prompt Fame corrupts the soul

Many of the heroes who joined the gods at Mount Olympus found themselves distant from their human neighbors who once loved them. A certain aura of fear and venerability follows them. Like these classical demigods, celebrities today become removed from the rest of the human population as if the fame they earned had replaced some invisible bonds that held them to their old friends. It may appear that fame delivers power or shallowness to its bearer, but instead it takes it. Fame is a chain on human instinct and is a mask on human profoundness.
In the state of fame, individuals are constantly watched, and thus constantly denying their true selves. Most people usually have time alone to belch or scratch in ways that appear less-than-beautiful. But celebrities do not. Instead they are confined to social standards set for them. In the myth of Gyges, one can see that people act differently in different situations according to who is viewing them. Celebrities do not have the chance to unleash their primal instincts in solitary meditation nor do they have a magic ring that turns them invisible. There are some exceptions. Lady Gaga is an interesting case. Through a primary analysis of her external character, one can see that she is well suited for fame even naturally. She, like many other celebrities, is a performer and is trained for an audience. In an interview, she revealed that the most important parts of her life are writing, loving, and wearing fashion. Writing, referring mostly to her work as a musician, and fashion both imply that she is very much a natural celebrity. Loving, as an emotional experience, shows she is human. As a physical experience, it is simply one of the additional parts of celebrity life. For most celebrities, however, as demonstrated by their more human apparel, show proclivity towards normal human society, but may commit strange acts given their circumstances.
Celebrities are then not capable of having such a profound impact on the lives around them. There are only so many minutes in life, and the way celebrities have to stretch those minutes over many people and "lives" they live means that they cannot develop real relationships with the other people around them or live entwined lives. The Peanuts comic artist Charles M. Schulz once argued that celebrities do not actually mean that much to all people. Even if the last Olympic champions accomplished more than some of our closest friends, they never did us any sort of favor or anything. Their accomplishments on the screen were promptly forgotten. This is similar to the "15 minutes of fame" proposed by Andy Warhol. The short duration of fame he refers to explains how the media just catches something, looks at it, and grows bored and moves on. People will never grow bored of a good deed done to them. Just as Jesus cautioned his disciples not to go preach as the hypocrites do, making a public show of things, he understood the way in which his disciples could be remembered for character, not rhetoric. The fact that celebrities are capable of being "deep" is not to be disputed. Indeed, they too are human, they just might not have the time for it.
Fame tends to come with money, but not necessarily power. Celebrities, in most cases, are not simply corrupt. They simply act in accordance to the conditions imposed on them, being a lack of space and a lack of time. Certainly, they give us reason to envy them, but we might really want to reconsider if a magic lamp were in our hands. If Mount Olympus had a toll booth, the currency it accepted would not be in souls, but probably devotion.

You thought I'd give up by now, huh?

I need to start taking a new approach to this. One of the main reasons I'm so bad at writing is that I'm barely literate. I'm going to spend the next hour reading. Also, I did horribly on my English final. Honestly, someone break into my house so I can kill you and release my frustration.

An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

In an attempt to diversify my pathetic writing, here's a poem I'm going to look at and write about all in less than 50 minutes.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.

On the Third Day, God created Man in his likeness. We, as humans, bear similarity to God. As a result, we have often turned to looking at God to satisfy our endless quest for self-definition. The result of this is a narcissistic view of humankind that draws a strong distinction between us and animals that is not present, at least willingly, between God and us. Alexander Pope explores the relationships that connect God, humans, and animals to explain that humans are unique from both.
Pope describes our relationship to God and animals like a middle ground rather than a direct product of God. By metaphorically calling our situation an "isthmus" [line 3], humans are made out to be connected to both God and animals. The idea of an isthmus is a narrow strip of land, meaning that God and animals are not necessarily close, but humankind can span the distance between both of them with attributes of both. The idea of an isthmus also relates to the idea that two much larger continents surround human beings so that they are more alone. The line "Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all" [line 16] describes humans as insignificant, as humans are both smitten by God and devoured by animals. At the same time, humans are "Lord of all things", a title usually given to God. The curious capitalization of "Lord" reveals human's likeness to God, but also their lack of his invincibility, showing that humans are between and attached to both God and animal.
Where humans stand in accordance to God and animals only reveals that they are in the middle in terms of power, but Pope further elaborates that humans are unique. "A Being darkly wise and rudely great" first juxtaposes the two ideas of human definition. On one end, they are wise, in a manner not understood like God, referencing the individual cognitive ability of humans. On the other, they are obviously great, meaning strong in a way clear to the eyes. Yet the negative connotation of those adverbs also points out the negative feelings associated with trying to judge humans on the same scale as animals or God. Instead, the anaphora Pope uses for "in doubt" [lines 7-9] emphasizes that, because humans are reluctant to choose to be either like God or animal, they are unlike either and have their own distance. The isthmus described earlier is indeed its own continent.

akdjksv I can't write. Well I guess I should learn to sing or something.

Nothing is left when humans are not humans

As a policy debater, I am often faced with a critical (or shall I say kritikal) perspective on human value. In many cases, I am forced to place lives on a weight opposite from money or some other resource. But human value can never be defined, but only determined, by humankind, the paradox of human's quest for self-worth. To even get a glimpse of this value, it is imperative to strip back the extra layers society has provided to understand the inability to define human value, before realizing the true nature of human value, that we can determine it.
Human value is an area human beings cannot explore. But to even begin, humans must first put themselves in perspective. As Descartes explained, nothing is certain except for one's existence. It is not only within the nature of understanding, but that of existence, that humans can only know themselves before others. Knowing only one value, as understood by math, puts one number at both the top and the bottom. In order to first establish the line that defines human value as the most basic, linear idea, another point on this endless map must be established. For many people around the world, this is nature. It is universal, as Annie Dillard wrote in her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Nature's universal understanding is an easy way of allowing all people around the world to know but one fact: that they are insignificant. But this is only when considering that they are the extreme. The main point, however, is that nature, the absence of human presence, is where this line can be made. Thus, experience outside of humanity must be the first step.
The next step is understanding how humans can determine, but not define value. The problem with the nature to human graph is that humans must place themselves on the minor extreme of a linear function. Inevitably, this must mean 0 when nature is 100 percent. Nonetheless, humanity cannot be a simple 0 because we must be certain of human value. The television program Heroes explores, quite explicitly, the quest to finding purpose on Earth. The people who have powers explore life both within and without society. Within society, many are able to establish their own value compared to others, but this demands the inevitably flawed perspective of human society. Then, in the collected analysis of critical legal studies, one scholar remarked that even if society were destroyed, that would not be true nihilism, the skepticism of personal value. Rather, one would wake up in a new society because above all else, "we are not nothing" [CLS]. Human value is simply made by human will to live.
Thus the greatest fear in today's society must thus be existential nihilism. Humans, by being themselves, survive only as long as their willpower, which is completely dependent on acknowledging self worth. In many ways, by seeing themselves as a 0 on a two-point line, many humans will see it necessary to eliminate themselves just to avoid division by zero. But this is the problem with placing human value on a scale. Nihilism destroys the first idea of human value, and thus the rest. It is this suicidal school of thought that noble institutions such as Postsecret hope to fight. By creating a community of support and self-definition, Frank Warren has fought tirelessly against this mindset that leads many human individuals to suicide. The success of the Postsecret program, in turn, gives value to both the people who needed to use it and Frank, who has made an impact on the world around him.
Once again I shall present the paradox-that human value can not be defined, but only determined. Those who strive endlessly to place their own value on a scale will consistently find that they rank lowest, and therefore 0. But 0, as a number, is a representation of nothingness. It is in rejecting this nothingness that humans determine their value while simultaneously rejecting the only means to knowing their value. Once again, we can be certain of but one thing, that we are not nothing.

Giving false hope is a shallow and degenerate concept

The act of believing is a difficult task that pulls us both through life and under it. On one end, the lack of belief in hope gives way to a person's self-consumption of worth. The will to live may be lost. But on the other hand, gullibility leads to the naïve view of life that draws individuals into life's traps. Yet two extremes can only prove so much. As each person is inclined to preserving life, it is more important to find more manageable limits. To do so, one must look at the safe boundary that protects the human subject from nihilism while also seeing the limitations of total faith.
The loss of faith is a dangerous idea, without believing in the value of one's life or their ability to make something of it, suicide becomes such a plausible option. In a discussion from Polytechnic School about Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, the idea of religion was brought up. While some people may accuse religion of giving a false hope of eternal life in order to sustain a business, their criticisms mean nothing when considering that religion, even in the Da Vinci Code, means something to a lot of people. No matter how they interpret it, it gives them consolation about life. The philosopher Descartes also brings up the concept of universal uncertainty. People can only be sure of one fact-that they exist because thinking proves it. To question even this fact is to go insane. But religion is like this platform. Because religion is something to believe in, not something to actively prove, it gives another layer of defense against nihilism. It is like the manhole cover that prevents people from otherwise falling into a hole. By these two definitions, the faith necessary to life merely entails a basic belief in some sort of hope that the reality each person lives is real. As Miguel de Unamuno explores in his book San Manuel Bueno, Mártir, there is more than one type of faith. The good faith is that that is grounded in reality or provides consolation, as in the mountain. But the lake, whose reflection is only on the surface, is a superficial type of faith that is dangerous. But that is the burden of San Manuel, he must bear the nihilistic truth just for his parishioners Faith means many things to many people, and being able to hold on to something has always been part of human psychology. One feels strong when they can grab on to something. Even the clenching of a fist is often strength enough.
Being able to tell the difference between an ice cream truck and a questionable van with "ice cream" painted on it is often the difference between life or death. Having faith in oneself, as Descartes explains, cannot extend beyond to other people. One cannot even always trust faith. In the Matrix Trilogy, people who are plugged in are happy, content with their fake lives. Knowing about the real world may even kill them. Although there seems nothing wrong with simple happiness, this is where nihilism meets hope. In that situation, excluding Zion, the human species is extinct because it cannot develop or grow. It can only play over a fake reel of life provided by the machines [Matrix]. In Michael Bay's The Island, naïveté is bred into a stock of human clones in an underground facility. The clones, while human must have faith in life to live, because prototypes bred without hope were unable to develop. On the other hand, the fully grown human clones desire the opportunity to go to the Island, which actually means getting their organs harvested for their "real" counterparts above ground. Because Lincoln questions the system, he is rewarded, not with a false hope that leads to death, but a real hope of starting a new life as a human. The cap on faith that protects us from gullibility is much harder to find than bottom limit, but can be imagined as another conceivable limit based on instincts that keep us alive. In both the Matrix and The Island, certain "gut feelings" are understood as not doubts, but safe skepticism. The matter of developing these "gut feelings" is simply part of exposure to both truth and lies. These doses of truths and lies can feed a person with the proper conception of faith.
Every bit of faith in anything, whether that be religion or even a bet, means an investment, like chips in poker. All too often, people find difficulty investing faith, afraid to lose it, but also afraid to keep it and watch it wither away each turn. Faith is a fundamental cornerstone of human willpower, the abstract thought that keeps our blood, and thus our bodies alive. Seeing where faith is most useful is simply a vital skill for both existence and survival.

Fichas de valor

Cuando yo sabía menos, creía que el moral era un meta extra. Ahora, tengo una idea muy diferente. El moral es un instinto humano. Todos sienten la culpabilidad a causa de la sistema limbica. Y la ambición. Piensen, por favor, del póker. Se elige cuándo quiere poner las fichas. Tener la participación es algo difícil. Por el tiempo que usted puede mantener una "cara de póker", no tiene la oportunidad de ganar. En el programa Heroes, Samuel crea unos temblores cuando Vanessa se va porque él no tiene ninguna razón para no matar a los humanos sin poderes. Él ha perdido su participación.

prompt We should ban cochlear implants

Biology class discussion... I hope this isn't offensive.

Imagine the seeing soundwaves move through the air during a rave. Cones and disks fly around the room. Music is a strong form of human expression, but many people are born unable to experience this. Due to deformities in the connection between the ear and the brain, many children cannot perceive sound. Using cochlear implants, a chip can be inserted into the brain that reads sound from an external receptor, allowing the user to hear. Many are opposed to this technology, seeing it as a dangerous threat to "deaf culture" a developing form subculture in communities around America. But trying to ban this technology is immoral in preventing children from reaching fuller potential while also dangerous in denying the basic ability to hear.

One of the greatest responsibilities humans have today is that of optimizing the future for their children. In the documentary Sound and Fury by Josh Aronson, a deaf family does not allow their daughter to get an implant, for fear of her leaving the "deaf world". But in the film, the father admits that, even if he can make money, he will never be able to go very far in business due to his hearing limitation [Aronson]. According to Emmanuel Kant, morality is based on maintaining the full autonomy and safety of others. Denying a daughter the potential to become successful is a grave violation of Kantian morality [Kant]. Even for other cases, when implants are made in a baby who is not old enough to make a decision, the autonomy denied is overridden by the future autonomy provided.

Hearing is part of life and a lack of it is often death. It is part of communication. Humans have hearing, much because years ago, as described by Cambell Biology, an animal randomly sprouted ear-like structures and all of its cousins without those ear structures died. In a more modern example, the Prius, an extremely silent car, has been considered very dangerous because people cannot hear it. Whether a lack of hearing enhances vision or culture, human society is still far too based on hearing as a survival technique. In Aristotle's examination of communication, he identified it as one of the most important parts of life. Communication requires the receiver of a message to be receptive of different messages. It is also part of human life. Denying communication, in general, is a dangerous idea, especially considering the fact that forced deafness limits thinking to visual and emotional, but not active reading. Deaf society may be an expression of human art, but even KHH, the F-period biology teacher at Polytechnic school agrees, that music, or even talking and film involve their own forms of art.

Deaf society in America has been, for a long time, an invisible collection of communities who support each other, but is transforming into something more. Because the majority of the world is based on hearing and spoken language, the only means to maintain morality while banning cochlear implants is in the creation of a radical deaf community. Calling sign language a foreign language is a dangerous way of alienating other humans. But separate cannot be equal. Allowing access to a culture, not denying it, is more progressive to both cultures.

Peaceful diplomacy is the best method of foreign policy

If the city of Hong Kong were a nation, and if its national sport was not ping-pong or badminton, it would certainly be haggling. Aside from being a center for business and exports, Hong Kong is a center of diplomacy. Even the alleyways are filled with diplomacy, matters of convincing others that the only way to get what they want is through a controlled "gateway of desire". Customers want some produce or illegal technology. Shopkeepers want money. The gateways here consist of prices in cash, but the gateways of bargaining nations have tolls in lives. Military "diplomacy" remains the most effective form of foreign policy for nations with powerful armies despite modern ideas, though smaller countries can also survive on the backs of the stronger nations due to a growth in international shared morality.

Hard power, as military power is often called, is the most effective method for large countries to get what they want. Even President Obama, who stressed using diplomacy in the Middle East during his campaign, admits in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech that Hitler could not be stopped with peaceful diplomacy and that al Qaeda is much the same problem. The effectiveness of diplomacy depends on being able to relate with the opponents' ideologies. Even this diplomacy need not apply only to wars. According to Nick Hwang, a Chinese student at Polytechnic School, China's military is often used as a very heavy bargaining chip for economic gains. He believes that China, like the imperial dragon that symbolizes the nation, is only currently appeased by its economic dominance over the world, when many of the other nations serve as serfs. Many people find safety in the idea that the conceptions of the United Nations and "international law" will protect the rest of the world, but as described by the Italian Renaissance political scientist Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince, there are certain priorities countries must follow. The United Nations is effective in many aspects, but not global law, especially when the National Forensics League of America released to US students a debate on how to deal with international criminals. Furthermore, in Rwanda, the UN's "army" could not mobilize to protect the civilians. As Machiavelli puts it, such idealistic and futuristic fantasies cannot override military reality.

Countries that lack the redoubtable armies can also survive The gateways that control the wants of China are easily dominated by China's military power. If China wants something, it can blast through the door. But what of a country like France? If France was the world's sole provider of some sort of new more efficient energy source, China would quickly have it. France, in this case, has a harder time of controlling the diplomatic situation. However, if it fed a small supply of this energy source to America, America would protect it, though nothing stops America from taking over. One idea is that America, being a western power, would feel less of a reason to destroy France for this energy source. In James Cameron's film Avatar, the military might of the humans is countered by the military might of the native Na'vi. In the movie, both sides are incapable of associating with the other alien entities. Jake, in his avatar form, is much like France in that the natives have no reason to really keep him alive. Nonetheless, they save him as a matter of trust. This trust, described by the philosopher Jane English is means enough for helping one another. Because trust is inherently decreased by differences in both culture and military might, the idea allows most small powers to stay competitive because the larger powers tend to be solitary and cannot grow as much alone without fighting a war on all sides. Trust, or fear for that matter, is the key goal of diplomacy. Lack of trust or hatred causes an alienation that cannot achieve anything.

When a tourist from America walks into a Hong Kong market, prices tend to soar because the tourist is a foreigner. He or she can force a low price by threatening to call the authorities on bootleg merchandise, but knows that they are alone and doing so will further alienate them.

Liberalism at Poly is totally normal

I'm running out of stuff here... I should read more...

Although iTunes and Limewire now replace music stores as predators of American teenagers' wallets, the popularity of rock, pop, and rap that screams anarchy and leftist propaganda remains a fact on the charts. Quality of music, which by today's technology, is always readily accessible, has taken a backseat to the messages and advertisement of these Democratic battlecries. The diversity of American politics is dying out. American advancement in ideology will fall unless power in the media that dominates our young minds is balanced.

The American banner is a call to liberty and political freedom. The American media is a great hypocrisy. It might be easy to say that the romanticism is just more suited to the media and youth, but one might remember how propaganda in Nazi Germany for the far right also appealed to the youthful generations. The San Francisco experiment described by Todd Strasser's novel The Wave shows how susceptible even the borderline-socialist youth of San Francisco can follow the far right. Being able to develop free and new ideas depends on the existence of uncharted space that develops individually. In the Taoist ideas expressed in The Matrix, development of the world stops when the world is conquered because humankind cannot expand anymore [Matrix]. Ideological development cannot survive on leftist ideas alone.

It is the media that has the widest tubes force-feeding thoughts into today's young. As expressed by Johnnie To's film Breaking News, the media is in charge of modern society. Just as the Hong Kong police is much dependent on public image, any competent politician today must be a master of Twitter or Facebook. In another example, Newsweek published an article on Oprah, who can control the economy of literature or food on a whim like a Greek goddess, demonstrating the power of celebrity. It is only so long before Lady Gaga takes over her throne for the next generation. The point modern conservatives are missing is that Lady Gaga's songs are not a threat to society and that the media in general is not bad. Fox News is right. Garnering support from the youth must now be an active competition. In a survey taken by Polytechnic School's newspaper The Pawprint, it was revealed that the vast majority of students associated with the Democratic Party with only a slim minority taking more conservative views. The same newspaper also published a report on how the proper conservatism of Barry Goldwater is being replaced by religious fanatics that cannot attract the young with their fire-and-brimstone sermons [Pawprint]. If anything is really attacking American freedoms, it is more likely to be the leftist media.

The Republican Party currently still has funding and adequate power, but its political and literal capital are draining quickly following the election of President Barack Obama. Today is a time when America depends on this party to come to the modern age. Should it fail to do so, the United States will fall, not into socialism, but the stagnation of thoughts. A coming age of liberal media oppression will turn the minds of the coming generations into still ponds where flies lay their eggs.

The ultimate purpose of government is to support the lowest tier of society

I want to clarify that this is an essay for practice, not a response to the events in Haiti. Anything said here should not be taken seriously as part of my political ideologies.

Where has the food chain gone? Is it no longer a contest of powers. Even as humans' strength is replaced by abstract wealth, humans should not forget where they came from. The steel-clad nests and synthetic fur that masks them cannot deny their instincts as animals to succeed. For one to win, another must lose. But today, success is dead. Even the weakest may live off human welfare. Resources are redirected from progress to drag the weight behind society. Governments today waste too many resources on the futile cause of supporting the poor when only the strong can fully utilize them for human advancement.

Spending money on the poor is a matter of hollow hope. If providing housing or welfare accomplishes anything, it is lifting the spirits of the weak to be further crushed. In a collection of economic and philosophical studies provided, but not created by, Santa Clara University, the existence of the lower class is an inherent part of our legal system. The entire legal system, the studies state, is based on being able to classify and verbally oppress this lower class. As a result, the only method to ridding America of poverty is scrapping law across the nation [Santa Clara]. Furthermore, even if throwing this bone to the poor may benefit a few, that money or land can be used by the economically strong. Philosopher John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism emphasizes the maximizing the chances of the best outcome. If the criterion is wealth, a few pennies given to the poor is certainly insignificant compared to that same money becoming dollars in the hands of the rich. Certainly, this would not mean the death of the poor. After all, killing the lower class removes a significant part of society and lowers the middle class. But as John Steinbeck demonstrates in his The Grapes of Wrath, the rich may or may not help the poor, but the real responsibility of helping those desperate families like the Joads falls upon other poor families like those in the camp or on the road [Steinbeck]. If poverty is to be solved, it just cannot be through the government. Having people fall below the poverty line is a fact of life, but having those in the highest classes is a blessing of society that is not constantly limited by the nature of poverty.

In the world of economics, there may indeed exist a "rock bottom", but no other extreme exists. Being able to maximize that extreme is the main purpose of all human entities. In the political analysis of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's The Will to Power, governments serve as entities whose purpose is to maximize the success of their members. Ideally, human society becomes like a pride of lions, each individually powerful and each strong. However, through the "moral responsibility" of governments to help the poor, human society is more like thousands of rats, weak and filled with disease. The dollar that becomes a hundred pennies for the poor can be the fifty dollars that becomes part of the research that cures cancer or the dollar that pays for a few bullets that uphold democracy. Similarly, in the Malthusian mind, the poverty line is more of a population check that serves to ensure that only the strongest succeed and provide a clean solution to an overpopulation of competition in the large capitalist markets. Such overpopulation can lead to a collapse of the economy, and thus a depression where everyone is poor. Even if wealth is not in direct relation to ability or power, any competent peasant should be able to squeeze through this poverty line without any help [Malthus]. Helping the poor is not a viable choice presented to human society, but optimizing human values is.

When a lion kills something, there is nothing "moral" for it to give it up to the flies. Most flies that hatch will not survive for a purpose, but there are so many. If for some reason, every lion got together to decide to feed the flies, they would go extinct. Helping the poor is a luxury governments cannot afford. Human nature dictates that we have ambitions, but it also dictates that we feel compassion. Governments are manifestations of our ambitions and we cannot weigh it down with our compassion.

Biggest issues: Organization, logic, aesthetics...

History should document the voiceless

As the writer George Orwell said, "who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past". History is a biased collection of stories censored by the victor. Columbus "discovered" America because he killed the natives. The Civil War was all about slavery because the North won. As documentation evolves technologically, the question of whether to remember the lives of the conquered becomes a matter of choice. A common conception is that the winner of the war has a responsibility to the memory of the corpses trampled beneath their feet. As a matter of respect, history should hold the memories of the voiceless, but only as long as it does not endanger the lives of the living.

The bias of history is apparent throughout the textbooks fed to the nation's youth. If "education" is certainly the priority of courses in history, those of adequate age should have full access to this information. According to local residents of Hong Kong, a lack of information for the sake of a nation's pride jeopardized lives with the outbreak of the SARS virus. Trying to maintain pride and quell chaos, the Chinese government hid SARS from international eyes, and help, until it appeared in Hong Kong. In this case, censorship of recent history was fatal. In a science fiction rendition of historical "censorship" analogous to the terrorism of the Crusades or the conquest of America, Michael Bay's The Island, depicts a dystopian future where the government hides a stock of human clones underground so that their originals, who had the clones made for organ transplants, are unaware that the harvesting of an organ results in the murder of a human being [Bay]. Burying the truth in history often gives the victors too much power, as stated by George Orwell. Without society's willing knowledge acting as a moral check, full control over history can lead to ruthlessness. Being able to understand a situation is a vital part of making moral decisions. As explained by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, the noblest decisions in life are autonomous and well-understood choices. To deny access to historical information is to gravely limit human morality, reducing humans to animals.

In rare cases, however, historical bias will be necessary to the maintenance of a healthy state. In Johnnie To's film Breaking News, the power of the Hong Kong Police is greatly dependent on public reception. Its effectiveness in enforcing the laws in such a complex and important city in Hong Kong required the "putting on [of] a show [trans.]". The case of an officer surrendering to bank robbers was turned into an issue of a father staying alive to support his family as part of a campaign to garner public support for the police. Similarly, in a discussion with Nick Hwang, a Chinese student at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, an agreement was reached that, while the Maoist authorities may have taken it too far, their destruction of the "Old Ways" was a vital part of managing the heavily-populated People's Republic of China. Much of the "Chinese censorship" against things such as facebook is not a backwards form of oppression, but a method of preventing an uprising of a fifth of the world's population [Hwang]. Even Kant would agree that some measures must be taken for the greater good of the people.

Controlling the past is the bloody cherry for the victors of history's battles. History is a well chosen collection of stories. It seems fitting that anyone who could would choose to have lived a fantasy of a life, for sake of shame or judgement. The power of history is a prize of denying the consequences of a war. The power to change history usually comes at the price of thousands of lives. So there should be no more need to lose lives. Sustaining life is the ultimate criterion for most moral decisions, especially that of whether to abridge history. Such a choice is literally a choice between life or death.

I hate conclusions. Actually I just hate my own writing.

Patriotism's Validity

Same rules.

A person should not follow his/her country if it denies rights to that person.

In 1791, men from Pittsburgh began a small insurrection against the newly formed United States Federal Government to protest a tax on whiskey. This event, known as the Whiskey Rebellion, sparked the first use of federal power against citizens. The result was the end to the rebellion and a debate over whether it was appropriate for troops to quash a rebellion when the federal government was actually causing the civilian's unrest. It was later decided, due to the youth of the country as well as the non-vital value of whiskey, that the federal government had power to do so. In essence, the government, so long as it serves its people, deserves their patriotism, but the people may rebel if the government ceases to do so.

Patriotism to one's country is a matter of respect granted in return for rights and opportunity. Without the support of its people, as in the Whiskey Rebellion, a government is unable to provide these rights and opportunities. As explained by John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, a country's government can be analogous to the purpose of a watchful parent. It must maximize the health and happiness of each of its children [Mill]. But just as a parent may not simply spoil their child, a government should not collapse to insignificant disturbances. In some cases, as in the usage of martial law, Mill explains that denying people of their happiness temporarily can be justified by their ultimate well-being. Furthermore, as Christian writers Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges show in their book The Servant Leader, leaders must look for the best of their people in the long-run. In many cases, they may even have to sacrifice themselves for the best of their people. Followers of that leader will then return trust and obedience for their own safety and liberty [Blanchard and Hodges]. For a government, the relationship between it and its people is a mutual bond. When either one syphons power from the other, the bond is polarized and broken. And even though soldiers give their lives for a country, one must not forget that that country also supports their family and friends.

Nonetheless, it is all too easy for citizens of a nation to blindly follow their country as long as they are fed their basic needs. But here lies oppression. Hitler's Reich, for example, was not some great matter of brainwashing. The writer Todd Strasser explains in his novel The Wave, how an experiment in a high school demonstrated the lack of difficulty with which we can succumb to totalitarian regimes. While it appeared to be a positive fad, the Wave ended up a dangerous entity on the campus. Soon the Wave penetrated every aspect of students' lives [Strasser]. And the social saturation of government's influence is certainly a dangerous thing. While it might provide for the time being, Herbert Hoover's Rugged Individualism speech shows how quickly letting the government's tendrils into every niche becomes a breeding pool for socialism and its even worse oppressions against individual freedom [Hoover]. Thomas Jefferson, in writing the "Declaration of Independence", held in mind the fear of such a government. For when a government ceases to serve its people and the position is reversed, those people have adequate reason to "dissolve the political bands" that held them together [Jefferson].

The waltz of patriotism and totalitarianism requires much grace and balance. This dance holds nations and the people within at stake. George Washington's response to the Whiskey Rebellion sustained the government's ability to support its people at the cost of a few. Nothiadf l; hsj...

English Final Score? Five Bottles. My Score? B probably. FML.

In my compulsive quest for self-improvement, I have decided to practice writing in coherent English with random topics... I'll start today without too much evidence. This is a timed essay. Here's a random prompt:

Restrictions are the best way of breeding creativity. It is by the existence of the "box" (or the burrito) that one can be creative, creating progress for the community.

The fact that Disney's song "It's a Small World" rings in the ears of people all around the world serves as a testament to the song's message. Our world is indeed shrinking. The concept of creativity is no longer the easy matter of finding unused space. Instead, human progress today is driven by innovation, not originality. Thinking outside the box has become thinking around the box. For when a city has reached its limits with one-story houses, it will not search for more space, nor will it cease developing. Rather, those one-story buildings become two-story buildings. Even when the skies are indeed scraped by the city's towers, development will continue. Innovation today proves superior in advancing technology and society to random creativity when humankind cannot afford to waste resources on a mental gag reflex to puke out new ideas.

Innovation, the concept of creativity growing on the box people try to escape, proves most reliable in today's society. Success in a game is not determined by the breaking of rules, but by the following of them. To break the rules to win is to play a different game. But even the creation of a game requires rules just as vines grow on a fence. In the view of Mark Rosewater, a designer of the card game Magic: the Gathering, restrictions breed creativity. When the game was first created, no such restrictions existed. As a result, many of the original cards were over- or underpowered. Zendikar, as Mark Rosewater explains, is the product of innovation. Rather than creating a new type of card or rule set, he explored the old idea of "lands" in a way the players had never seen before. As a result, the game sales have gone up, even in the midst of the failing economy [Magic]. While it may seem like Magic is not growing, it has indeed managed to develop in a still climate. Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American writer and transcendentalist, continues, in his "The American Scholar", to discuss the nature of creativity. Innovation is indeed creativity and just as effective. Minds growing off of minds is the way the American intellect was developed.

Creativity has long been considered the idea of being able to just think differently. Thus humans strive to value every voice in society. As the psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz explains, the mentally ill or deficient think differently, thus provide a new perspective on life. He claims that it is ignorant to label biological abnormalities as defects [Szasz]. Whether the mentally "different" can yield such fruits of intellect is certainly up for debate, but it is irrefutable that many of these individuals may be dangerous or difficult to take care of. At the present moment, can we claim responsibility for every person even when they may hurt another. While one can call this genocidal, this is not eugenics. People do not put these people into positions of power. In the Bible, Jesus teaches his disciples that to lead, they must serve the people [Bible]. Leaders, and thus those who must use innovation, cannot be those that people must constantly support their health for an insecure intellect. A leader must set an example. As Her Majesty, Cambell Biology AP dictates, science is a matter of minds working off one another. A few accidents here and there have produced things like penicillin. A million monkeys in a lab is worse than a million monkeys on typewriters because there are stakes (Campbell).

Damnit. That was 50 minutes. I didn't get to a conclusion or anything, but we'll see my development. Also, I tried to think of a way to do evidence, so it was mainly wikipedia and a few of my most recently visited pages online. FML

The Media

A fire in a dense forest spreads faster. This is the main principle of gossip in such a small academic institution as Polytechnic School. It appears that if Yale or Harvard decline our pleas, each one of us is already well trained in diplomacy. We are all, as I sometimes joke, Ministers of Propaganda and Enlightenment.

My friend Anna has stated that she wishes to avoid the limelight, but it has gracefully managed to find her in every uncomfortable niche of shadows the school can offer. Ironically (I do acting and generally strange activities), I feel the same way. Many people often try to find me, but I'm usually hiding, not from social interaction (haha, if you get that), but from the drama. It's useless, really. We live in the age of media. The gods Facebook, Skype, and Twitter have dropped their wrath on me already.

You cannot hide from the media any more. My reputation is greatly diminished by recent events, things I don't think I should be blamed for. My trust is everywhere, exploded, dripping from the walls and ceiling. The conspirators have moved on to their pedestals. Apparently, it's my fault for caring, for suffering. I was the lamb on the altar. Still it surprises me that they broke up after a week and that I seem so shallow to the world. Would it make sense that I'm so shallow if I really suffered this much? It's because I'm not. But that's not what high school wants. It wants an image.

Learn this lesson. There is no escaping the media. Those in power must learn to wield it. As a resident of Hong Kong and Los Angeles, I understand its application in the world today. If a terrorist attack gets through, few really care that much about how fast or effective the response is, but instead the number of tweets about it. The age of media has brought an age of terrorism and scandal. It's a game of hot potato.