...Knowledge vs. Ignorance In fahrenheit 451 struggle revolves around the tension between knowledge and ignorance. Firemen destroy knowledge of all forms, books in perticlar. This doesn’t stop Montag though. He is given many struggles because he wants to learn. I feel like this is somewhat relevant to nowadays society. We faced with those who want to be knowledged but majority has turned to substance and have become consumed in it. Society in fahrenheit 451 is very similar to today’s society. The education system is at a falling point and ignorance is growing. What though should become more important substance or knowledge and growing to a person. Ignorance vs. knowledge is a very apparent theme in the Book “Fahrenheit 451". It is expressed subtly throughout the novel enough to make it apperent that the author, Ray Bradbury, wants you to understand the importance. The theme is expressed by characters of both sides, ignorant and knowledged. "Number one, as I said, quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. Number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction in the first two." (81, part 2). This quotes is from later in the book, but it states how Faber used knowledge to his advantage compared to the rest of society. Many more quotes occur from Faber like this. He truley expresses his love and passion of the importance of knowledge in the book. To start what exactly is ignorance and knowledge? Who shows the two sides and how?...
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...David Santamaria Ms. Pasonelli AP English 7 November 2015 Light vs Darkness: The Irony within Heart of Darkness Through history there has always been a battle between good and evil, light and dark, the innocent and the guilty. Many times authors, spanning over a wide range of genres have embedded this battle into their stories. Joseph Conrad, did just that in his creation of Heart of Darkness. Amongst the deep jungles of the Congo River, Conrad places Marlow into a world where darkness dominates everyday life. Marlow throughout the story is seen to have pure intentions and can be seen as a symbol of light, whereas Kurtz who has been amongst the heart of the Congo for various years, can be seen as the embodiment of darkness. Now, the distinction of light and dark, good and evil, innocent and guilty, is not only represented between Marlow and Kurtz, but also by Kurtz’s intended and his mistress of the darkness from Africa. Conrad in the depiction of these characters uses irony to show that light is representative of ignorance and naivety whereas darkness is the embodiment of the truth and experience. To be naïve is to show lack of experience. This trait lies at the heart of every man and woman as well as boy and girl. Naivety goes hand in hand with ignorance and can often be seen as an embodiment of innocence as well as purity, which are representative of light. Marlow within Heart of Darkness, ultimately proves to be naïve as well as ignorant throughout various times...
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...E2 Honors Begovich In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the use of archetypes contributes to the overall strength of the novel. During when the various times the “light vs dark” archetypes are utilized and when the archetypical death and rebirth occurs to convey the extent of which the novel is strengthened by archetypes. In Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 the light vs dark archetype helps show to what extent archetypes are used to strengthen the novel when Montag is conversing with Clarisse after Mildred began reading her script. The author states “He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon another.”{Bradbury 21}. In this passage Bradbury is showing that inside Montag the light and dark are warring against each other. As light vs dark are opposites the author uses opposites to show the relationship between the two, for example the comparison between cold and hot, the cold represents the dark as darkness is inherently cold as light provides heat. The two parts grinding against each other show to the light and dark at war, as they at odds at one other. Since they cannot coexist the light and dark in this situation refer to the Montag, in that they are his struggle to free himself from the ignorance that is his societal beliefs. The author also states when Clarisse and Montag walk to her house, "When they reached her house all its lights were blazing" (Bradbury 7}. As this...
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...Should it be Taught? Black vs. white, good vs evil. A constant battle against racism. In the past, many people suffered from discrimination, and it is sad to say schools were one the biggest targets of this disease. For instance, the author of the book Warriors Don’t Cry, Melba Pattillo Beals, writes about how she was the target of her school and suffered years of discrimination and segregation while she attended an all white school. Because this disease hit schools the hardest, it should be a priority to teach racism in schools and have every student at some point read the book Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals. Many readers may question why we should be learning about a thing of the past, the answer is simple. Racism isn’t history; it never was and most likely never will be. Many believe that once slavery was abolished, so was racism. Racism just went into the shadows and now is slowly making its way back out. In May of 1955, when Melba Beals decided to push an education and go to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas; she didn’t expect that she would be discriminated against....
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...Mookerjee Basic Composition 100R Section QF October 01, 2015 Paper 2- Final Draft Imagination vs Reality When it comes to imagination versus reality, the processes in the brain are different. But just how different are they? Our mind can run away with us, leading us to act through suspicion or fear, but we can also use our imagination as a tool to change our life. Humans have tended to draw a line between reality—that which we “actually” experience—and imagination, seen as a frivolous, dreamlike deflection. For ages, spiritual contemplatives and artists have taken flights of imagination much more seriously and challenged the firmness of that line. It is just like how imagination plays a very real role in our decision making. Take for example, our last two US presidential elections, in which one big chunk of the electorate managed to view Barack Obama as a radical socialist, while another saw him as a moderate saint. Both views were heavily based on myth, but they had a real-life effect on how people voted. By understanding Wendell Berry’s text, “God, Science, and Imagination,” and juxtaposing it to Susan Blackmore’s analysis of the “replicator power” of “memes,” it is evident that imagination and meme fear have gained over us. Seeing the two author’s ideas merge can enlighten readers to realize that the “ideals” that Berry presents in his argument of “fundamentalism” versus “knowledge” are only memes of what we want to think instead of the memes that we actually follow through...
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...Democracy and Political Ignorance Democracy is supposed to be rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. But in order to rule effectively, the people need political knowledge. If they know little or nothing about government, it becomes difficult to hold political leaders accountable for their performance. Unfortunately, public knowledge about politics is disturbingly low. In addition, the public also often does a poor job of evaluating the political information they do know. This state of affairs has persisted despite rising education levels, increased availability of information thanks to modern technology, and even rising IQ scores. It is mostly the result of rational behavior, not stupidity. Such widespread and persistent political ignorance and irrationality strengthens the case for limiting and decentralizing the power of government. The Extent of Ignorance Political ignorance in America is deep and widespread. The current government shutdown fight provides some good examples. Although Obamacare is at the center of that fight and much other recent political controversy, 44% percent of the public do not even realize it is still the law. Some 80 percent, according to a recent Kaiser survey, say they have heard “nothing at all” or “only a little” about the controversial insurance exchanges that are a major part of the law. The shutdown controversy is also just the latest manifestation of a longstanding political struggle over federal spending. But most of...
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...IB Theory of Knowledge Essay In what ways may disagreement aid the pursuit of knowledge in the natural and human sciences? Cherno Okafor 000747-034 Weston Collegiate Institute February 20th, 2013 Word Count: 1598 In this TOK Essay, I will be conducting an analysis illustrating how disagreements can be used to aid the pursuit of knowledge in both the natural and human sciences and in some cases, hinder the pursuit of knowledge in these areas. First, it is necessary to define the key terms in this topic, which are “pursuit of knowledge”, “natural sciences”, and “human sciences”. “Pursuit of knowledge” is the act of obtaining knowledge. Natural science refers to the study of natural phenomena of the universe. Fields associated with this are: chemistry (elements), biology (contrasting ideas between Lamarckism and the Darwinian concept of evolution), and physics (gravity). On the other hand, human science refers to the study of people themselves and their behaviours which includes matter in history, literature and philosophy where “man is the measure of all things and human nature” as uttered by the classical Greek philosopher Plato. There is also anthropology, economics, and ethics; for example the explanation of criminal behaviour in cognitive and social psychology in human science. The term “disagreement” is ambiguous in the sense that it can represent a variety of things. For instance, it can refer to a difference of opinion between two people or groups...
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...CRANES, COUNTRIES AND COUNTRIES 2 Reality vs. illusion The origami crane reflects the ideas expressed in the Allegory of the Cave. In the process of creating an origami crane, one witnesses the idea of amassing knowledge and information. There is this revolving idea of automatically believing what someone tells you of an unknown object, just like believing that it is how a crane looks like, the reality of what it is. Additionally, the idea of ignorance plays a significant role in what one thinks is real and what is truly reality. Furthermore, humans are still similar to the prisoners in the Allegory of the Cave, “Suppose the prisoners were able to talk together, don’t you think that when they named the shadows which they saw passing they would believe they were naming things?” (Plato, p. 312) Without any pertaining prior education, the prisoners are left to name the shadows thinking that they are naming things, similar to how students are left to the self-assumption that their creation is what is called an origami. Those these prisoners are forced to break free through the universal forced learning. “If so,” said I, “such persons would certainly believe that there were no realities except those shadows of handmade things”. (Plato, p. 313) Through assigning a name to an object, one can jump to a conclusion of its identity, though that may just be a hinderance to seeing past the shadow and discovering the reality of what it truly is...
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...A Theory of Justice, by John Rawls Tier III 415A Home Page A Theory of Justice, by John Rawls, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. This outline of an extended book review is based in large part on notes composed by Darrell Huwe. I have attempted with limited success to understand Rawls' book - please do not regard this as being in any sense an authoritative summary of Rawls' thought. I personally find this book particularly difficult to penetrate, perhaps because my training is in the physical sciences rather than philosophy, and I generalize quite beyond the evidence when I suspect that others also find it less than accessible. I hope that this review is helpful. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an article, "The Enduring Significance of John Rawls", by Martha Nussbaum. John Rawls died at age 81 on November 24, 2002. Dick Piccard General Conception All social primary goods - liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored. Social Contract John Locke: Free people need to agree on some ground rules in order to live together in harmony. Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham: Act so as to maximize good (pleasure) in the aggregate. Later twist: minimize pain. From either perspective, your actions are judged good or bad depending on the consequences they have for you and...
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...The Russian “Trepak” vs. The Ukrainian “Hopak” The popular FOX TV show “So You Think You Can Dance” began introducing various styles of dance to bring awareness of traditions of other cultures into the mainstream television in the US. In last season’s finale, the two top male dancers, Joshua and Twitch, danced a ‘Russian “trepak”’ while wearing Ukrainian folk costumes and dancing traditional hopak moves. The hopak is the traditional dance of Ukraine. This caused some controversy, and offended those from Ukraine as well as Russia. The dance was choreographed to music from “The Nutcracker”, which raised questions as well. The fact that the composer, Tchaikovsky, who was of Ukrainian origin, used Ukrainian folk melodies in his works does not make them automatically Russian. Just to give a little history, trepak, or hopak was developed and then danced by the Ukrainian Cossacks even before Ukraine was taken over by Russia. The costumes, choreography and music had nothing to do with Russian culture, but instead were tied to Ukrainian traditions. Russians have never danced “trepak” as part of their traditional cultural dance. The fact that the dance was presented as a Russian number was not only an uncharacteristic sign of ignorance, but also insulted many Ukrainians watching everywhere! The “trepak” and hopak are distinct Ukrainian national dances that even the Soviet government never suggested were Russian in origin! Also, it was said that it was “Russian street dancing”...
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...was taking place. The setting takes place at Mama’s house primarily with the exception of a flashback to their old house that burned down. The plot of the story reveals the characters cultural pride and ignorance towards the changing times. The themes in “Everyday Use” are, the meaning of heritage and the power of education. Additionally, the author creates different conflicts that arise throughout the story in which they are: man vs. man, man vs. society, and man vs. himself. Man vs. Man is first seen between Dee and Mama due to the fact that Mama doesn’t meet up to Dee’s standards. This coincides with the theme, power of education. Mama struggled to send Dee to a good school, which could have ended up doing more harm than good in regards to their relationship. Mama herself was denied an education and her youngest daughter Maggie lacks in that department. Therefor, giving Dee the advantage of being the only one educated which makes her arrogant and condescending. The education that Mama generously gave to Dee only created a bigger wedge between them and the family. Dee with her knowledge and way of the world becomes a bit of a threat to the standards of Mama and Maggie. When Dee arrives back home with Hakim-a-barber she engulfs Mama and Maggie with her new found knowledge, making them feel like children. Even when Dee was a child, Mama says “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant...
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...Ayn Rand, the author of the novel Anthem, views the concept of being an “other” in society as a stepping stone to one being truly enlightened and destined for a journey far greater than others who are compliant to society’s whims or standards. According to Rand, being an “other” in society is not a burden and those who aren’t “others” in this relative society would be placed in classifications such as the mindless, afraid, or complacently foolish. What sets Equality 7-2521 apart from others, is not only his appearance, but his extensive want of freedom and for his longing of knowledge which stems from his insatiable curiosity. After some time of actively attempting to disperse himself of these inclinations, he cannot resist the desires...
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...Intolerance, the unwillingness to accept views different from one’s own, flourished during the 1920’s. Appearing all over news headlines, intolerance came in many ways: racism, nativism, and morality are just a few. John Scopes tested the boundaries of intolerance when he began to teach Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to his students. After the Butler Act of 1925, teaching Evolution was outlawed. Scopes challenged this and took the case to court. Evolution was a highly controversial issue because of the discrepancy between religion and science. Religion, supported by Fundamentalists, argued that the Butler Act was “protecting our children from one of the destructive forces which will destroy our civilization” (Mrs. Jesse Sparks, letter to...
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...preserving other areas of equal area. A cost benefit analysis must be run to determine benefits vs. costs. • Preserving some areas of land may provide jobs near areas which have high unemployment or reduce pollution in areas which have high industrial output. Other factors for land preservation need to be considered. • Preserving wilderness that is accessible to many people is preferable so that people are able to enjoy the preserved wilderness, through hiking or camping in it. However, areas which are not remote could be better candidates for public recreational reasons. • Wilderness accessible to only a few people are typically preserved anyway. Although there are some political figures who suggest that wilderness should be exploited partially because few people are affected -- GW Bush and drilling in the Artic Wildlife Preserve. • Also need to consider how the preservation decision will benefit specific species of wildlife. ——————————————— "In any field of endeavor, it is impossible to make a significant contribution without first being strongly influenced by past achievements within that field." • Author's viewpoint goes too far. In some fields of an endeavor it is possible to make a significant contribution without being strongly influenced by past achievements. • One example is art and music. These are fields which depend highly on creative talent. Too much knowledge about past achievements and artistic theory encourages conformity. • In classical music (without...
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...Buddhism is one of the major religions of the world in terms of adherents, geographical distribution, and socio-cultural influence. While for a long time it has been an “Eastern” religion, it has been gaining an increasing popularity and influence also on the Western world. It is a religion that is unique in the world in its own right, although it has much in common with Hinduism in which the two can be called “Eastern” religions, who believe in karma, the cause and effect; maya, the illusory nature of the world; and samsara, the cycle of reincarnation among other things. Buddhists believe that the ultimate goal in life is to achieve “enlightenment” as they perceive their existence. Buddhism came from Hinduism and spread throughout the Eastern countries until reaching global popularity. The most important person and the founder of Buddhism was Siddhartha Gautama or Buddha after his awakening. He was the son of the head of the Shakya Warrior class. It is said that the Brahmins examined to the newborn, and predicted his destiny as a universal monarch or Buddha. According to “The Buddha’s Early Life” online reading, Siddhartha started looking enlightenment at age 29, when first saw an old man, a sick man, and a corpse. With the help of his friend Channa, Siddhartha suddenly discovered that suffering is the destiny of all mankind. Then he found a peaceful and serene mendicant monk, and thereafter decided to adopt their way of life, so abandoned his family, wealth and power to start...
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