UM Honors Blog 2021-2022

 I find it interesting that the grandmothers feels as though she must convince Bailey to do what she believes is best for him. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the grandmother very obviously is trying to convince her grandson not to go somewhere he wants to go. As the parental figure in his life with him having lived with her I believe she should not have to convince him but she should be able to tell him they are not going considering the dangerous situation she lays out at the beginning of the reading. This makes me question her sterness as a parental figure. I also must wonder if there are underlying reasons she will not be harsh with Bailey and why she allows him to have his way. I also question if these underlying reasons have something to do with the reason Bailey is being raised by his grandmother. I have to wonder if she feels sorry for Bailey and if so why. We see very obviously that they want two different things. The grandmothers actions make me as the question, “why is B...

Every creation of God is good (1 Timothy 4:4), and so is every creation of man that falls under the category of literature. This at least seems to be many people's opinion. However, I would like to contend for the sake of argument that authors have no business creating some of the content they write about in their novels. O'Connor writing about "the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood" ( A Good Man is Hard to Find ,   second to last page )  and how "[s]he gave a little cry of alarm but he pushed her down and began to kiss her again" ( Good Country People , third page from the end) is no exception. Here are three examples of Scripture that may imply reasons against writing unwholesome literature. First, Philippians 4:8:  “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things  are  honest, whatsoever things  are  just, whatsoever things  are  pure, whatsoever things   are  lovely, whatsoever things...

      In O'Conner's story Good Country People the thing that stayed on my mind was the word intentions. "Pointer", which we learn was not his real name, had very different intentions with the family than they thought. His true intentions were the farthest from pure and used a ruse to take advantage of the most vulnerable parts of people. He put on such a good show that he even won over Hulga, who was not trusting or vulnerable with anyone. I think this story is really accurate of how people act today, though it is told in an extreme situation of stealing people's glass eyes and prosthetic legs. People today are rarely completely upfront about  their intentions with others and in situations. I think many people can attest to being fooled by someone who they thought had good intentions. Sometimes, even after the person shows their true colors, the people around still see them as pure and simple as Mrs. Hopewell saw "Pointer". I think everyone should start ...

    Words are very difficult right now. The readings honestly bored me. The descriptions did not engage my mind. The most interesting thing was Helga, the woman with the prosthetic leg. She had changed her name and grown up, yet her mother refused to believe or respect either. I relate to this in an aspect. I do not go by my birth name and I have various disorders, mental not physical. My mother does the same, not accepting my chosen name and trying to avoid the fact that I have illnesses that cannot be fixed. It's saddening to see myself in this writing in this way. It doesn't help me see that other people experience similar things, but instead reminds me of the reality that parents are like this everywhere. Parents don't accept the changes their children chose to make. Some do, but there are those who don't. I wish they would. I hope that our generation does better, that we learn and that we remember what it was like to be a child. I want to change the world for the b...

      Southern media seems to continuously have this them around the oddballs of life. Take Forest Gump, for example, or Troop Zero. Forest is different than those around him, with a big ole southern drawl and a love for chocolates. He's not really like anyone else, and the movie simply follows him through life in the mid-twentieth century. Troop Zero depicts rural Georgia in 1977, following Christmas Flint and her friends. Where a bunch of outcast girls spends their summer becoming birdie scouts to hopefully earn a place on NASA's golden record. Christmas has a strange family life and a fixation on space which presents itself in her efforts to be immortalized on the record. Both of these movies take place in the deep south, communicating to all those outside it a tiny bit about life below the Mason-Dixon.      O'Conner does this as well. Her Southern Gothic writing beautifully captures what goes bump down that old dirt road. Our grandma's told us the wives...

     Both of O'Connor's stories were chilling to read. I noticed a common theme of disastrous situations that could have been avoided if the respective characters simply employed the use of common sense and thought of someone other than herself. "Good Country People" is the one that really caught my attention. From the start, Joy/Hulga is a very unlikable character. On one hand, I can understand her frustration over feeling limited and stuck in the same place because her disability holds her back. I can also grasp that she feels misunderstood and that she cannot truly enjoy or relate to the people with whom she is surrounded as she has had new and exciting experiences through higher education. She has been exposed to and has developed viewpoints that do not align with the country people in her circle, especially evidenced by her mother's reaction to the content in the science book as "some evil incantation in gibberish" (p. 277). It is clear that Hulga w...

   SPOILERS AND ICKY DARKNESS AHEAD       I love Tumblr posts about symbolism in movies. One that really stuck with me was about the movie Maleficent. In a scene where the Faerie is reunited with her childhood love, something is stolen from her. The man, Stefan, comes to his childhood love in a way that gains her trust. Though she hasn't seen him in a while, he manipulates her to believe he is trying to help her. She believes him, because, well, she hasn't a reason not to trust him. Maleficent was not blind to the cruelty of the humans against her people, but she had seen a different side through Stefan. He gives her a drink with a sleeping syrup in it to disarm her physically, as he has already disarmed her mentally. While she sleeps, he cuts her wings from her back. This is all out of greed, as he grew up poor. Maleficent wakes up disoriented, in pain, and with a feeling of betrayal deep enough to turn her from her good nature. The Tumblr post I read comp...

Ok, so something that struck a chord within me was “Manley Pointer” within Good Country People . I think we can all agree about the fact that he, on a scale of Joffrey from Game of Thrones to Dolores from Harry Potter , Manley is Jack the Ripper. He is so good at saying all the right things, but at the end of the day, he’s just a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He says when he is introduced that “for a Chrustrian, the word of God ought to be in every room in the house besides in his heart. I know you’re a Chrustian because I can see it in every line of your face.” (p 278) Then, after being invited to supper, he is described as “so sincere, so genuine and earnest that Mrs. Hopewell would not for the world have smiled.” (p 280) But then we all know what happens shortly after that; a very icky situation in the loft of a barn that results in Joy’s (Hulga) artificial leg being taken from her. Before he leaves, he tells her that “One time I got a woman’s glass eye this way. And you needn’t to thi...

 In the two stories we had to read that were written by O’Connor, “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, many characters are given descriptions that I believe could have been better said. From ‘cabbage’ to ‘hulking’, blunt descriptive words without proper explanation are used throughout both stories. For example, Hulga in “Good Country People” is described as “hulking”, “large”, and other broad, minorly offensive terms. My problem is not that the terms are minorly offensive. My problem is that these broad terms are used without any further insight to what the character looks like. In my opinion, these terms made the stories bland and confusing. I would want O’Connor to explain why someone was “hulking”, “large”, or a “cabbage”. I commented on Bug and Emmett's posts.

             The word is a staple in both of these writings, and in both instances the usage is highly ironic. O’Connor uses the term ‘good’ in these stories as something that defines what a person could be, not what the person themself actually is. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the grandmother calls the man good based on his upbringing and potential rather than how he actually acts. The same applies to Mrs. Hopewell’s opinion of country people in “Good Country People”, in which she bases her assumptions of people on stereotypes and what she wants to believe about them, rather than what they actually are.             The plots of both of these stories are remarkably similar, as both revolve around the irony of their titles including the word ‘good’. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘good’ as “the most general and most frequently used adjective of commendation in English, and one of the ...

Flannery O’Conner’s “Good Country People” is a whirlwind of a short story, but it actually includes some very significant themes that are relevant to the real world. For example, one particular takeaway from this book was the impact of people’s social status in the context of appearance versus reality. The Hopewell family members exemplify how the supposed “caste system” of the town was far from the truth.  The two categories of “trash” and “good country people,” hence the title of the novel, are mentioned throughout the story. People who are less educated and poor are considered trash, and the good country people are slightly better off because their status brings them more respect. In the story, three women in the story are ultimately fooled by the Bible salesman who takes advantage of his situation because they believed they were better off in life than him, proving that social status means nothing about a person’s intelligence or wisdom.  People often assume that just beca...

     Hulga states she is an atheist, but she makes a claim to her mother regarding a philosopher that shows she may not be entirely an atheist. One night at the dinner table, in response to her mother remarking that a smile never hurt anyone, Hulga stands up "with her face purple and her mouth half full" and says,"Woman! do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? ...Malebranche was right: we are not our own light. We are not our own light!" (276).  According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Malebranche is a 17th-century French philosopher who famously argued that 'we see all things in God.'  Malebranche's argument that "we are not our own light" means the human mind is not a light unto itself, and that God is the only true light. This means Hulga is saying to her mother that she is not reflecting God. Her expectation is for her to look inside and align back with God's light, which would mean Hulga ...

           This weekend's readings were very interesting, to say the least. I will specifically talk about O'Connor's "Good Country People". This story was short but very interesting. I think it could possibly even teach us a lesson.           "Good Country People" centers around Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Joy, or Hulga. They are visited by a Bible salesman, about 19, and he and Joy hit it off, since they have the same heart condition, or at least he says he does. When Joy meets him one night, he ends up turning out to be false, almost taking advantage of her, and leaving her stranded in a barn without her leg. The man that claimed to be a Christian, selling the Word of God, turned out to be the devil, stealing from a girl, and having done so multiple times before, as he mentions.           The Bible salesman honestly fits the character of the devil. He seems to be this charming man, one who is...

      In A Good Man Is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor illustrates what it means for a person to have morals and how those morals play out in one's life. Through the character of the grandmother, O'Connor makes it clear that no matter how 'good' someone's morals are (which most of the time are subjective), that does not mean they have any conviction. And yet, on the other hand, the misfits ideals are vile and wrong yet he is the most genuine and sincere person between the grandmother and he because at least he has the conviction to back up his morals. The grandmother's morals were so weak that in the face of a trial she even questioned the divinity of Christ -- this coming from a person who claimed to cherish and exemplify Christian piety. This story makes me call to mind the scripture about the tax collector and the pharisee. Of course, the stories do not mesh together perfectly, but we still see two individuals. One is a hypocrite that only puts on a façade...

     I absolutely adore Flannery O’ Conner and her writing style. She is an excellent example of the southern gothic genre. Like most classic gothic writers O’Conner paved the way for modern horror. O’Conner employs the tool of subverting the readers’ expectations in her stories. First, she sets up your expectation for the tone of the story by titling it with something positive or upbeat such as Good Country People and A Good Man is Hard to Find. Then when the people read the story they discover it is different than what they initially expected. Then towards the middle or end of the tale, there is a big twist. The twist is usually negative or dark. This has become a common literary tool used by mystery/horror/thriller writers.  There is a web series on YouTube that started in 2011 called Don’t Hug Me. I’m Scared. (DHMIS) Created and directed by Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan. If you knew nothing more than the title of the videos then you might assume it is a sweet ch...

       In O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” Mrs. Hopewell understands that she has good country people in the Freemans; she also has the understanding that if you are fortunate enough to have good country people, you had better hold on to them. This is because good country people are few and far between.        Adapting this lesson that Mrs. Hopewell knows for us today, we know that some country people are bad and some non-country people are good. What’s important is that once you find someone good, you need to hold on to that person. If good people were hard to find in Mrs. Hopewell’s day, you can bet that they are harder to find now.      I am glad that I am where I am at where most of the people I interact with are good, and I hope that its the same for y’all. I hope that we are able to hold on to our friends we make along the way because there is no guarantee that we will find anymore good people in the future. Let’s not take fo...

  Something that struck me in both "Good Country People" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was the irony emphasized by the characters. In "Good Country People," the irony is in the characters' dialogue. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the irony is in the characters' circumstances.  In "Good Country People," Mrs. Hopewell meets a Bible salesman who she deems as "salt of the earth" and "good country people" (O'Connor, 279). Later in the conversation, when the salesman tries to offer her a Bible, Mrs. Hopewell refuses. He tells her he appreciates her honesty and says, "You don't see any more real honest people unless you go way out in the country" (279). Here, there is a juxtapostion of Mrs. Hopewell who considers herself to be different from uneducated country people and someone whom she deems as such an uneducated person. The two characters are set side by side and the reader is forced to con...

 What in tarnation was "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by O'Connor? I read this thing two times just to make sure I did not miss some extravagant detail. There was no detail that I could find. This reading was so dark and depressing, that it made even Freud look happy. I took it to mean old world meets new world. Granny who is talking about old days and uses the N word gets shot in the face and dies from a thug in the new world. Yes, I am over exaggerating a little, but tell me I am wrong! The story changed directions so many times that I could hardly keep up with the dialogue. From what I could pick up, the story is basically the old world vs the new. By using the term "world" I am referring to eras. As in the time before the modern era vs the modern era. A time when "good men" existed. A time when people had respect for each other and there were somethings even a criminal would not do, e.g. murder granny. Granny's pleas were chilling. She held on to...

  “Potta! Oi Potter is it true you fainted? I mean you actually fainted?” Draco Malfoy at some point. Yes, I am going to be discussing our favorite blond ferret-boy today but first I gotta address the topic at hand: Behaviorism. Skinner covered and identified behaviorism so I will not waste time defining it here. The character Draco Malfoy from The Harry Potter series is an excellent example of behaviorism. From the moment of his birth, Draco grew up being influenced by his family. His parents were involved in a terrorist group of wizards who hated any non-pure blood wizard. So growing up Draco was taught that purebloods were superior to all other magic users/non-magic users. When he was old enough, Draco was sent to Hogwarts where he was surrounded by other children who had been taught similar values/prejudices. Throughout the school year, Draco was able to get away with teasing and tormenting others. When he went home he was praised for these behaviors. This encouraged him to con...

 In Skinner’s essay on behaviorism, he covers heavily the idea of how environment plays the strongest role in affecting people’s behavior in any situation. As humans, we would most likely claim that our lives are run by circumstances, emotions, and our beliefs. While this is somewhat true, environment itself plays a much larger role than we might expect in how we react to certain situations.  Environments affect people in a number of ways, including but not limited to our moods, how comfortable we are, and personal awareness. For example, our behavior might look much different in private than it would in a public place surrounded by people, not just from a standpoint of integrity but also small actions. Personally, if I find myself being overstimulated by my environment, if it is too hot or too cold or if my social battery is just simply drained, I am much more likely to behave in a more irritable and rash manor than I would if I was calm, comfortable, or even surrounded by di...

Psychologist B. F. Skinner claims that every human action can be explained as a response to — and in anticipation of—stimuli from outside a person. To change, then, "no one can begin with himself; and if he could, it would certainly not be by changing his consciousness...It is the environment which must be changed" (Skinner, About Behaviorism , final two paragraphs). Now assume that Skinner's claim is true, and change comes merely through the addition and subtraction of stimuli. Assume simultaneously that men can be saved by grace through faith according to Scripture. The Bible says that in order for true conversion to take place, man only has to hear the Gospel and respond to it in repentance and faith (Acts 3:19; 16:31). However, not all men who hear embrace the Gospel; many reject it. Hence this question arises: what stimulus is required for a sinner to change, to place his trust in Christ? Specifically, there are three potential answers to this question. First, the C...

  “Potta! Oi Potter is it true you fainted? I mean you actually fainted?” Draco Malloy at some point. Yes, I am going to be discussing our favorite blond ferret-boy today but first I gotta address the topic at hand: Behaviorism. Skinner covered and identified behaviorism so I will not waste time defining it here. The character Draco Malloy from The Harry Potter series is an excellent example of behaviorism. From the moment of his birth, Draco grew up being influenced by his family. His parents were involved in a terrorist group of wizards who hated any non-pure blood wizard. So growing up Draco was taught that purebloods were superior to all other magic users/non-magic users. When he was old enough, Draco was sent to Hogwarts where he was surrounded by other children who had been taught similar values/prejudices. Throughout the school year, Draco was able to get away with teasing and tormenting others. When he went home he was praised for these behaviors. This encouraged him to con...

               In B.F Skinner’s “About Behaviorism”, Skinner addresses the concerns of scientists and different branches, approaches to behaviorism. When discussing the future of the field, he claims that behaviorism will revolutionize life and problem solving for man. We will learn to view our behaviors as results of the environment, and then manipulate that environment to get the preferred behaviors from ourselves. “A way of life which furthers the study of human behavior in its relation to that environment should be in the best possible position to solve its major problems... Man can now control his destiny...” (Skinner 221).             This concept presented by Skinner worries me. It reminds me of “The Abolition of Man” where C.S Lewis describes how man will ‘impose control over future generations’ to a point where they have less and less say in how they live. Skinner appears to be...

      "So, I've got a question for ya. Do you think even the worst person can change? That everyone can be a good person if they just try?" - Sans, Undertale 2015     Behavioralism is a foundational aspect of psychology. Just recently we studied it in Intro to Psychology. Behavioralism goes hand in hand with personality studies. This delves into whether personality is continuous or discontinuous - happening all the time or in stage, - if personality is stagnant or not, as well as conditioning of certain behaviors. The quote above is from the 2015 video game Undertale. It is said in the True Genocide route, right near the end before the, arguably, hardest fight of the game. The question, for a video game, has a striking philosophical question that rings in our ears, personally, to this day. Patterns and habits aren't easy things to break; and what if someone doesn't want  to break them? There's a whole new issue there. I'm not one to delve too far into phil...

Skinner in his essay writes about how structuralism can help explain behaviorism. He says that a “kind of prediction is possible on the principle that what people have often done they are likely to do again; they follow customs because it is customary to follow them…” (p 214). Skinner makes a very good point because we do tend to follow things that we’ve already done because they are often a tried and true method. And I think that if there is a certain tradition, whether it’s familial or religious, we’re more likely to continue said tradition because it’s the way we’ve always done things and/or it’s comfortable for us. Speaking from experience, old habits die hard and people don’t often like (or want) to step out of their comfort zone.  This is especially hard for Christians because we are often called to do things that are out of our comfort zone. I commented on Isabelle’s and Abigale’s posts.

       Skinner's talks about a person's emotions not being the most influential thing on a person's behavior. He talks about the importance of the role that environment plays on a person's behavior. How I think about it is if a person is feeling angry in general, if they are in a calm environment, they are less likely to lash out. While if this same person is in a place where people are constantly antagonizing them or there is a lot going on, it's more likely they will lash out in some way. Using this same scenario, if a person was raised in a healthy home where respectful communication was taught and displayed regularly, they will be able to handle strong emotions in a calm way. On the other side of things, if they grew up around constant yelling and fighting, handling strong emotions calmly will be significantly harder. This does not go to say that this is a rule of thumb for everyone, obviously not every single person operates this way, this is just a general exa...

 At the beginning of the essay by skinner he points out what he believes is wrong beliefs about behaviorism. He points out that it ignores feelings. I think this is important because we cannot account everything we do to our nature and raising. We must account for the feelings of the human person. A lot of our behavior is determined by how we feel. How we act and react to our surroundings much of the time is affected by our feelings. We cannot talk about behavior without taking feeling into account. Every human acts out of feelings. Much of the time our anger and aggression is cause by a feeling and we act on that feeling. Feeling is the cause and our behavior is the affect. Our behavior cannot be accounted for without considering the feelings of the person. Often times a therapist will ask how something made you feel and this is because often times our feelings is what leads to our actions. Often times when told to control our emotions we are being told to control our feelings bec...

My dad is a licensed counselor who has focused on behavioral therapy throughout his career. It was very interesting to read this article and have a glimpse into his arena. In my previous psychology classes in which behaviorism has been mentioned, the materials have mentioned Skinner. However, my main memory is reading about Pavlov's testing with dogs and the accounts of experiments with rats. Though behaviorism seemed logical to me, I think I subconsciously wondered what the point was since there were not prominent stories presented in the curriculum of it applying to people. However, knowing my dad to be a very intelligent person who subscribes to this particular approach to therapy, I never questioned it much or had many of the thoughts found in the twenty criticisms that Skinner discussed in his essay. #18 and #19 caught my eye as very interesting comments that certainly do not apply if one is a practicing Christian counselor, therapist, or psychologist. #18 says that behavioris...

     I found the section of Skinner's essay about Structuralism the most enjoyable. In this approach, the behaviorist would simply observe a person's behaviors and actions. Predictions of behavior as they relate to structuralism are dependent on the idea that people will repeat their behaviors. I constantly say that humans are creatures of habit, and most of our lives are structured around some sort of routine. Due to this fact, I would argue that structuralism is a reliable way of approaching behavior. However, as the text mentions, this approach ignores important parts of a person's behavior. In the communications classes we constantly talk about the development of a schemata or schema being an important aspect of how a person communicates and behaves. This is a part of the brain is a set of preconceived notions that function as index cards to determine how a person will interpret a situation. This develops from past experiences. By excluding this information, structura...

              I was never the best at science labs in high school. I could understand the material, ace the tests, and complete lab reports, but actually dissecting things was never my forte. I was reminded of this concept of understanding a mental perspective but not a physical perspective, or vice versa, throughout the entirety of the reading. In the same way, while behaviorists may understand why people act the way they do, actually applying this in the real world is extremely difficult in many ways. Skinner addresses this in his final section of the reading, in which he states, “Knowing the basic principles without knowing the details of a practical problem is no closer to a solution than knowing the details without knowing the basic principles” (Skinner 220). Behaviorism at first glance does not seem like a practical science and thus a waste of time, but Skinner points out that understanding behavior provides the next st...

I am going to be absolutely honest and say that I struggled to understand much of this week's reading. Yet, there are a few ideas I noted while reading Skinner's "About Behaviorism." First, according to Skinner, the study of behavior comes down to one simple idea which is the study of causes. "We tend to say, often rashly, that if one thing follows another, it was probably caused by it--following the ancient principal of post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this)" (Skinner, 212). To me, this is plausible.  Furthermore, Skinner says, "Feelings occur at just the right time to serve as causes of behavior, and they have been cited as such for centuries" (212). A connection I made while reading this section was to Lewis' "Abolition of Man." It seems to me that we would not have behaviorism as Skinner describes it except for the fact that we are "men without chests" as Lewis would say (Lewis, 1). We allow e...

      Behaviorism, through my entire high school career and college career until now has been comprised of Pavol and his dogs, dissing all other behaviorists and not attempting to acknowledge any benefits of the practice. This has left me with a skewed view of behaviorism, which I was glad to have challenged by Skinner's essay.      Skinner believes behaviorism has been misrepresented and reduced to far simpler terms than it is due. I must acknowledge all 20 bad examples are ones I have heard and maybe a few I've agreed with. Though Skinner has succeeded in showing a value to behaviorism. He goes back to Watson, one of the fathers of the study, and acknowledges how it was turned into something it was never intended to be. Neither Pavlov nor Watson could truly see inside the mind and make factual statements, and they were not trying to. They were trying to understand the mind by its choices and responses to the world around it.  Overall I found his expl...

 I know we all have expereienced a situation at least once in our lives where we had to ask ourselves the question, "Can people change?". Is it possible for someone to change their trajectory and start down a better path? After someone has hurt others and caused grief can they become a different person? Whether Skinner directly addressed this or not does not matter for it is an issue that lies at the heart of behaviorism and 'mentalism.' I would argue that because of contributions behaviorism has made to psychology we can affirm that yes, people can change. If we looked solely to mentalism to explain the human mind then surely we could blame all of their choices and actions on their mental state, or disposition. Although people can make free choices on their own, if they have made bad choices before then it would be very hard to alter their mental state for the good. Whereas through the benefits of behaviorism, we know that someone can overcome issues that arise withi...

       At the end of Skinner’s essay, he says that there are people who are saying that this behaviorism science is too young to be used as a possible solution for current problems (220). After I read this, the first thing I though of was when Paul told Timothy to “let no one despise you for your youth” (1 Timothy 4:12). One thing that I take away from this that I think applies to what Skinner is saying is that something should not be look down on or thrown out of the equation simply because it is young or new. I am not saying that behaviorism is right or wrong, or that I agree with everything Skinner says. One thing I would like to say to people who aren’t willing to give behaviorism a try is that since you have problems that are not being solved with your current methods, you should be willing to give it a try because it just might be the solution. If they truly wanted to fix problems, they would be willing to give all options a try no matter how new they are. They...

      On pages 213-214, Skinner speaks of Structuralism, a strategy under behaviorism. Structuralism does not try to explain why people do certain things, it simply states what it is they are doing. It is simply the observations of why people do things over and over, why they stick to routines and traditions. It cannot explain why we do these things. It is simply a function of time and age, as Skinner puts it.      I propose one possible reason as to why people often stick to what they know, and that is comfort. People like to be comfortable, especially in this day and age. Change is scary, as we do not know what it will bring. That is why so many students fear graduation on some level. School gave them a routine to stick to, and they do not know what waits for them after high school or college. They must embrace a change in routine. Eventually, they will find comfort again in a new routine, but at some point, a change will come along again. We fi...

       I much enjoyed Skinner's book. I enjoyed it mainly for three reasons. The first reason is that he begins with the contradictions on page one. Starting with the possible objections is a great way to start a discussion in my opinion because then the critic is unable to tear the argument apart as easily. This is a method similar to the "Dialectic Method" by St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas would use this method often times when writing, he would list the potential contradictions first and then use them as a means to eventually prove his points. Skinner took a play out of the realm of philosophy. Several plays, if one analyzes what he says on pages 2-4. The usage of philosophy is reason two of why I enjoyed the read. On page 3, Skinner starts the second paragraph with a question,"Why do people behave as they do"? He then explains how the question has changed but remains the same in many senses. This is also a philosophical approach. He does not just initially give...

     I do not have much that comes to mind for discussion of the first lecture in C. S. Lewis's Abolition of Man . Reading it seems to be all the discussion needed, as the point is laid before the reader quite plainly. Lewis takes this time to address a book that was made with the purpose of literary teaching but instead will have results of philosophical aspects. With the target audience of this book - which Lewis calls The Green Book  for anonymousness - being schoolboys, Lewis notes that the authors' meaning of their writing is lost to these boys. The lecture itself is titled "Men without Chests," as Lewis explains that The Green Book  will encourage the schoolboys to, for lack of better words, keep their emotions in check. The literary aspect and intention of The Green Book  is lost and, Lewis states will only succeed in raising "men without chests."      It is mildly interesting, to me, how Lewis takes time to address what some might add...

 Part one of The Plague opens by describing the town that will be the setting. The town in described in a very dreary and gloom way. Camus uses words such as ugly, smug, and placid to describe the town in which the story takes place. This has importance in that the setting and diction sets the mood for the work. The work is about a plague that isolates the town. This explanation of the setting sets the mood for the work and hints to the reader that this book may not be all sunshine and rainbows. This work is relatively dark in its theme and subject and Camus hints at this through his diction that describes the setting. As we have seen with many works the setting often creates the initial mood for a book and is often symbolism within the book. This setting definitely sets the mood and is symbolism for the book. I commented on Samantha Tedder's post and Emmett Bryant's post.

 The first part of the Abolition of Man  revolves heavily on the subject of beauty and subjectiveness. Can something be truly beautiful? What makes something beautiful? I really like the saying, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, which I think sums up my reservations about the topic tackled in the first part of the book. Of course, beauty is subjective like almost everything else is life. I believe that is what makes life, itself, beautiful. I love whenever I can see the humanity in someone. When they break down their walls and speak to who they really are is one of the most beautiful things in my opinion.  I commented on Emory and Samatha’s posts.

 At the beginning of the work Lewis tells the story from a book of two people at a waterfall. One calls it sublime while the other calls it pretty. The conclusion Lewis gets from the story is the idea that when we think we are saying something important we are only stating our feelings. I think this especially important in society today due to the amount of credential we put on those in high places. We are always praising or criticizing what those in high positions say but they are lost of the time only staying their opinion. I think it is important to evaluate those opinions to see if we believe what they are saying before we judge it based purely off our opinion of the person. It is important that we ask ourselves why what is being said has such a big influence on us. Is it because of the person saying it or because we actually believe it and the basis of it? I commented on Emily Thullesen's post and Emma Landry's post.

Gaius and Titius in chapter 1 of The Abolition of Man  are supposed to show pupils how to discern, duplicate, and build upon a good use of the English language in literature. Instead, the two disassociate one's emotional expression from the object that evoked the emotion. The pupils are left with this implicit assumption: one's emotions have nothing to do with any innate quality of the object that brought about the emotion. One's emotions are merely subjective. Moreover, it is unimportant – and even undesirable – to try to express one's subjective feelings in how one describes an object or narrates a scene. Now, if this assumption was to be internalized by all the schoolboys, what would happen to literature? the next generation of men might would very well grow up in a world where the mode of writing is void of sentiment, and thus void of vitality. It would be the death of literature. For good literature readily conveys an intended emotion, or set of emotions, through i...

     C.S. Lewis' first essay within The Abolition of Man, addresses an english textbook which is kept anonymous. The book was sent to him to be reviewed honestly and that he does. Lewis criticizes the two authors opinions on beauty. Specifically peoples thoughts on beauty. They say that ones thoughts about nature, art, animals and so on, are merely word association paired with strong feelings. They are not intending to discount all that is beautiful, but they have fallen into the dangerous world of subjectiveness. Lewis paints this danger with the school boys who might read this book. How they will look at the world influenced by this book without realizing it. That young people will find them selves on a side of something they though sideless, simply because they were unaware of opinions given to them as facts.      The authors do not support any of their claims well either as they "debunk" trivial adds, without showing the reader what ...

      A former Honors Council President said: "My emotions are the color beige."       It seems like the status quo of society is to never show too much emotion. People become uncomfortable with your over-expression. When you lose someone or something, there is a social grieving period. After a while, everyone expects you to move on or to not bother the outside world with your sadness. When you're so joyful that you don't care how weird you are dancing or how off-key your singing is, people will apply labels such as annoying, weird, or excessive to your entire persona. The contrary to this is when you don't show enough emotion. Say you're happy, but you don't smile, or you simply don't smile often. Suddenly, people have you in their heads as a cold person with no feelings. The same is true when you experience loss. If you do not display some form of sorrow, you are heartless. Why do we restrict each other on our expression of emotion? It seems tha...

       Toward the end of Chapter 1 of The Abolition of Man , Lewis highlights the dangerous development in today's world of how the cerebral and visceral natures of man are often manipulated. Instead of culture encouraging a healthy relationship between these two elements of the person, it often disregards the sentiments many people hold. . He believes that it is wrong to deny the visceral experiences of a person while focusing solely on the importance of rationality and discounting convictions and statements about life experiences. He suggests that educators and authors of textbooks such as The Green Book , while theoretically standing against sentiments as a whole, potentially use dearly held beliefs of society in order to achieve certain ends. They believe certain sentiments such as honor or self-sacrifice "to be of no value to the pupil and which may cost him his life, because it is useful to us (the survivors) that our young men should feel it" (p. 7). The quest...

           While I enjoyed the philosophical aspects throughout this chapter, one of my favorite points was how information taken in by children is so instrumental in shaping their future thought processes. Throughout the chapter, Lewis mentions that the authors may not have corrupted truth on purpose, but nonetheless it will be taken and interpreted by children in many incorrect ways over the years. The ultimate tragedy is the fact that these beliefs will become subconsciously incorporated into everything the child does for the rest of his life. Numerous studies have shown how malleable a child’s brain is, and the information they learn as toddlers and young children is vital in their ultimate functionality as an adult. This not only includes hard facts and school subjects, but also concepts such as absolute truth.             This is a major modern concern with radical beliefs being pumped into chil...

     C.S. Lewis in the first chapter of "The Abolition of Man" describes "men without chests." He tells us that the chest is "the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments" (24-25). Furthermore, it is through the chest that the head rules the belly. According to Lewis, the chest may be the very thing by which man is man because "by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal" (25). To Lewis, for men to have chests, for men to have trained, reasonable emotions, is so important that he decides he must argue against "the Green Book" even though he was given it for free and, thus, is expected to give it praise. Therefore, we must encourage education that teaches men to have chests rather than the type of education of "the Green Book." Emotional states can be in harmony with reason, but in our modern age, most individuals for not observe an objective ...

 In chapter one of The Abolition of Man , C. S. Lewis greatly emphasizes the way people make assumptions about certain topics based on emotional reactions to things. By contrasting The Green Book  with the Tao filled with value judgments, Lewis shows how many people have a skewed vision of reality based on things they were influenced by. Lewis’s incorporation of these two very different sources into the first part of his writing create an eye opening experience for the reader as the power of influence is considered in the light of what is truly, morally right.  This caused me to think about how truly far many people and even myself have become from the truth on any given topic because of the things that we hear, see, and are emotionally convicted by. How often have we stopped to consider different sides of a scenario or sought the actual truth rather than making assumptions? This book was hard for me to digest at first, but after dwelling on Lewis’ writings I have a new a...

 At the end of Chapter 1 of Abolition of Man, Lewis writes about what he refers to as “Men without Chests.” He says “They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal are our to pursue her… It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out.” (Lewis, p 8) When I read this passage, I had flashbacks to my first semester of Honors, where we studied the ancient period (Greeks and Romans) and almost every class talked about honor in some way, shape, or form. Dr. Schuler would talk about C.S. Lewis writing about “men without chests” or men without honor, so it was a relief to finally get to read what was referenced. Lewis also says that “It may even be said that it is by this middle element (the chest) that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.” (Lewis, 8) Man is broken down into three sections: the head (intellect), the chest (heart, honor…), and the gut (...

What is a man without a chest? This concept, borrowed from Plato, offers a somewhat broad idea of what makes us human. Lewis uses this ancient illustration to describe the degraded state of humanity today. According to Lewis, a man without a chest is one who allows his emotions to override his reason. At first, many of Lewis' words were lost on me. However, after a second and third reading, I began to grasp the idea. Gaius and Titius, the not-to-be named English teachers, had confused truth for relativism. They have overlooked a part of the equation; they have commented on the emotion without rationality. Lewis comments on the fact that every statement, in order for it to have meaning, must make an assumption about something else. A thing described must have a certain value for the description to have value.  A part of Gaius's and Titius's argument seems valid. Their assertion is that a thing elicits a response based on the state of a person's emotion towards the thing....

 O Beauty Where Art Thou (and yes that is indeed a reference to "O Brother Where Art Thou?")? That is Lewis' concern. He makes the astute observation that we live in a culture that has been inoculated with too many versions of the The Green Book. We have come to treat things like beauty and wisdom as subjective and variable. While each person can find beauty in their own way, we as a society deny the fact that there is a pure type of beauty that rises above all the rest. We would rather prevent others' feelings from getting hurt and people's egos being shattered rather than show that there is objective Truth and Beauty. Instead of real Truth and Beauty, we offer the masses packaged propaganda that in the long run will do nothing but inhibit us. It will inhibit us to the point that it will be as if the world dulls to a grey that in no way resembles true Beauty.  I commented on Josh Naqvi's post and on Hailey Walsh's post.