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OUR HOMEPAGE OF INEQUALITIES |
By:
Autumn Myers
Missy Fye
Rachel Miller
Mary Haug
JEAN-JACQUES
ROUSSEAU
A DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY
In a Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau conveys the idea that mankind
were and would still be better off as savages. He believes that there is
too much government and therefore to little opportunities for individuals
to make their own decisions. According to Rousseau we need structure so
that our lives aren’t overly chaotic, but as of now we are far to dependant
on technologies. As our world has evolved, human beings have changed tremendously.
With every new invention every human being becomes more and more detached
from his or her own strengths. This happens because every new tool that
we pick up and use makes us weaker, because we are using assistance. According
to Rousseau these new technologies do not force us to think as the old
"savage" ways used to. We do not expand our minds nearly as much to do
this. Human beings have also changed in the ideas of fear. A savage’s only
fears were pain and hunger. Now in our more complicated world mankind thinks
about things too much and one fears things that the savage never considered.
According to Rousseau, the perfect man is somewhere in between the civilized
man who thinks too much and the too uncivilized primitive man. Our purposes
of senses have also been altered throughout our evolutionary processes.
A savage man’s purpose of senses was for survival and the most important
senses for him were sight and hearing, needed to hunt and gather food.
This is not something that most people have to worry about now. We do not
have to hunt our food. We know that we can find it at the local grocery
store or a local restaurant. Our senses are used in a far different way
now and according to Rousseau they are seldom used as sheer survival tools.
As far as inequalities go, Rousseau states that inequality isn’t present
in the state of nature, but modern society creates inequality with the
formation of social classes and laws. Rousseau’s image of a savage man
shows that in a savage world each person is trying to do the same thing,
they are solitary things, there is no competition because every person
has the same resources, the same way of life, there are no classes. Other
reasons why Rousseau believes that we would be better off as savages would
include that a savage is philosophical, and by necessity they are coordinated,
fast, strong, and they have ingenuity. A savage man must always be healthy
or they will not survive, there is no complex language to confuse others,
and a savage man is a solitary creature not living in social situations.
I agree with Rousseau in that there have been huge changes in mankind and
some of the basic building blocks of our human nature, but I am not sure
that I would go to the extent of saying that we would be better of as savages.
I think that it would be impossible for humans to remain savages. We have
gained all of these new technologies because we have invented them, just
as savages invented a club to make it easier to kill their prey. To believe
that there would be anyway for us to keep one another from thinking of
new and better ways of doing things is not realism. To try to keep from
forming these ideas is unnatural. I do believe that life now is more complicated
but it is also for more evolved. Can we stop the evolution process? I severely
doubt it.
| Special
Links To Rousseau |
Ruth
Benedict
Anthropology and the Abnormal
Benedict’s Anthropology and the Abnormal essentially says that the
"vast majority of the individuals in any group are shaped to the fashion
of that culture." Abnormalities are determined by the society and each
society has its different views as to what abnormal is. For example, homosexuality
is considered not normal in our society. However, in the Native American
cultures, homosexuality was regarded as a position of authority. Homosexual
men were placed as leaders in women’s occupations, considered good healers
in certain diseases or in certain tribes they were used as organizers as
social affairs.
Another way that Benedict describes abnormality is that every society recognizes
morality differently. "Mankind has always preferred to say that ‘it is
morally good, ‘ rather than ‘it is habitual." As history has shown, each
phrase means the same thing. She also says that the concept of normal has
been associated with good. Whatever society approves is termed normal.
There is a large range of human behavior that is found in a large mass
of individuals. However, the "normal" characteristics of each group are
different. For example, Benedict says that, "in a society that institutionalizes
homosexuality, they will be homosexual. In a society that sets the gathering
of possessions as the chief human objective, they will mass property."
The small number of abnormalities in a society does not accurately depict
that society. In fact, as mentioned before, most people take on the characteristics
that are presented to them by their society.
In this article, a way of knowing can be determined by each individual
society. Each society can determine the characteristics of its people.
There are, however, those exceptions to each society with regards to deviants.
These abnormalities do not reflect that society.
| Special
Links To Benedict |
Jonathan
Kozol
Savage Inequalities: Children
in America’s Schools
This article is taken from an excerpt of Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities:
Children in America’s Public Schools. It describes the observations of
the quality of the American public school systems in the early 1900’s.
There is an emphasis on education as the quality of education you receive
takes you down the pathway to the American Dream.
East St. Louis is the most distressed small city in America, of which 98%
are black and 75% of the population live on welfare. Raw sewage repeatedly
backs up into the homes of the residents of East St. Louis and overflows
into the children’s playground. Kozol talks to the young children of the
town and they discuss horrible matters such as rape and murder of their
siblings. The sewage problems of the town affect the schools and children
must be sent home. The schools made cuts in all aspects of school personnel.
The effects will be devastating to the children, as classes will now have
between 30 and 35 kids in each classroom. Athletics and music are also
degrading compared to other high schools. The classrooms are inadequate
in equipment and teachers. Many of the young women are becoming pregnant
because there is nothing for them in the sense of schooling. Only 10-15%
of the students are in academic programs. The poverty in these schools
goes beyond the actual dilapidated buildings and scarce supplies. The environment
that these children live in outside of these schools is worse than the
schools themselves.
Rye, New York has a very
different academic setting than East St. Louis. The campus resembles a
New England prep school. The school consists of white, Asian, Hispanic,
and a few black students. The school is well equipped with computers, lab
equipment, and personnel. The school is a friendly atmosphere and beautiful
landscaping. Of 140 students, 92 are enrolled in Advanced Placement courses.
Three general positions emerge that are widely accepted, which are: fiscal
inequalities do matter very much in shaping what a school can offer; racial
integration would be met with strong resistance; and equity is a desired
goal that should be pursued for moral reasons, but will probably not make
any major difference since poor children still would lack the motivation
and would probably fail because of other problems. The attitudes toward
school equality are mixed. Some students believe that more needs to be
changed than just the schools and others totally agree with racial integration.
Still other students don’t understand why it is their problem to worry
about. To the students, it is just a theoretical question, and has no reality
base. The Rye students are from a completely different lifestyle than the
East St. Louis students. They say that they believe in equality, but do
not want to help make it a reality. They want it to be equal, but want
to keep them separate from their environment.
I believe that this academic article relates to Inquiry because it gives
the reader a way of understanding social inequality. It gives students
the other perspective of social and school inequality, and shows how the
environment that you live in has a direct affect on your academic achievements.
This excerpt relates to Shakespeare in the Bush because after hearing Bohannan’s
interpretation, the Tiv came up with their own ideas that correspond to
their cultural upbringing. After reading this article, the reader can interpret
the two schools and compare and contrast them to their own educational
background. They can make an opinion on social and school inequality based
on their cultural upbringing.
The
Idea of a University
John H. Newman
Knowledge is called by the name of Science or Philosophy when it is acted
upon, informed , or it I may use a strong figure, impregnated by reason.
Reason is the principal of that intrinsic fecundity of knowledge, which,
to those who possess it, if its especial value, and which dispenses with
the necessity of their looking abroad for any end to rest upon external
to itself. There are methods of education ; the end of one is to be philosophical
, of the other to be mechanical; the one rises towards general ideas, the
other exhausted upon the particular and external. Knowledge is something
intellectual, something which takes a view of things , which sees more
then the senses convey; which reasons upon what it sees, and while it sees
; which invests it with an idea.
Process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed or
sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade
or profession, or study or science , is disciplined for its own sake, for
the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest
culture, is called Liberal Education. Newman says University should
provide a liberal education because it provides cultivation of the mind
leading to understanding and to the formation of the character. Other think
education should be confined to some particular and narrow end, and should
issue in some definite work, which can be weighed and measured.
It is education which gives a man clear conscious view of his own
opinions and judgements , a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing
them, and a force in urging them. Teaches them to see things as they are,
to go write to the point , to detect what is sophistical, and to discard
what is irrelevant.
This reading can be related to Your Brain, The Right and Left of It, Betty
Edwards.
The L-mode is the “right – handed,”
left hemisphere mode. The L is foursquare, upright, sensible, direct,
true, hard-edged, unfanciful , forceful. This can be compared to
John H. Newman’s Idea of a University.
The L-mode would be compared to the business of a University. Now
this is what some great mean are very slow to allow; they insist that Education
should be confined to some particular and narrow end, and should
issue in some definite work, which can be weighed and measured. This
they call making Education and Instruction “useful” and “Utility” become
their watchword.
The R-mode is the “left –handed,” right-hemisphere mode. The R is
curvy, flexible, more playful in its unexpected twists and turns,
more complex, diagonal , fanciful. The R-mode can be compared to
the Liberal Education in Newmans article. The process of training, by which
the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular
or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study or science,
is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of its own proper object,
and for its own highest culture.