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.

¿Es posible reformar a los jóvenes delincuentes?

Es cierto que sin padres, los jóvenes pueden ser delincuentes porque no tienen a nadie que pueda ayudarlos. Por eso, cuando una persona joven hace un crimen, no siempre merezca alguno castigo porque es peor que la sociedad destruya su vida si puede cambiar. Sin embargo, todos los jóvenes delincuentes no puedan reformarse nunca. La dilema es entre ayudar a los niños que pueden reformar y La película Les choristes lo describe muy bien.

En la película, había una escuela para reformar a los niños sin padres. La escuela parecía un castillo. Los niños eran personajes muy diferentes. Un niño que se llamaba Pierre Morhange era delincuente cuando la película comienza, pero al fin, tenía mucho respeto por los otros. Él es símbolo de las vidas que la sociedad debe rescatar. Muchos otros, como Le Querrec, también podían cambiar. Era posible porque su maestro de su coro los daba la ayuda necesaria para tener éxito.

Al contrario, un niño que se llama Mondain estaba un poco loco. Él nunca cambiara. Cuando la película comienza, el era ladrón. Al fin, el había quemado toda la escuela, sonriendo y fumando. El es símbolo de los otros que no pueden cambiar nunca. ¿Es malo que no pueden cambiar? Parece sí, pero en realidad no es tan malo.

Cuando el mundo dio a luz la civilización humana y las guerras humanas, había ocurrido un cambio interesante en el cerebro humano. Por cada cincuenta personas, había un “tipo soldado”, una persona que no tenía miedo de matar a otra persona. Desde cientos de años, nuestro sociedad había usado los “tipos soldados” para luchar y también para controlar la población. Es interesante que estos “delincuentes” también paran la creación de otros delincuentes. Por eso, no es posible que la sociedad no tenga delincuentes.

Para resolver el problema de los jóvenes delincuentes, la sociedad debe verla diferencia entre los jóvenes con esperanza y los “tipos soldados” o debe elegir entre la posibilidad de una nueva vida o la amenaza de los delincuentes. Hoy, es muy fácil usar las computadoras para identificar los “tipos soldados” que no pueden cambiar nunca, buscando los químicos en el cerebro que hace un “tipo soldado”. Con esas personas, la sociedad puede hacer unos soldados o una policía. Dar unos propósitos es una responsabilidad de la sociedad y esto es una respuesta. Aunque hay drogas para “curar” a los delincuentes, no es bueno tratar de controlar al cuerpo humano. Por ejemplo, hubo un gran programa para hacerlo. ¿Dónde? Fue en la Alemania de Adolf Hitler. Con tiempo, el “tipo soldado” va a desaparecer a causa de faltar las guerras y los otros delincuentes van a cambiar, como siempre.

Postmodern Honor Code

If either of those mentioned in this read this, you can tell me to take it off. I really wanted to get this out.

"Chivalry is dead" quote many people too lazy to open a door for a woman or some other trivial tradition like that. You can't really blame men that much. I mean, women are decently independent and self-sufficient. But that's another topic. I would say another form of societal honor for men has been born.

We haven't lost our honor. Men have this unspoken pact amongst all other men: The Brocode. It includes a number of rules, mostly dealing with women. But above all, it teaches the lesson: Bros before hos. Let me clarify that "ho" does not necessarily refer to a prostitute, but rather any sort of woman.

For the past few months, I've felt deep emotion for this particular girl. One of my friends asked her to Winter Formal and at the time, I didn't mind. In order to avoid a terrible situation, I talked to him about it and that was it. This established a basis of trust on the fact that the Brocode usually ordains the person feeling the greater emotion to have her (ok I don't want to objectify women, but there's no grammatically correct way of explaining that otherwise).

Yesterday was Winter Formal. The details are pretty clear. Those two are together. I talked to that same friend afterwards. The truth is: I feel like shit right now. I've barely slept and I just want to cry or something, but the only motion I can squeeze out of my body is from typing these words. At the same time, I'm not angry. I still love her, though I can probably never be with her now.

But I still love my friend. It's true; he violated our mantrust. But bros before hos. It's not like we're not friends. He had the balls to come talk to me about it. He has quite a deal of honor himself. Yes, I feel pain. But I haven't been hurt. Or at least I like to think so. Hurt is just a matter of responsibility for that pain. Well, I guess it's back to AP Bio for me...

¿El amor o el dinero?

Es la vieja cuestión. Los humanos siempre debían decidir entre el amor o el dinero. La opinión general de la sociedad es que el amor es más importante que el dinero. A causa de la cultura social del mundo, el amor es la prioridad porque una persona necesita amigos. Pero sin embargo, esta cuestión del amor y del dinero ya existe hoy. ¿Por qué, con la moral de la sociedad, es difícil decidir? En realidad, la cuestión no es entre el amor o el dinero. Es una guerra metafísica entre dos tipos de poder.

El amor representa el poder de amigos y familia. Normalmente, dos personas son más fuertes que una persona. El amor es las relaciones que pueden proteger a una persona. El amor también es el instinto que crea más personas. Sin amor, es más difícil crear bebés. En esencia, el amor es el instinto de los seres humanos contra la naturaleza. Para sobrevivir, hay que tener números; hay que no terminar la línea de natación. Cada vez que la naturaleza amenazó a los seres humanos, los seres humanos pueden luchar con los instintos de sobrevivir.

Por ejemplo, hace miles de años, los humanos siempre formaban unos grupos para hacer todo. En la época prehistórica, los “humanos” se movían en grupos para buscar la comida. Ellos construyeron pueblos pequeños cerca de otros pueblos pequeños. Los animales comen los otros cuando vivían solos. ¿Y hoy? No es tan diferente. Hoy, los humanos forman grupos para la comida (pero hoy son las compañías para trabajar por la comida). De tal manera, lo más de los humanos viven en unas ciudades, grandes o pequeños, pero en todo caso con otros. En fin, el amor no necesita ser “romántico” pero es un instinto que los humanos demuestran para sobrevivir.

¿Y el dinero? El dinero también es el poder. Pero es el poder individual. Tener el dinero es poder ganar contra los otros humanos. En la naturaleza, el dinero no tiene valor. Pero, donde el amor protege a los humanos contra la naturaleza, el dinero protege a un humano contra los otros humanos. A pesar de la cultura social de los humanos, cada persona también quiere tener éxito en relación a otros humanos. Los otros humanos crean un sistema de comparar el éxito. Por eso, los humanos tienen ese instinto. Además, los humanos no tienen la confianza perfecta tampoco. Como los animales, es imposible totalmente trabajar en paz con otros. Cada humano puede tener ganas competitivas contra otros humanos como el amor o ser el dueño de algo. El dinero es el poder concreto del universo humano.

Desde cientos de años, los humanos usaban el dinero en el mundo humano para todo. Sin dinero, una persona será débil. Cuando una persona quiere controlar el mundo, necesita el dinero. Por ejemplo, del siglo XVI al siglo XIX, el mundo político de Europa fue diferentes guerras para mantener las tallas económicas de cada país. Cuando Rusia atacó al imperio otomano y ganó lugares para buscar el oro, los otros países europeos atacaron a Rusia para que Rusia no pudiera tener más dinero. Si hubiera tenido más dinero, habría sido fácil comprar unas armas para amenazar los otros países. Y hoy hay una guerra sobre el petróleo, el oro negro. Hace muchos años, cada día, unos soldados morían por el dinero de sus países.

Pero en este caso el dinero parece muy malo. El dinero es un aspecto de la vida humana que no puede cambiar. Con el dinero, se puede comprender el valor universal de muchas cosas. Todas la personas no deben regatear tanto, y en esa sociedad, todos tienen más de una vida justa que tendrán en una sociedad sin dinero. No es posible perder el aspecto del dinero. Con la civilización humana, el dinero tiene un sitio especial. Aunque no tiene valor en la naturaleza, el dinero es importante porque la naturaleza no existe hoy en nuestra sociedad. En vez de sobrevivir contra un animal o una planta, la prioridad es sobrevivir contra los otros humanos.

No quiero decir que el dinero es más importante. Solamente quiero mostrar que la moral sobre el amor y el dinero es demasiada romántica. Pero en conclusión, se necesita comprender la situación. Y también, sin embargo, el amor y el dinero no siempre son competitivos. El amor es el instinto que forman los grupos para ganar el dinero. El éxito del dinero compra el amor. Es verdad. Los humanos tienen el instinto de pensar en su futuro. Por ejemplo, un mendigo guapo y simpático es, en todo caso, un mendigo. Por eso, él morirá solo.