Found Essay #2

Here is another freshman year essay I found on one of my floppies.  A warning:  this one's really terrible.  I don't ever recall being in favor of banning books for any reason, and yet that's more or less what I argue for in this essay on Slaughterhouse Five.  I wonder if I took this position simply to write what I thought would be an interesting (or more likely A-worthy) paper.  Maybe that's it.  But if I did indeed believe that "sacrilegious ideas [should] remain out of reach to vulnerable young minds," then, wow, have I done a 180.  Just to reiterate my WARNING TO STUDENTS INTENDING TO PLAGIARIZE THIS PAPER:  do so at your own risk.  I'm sure there are much better Slaughterhouse Five papers out there, although if you're out there plagiarizing in the first place, you're too lazy and unscrupulous to care (and I hope you get caught).  Anyway, here's the paper:

What is the purpose of censorship?  It should not be to prevent access to a work simply because of personal dislike or disagreement.  Many people may think a particular work should be censored because they find the ideas or messages personally offensive.  They have no true practical reasons for not wanting other people to read the work.  And then on the other hand, there are those who want a work censored because they firmly believe that the ideas expressed in the work may cause a significant impact on the audience.  This is the true purpose of censorship:  to protect society from what the censor believes are harmful ideas.  Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five has been censored for a variety of reasons, some of which I agree with, and most of which I disagree with.  One issue presented in the novel which I firmly believe has grounds for censorship is religion.  There are certain passages in the novel that convey ideas that could be received as anti-Christian, causing readers, particularly young ones, to question Christianity and reconsider their faith, a consequence which is indeed negative.

Several passages in the novel portray Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity, in a completely irreverent and demeaning fashion, a fashion that could prove damaging to the faith of a young, vulnerable Christian reader.  Here is one passage that is particularly demeaning:

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new gospel.  In it, Jesus really was

a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had...

And then, just before the nobody died, the...voice of God came crashing done.  He told

the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and            privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity.  God said

this: From this moment on, he will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who

has no connections!  (109-110)

Not only is Jesus referred to as a “nobody” and a “bum”, but the whole idea that Jesus died on the cross to save the world is ignored.  The last sentence of the passage implies the exact opposite: because of His suffering on the cross, Jesus is going to seek revenge instead of granting forgiveness.  Moreover, up to this point in the novel there has been a generally negative attitude toward all humans and their fallacies.  By this point, the reader may have already developed the same sentiments towards the human race as the narrator and is beginning to see Earth from a different perspective, a perspective making these anti-Christian ideas seem tempting or interesting to a young reader, especially one who is frustrated with trying to understand exactly what the bible is saying.  In addition to the irreverent portrayal of Jesus Christ, there is also further irreverent portrayal of His death; the potential effects of this portrayal are not unlike those mentioned previously.  In a short passage early in the novel, the narrator is describing Billy’s crucifix: “Billy’s Christ died horribly.  He was pitiful.  So it goes” (38).  I believe (as I’m sure many other Christians do) that Christ’s death should not be pitied.  It should be appreciated humbly and graciously.  Furthermore, the ending phrase “So it goes” sort of brushed His death aside, as if to say “Oh well” or “That’s life”.  All together, these three small sentences take the holiness out of Christ’s death, which again is unacceptably irreverent and harmful to young Christian readers.

Aside from conveying anti-Christian messages, this novel also conveys atheistic messages by implying that heaven does not exist; such messages are intolerable from a Christian point of view, since the Christianity is, of course, based on God.  Billy Pilgrim, the main character in the novel, spends eternity traveling through time to different parts of his life.  Never does he go to heaven or hell, and nor will he ever, according to the narrator.  When Billy dies, “it is simply a violet light and a hum.  There isn’t anybody else there.  Not even Billy Pilgrim is there” (143).  This implies that a heaven with God does not exist, which is an anti-Christian concept.  Young readers of the novel could think that the idea of time-traveling for eternity is plausible, and therefore think that the idea of no heaven is plausible, too.  And if a person decides not to believe in heaven, they may very well decide that there is no God either.

The passages I have mentioned thus far are passages that could be damaging to the faith of young Christian readers.  I think a distinction should be made between these passages and other passages with religious content that I personally dislike, yet would not use as grounds for censorship of Slaughterhouse-Five.  For example, during a war scene, the narrator describes a gun shot as sounding “like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty”  (34), an analogy that implies not only that God is a person, but also that he wears pants.  Another passage that I dislike is “The Earthlings had had a bad week on the market before that.  They had lost a small fortune in olive oil futures.  So they gave praying a whirl.  It worked.  Olive oil went up” (202).  This illustrates prayer merely as a device to get what you want.  Near the end of the novel, the phrase “The Son of God was as dead as a doornail” (203) is used, a phrase that is simply disrespectful, since we usually associates lowly things such as squashed bugs as being “dead as a doornail”.  Although I frown upon these passages because the first and third ones disrespect the Lord and the second one suggests misuse of prayer, I do not think they would have a significant negative impact on society.  I doubt that a reader would reconsider his or her respect for God simply because of reading these relatively trivial passages.  The passages criticized previously differ because they carry  much stronger anti-Christian themes than these less extreme passages do.  Saying that Christ is a nobody who really doesn’t love us is much more severe than implying that God is a person or saying that when Christ died, he was “dead as a doornail”.  I make this comparison to show that I am arguing in favor of censoring the novel not simply because of my personal tastes, but because of the larger impact the novel will have on the reader.

Remembering the purpose of censorship, I do not make petty claims, such as insisting that the short excerpts recently mentioned are valid reasons for censorship, or the fact that the Lord’s name is taken in vain twenty-three times in the novel is a valid reason.  These are not acceptable reasons, because the short excerpts alone do not have the potential to be significantly harmful, and because we often hear the Lord’s name misused in everyday life.  But passages containing new, different, yet not totally unbelievable anti-Christian ideas could indeed have a negative impact on society.  It is important that such sacrilegious ideas remain out of reach to vulnerable young minds.

Found Essay #1

Last week on a whim, I decided to do a little digital archeological dig into my college and grad school floppy disks.  Yes, I still have my floppy disks AND an old laptop with a floppy disk drive!  I found stuff dating back to first semester freshman year of college (Fall 1997).  I was hoping to find even earlier work - especially my college application essays because I have no memory of what I wrote and I'm very curious - but alas, that stuff may be gone for good (although I'll have to check with my mom).  I'm glad I kept these floppies, because as far as I know these are the only electronic versions of any of my college work and I also found files from one grad school class that I don't have anywhere else (although I do still have hard copies of of most stuff...how funny that I kept most hard copies but lost most electronic versions?)

Given that I taught freshmen writing seminars for four years, I was especially interested in work from my own freshman writing class.  I readied myself to cringe and squirm and opened up a file called "Essay 1."  I don't remember writing this and I don't know what the prompt was, but the paper's not too terrible.  It reeks of narcissism, but it's kinda interesting, so I thought I'd share it.  WARNING TO STUDENTS INTENDING TO PLAGIARIZE THIS PAPER:  do so at your own risk.  I'm sure you can find something better out there that fits your prof's "personal experience" prompt.  And I hope you get caught.  Anyway, here's the essay:

I would say that I’m a fairly lucky person.  Language and communication were never a problem for me when I was a child.  I spoke only English fluently and had no need to speak anything else.  My reading and writing skills were above average, and although not outstanding, they were sufficient in getting me through a challenging grade school language arts program.  However, I was not at all unaware, as one may think, of the many different types of languages and forms of communication that exist.  There are probably many English-speaking, American children who may not know that not everyone they encounter in life will be able to communicate with them adequately, if at all.  Because of the uniqueness of the community in which I was educated, I was always conscious of the fact that there were people who couldn’t speak English like I could and even people who couldn’t speak at all.  Having such knowledge, I believe I had an advantage over those other children.  And because of my experiences with language growing up, I believe that it is sensible and worthwhile to introduce young children to the various forms of language and communication.  They will grow up with a greater understanding of and respect for these different language systems and consequently will be unlikely to develop certain prejudices that often result from ignorance.

So much of what I learned about languages was due to classroom experiences.  My elementary school where I attended for seven years had a special program for orthopedically handicapped (OH) children.  Many of these children had several disabilities in addition to wheelchair confinement, disabilities that forced them to use alternative forms of communication.  I can remember Jennifer, an OH student who was blind, reading a story to my second grade class.  It was my first introduction to the language of Braille, and after the story, as I ran my fingers over the tiny bumps on the pages she had read, I was fascinated by how Jennifer was able to interpret those raised spots into words and meanings.  I came to understand more forms of communication from other students in Jennifer’s special education class.  One girl I remember well was Amanda.  Every morning, the school would have announcements broadcasted by students to our classrooms over the loudspeaker.  Occasionally, we would hear not a familiar voice of one of our peers, but a computerized voice, and many of us ever-questioning second-graders wondered what that “robot” was.  And so we were introduced to Amanda.  Amanda, also wheelchair-bound, could not speak or move her hands very well.  Her teacher showed us how Amanda would push certain buttons into a special computer and the computer would speak for her.  We watched and listened in awe as Amanda said “Good afternoon, my name is Amanda” to us by only using her fingertips.  For the rest of my years at Forest Knolls,  I would come to learn more about these delightfully interesting children- the deaf, the blind, the mute- and develop an understanding of how they communicated and a genuine appreciation of my own lingual abilities.

I understood communication and language disabilities, as did most of my classmates, but I had peers who did not.  One day at church, when I was about eight years old, Cori, an OH student from my school, arrived unexpectedly.  Cori wore hearing aids, and in order for her to hear what someone was saying, the speaker had to be wearing a special vocal transmitter around his or her neck.  In addition to this minor inconvenience, Cori had a speech impediment and was difficult to understand.  I was very excited that Cori would be attending my church, because I had always been the only Forest Knolls child there.  But after only two Sundays, Cori stopped coming.  I asked my mother why she had left, and my mother’s reply troubled me.  She told me that Cori’s family had decided to find another church, because the children here had teased her.  Her family had been trying for quite a while to find a church that Cori would feel comfortable in.  It is from incidents like this one that I say prejudice can result from ignorance, and teaching young children about language and communication could prevent such unnecessary occurrences.    Even as a younger child, I was aware that many other languages existed, although I could not speak them.  From church, school, and home I had learned phrases in Spanish, French, German, Chinese, and Swahili.  I had met children my age who could hardly speak English, and I understood why I could not carry on a conversation with them.  In first grade there was a little boy named Hugo, who spoke almost no English.  I knew that Hugo spoke Spanish and could not understand me, but many of my classmates could not see why Hugo didn’t seem to listen to them.  They were not aware of other languages outside of English.  Consequently, they thought Hugo was “dumb” and “weird”.  Such stereotypes that children develop at a very young age may be carried on into adolescence if no one takes the time to teach the child about what they do not know.  In the case of Hugo, however, I am sure that my classmates learned in due time about what Spanish was, because in the following years, our school had the brilliant idea to have a Hispanic student translate the daily morning announcements into Spanish, and after a while, I’m sure the children who had disliked Hugo learned that speaking Spanish was not a bad thing, just as reading Braille, using sign language, and using computers to talk were not bad things. 

Indeed, I was a fortunate child.  I had learned about so many different ways of speaking, and I appreciated each of them, even though I could not use them.  It is, of course, not true that all children who did not share experiences similar to mine developed discriminations against different people.  I am not trying to make that generalization.  I am simply saying that it’s a good idea for a child to know that English (or whatever his native language may be) is not the only language.  A child should not be confined to a little world with only one language and communication system, because not only could the child possibly form misconceptions about what he does not know, but he will also be missing out on a remarkable learning opportunity.  

 

Thoughts on "de-extinction"

On Sunday I heard a scientist on the Ted Radio Hour promoting "de-extinction," the notion of using DNA from extinct species to bring that species back from extinction.  The scientist, Stewart Brand, is spearheading a project to resurrect select species, such as the  passenger pigeon, and return them to the wild, moving de-extinction from the realm of theory and sci-fi/fantasy (remember Jurassic Park?) to reality.

On the face of it, this all sounds well and good.  Biodiversity loss is arguably the second most troubling environmental problem, after climate change, and resurrecting species that we assumed were gone for good seems like an exciting, promising solution.  But I wanted to blog about this because I thought Brand was briskly dismissive of the "other side" (and that Guy Raz and the Ted Radio Hour producers did little to draw attention to the fact that there IS indeed another side.)  The case against de-extinction was eloquently made by Stuart Pimm, a Duke scientist and renowned expert in conservation biology, in a National Geographic opinion article last year.  One of Pimm's arguments, in a nutshell, is that reviving species sends the wrong message: extinction is NOT forever; instead, it's a problem we can fix through innovation!  How much of the public is aware of the magnitude of the current extinction crisis? (side note: an educated, intelligent person - who I happen to be married to! - once asked me why people were so concerned about extinction given that it and speciation are natural processes).  Awareness may be growing since publication of Elizabeth Kolbert's book on the issue, but I sense that many people underestimate the scale of biodiversity loss and are receptive to the positive, optimistic message that this is a fixable problem.  But the biodiversity crisis is not something that can be mitigated in any meaningful way by de-extinction.  Conservation and restoration of declining species' habitats is the only way to make any progress in slowing - and hopefully some day halting - species loss.  Brand shares Pimm's concern for biodiversity loss, but he did not touch on this issue at all, at least in the snippets of his talk on the Ted Radio Hour.  It looks like there was actually a day-long Ted conference on de-extinction - I should check out the full program to see if they adequately address Pimm and other's sound concerns regarding species revival.

Transcending Politics

I'm back!  My blogging rate has declined from about a post a week to about 2 posts a year, so I doubt I have readers anymore (anyone...?).  But, I've made a mid-year resolution to get back into it because it really is mentally (intellectually and emotionally) therapeutic for me to articulate and organize my thoughts.  Actually, I started a diary on my iPad to help me work through some difficult things this past spring, stuff too personal to put out there on the web (for now - I'll probably blog about it eventually).  I wanted a private space to write, and so I searched for free, password protected journal apps.  The one I ended up downloading makes me feel like I'm 12 again because it's called "My Secret Diary" and the cover page is pink with sparkly cursive lettering and a heart shaped lock that you tap to enter the passcode.  Inside it has pink lined paper and stickers you can add.  I guess if I really wanted something plain I could be an adult and pay for my journaling app, but pink-sparkly-hearts are fine with me.

But anyway, I've been feeling the bug to blog again, and right now I want to take about this article about ConservAmerica, which I came across while searching for relevant stories to use in my intro environmental science class.  I don't plan to share this article with the class, but I usually do comment on the existence of ConservAmerica when I lecture on societal responses to climate change.  Many things sadden me about political polarization in the U.S., but the exclusive lumping of anything "environmental" or "green" with liberals is especially distressing.  That's why I try to show my students that recognizing and wanting to solve environmental problems is not a matter of one's political leaning (see blog post title).  It's simply a matter of being informed, rightfully concerned, but also rightfully hopeful.  Of course, when it comes to what we actually do about these problems, there's bound to be disagreement across the political spectrum.  Still, such disagreement initiates far more useful, potentially productive conversations than pointless arguments about whether climate change is real or whether oil really is non-renewable (here's a really cool example of such a potentially productive conversation between conservative and liberal think tanks - a story I DO share with my students).

I also think the article raises a valid point about the way that most environmental groups sometimes neglect the "green" contributions of Republican politicians.  The article notes Nixon signing the ESA, but off the top of my head I can also think of Bush I signing the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments (of which cap-and-trade was a hallmark and now most Republicans are vehemently opposed to cap-and-trade) and Bush II establishing one of the largest marine sanctuaries.  I realize most liberals (myself included) would be quick to point out W's many policies that could reasonably be deemed "anti-environmental" and argue that one marine reserve hardly makes up for them.  But, this only serves to reinforce the "all liberals are green, all conservatives are anti-green" dichotomy, which, as I indicated, does nothing productive for addressing our critical environmental problems.  I hope ConservAmerica grows and that all environmentally-minded organizations can find common ground.

Hong Kong Highlights

Andrew goes to China several times a year, and people sometimes ask if I've ever gone along to tack vacation at the end of his work.  Never gonna work, we thought, because we never know when exactly his trip will begin and end until a few days prior.  But the stars actually aligned this time and I flew out to Hong Kong to spend my Spring Break with Andrew (the stars did not align enough for me to get a visa for mainland China).  Initially we wondered if a week would be too long for one city and we'd run out of things to do, but that was certainly not the case!  And we didn't even get around to Hong Kong Disneyland or Ocean Park or other touristy stuff!  Here are the highlights:

Getting a gentle introduction to East Asia.  Okay, according to Andrew Hong Kong is a world away from China.  Still, it's a whole new culture for me despite the prevalence of western toilets and English speakers.  I've never been in a place where you can find deer fetuses on display in a shop window just down the street from our hotel.

Me on the sky-walkway near Soho

Deer fetuses

I was told pistol means penis in this case

Seeing monkeys.  Yes, we saw monkeys!  Long-tailed macaques to be specific (plus a second macaque species).  They are actually the descendents of released pets, so as an ecologist I know I'm supposed to cluck my tongue and shake my head...but whatever, we saw MONKEYS UP CLOSE!

Hiking to Lion Rock.  The monkeys were living near the trailhead to Lion Rock, an uphill, couple hour long hike.  It was overcast, so our views weren't that great, but I appreciated how the hike literally kicked my ass (and legs).  Flat running sure is different than hilly hiking, and I've been doing much more of the former than the latter.

Lamma Island.  I loved this part of Hong Kong!  This outlying island is so small that there are no real roads, just foot/bike paths.  The ferry left us off in this cute, village-like area with lots of fun little shops and cafes. The main "road" soon led us up through shrubland-forests and down along mostly empty beaches, all with beautiful views overlooking the ocean.

We reached the other side of the island at lunchtime, and fortuitously, this side consists of a pier of half a dozen fresh seafood, dim-sum restaurants, all clamoring for our business.  Which brings me to another highlight...

Food.  We had a lovely lunch of squid, king prawns, scallops, fried rice, greens, beer, and tea while overlooking the water.

All the restaurants had these live seafood displays.

I love trying new and diverse foods, but unfortunately the main way my jet lag manifested itself was a complete lack of appetite at dinner time (followed by a ravenous craving for a buffet at 6 am).  Still, even though I wasn't hungry, I still made sure I tasted everything, especially when Andrew's co-worker took us out for an authentic Hong Kong dinner that included pigeon, crab, garlic scallops, chicken, and more.

Victoria Peak.  We took one of Hong Kong's famous double-decker buses up to Victoria Peak and waited for the sunset to get these shots.  Then, we took the tram back down, which felt like a slow roller coaster (because of the steepness) cruising through a forested city - quite weird, actually.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get any good pictures of the tram ride.

5.7 km ride in a glass-bottomed cable car.  I think Disney World was the last time I rode in a cable car (which must've been a while ago because the cable cars there closed in the 90s or something).  This cable car ride was by far the longest (30 min), highest (really high), and kind of scariest (did I mention the glass bottom?  over open water and foggy forests?) I've ever been on.  These photos don't really capture the essence of the experience, but you kind of get a sense of it.

The black thing is my shoe on the glass-bottomed floor.

The cable car drops you off at Ngong Ping village where the main attraction is Big Buddha.  Big Buddha was OK, but nothing too special, especially compared to the cable cars.

We did some other stuff, too, like Stanley Market and having a drink at the top of the Ritz-Carlton, but those are the highlights from my (less than) 5 days in HK (I know, such a short trip for traveling so many time zones)!  I'd love to go back, but I'd also love to see China, if we can swing it!