Blog 13

Bacon: 

1. The way Bacon uses the word "Idol" is something that is an error to our society that comes from our ancestors and culture. I don't believe in this meaning because when I think of an idol I think of something we deem important and wanna base our life and values after. We don't base our life on "errors".

2. Most people view a family member or a celebrity as their "idol" but in my opinion the only idol someone should have is God.   

3. The idols responsible for individual reflection are the idols of the cave, which occur within the mind of the individual. The idols that are responsible for social intercourse are the idols of the tribe, which are the deceptive beliefs in the minds of humans.

No, restrictions would only make the man have more idols. A hermit would be more likely to be free of the idols.

Darwin:

1. The phrase "Survival of the fittest" means only the strong will survive. The strong will over power the weak forcing them to live in bad conditions. For example, if there were four kittens, depending on size one or two of them can die when the stronger ones make their way to their mom's milk, forcing the weaker kittens to not get the nutrients they need and die. 

2.  Breeders breed dogs with the certain traits they are looking for. For example size, color, and temperament. The traits they would breed together all depending on what they wanted out of the dog. Such as if they wanted a guard dog, a bird dog, or a service dog. They would find the best traits and breed them together.

3.  Cloning makes Darwin's idea more simple. If you wanted to clone a strong man and get the exact same traits and qualities, it would speed up the process of natural selection and save you time from finding he exact qualities you want to breed with.

4. Today when I hear the phrase "survival of fittest"  I think of sports. In my head the those who work the hardest and put in the time will be the ones to conquer leaving the weak ones to "die" or lose. 

Blog 12

Plato:

1.  I feel like our senses are very important. We rely on them when it comes to learning and they become important when it comes to understanding the world around us. Those without senses still manage to learn, the process is just harder to process.

2. I don't think senses are materialistic. There are alternatives to valuing this experience such as common sense, knowledge, critical language that could be helpful.

3. I would want the ability to see the future and the past. That way you can know if something big is about to happen and whether or not to avoid or pursue what it is. Also so you can see the mistakes that has been made before and you can learn from them.

Freud

1. Sometimes I like to believe my dreams mean a lot. I seem to come to a lot of realization when I'm dreaming like if I'm about to make a big decision or something. There are also times when my dreams are just random things all happening at once.

2. If I have a dream over and over I start to wonder why that dream is so important to me. I start to question if there's some hidden significance in it and if I just didn't realize it the first time I had it.

3. There are many dreams that scare me. One is if a close relative die because I'm so far away I don't know how I'd be able to handle to news and dealing with such a close loss. Another dream that I always have is driving. When I'm dreaming and I'm driving a car, the breaks never work and I'm always going full speed and basically driving like I'm in the game "Grand Theft Auto" until I wake myself up.

4. I think it is based on how you sleep. If you went into a deep sleep, I feel like you won't remember. But if you slept restless, I think you'll remember because your mind was restless and thoughts were going on.

5. I like to think so, sometimes dreams include something that is going on in your life, showing that your brain is thinking about what's going on, making you see it in your sleep.

Blog 11

Virginia Woolf:

1.  Women back in Shakespeare's time had a rough life, so she was pretty much was comparing the life women live today to the life they lived back in his time.

2.  It shows concerns on the way men treated women back in that time, because women should have never been treated that way.

3.  Woolf put huge emphasis based on how women had to stay home and take care of the house while men were out working. Women were inferior to men so at the time they didn't need education. Woolf probably would have suggested though that women do get more education for the future. 

Mead:

1. Men were tough, aggressive, with the maternal cherishing aspects of the minimum. While women overreact, are stern, they gossip and hold grudges.  

2. In today's society, women were taught to deal with their own problems and to be financially and emotionally dependent.

3. Women are expected to act womanly and follow the standards. When they go away from that and act manly it was said to mess the system up.

4. Because it is very limiting. If we weren't very judging on sex in the first place, society would run more smoothly. When we do this it hurts peoples confidence and self-esteem.

Blog 9

1. Montessori's teachings was very different compared to others. She believed in letting the children work on their own so they could become independent and not rely on other people for help. She also didn't believe in rewarding the students when they did something, she thought that the only reward they get should be the accomplished feeling of doing something on their own.

2. The furniture can make a child excited to learn new stuff. By making the chairs small and compatible with their size, it can provide a more comfortable feeling.

3. Freedom is a good thing for children. It helps give them the space they need to focus on whatever specific skill they wanna accomplish, whether it's focusing on zippers or tying their shoes. It also gives them a chance to try different techniques and broaden their thinking skills.

4. Dewey wants students to think in school. Most schools just give them facts that the student should just remember, it requires thinking to actually know how to do something.

5. Students need creativity. With creativity, you can turn any kind of knowledge into something useful in real life.

6. According to Dewey, the best way to learn is through experience. With hands on activities, they can use those experiences and apply it to whatever they're doing in the future. Through hands on experience, students are learning much more than they would in a classroom.

Blog 6

1. Bourgeoisie was considered upper class. They're always upgrading their machines and products. The condition of  Proletariat was considered to be a lower class. They are the ones who work for Bourgeoisie and made it what it was.

2. Marx explained that expanding the world market was "paving the way for worse crisis and its own eventual ruin." By improving the production and communication, both crisis and opportunities will come from it.

3.  Communists worked on behalf of Proletariat, so they have the chance to overthrow Bourgeoisie and provide Proletariats an opportunity to expand and make their economy better.

4. I don't think that will solve the problem although it is a good idea and people should follow his notion. Although those with a lot of money are not very willing to just give it away. They view it as they worked for it and deserve it and that those not wealthy should just try harder like they did.

Blog 10

1. Wollstonecraft focuses on woman's rights in the reading. She argues that women should be equal to men and that the discrimination women face is unnecessary. Because of that discrimination, woman are viewed as inferior

2. At the considered time, women were pretty much property. Women didn't have jobs so were forced to stay at home and basically do what their men wanted them to do. Men were considered their owners. So therefore they were considered property.

3. Women's thoughts and actions are strongly affected by the way they're treated in society. If given the right to share their opinions and were allowed to do more than just sit at home, women wouldn't feel the urge to act out and make scenes in society.

Blog No 8

1.  I agree with Smiths ideas that without agriculture, our economy would suffer. Smith is more of a logical thinker so he's right in that kind of standing. He satisfies my curiosity because many people get their wealth from our agriculture and manufacturers, without them we wouldn't have the things we have now.

2. In today's time, it's all about the items you own. The more you have the wealthier you are. We would label wealth as the type of house you have, the type of car you drive, the looks of your clothes, and anything else someone might describe as luxurious. A secure investment would have to be a savings bond because it's the one sure way you won't be losing money in the process.

3. I disagree with Smith. Although I like his idea of the process, I feel like that only would have worked back in the day. Today the process would be more like schooling, technology, foreign commerce. Today education and technology over rules agriculture and manufacturing.

Blog No 7

An affluent society is when material benefits of prosperity are widely available.  America is an affluent society because we have items such as TVs, cell phones, computers or any other item someone might find as a luxury. Having a affluent society means that items such as those listed before are available to almost everyone, even those who are who aren't wealthy seem to have this items as well. 

It is up to the government to help the people who lost their jobs due to companies finding cheaper labor. Now those people have to compete against all the other citizens who have lost their jobs for any open positions. With technology improving more and more each year, Americans are being hurt because less jobs are being needed.

Blog 5

     1. By looking at the picture Aristotle would have considered the government to be a democracy instead of an oligarchy considering how many people were pictured. Aristotle described a democracy as a government governed by the will of the majority. Although it can be questioned as to if he thought it was an oligarchy considering an oligarchy is ruled by essentially rich people. Aside from considering the government, I don't think Aristotle would have the painting documented like that. He would've thought of the impact the signing of the Declaration of Independence had on the United States and thought it should be more private.

      2. Considering the picture, there are three elements of society used. The first would be social due to how many people they included in the signing. The second would be Intellectual because that was how they chose who would get to sign the Declaration. The last is Political because it had to be high ranked people from each state. 

      3. I kind of touched this title in number 1. I personally think Aristotle would consider the government to be a democracy. Simply based on how many people were in the picture and not knowing anything about the men who signed. Considering if Aristotle learned more about who the people were. He could consider it an oligarchy based on their rank in society and could consider those in the front to be those overseeing everything.

      4.  After doing research, I discovered they were all well respected men in their country. Also each of the men who signed were wealthy land owners. Which proves back in their time and still today, when the more you have the better you look to society.

5. Tocqueville wrote about his observations in Democracy in America  For these reasons, Aristotle is worth reading. The two thinkers shared a number of ideas in common.  Both believed that the soul consisted of rational and non-rational parts. Both maintained that the good society was one in which the rational part of the soul prevailed in the organization of human affairs. Aristotle developed a different concept of rationality, which led him to different conclusions about the nature of the good society.

Blog 4

I believe Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thoreau's beliefs were very similar. Thoreau was strongly against violence and thought evil should be resisted and MLK Jr wanted a nonviolent war. It seems very possible that MLK could have read Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." Which could have encouraged him to do what he did.

Cicero explains how justice and injustice are just ideas that have come from all over the world. People are honest and moral because of the values of where they live and not a God given virtue. 

Blog 3

     Thoreau saw little value in government, instead he argued that it rarely proved itself useful and that it only had power because the majority of people allowed it, it does not have any power on its own. Thoreau believes that a just government would allow its people to listen to their own moral code when determining whether to listen to government, but the current government of his time was not like this and tried to force people to fight in the Mexican War. Thoreau's government still resembles our government today because they both still do not allow people to follow their own moral obligations. 

     The Mexican American War was a war between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. The war was considered to be an unjust war because it was started by America annexing Texas. This angered the Mexicans, who had lost a civil war with Texas and still wanted to gain it back. President Polk sent troops rushing into parts of Texas and build forts on land that Mexico did not even consider Texas. President Polk wanted this war to complete "Manifest Destiny", which was the belief that America could stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Mexico stood in the way of this. His reasons for starting this war were not ethical as he wanted to fight the war in over to take land from Mexico. 

Rousseau

    Rousseau was a French Philosopher, who strongly influenced the French Revolution and the development of the Liberal, Conservative, and Socialist Theory.    Rousseau believed in many things. He had many opinions when it came to other philosophers. He said that "Grotius paid too much attention to what was rather than what ought to be. And unquestionably accepted the power of aristocracy." On the other hand believed that Hobbes asserted that people had a choice of being free or being ruled. He said "Either they relinquished their freedom or they removed themselves from civil society to live a brutish existence."  Rousseau believed in slavery. He found the fact of war as another justification for the "right" of slavery. Although i say the right to enslave has no existence. Not only because it is without legal valediction but also because it is cruel and meaningless. 
    The Declaration's main purpose was to provide a moral and legal justification for that rebellion. Machiavelli thought that the government had power over the people while Jefferson thought the power came from the people. Machiavelli's form of government was more forceful and harsh. He felt that there needed to be fear in the people in order for them to abide by the rules.  Unlike Machiavelli,  Jefferson believed that people had their own rights and freedom.  Thomas Jefferson trusted people and believed all men were created equally while Machiavelli believed people were untrustworthy. Machiavelli and Jefferson's beliefs would not work together because it would cause a lot of problems between the people. Jefferson would not have agreed with Machiavelli's advice because their beliefs were completely different. 

Lao-Tzu vs. Machiavelli

    There are many significant differences when it comes to Lao-Tzu and Machiavelli's governing processes. Lao-Tzu believed in a more relaxed state of governing. He believed that the less the government intervened the better the system would be. Lao-Tzu thought the more they stepped in, the more the citizens would feel the need to act out and not feel trusted. The government should only step in when absolutely necessary.

      Machiavelli had a different perspective when it came to governing. Machiavelli was more similar to a well oiled machine. His practices were more based off of morals and traditions. The only code followed by a Machiavellian prince was the "acquisition, retention, and expansion of power." He believed that a prince should do whatever it was in his power to maintain his state. He also at the same time tired to inflict fear in the process. He taught the prince's to use the art of deception and inspire fear if they wanted to be successful.