March week 4, post 1

Central argument: Courteous language has changed a decent amount in the recent past.

In his article “Please Read this Story, Thank You” Linton Weeks claims that courteous language has been modified so much that it has all but disappeared from modern society. In the article he quotes Lisa Gache, co-founder of Beverly hills manners in Los Angeles, who believes that courteous language has just changed due to things becoming more casual in general. This is true, as a lot of things have in fact become a lot more casual, this could be ranging from daily attire to even relations of the intimate nature. Even with this happening a lot of adults may try and put the blame on teenagers, however they should realize that even adults are becoming more casual from day to day. 

Regular attire in the 18^th and 19^th century, in the western world, in most cases used to be 3 piece suits with tail coats for men and a dress for women that used to basically cover up their whole body from the neck down. Now on the other hand weather permitting most men and women, who are not working at the time, can be seen wearing shorts and t-shirts with women exposing as much skin as they possibly dare to. Seeing all this change one can be pretty certain that if people from the current century were to suddenly show up in the 18^th century for example, the people there would most probably end up having a heart attack, and this will occur just due to the major change in casual attire.

Sexual relations maybe something that not a lot of people may feel has changed, in fact it could actually also be seen as having become more casual. When looking back at the past couple of centuries one can almost be certain that sexual interactions only took place between people who are in some kind of a relationship, this could be anything from marriage to that of a man and his mistress. Today though sexual encounters, where every member is willing participating, takes place in all sorts of situations; from a date night, where the people have known each other for a number of nights, to a party night, where the people have probably known each other for maybe just about a couple of hours. This definitely shows the current idea of sex being a really casual one, even though at one point it was considered to be very premeditated idea.

Upon realizing the casualness in courteous language a lot of adult would probably straight-out just blame teenagers for it, they do however should realize that they are doing the exact same thing. In the real world, outside what shows up on research papers and things, the adults need to face the truth, it being that other than the teenagers they themselves are also starting to use the modified versions of courteous language such as “no problem” instead of “welcome” or “I am good” instead of “no thank you.” Also a lot of times it is actually these behaviors by adults that teenagers pick up and think of as courteous language itself rather than a more casual version of it.

After seeing all these things that have changed in the recent past it should be no surprise to anyone that courteous language has also changed with it. This change could be described as part of a natural procedure of change that takes place in everything, other than that you may choose to believe that either courteous language has disappeared altogether or has just been tweaked.

March week 3 post 1

The Rise of Awesome

By Robert Lane Greene

Central Argument: As we and the world around us evolves the way we perceive different things changes.

Robert Lane Greene’s article The Rise of “Awesome” is more than just about the word awesome its about the change that takes places in the world between two time periods. The world in which we live has been and continues to change as time passes; with this our own ideas and mindsets change as well. Women's right is a big change that took place not too long ago, there used to be a time when women were not allowed to vote and now there are a number of countries in which a woman holds a position of power. Sports is also an area were a lot of change has taken place, as a couple centuries ago people were only amateur sports men and took part in it as a hobby however now sports has oped up a lot of careers where people get paid a ton of money for being professional athletes. Aside from these there are also various changes in mindset that took place within you itself.

Up until the early 1920’s the mindset about women was pretty much that they are meant to stay in the house, do the chores and raise the kids. This is no more the case in most of the world today, as now women can be found in all walks of life from the factories to the business offices. In some countries they also hold positions of power with in the government such as in Australia where the prime minister, Julia Gillard, was elected in 2010. This is a major change from the idea of a woman doing the chores in a house to one running a developed country such as Australia. 

Being a professional athlete is a fairly new career option when comparing against the like of say an astrologist or physicist who have been around for millenniums. Being a professional athlete however was not considered a career option until very recently and now it could be considered one of the highest paying careers, at least for the elites of a particular sport. Before this career option opened up people considered sports to be nothing more than a hobby and most probably any person who thought about only playing sports for the rest of their life was considered to be a quitter as he did not need to receive a degree of some kind.

Some people might believe that their own mindset does not change, this unfortunately for them is not true. A simple example of a changing mindset is when as a kid you were told and therefore believed that babies were delivered by storks. However as you grew older you found out about childbirth and so your outlook on the subject changed. Another such example would be in the belief of say Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy who in reality do not exist but as a kid you firmly believed that they existed and brought you presents on different occasions.

The above stated ideas are just some that have changed over time, but are enough to show that our perspective changes as the the world and we continue to evolve and change. Greene also believes the same thing as portrayed in his article, he just happened to be able to condense the whole idea and relate it to the word awesome.

March assignment week 2 post 2

Of Marriage and single life

Central argument: Single life is greatly compatible with being rich, charitable and agile, married life on the other hand should only be considered if you have a lot of time to spare. 

Of Marriage and Single Life is an essay written by Sir Francis Bacon, in which he express the pros and cons of the two as observed by him. Single life allows men too move around and do as they please without having to think of a family back home for which he needs to provide. He also does not need to think of the impact his absence will have on any persons life cause when he is single others will still be able to survive without his presence however his family, if he were to have one, would require him to provide for them. 

Mother Teresa, although a woman, is a great example of what single life allows one to do. She was from a rich background in the Ottoman empire, this being the case if she were to be married it would have been really hard for her to travel to India and help the poor while living with them as one of them. To her the idea of marriage must have seemed like having a chain around her neck, since at the time women were considered to be obedient towards their husbands. This would have actually become the case since a rich husband from the Ottoman empire would have definitely not traveled to India at the time.

A look at a current event, the Arab Spring, shows us the power of single men. This can be said because when you look at what happened in places like Tahrir Square in Egypt and similar places in countries like Syria, you will see that the people who were finally standing up to the government were not men with wives or children, but rather were all single men. This was mainly due to the fact that these people did not need to think about providing for families but just needed to survive themselves. I feel that all a man needs is a corner of a street and a little bit of food and he can go on forever, however a family requires regular meals and a clean place to stay. It was due to this reason that men with families were unwilling to come out and rally against the government, since they needed to provide shelter and food for about 2 people other than themselves. 

Family men are also more conscience of the activities they take part in, my dad for example refuses to ever go scuba diving because he feels that his body will not be able to cope to the new environment of the sea. He says this without ever having even tried scuba diving. I on the other hand wish to have all kinds of experiences such as jumping out of planes, go deep sea diving and even air racing. I am most probably willing to do all these since I do not have to provide for a family like my father and so do not need to be in good health all the time therefore allowing me to take part in activities that some consider to be life threatening. 

Seeing my father I have come to realize that once married your life is not just yours anymore, but rather it becomes a sort of shared possession between you and your family. This brings down all sorts of boundaries in a once open field leading me to believe that one should only think about getting married once he has squeezed out all the fun that complete freedom has to offer. 

March assignment week 2 post 1

Of youth and Age

Central Argument: Both the young and the old have their flaws and therefore both are needed to ‘correct the defects’ of each other.

Of youth and age is an essay written by Sir Francis Bacon in which he compares the young to the experienced. He believes the youth to be immature and hasty since they ‘embrace more than they can;...fly to the end’ without really knowing what to expect at the end. This results in numerous errors and and inconveniences that undermines the youths work. The old on the other hand may be mature but ‘consult too long, adventure too little.’ This results in them not being able to stick with something until the very end as they are also content with mediocre success. Due to these reasons it is best for there to be a number of both young and mature men around so they can ‘correct [each others] defects.’

The main defect of the youth, according to Bacon, is that we take on too much work at any one time and so can not finnish the work properly. In some cases this is true as a lot of us tend to take on way more work than we can handle cause a lot of the time we over estimate our capabilities. This is specially true when it comes to choosing courses at the start of the school year, we tend to choose a great number of hard courses thinking of impressing colleges in out transcripts. However at the end of the school year all we have is a sheet of paper showing off our exceptionally mediocre grade, as a result of taking on way more work than we can actually handle.

Bacon believes that people of age take a really long time making decisions in their life making them inefficient. This seems true when looking at stock brokers, I look at these people specifically as one needs to be able to make hasty decisions when trading stocks to be able to succeed. When looking at this group of people you will notice that there are hardly any who are over a certain age, this is most probably since after a time one is not able to make quick decisions.

I do not however believe that old people are satisfied with mediocrity it is actually the exact opposite, specially with what has happened with me. I for one always end up doing a job my dad asked me to do in a mediocre fashion but he on the other hand always has perfection in everything he does. This while is completely contrasting to one of Bacon’s ideas it does not thwart his overall idea. 

When you look at the world you see people of all ages working together, moving the world forward. This has been working for millenniums and will continue to do so in the distant future. Youth and maturity working together; it is a time tested model and so far has always worked out for the better, reflecting the ideas of Sir Francis Bacon.

March assignment week 1 post 2

Central argument: Advertising is not meant to get you to act right away, but instead it is more of a long term motivator.

Many people including my self believed that adverts do not have an effect on me. I like many others thought this because there has never been an ad that got to act right after viewing it. Nigel Hollis however claims that just because an ad did not get me to act right away does not mean that it is not a good advert, but rather that a good advertisement is defined by what it can get you to do in the long run. This should be a valid point as if it wasn’t the advertisement business would not be a $70 billion market. Adverts are supposed to create “positive memories and feelings that influence our behavior over time” specially since “no one likes to think that they are easily influenced.”

It is extremely important for adverts to create pleasant memories over a duration of time, specially since the majority of the people watching TV are remarkably frustrated when the adverts actually come on as it interrupts them during their shows. This therefore makes it impossibly hard for the viewer to be impressed with the advert at the time, and so the memories are only pleasant after a duration of time when its memory is triggered by something else that is hopefully pleasant. The fact that the ad will only become a fond memory in the long run the company broadcasting the ad need to make sure that it is their company that the viewer remembers when that so important trigger happens. When these triggers do happen a person is never aware of the fact that it is actually an advert they saw that is causing this to happen, and so they continue to say things like “I am not influenced by advertising.” 

This statement however is definitely not true as, if it were companies would not be collectively shelling out over $70 billion on something that does not have an effect on their sales numbers. This is a major counter point against those people who walk around thinking that they are not being pulled into the consumerism market that the world has become. This is specially true as there have been studies to show the effects advertising has on people and the people who conducted these studies/experiments do have numbers to prove their findings. 

If you still think that you are one of those who is not effected by advertising, let me ask you this; if you wear to buy a pair of jeans right now, which company would you go to? The answer you gave for that question is probably the name of some high selling brand that advertises a pretty good deal. Now let me ask you why is it that you chose that company over a small one that sells basically the same thing as the big shots but does not advertise at such a large scale. Am sorry to have burst your little bubble there but you are definitely affected by advertisement. 

March blog assignment week 1 post 1

March blog assignment week 1 post 1

Central argument: TV is helping rural women in India to gain a greater authority over their own lives therefore it must be good for you.

Joel Waldfogel is right about a number of things in his article TV is good for you. In the article he uses a study by Robert Jenson of Brown University and Emily Oster of the University of Chicago, to back up his facts, facts about the actual changes that the women had in the perspective of their own lives after the arrival of televisions. I however believe that TVs will only be good for you depending on the circumstance and what it is exactly that is being broadcasted. There is a major difference in the channels being provided to these rural women and the rest of the world. The network that these villages get has about 2 or 3 channels as they have cable network, the majority of the modern world on the other hand has hundreds of channels to choose from.

The channels that are available on cable TV (the connection available in villages in rural India) usually include a news channel and one other. In the study conducted in rural India the women watched a show which showcased the control women had on their own lives in the modern world. This was a major factor in the study as the study was being conducted to see how rural women’s perspective changes about control over their lives by watching modern women.

On the other hand when people in the developed world watch TV they usually spend the majority of their time switching from one channel to the other. In that also most of these people would not be watching something intellectually stimulating, as they would be flipping through sports channels and TV shows such as ‘The Simpsons.’ Unlike the women of rural India these people also do not just sit in front of the television for say about a half hour a day or something but instead spend upwards of 3 to 4 hours a day in front of these black boxes. This not only turns their brain to jelly but also has a negative impact on their health as they stay inactive for prolonged periods of time. Along with all these watching TV also has some impact on your finances as when you are exposed to the millions of adverts that air on televisions every day you feel drawn towards a particular product, sometimes even if you have no real need for it in the first place. For example you don’t really need to eat at a fast food chain however by seeing adverts from the likes of McDonalds and KFC many feel compelled in a sense to try these places out, which again have negative impacts on you health.

So is TV good for you? As you can see for your self there are both negative and positive sides to television, it all depends on how you use it. I however would say that for most of the world TV has a more negative impact than a positive one as it also decreases a human beings efficiency along with having an effect on our health and finances.