Monthly Blog-December

Cultural Relativism sounds like a great thing in theory but in practice I dont think it will work as well as everyone hopes. Basically the idea of not judging other cultures is a good thing because then people would really have no reason to hate each other. Cultural Relativism shows that different cultures have different views on similiar issues. Take the Callatians and the Greeks for example. The Callatians believe in eating their dead fathers while the Greeks believe in burning their dead. King Darius did an experiment to introduce the two cultures to the other ritual. It turned out that each group of people was disgusted in the other culture's practice. This experiement shows how what you see in your own culture as acceptable, someone raised differently than you may see it as crazy or disgusting. This can be viewed as a good or bad thing. On one hand, cultural relativism proves that judging other cultures is a bad thing because it was just how they were raised and is viewed as acceptable in their society. On the other hand, not judging cultures on their social behavior doesn't only include different things they eat for example. It includes other practices such as taking slaves or abusing women. It can be hard to look at things that you morally think is wrong, and not judge the people based on your own views. This is why I beleive that it's good to know about other cultures but I think that just knowing won't really stop people from judging other cultures.

Monthly Blog-November

When I was reading through this Beowulf article, one part that stood out to me was when Lerer was talking about how Beowulf doesn't really have any "dark thoughts" but instead he just makes jokes about different situations. One such instance was when Beowulf is retelling the story of how Grendel killed the warrior, to his king and queen at home, and he turns it from a gruesome act to something less frightening. I thought it was interesting how Beowulf always looked at things in a good way and was never really pessimistic or had any "dark thoughts." But even thought Beowulf jokes about different events, his jokes do tend to be a little gruesome. For instance, when Beowulf jokes about how if Grendel wins then Hrothgar will not have to feed his guest because Grendel will be feeding on his guest. He is joking about if he loses this battle then he will be eaten himself instead of feasting at the mead hall. Another place where Beowulf jokes around is after the battle when he says that Grendel escaped but left his arm and shoulder to save his life. Beowulf's jokes about death and ripping off limbs kind of show that he is arrogant in his power. He is basically saying to everyone that there is no way he could have lost the battle with Grendel because he is so heroic. But I did think it was really interesting that he does acually joke about these different things.

Monthly Blog- September

During the Socratic Seminar for The Power of One, there was a question that I want to talk more about. The question was that when Peekay watched Hoppie's fight, he learned the most important rule of winning, keep thinking. What other things happened that showed that Peekay already knew this? During his time at the boarding school, Peekay was tortured but he never stopped thinking of ways to abate this torture. One example that stands out is when he decides to start doing the Judge's homework so that he wouldn't be punished so often. This showed that even in times of stress he was thinking and figured out way to get out of it. Also when he thought of his whole camoflauge idea. Again he was in a very stressful area, with the other kids basically torturing him, and Peekay thought that if he didn't stand out as much, he couldn't get punished as much. I beleive that this is a very important lesson that should be applied to not only winning, but also to everything you do in life. So many bad things happen because people rush decisions and not think through them clearly. The most apparent example i can think of is the position of leader of a country. If the president of the United States didn't keep thinking under stressful situations, then the world would be a much more chaotic place. This holds true for basically any world leader at the moment. Thinking about your problems before acting is probably the single best way to coming out of a situation without to many bad things happening to you and I think Hoppie would agree with me.