Civil Disobedience

According to Thoreau, resistance is a vital part of democracy. Though Thoreau holds contempt for most forms of government he realizes the necessity they sometimes hold for people but urges people not to take what the government tells them to do at point blank. Further, he believes that going through the general democratic political means set up in government is not the correct path either, feeling that if a law is felt to be wrong, then it should be ignored and broken rather than have people attack it legally. To Thoreau, the resistance to the government is what truly shapes it and forces its action to truly represent the will of the people. If the government knows its people will act when upset it will fear its populace and do as the populace wishes, which is what a government should be doing from the beginning in Thoreau’s eyes. Thus resistance is not a nuisance for government to deal with, but rather an integral part that protects the populace while shaping the government that represents them.

Gender Inequalities: A Two Way Street

Throughout the whole time on the gender topic we have constantly discussed the idea of “feminism” and “sexuality” without ever discussing the topic no one wants to touch, or that no one even wishes to acknowledge: masculinism. We have constantly talked about how women are paid 80 cents per dollar a man makes in an equal workload environment and how women are viewed as weaker, but have never talked about the disadvantages a man or father faces. Though I will admit that women are still disadvantaged in certain places of society, the point I am trying to raise with this blog is that it is not a one-way street. Though it may not be talked about as much, there are certain advantages women have and in a class discussing gender I feel it is only right to look at both sides of the argument.

One of the first topics is the fact that men are often sentenced to longer prison sentences than women for similar crimes. Along the same line, the idea that “women never lie” leads to a bias against males within cases of rape, and in some cases men are not allowed to face their accuser. Also, the idea that men have to pay higher premiums for life and disability insurance and in some countries, they have to pay higher income taxes. The last two concerns for general males is the increasing suicide rate among males which is not being addressed and the lack of health concerns shown for men (in that breast cancer awareness is constantly promoted but prostate cancer awareness isn’t promoted as much, despite similar mortality rates).

Applying to parents individually, however, there are several large concerns in what appear to be glaring double standards. The first of which is the way in which there is discrimination in child custody after a divorce, with the idea that a mom can take care of a kid better than the male counterpart. Also, the idea of alimony and child support where the male has to pay money to the wife or pay to support the kid, which I could understand if it applied to men who took custody or if it paying this support automatically entitled the father to visitation rights, which it does not. Possibly the most troubling, however, is when it comes to arguments over abortion. If a man wants to have a kid but the woman does not the man has no say. The woman can abort anytime she wants without the father’s consent. The bigger part of this, however, is the idea of male abortion. If a male does not want a kid, he should be allowed to renounce all legal ties to the child if it is still within the time of legal female abortion. This is exactly the same as if the woman had aborted the kid in that she would have no legal responsibilities or if she were to give the child up for adoption. She is able to sever all ties to the child, both legal and socially, but the father is not allowed to.

As stated above, I do not intend this to come off as misogynistic nor am I suggesting that a man’s life is hard while women get all the advantages, for that is not true. The point was merely to show that men have their own disadvantages and in a class such as ours it would be important to discuss both sides of the gender issue.

What is Marriage? Question 2

Wolfson deliberately explains marriage in an extended fashion to show the great power it truly holds. He uses this time to demonstrate, not only the social bond marriage holds in that people automatically understand what marriage means and don’t question what marriage truly means, but also the extending government benefits that go with the idea of marriage. He uses the definition that it is primarily a union between two people symbolizing their love for each other and their hope that the love will last. I find that his definition and summary of its benefits its fairly accurate, but he doesn’t include the definition anti-gay groups have given. While I don’t agree with the religious argument anti-gay groups often present and I am relatively sure he doesn’t as well, it should still have been presented in the argument to make a more balanced passage. Overall, his definition of marriage greatly aided his argument and seemed to be a decently fair and balanced representation of marriage.

It Takes a Family

In “It Takes a Family,” Rick Santorum uses the analogy of a plane to help reinforce his idea that a traditional marriage (meaning the union of a man and a woman) was superior to that of a “liberal” homosexual marriage. To this end he describes the traditional marriage as the perfect airplane, which always gets you to the correct destination. It is here that he stresses the idea of always in that the plane is reliable and will always do the best thing for its family. He then described a non-traditional family as a plane, which would sometimes get its family to the correct destination. He used the term sometimes to allow for what he would call anomalies, which better suits his tunnel-vision idea that only a traditional family can consistently turn out a good family. I believe this is a false assumption because every type of family will have its anomalies. Just because a family is headed by only one parent or by a gay couple doesn’t mean it will automatically fail, because they are just as capable of raising families as everyone else, however, many incorrect assumptions still prevent this truth from being common knowledge. It is also due to many of these misconceptions that the injustice of a ban on gay marriage has continued to permeate this country and prevent homosexual couples from reaching true equality. Thus, I find his analogy of planes to be an ill begotten and flawed argument, which did not help to prove his case of the “evils of gay marriage.”

Appearances

In the passage “Appearances,” the author delays revealing the fact that Brian and Mickey for very specific reasons. It allows the reader to develop the idea that “Oh that only happens to gay people,” which is then shattered with the revelation that these two men were in fact heterosexual. This disclosure and the timing of the disclosure are designed to help the reader realize that this is not just a problem for a small sect of people, but rather for everyone. This revelation changed the issue in that, not only did the issue now effect everyone, but the blatant categorization people apply to homosexuals. They assumed because of the dress of Brian and Mickey that they were gay and thus were beaten. This showed the mass ignorance of the people who attack them. The way the author was belatedly revealed the sexual orientation of the victims helped to show how widespread and bad the problem truly is and aided his argument greatly.

Gender Roles

From what I can remember, there has never been a time in my life where someone specifically outlined my role as a male, without it being part of the myriad of jokes I’ve heard on the matter. Instead, I think kids are slowly led to believe a certain way because of their surrounding environment growing up. When growing up you are never told, but you quickly learn the distinction between a guy playing with an action figure and a guy playing with a doll. Between a guys taking karate and a guy taking dancing. Aside from these more subtle lessons in gender roles the only outright mention I had ever heard of specified roles was in the jokes I’ve heard and that, truthfully, I’ve told. I don’t believe that these actually are sexist in the way I’ve heard them though. If someone had truly meant the joke then yes, it would be sexist but the way in which I have heard them tossed around and the way in which they are funny is because they are so flat out ridiculous that no one takes them seriously. These jokes maintain their humor because my friends and I don’t take them seriously and hold a certain measure of contempt for those who actually believe in the legitimacy of what the jokes say. Within my life, I have never been told what my specific role was in a truly serious manner, and I don’t think I’d be able to take someone seriously who tried to prescribe such roles to me based off my gender.

Eustace- Transcendentalism

I believe that Eustace is in some ways a Transcendentalist but he does not actively seek to be one. He shares many of the ideas of Transcendentalism, including the desire to understand nature and do hard work, and he also generally avoids religion, but he never preached nor actively sought to be a Transcendentalist. Some of these tenets of Transcendentalism, rather, came naturally with his own desire to be a true mountain man. His interest in surviving in the woods on his own, and his interest in Indians and their culture helped to give him the ideas he shared with Transcendentalists. His study of Indian culture and the reverence they showed the Earth along with his good-natured attitude are what led to him not only respecting the Earth but trying to understand Nature, one of the prime tenets of the Transcendentalists. Further, he forsook religion, however it was not for the reasons that the Transcendentalists did. He merely didn’t attend because he knew his beliefs already and felt no need to waste his time going to Sunday morning mass. Though he may have shared many basic tenets with a lot of Transcendentalists, I don’t believe that Eustace was ever actually an active seeker of their ideas.

Nature

Emerson presents many ideas on what nature truly is and what it means to be in tune with nature. One of the passages I like the most was when he stated, “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence.” I found this passage to be very interesting because it used something that they knew relatively little about but people held great admiration for to help get his point across. No matter your age, when you look up at the stars you feel awe that something so powerful exists and that it is so far away but still visible and bright. As he said they inspire a certain level of respect in people, but he believes this should be the same for all parts of nature, not just something as distant and high up as stars. Though there are certain objects in nature that can be more awe-inspiring than others, all facets of nature influence the mind in different ways and can be interesting.

Elizabeth Gilbert's Message

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book, not only to help Eustace’s cause and show people that they can live a more simple life as Eustace did, but also to show people the side of Eustace they never see: the flawed human. People who only got a brief taste of Eustace would think of him as nearly superhuman, a person who would lead them into a better way of life, however, once they came to work for him they would see that he was demanding, controlling and that the life at Turtle Island was very strenuous. As she said “After such a glorified introduction, it can be mortifying to learn that life at Turtle Island is grueling and that Eustace is another flawed human being, with his own teeming brew of unanswered questions. Not many seeker survive this shock, a shock I’ve come to refer to as the Eustace Conway Whiplash Effect. (206)” This shows the extent to which, though initially pleasing, Eustace is able to piss people off. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to not only spread Eustace’s ideology, but to enlighten people so that they would not naively run off to a camp where they would quickly become disillusioned.