the seminar was death the best thing for Paul. I believe it was because of what happened to Paul’s mind in the war. What was happening in Paul’s mind was a war. I think a great example of the war going on in Paul’s mind is on page 142 when Paul sees a poster of a hot girl and all they say about it is how she wouldn’t be able to march in high heels. It showed that there is really is a WAR going on in their mind. This war going on in their minds is life changing. For example Paul’s life was like every other man before the war. But now he is a solder and like what he said on page 88 all they believe in is war.
There is also the war going in his mind about what his enemy is. In each solder’s mind has been tricked to believe that there enemy is not like them, that they are monsters and it’s ok to kill them. But when they see them they feel strange because they see them like themselves, and not like the monsters they were told to fight. When the solders realize who their enemy really is, they no longer feel that killing is justified. So now you have a soldier who only knows war, but does not want to kill the enemy. What is he supposed to do? He cant go back to his old life. He no longer knows what to do. Dying seemed to be the only thing he could do to stop the war going on in his mind.
9/11, that date has been forever engraved into the minds of the United States. We think of how horrible that day was and how the people who did it are evil people that won’t to hurt us. But in a way they are like Paul. Terrorist have been brain washed in a sense. With religion and Osama they believe that there action are justified like Paul did killing his enemies. But Tarists don’t relive that we are people like them. So this sense of brain washed bye setting a matter of opinion and belief into their minds.
Fallowing is a quote form AQotWF that best describes the truth of war:
”Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony-Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, Comrade, and stand up-take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.”
This quote is the best example of the truth of war because in this shows how the solders have been manipulated and how both sides of a war are people the only difference is that they have different opinions and they see each other as enemies not people like themselves. So when they find out that they are people like them they feel like murderers. If I were to put this if you had to represent the idea in the quote in a different form I would put it in the form of a play. Showing the two lives and views of two different solder and at the end they find out that they are alike, and one of them dies.
In the discussion we came upon talking about the idea of destiny and the decisions you make. Talking about this idea Abe said that the idea of pre destiny disables humanity from living life to the fullest, and the pursuit of happiness. What Abe said caught my attention because I completely agree with it. You tell today humanity that they do not make decisions that time has already been structured making every action you do just something time has predetermined. They will freak out and people will no longer fell like trying to live. Life has already been seat so why try to make my future better it is what it is and I can’t change it. Because of that people would just stop trying at life and suicides will go up exponentially.One of the biggest discussion in this seminar, well at least for me, was the discussion about if Billy Pilgrim really kidnapped by aliens and travel in time. Even though it looks like Billy Pilgrim is traveling through time, Billy is in fact insane in the sense of his brilliant lie of life, specifically his own. On page 101 Billy is in a mental hospital because he finds life meaningless. Here he meets Rosewater who is also having the same issue. Rosewater is insanely interested in science fiction books. Rosewater also said something that struck Billy as psychiatrist. What Rosewater said was, “I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.” Rosewater also read books that intern Billy read that had all the different ideas of his personification in it like when Billy admits that the aliens in a book are like the T. This is where I started having doubts that Billy encounter with time and the aliens is the personification of his lie of life. I believe that Billy made the aliens and time travel is to keep on living.
When you are in war you see death all around you all the time. With peoples’ lives on your lives you hands you will find life meaningless because why is there life any different than yours. You will feel like because of your actions you have killed somebody innocent (on page 80 Kurt actually talked about Isaacs Newton’s Third Law of Motion for every action there is a reaction). But when you think of it through the eyes of the T. it was not your actions that killed some that person but time. Time and war and peoples death have already been seat so when you kill people it’s not your fault because time has already predetermined your future and that persons death and there is no way for you to avoid it. So when you look it through the eye of T. you killing somebody is not your fault your actions did not kill that person. Billy time traveling is also not him it is his way to look at scenes of his personification and scenes of his life in order to find his lie true and there for his life purposeful.
This idea of destiny is very interesting to me (page 85-86). This is very interesting to me because people always talk about the future and what your destiny is. Like in the bible it talks about your desertion decides your path to heaven or hell. Personally I do believe that your dictions make your life. With me I have decided to look at everything no matter how depressing as something positive. But this idea of predestine and time already being set is very distressing because that means that my diction was not me wanting to be a good person but time having it already decided for me.
AQotWF and Slaughterhouse Five both have a similar them of war changing shoulders minds to the point of almost insanity. In AQotWF Paul was a lovely man but when he went into war it changed his life to the point he could no longer live the old one for he had nothing to look after the war. He has been cut off from forward tactility, from striving, form progress, all he knows now is war (page 88). But yet he does not want to kill people that are like him (page 223). That is why he died with a smile. Slaughterhouse five is similar in this case. The war had changed him to where he no longer wanted to live and the only way he could live is to make up a lie to keep on living. If only Billy lived long enough to make up his own lie.