Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Think for yourself
Is it just me or is this the the toughest essay prompt ever?! I have seen the central argument of the course since the first day ("THINK FOR YOURSELF OR OTHERS WILL THINK FOR YOU") but I never took the time to understand the meaning of it. In that context what does "think" mean? Opinions? Acts? I know we went over this essay for an hour in class today, but I still don't get it. I remember one person said we don't think for ourselves because we are manipulated by media and advertisements, but manipulated to do what? To buy things? Make decisions that are not in our best interest? Feel free to help me out, I need it.
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This is what I'm doing for this essay: taking each of the essays that we did and dissecting my thinking when writing them. How did I answer the essay prompt for the language essay and how is it different from how I answered the freedom essay? What does that say about my thinking?
That's the approach I'm using and I was able to make an outline of the essay pretty fast.
It's ironic, of course. Thinking for yourself about...thinking for yourself. Do you? Can you? What even does it mean to?
This is really a matter of degree. How much control do you give to others to make decisions for you? Think about this in your political decision-making, your buying decision-making, and even your most basic choices, such as whether you sit in in the front of the room or in the back. If you do sit in the back, who has made that decision? You or someone or something else?
In the civil rights era, recall that Rosa Parks heroically refused to take a seat at the back of the bus as Negroes were supposed to and became a hero and a symbol of what it takes to stand up against oppression. Why would you choose to take the seat in back if it symbolized oppression?
Think for yourself before someone else thinks for you.
As an American with means and the wherewithal to be attending college, you have about as much freedom as anyone in the world; yet how much of that freedom do you yield to others who, while more than happy to make your decisions for you, are very unlikely to make them in your best interest but rather in theirs?
These are the fundamental questions of this course, and they are the ones you need to be asking yourself as a member of a democracy, which currently, as it as since its inception, been threatened by forces both within and without. They are also the questions you need to be asking yourself and finding answers for within yourself and in the content of this course as you write this essay.
Your freedom to think for yourself is not something you should take for granted. In fact, if you look into you may never have thought for yourself before.
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