soar into the bright sky...

hi again, I am here to talk about the coexistence of inequality and free thought. Recently, I read the short story titled "Harrison Bergeron", which is about the danger of an equal and conformed society. If members of a society are all equally talented and conformed, then there will be no creativity among the community.  So, inequality must exist in order for some members of the society to stand out among others. The fact that we are not able to admit failure makes us very timid because life is not all about winning. What is the fun of winning if you never lose? success and failure are in coexistence with each other just like inequality and free thought. Therefore, we must admit our weaknesses in order to maintain this coexistence.

I don't believe that all people should be kept at the same intelligence level. Now, I am not degrading the less educated people. If everybody is conformed, then there will be no distinction between the less bright and more bright people. There will be nobody to lead the society. Without a bright and talented leader, the society may fall into ruins. Another issue about a conformed society is that smarter people will not have much freedom because they are forced to be equal to the other people. A society with no leaders or any free thoughts is not somewhere I want to live in.

Three people in the story represented three different ideas. Hazel represented the normal and lowest intelligence crowd. George represented the brighter people, but restrained by handicaps. Lastly, Harrison Bergeron represented the leader of the group, the one who craves freedom and leadership.

Naturally, I categorize myself as a Harrison type of person. I do think that there should be some social classes because what is the point of living if everybody is the same and you already got what you need?I would choose freedom over conformity because it means I will have more future opportunities. I can not take the pressure of being the same as everyone else because I want to be someone more. I want to constantly improve myself in a growing society. I think a conformed society is one that does not improve or grow. I would rather have a dark sky before a bright sky than having a gray sky the whole time.

staying vs walking away

Recently I read the story titled "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K LeGuin. This story portrayed how one society's happiness are based one a child's suffering, depression, and hopelessness. If the child is set free, then all of the happiness of Omelas will be gone. Some citizens of Omelas overcame this paradox and chose to remain in the town. Others who did not overcome this injustice, chose to abandon their homes and happiness in order to "walk away" from the situation and avoid feeling shameful.

I bet there is a "suffering child" in all of us, whether you realizes it or not. There was a time when I "stayed" despite the existence of one suffering child-the garbage man. Every Thursday, a garbage man will swept the trashcans in front of my house. He takes away trash and other recyclables and put each bag laboriously on his old and dusty car. You can obviously tell that he certainly did not enjoy his job. I don't think he is even getting paid by the community for his job. All his earnings was from the cans and recyclables. At first, I was shocked by his appearance in front of our house. After fighting the paradox of justice, me and my family chose to keep quiet and did not tell the community about his existence. After some months, His sight became so common that I sometimes even forgot he is there. This is a time when I chose to "stay" instead of "Walking away".

However, there was certainly a time when I had to "walk away" from a paradox. In this case, the suffering child was a little boy. One day, I was walking around our neighborhood at night with three of my older friends. This nameless boy, around 12, bumped into one of my hotheaded friend. The minute the boy bumped into him, I knew trouble was coming. Based on the the temper and size of my friends, I knew I couldn't persuade them on calming down and certainly did not want to participate in the beating. I immediately turned, made up an excuse of "need to finish homework", and hurried back to my house. I was a coward because i didn't think I could do anything to change the situation. Thus, I walked away from the situation. The next day, one of them told me that they, just as I expected, punched the boy last night. I stopped being friends with those three hotheads afterwards and avoided them the best I could.

Medias do invoke fear.....with no doubt

Are News medias revolutionary to the 21st century or are they having negative effects on us? I think the answer to this question is favored more to the later than the former. In The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner, I learned about how the media can make one more fearful of the world than it actually is. Medias control the way we perceive things in general and sometimes give us false informations. One section of The Culture of Fear featuring George Gerbner, a professor at Annenberg School of Communications, appealed to me, "In his research over three decades Gerbner found that people who watch a lot of TV are more likely than others to believe their neighborhood are unsafe, to assume that crime rates are rising, and to overestimate their own odds of becoming a victim."I agree with Gerbner because people are sometimes blinded by the false stories shown on TV and thus becomes more fearful.

Occasionally, I will see some very exaggerated news about someone getting robbed and killed a few hundred miles away. This eventually provoked my parents to be fearful of our community. This idea of unsafeness has gotten to their head because they apparently watched more news than I did. Certainly, people who watches a lot of TV news about violence and robbery will start to feel uneasy about their surroundings. In return, those people's happiness is affected by the media. They take more unnecessary precautions and appears less in public because of their fear outside their houses.

The media can also influence the criminal justice system because those who feels unsafe will want stricter laws. Thus, laws become punitive rather than preventative. Due to many TV watcher's superstitious fear, they might feel safer if harsher laws are issued. issuing harsher laws may ultimately damage both the state and other innocent people.

Recently, I read a short story titled "Once Upon A Time," by Nadine Gordimer. It is about a family who took precautions beyond the necessary, which ultimately resulted in their child's injury(or possibly death). The family hears of reports of robbery, so they installed an alarm system, but a higher wall, and put razor blades around the walls. Their fear of outside intrusion made them insecure and caused them to be fearful. Ironically, their child is hurt by their own 'system of defense.' This connects to the idea presented by Glassner-Overuse of media will lead to unnecessary fear and that fear will eventually blind many people from seeing the real problem.

Images vs words

This image is about the Maryland civil war and the scenes after the bloodshed of the war:

My view about war changed dramatically after seeing this picture from the internet. I chose this image because I thought it will be worth sharing my view of war with the readers. Before I saw this image, I thought war was glorifying topic and a way to bring honor to the country. Because of the influence of the media and numerous books, I viewed the single story of war as being eulogizing. However, after viewing this picture, I realized I did not take account the missing part of the single story: the horrible casualties and loses as a result of the war. I certainly would not have been moved much if somebody just simply described this same picture to me. By seeing the image myself, I was able to express a stronger emotion towards the subject of war. This image impacted me because now I was able to have a more complete picture of the single story of war. I realized that there is both glorification and tragedies in war.

We see things differently than we read things because just by reading a topic does not give you the sufficient amount of knowledge to conclude about that topic. Images are worth much more than words because it gives the viewers a sense of mystery and thoughts. It is hard for us to describe an image through the use of words.