Blogging around: Connor and Roman

Connor wrote about the health care debate occurring in congress right now.  He said that while we pay more for health care, our health care system is better.  I said:

"I do have strong opinions about this. First, I personally believe that the public option is one of the best things that could happen to America. First, it would decrease the costs of health care for low-income americans. It does this in a few ways. First, it would reduce administrative costs because not only would the people running it be paid less than CEOs and executives, there are also several processes that private plans go through that the public plan wouldn't have to. Second, it would reduce the costs of medicare and medicaid because people would be able to get health care from a more efficient source. Third, it would switch people from getting emergency care in hospitals to getting preventative care with their private doctors. Finally, it would reduce the drain on small businesses because the cost of their health care would go down, which would allow them to compete more effectively in a global market.

Even if our health care is better, that doesn't mean anything if a large chunk of people can't get it. We should make sure people can get health care if they want it."

Roman posted a video of a song, where the video was a display of colors following the rythm and beat of the song.

"Wow. What a cool video. I don't know too much about music, but I was like a 5 year old when watching the colors. I believe you are correct that music and art follow the "real world." It's fascinating that Diácono created a set of rules that would allow the computer to display such tantalizing colors.

I enjoyed watching the colors. The relaxing song was a nice change from the fast-paced, information overload that is the rest of the internet."

iMedia: Policy Debate

Being a policy debater, I happen to think that policy debate is the single most intense intellectual activity that a high-school student can join.

This picture epitomizes that which is policy debate.  Two people, each wearing button-up shirts and a tie, staring down a camera.  Evidence lies around the make-shift podium, and expandos are scattered around haphazardly.  The intensity of the coming speech sits in the eyes of the coming speaker.  Even the manner of the picture seems to suggest intensity.

To me, this picture is the stereotype of what I want to be in terms of a debater.  Of course, I don't want to just replicate this situation, but all debaters may want to aspire to be something like this.  The amount of work that went into creating the evidence, highlighting the evidence, and knowing the evidence is all evident in the debaters.  The exothermic nature of their intensity is what should be modeled here.

Of course, not everyone wants to be a policy debater.  Some people have other things they do for fun, and that's okay.  They can at least appreciate the work that goes into the activity.  But those that do want to succeed in a competitive framework should do all they can to learn as many tricks as they can from other people.  Even other competitive activities may be able to extract a few lessons from this activity.  The intensity, preparedness, and practice that goes into debate are all things that should go into every activity.

Dialectics: Capitalism and Socialism

What is Capitalism?  For the purposes of this entry, Capitalism is the idea of the free market.  Governed only by the law of supply and demand, you can sell anything you want at any price you want, and your success will be determined solely by the will of the market.  There are winners and losers.  Some people will be incredibly rich, some will be incredibly poor.  It may seem unfair, but that's just how it works.

What is Socialism?  For the purposes of this entry, Socialism is the idea that government owns everything.  Without any limits, government decides what you do, how you do it, and when you do it.  Everyone will "win" just as much as everyone else.  Everyone spends 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours working, and 8 hours studying/having fun.  It is the epitome of government regulation; it is the epitome of fairness.

What is the status quo?  The status quo is a mixture of the two.  We obviously live in a capitalist society.  However, take a look around you: the police, the income tax, and market regulations are not very capitalist.  We would like to believe it is pure capitalism, but it is not.  It is capitalism sustained by socialism.

Suppose, for a moment, that the United States took a radical step away from Socialism.  This would present some obvious problems.  If someone robs your house, you have no one to go to.  If you get lied to by an insurance agent, you have very few resources to utilize to hold him to it.  If you apply for a job, you can't ensure you will get a fair wage.  This is why the government is crucial to sustaining any capitalist society.  A truly capitalist society can not sustain itself because of its very nature.  A business tries to maximize it's profits by lowering wages.  But the price of its product remains the same.  Which means people have less money to pay for the same amount of goods, which is inherently unsustainable.  This is empirically proven with healthcare: the price of insurance increases, while wages stay the same, and we have a crisis.

This would also present some advantages.  A truly capitalist society would allow everyone to have a chance to make it big.  It would allow the maximizing of profits.  It is also good for peace because countries that give everyone their own shot tend not to go to war with one another.  They tend to govern themselves in a more peaceful manner because there is a higher standard of accountability.

Suppose, now, that the United States took a radical step towards Socialism.  This too presents some problems.  How do we employ people?  Who determines how much everyone gets paid?  Who determines who does what?  In a socialist society, people have no choice.  It may be more fair, but any value to life that is created in a socialist society is taken away by the fact that they are stuck without a chance to make it big.  They are frozen with nowhere to go.  They can't succeed because that would be a break in the system.  Plus, there can not be an economy, by definition, because it would be entirely regulated and invented by the government, which would be detrimental to the United States' hegemony.  

This too has some advantages.  It allows for greater value to life among the poor.  Those who lose in the capitalist system are allowed to succeed in a world of socialism.  They have a home, a life, a job.  They may not have a chance to succeed, but at least they have something to come home to.  They are not cast out of society as failures, they become productive members of society.

However, it appears that capitalism is inevitable.  If you go to the poorest areas of our society, the people there are not looking to overthrow the government.  They are looking to succeed within the system.  They want jobs, to start businesses, to buy a home.  They will not spew speeches about the horrors of capitalism, instead success within the system is favored.

Metacognition: Kite Runner Essay

I didn't know what to fill up that space with.  It's amazing, at any point when you're about to do something, one has the potential to either be the best in the world at it, or the worst in the world, or anything in between.  Why is it that Sean's blog appears to be written by a college student who has had a couple too many to drink, and Bill's seems so much closer to the ideal?  Why is it that when I write, it seems to come off as average, but when a great author writes, they come up with something great?

Do great authors know what to fill up that space with?  I don't know.  What is it that goes through their minds when they sit down?  Does Brian Jacques think "449 pages to go" after he has finished writing the first page of his next book?  What does Isaac Asimov do when he comes up with an idea?  I don't know.

I know I started by retyping the pieces of evidence I had.  That helped.  Then, I knew I had to introduce them, so I wrote out an introduction for each piece of evidence.  Hey, that doesn't look half bad.  So I kept going.  I wrote out analysis for each quote.  Now, we're getting somewhere.  What is this missing?  Oh yeah, a thesis.  So I wrote that out.  Then, I just kept filling in the holes.  

I remember thinking, "Why do I have such a tendency to use words like 'appropriate' or 'adequate' when describing things?"  I think it's because I'm a debater.  In debate, those words tend to be very good because they help one team vaguely describe what it is exactly that they do.  If one team says that the United States federal government should "adequately" increase funding for medicare, it is harder to beat them because no matter what it is decided that "adequate funding" is, they do it.  Thus, arbitrary phrases such as that might work well in the debate world, but not necessarily that well when what you think has to be defined more clearly.

Blogging Around

Alex made a post about American presence in Afghanistan and how it related to the Russian presence in Kite Runner.

I too am glad you brought up afghanistan. I think it is all we can do to hope that our hegemony does not affect others in the same way that the Russians' did in Kite Runner. This issue become ever more pressing with the new reports and the question of whether or not to increase our military presence in this area. Good post, and good job.

Connor posted about the struggle between an author and his characters.  

I agree with you Connor. I had not really thought about creating a story out of a disagreement between a character and the author. It adds a whole new layer of depth to the story when the author can force-feed his characters what they need.

I too started thinking of other books that this occurred in. It is odd how in most books I like, the main character or characters are forced out of the "normal" status quo. For most of the story, they long to get back to where they started; although in most stories it's about a literal return, not an emotional.

Connection: The Rhythm of Great Writing and Debate

In class lately, we've been talking about how English, when used to its fullest extent, has a certain rhythm.  It has a certain beat, a melody.  The proper placement of words in ways to make something more powerful, and more persuasive.  This is very similar to what happens in debate.  

The Rhythm of Great Writing and debate are connected in that they both entail persuasion.

Debate tends to follow a highly specialized type of language that is not accessible to the general public.  But this does not mean that it should discount persuasion.  The major difference between writing for the general public and giving arguments to a judge at high speed is that debate judges are persuaded by different things.  People are persuaded and brought in by strong language, good word choice, and tone.  Debaters are persuaded by good evidence, a strong cross-examination, logical arguments, technical framing of speeches, and so on.  This means that style is important in both debate and writing, even if those styles are radically independent.  

How can the lessons about great writing be applied to debating?  How can academite debaters take what they've learned about word choice, sentence structure, and tone, and then apply those concepts to a debate rebuttal?  

Maybe, when doing analysis on why stimulating the economy through jobs is okay, even when that stimulation will make Chinese investors angry, a debater could more carefully pick his words.  When describing the jobs that are created, he or she could use cheerier, happier, and brighter words than when describing the chinese investors.  They could drag judges down into the drudgery of the other team.

Best of Week - is Assef a sociopath?

The most important thing we discussed this week was whether or not Assef is a sociopath.  This is because it will help us determine how to analyze characters in the future.  Granted, we will probably not encounter too many more situations exactly like this one, but it is the practice doing this sort of thing that will be useful in the long run.  Plus, understanding characters may be the most important skill we learn in english class because we will use it every second of every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of our lives.  We will use it not only reading books, but also in real life when we encounter other people and have conversions with them.  It will also help us in our writing when we are trying to understand our own characters.

I do not believe Assef is not a sociopath.  While his moral compass is certainly broken, he is capable of seeing emotion in others.  Someone said the definition of a sociopath is someone who does not know what he is doing to others, is incapable of understanding it.  Assef knows what he is doing to others, and he knows all the moral rules.  He proves that at the party when he is able to make small talk and impress parents.  He just doesn't care.  That is universally understood, I believe.  So, while Assef is a terrible person, he is not a sociopath.  We need to find a new word to describe the likes of him.  Does evil work for you guys?

But why is Assef this way?  What set of experiences has led him to this awful personality?  There are two points I will make.  

First, a persons personality is determined strictly by their experiences.  All babies are born good, and it is what has happened to them that determines what sort of person they become.  They don't know any better than what they are taught by their friends, their teachers, and most of all, their parents.  While their nature certainly plays into it a little bit, I do no believe that the random matching of genes is enough to create something so horrible.  

Second, Assef had horrible parents.  At the party, Amir commented that his parents look practically scared of their son, of what they had created.  They had somehow not given him the ability to feel guilt for what he has done, to feel sorry for other people.  The alternative is that he had great parents who were just awful people, but that doesn't explain how they behaved at the party.  they must have simply not cared about who he was or what he became.  After all, they let him have the brass knuckles he used to take off someone's ear, they obviously can't care too much. 

Carry it forward: The Kite Runner

Today, we are reading an excellent fictional memoir, The Kite Runner by Kaled Hosseini.  It has become apparent to me that the main character, Amir, is one who is bound fear.  He can not do what he knows is right because he is to much afraid of what will happen to him.  Amir watched his best friend get raped in a back alley of afghanistan, and could not help him because he was scared.  Plus, his best friend, Hassan, got raped because he could not let Amir down.  

Amir is so bound by this fear that he aspires to cowardice.  He tries dozens of times to avoid conflict, even when it is clear that being a hero is the right course of action.  It's not a lack of people to look up to.  Baba is portrayed as an excellent role model who clearly thrives in the element he's in.  He stands up for what is right, even when he's standing alone.  He helps his friends get by, even when they can't help him back.  Somewhere along the way, that was lost on Amir.  

From now on, I will try to emulate the behavior of Baba.  Standing around and thinking slowly, methodically, calculatingly, is not the right way to go.  It leads to people being hurt.  The instance we see in The Kite Runner is a bit extreme, but that is the essence of fiction.  Fiction (or fictional memoirs, in this case) are designed to help writers bring out the real emotions behind their ideas.  It would be boring for Mr. Hosseini to say "I was a coward, and it hurt someone."  A much more interesting story is created by the skilled prowess of a writer making up a story that embodies all of the main human emotions.

Instead, I will try to speak up for what is I think is right, even if it's a very small instance.  If it's my friend degrading themselves, I will try to make them think more positively.  This has also made me want to re-strengthen my efforts on the "your awesome" campaign.  Instead of saying "epic fail" when someone does something stupid, I will try, and am trying, to start saying "you're awesome" when they do something good.  

Letting fear drive us is bad.  Some fear is good because it keeps us from touching the boiling pot of water, from hurting ourselves, from failing a class.  However, all-encompassing fear is bad because it destroys the intrinsic value to life.  When fear reaches the point that you are no longer able to act, it is time to reject that fear and do something that may seem irrational.  All-encompassing fear hurts our relationships, our health, and our state of mind.