Morals and other Truths

In the article "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism" the author discusses the importance of the difference in culture but also the importance of similarities in culture. The author says that we can not fully judge what is morally right or morally wrong. We can not judge other cultures without being judged ourselves. He writes about the Greeks and how they burn their dead, while the Callatians eat their dead. Each culture believes that the other culture is wrong, but which is morally right? The other says that we can not judge this. The author then goes on to discuss that what we believe to be true is just an opinion that varies from culture to culture. He goes on to discuss Eskimos who kill their babies at birth if they cannot take care of them or if they are female, to them that is morally right and that is what they need to do. To us that is morally wrong, but we don't know the full picture. They don't just kill their babies because they don't want to take care of them, they kill them if the can't. A mother nurses her children till they are four years old. She can only nurse so many children at one time. Also, she carries her children around because Eskimos are nomads who travel. A mother can only carry one child around. Lastly, if Eskimos didn't kill the girls they would have more girls and not enough food. There are also similarities, the author says, such as truth. There's no society that just tells lies to everyone. There has to be some trust in societies. Lastly, the author discusses how there are some good things that come out of cultural relativism, like how it warns us not to assume that all cultures act in one way and we need to have an open mind. What we think may not be the truth but just assumptions from cultural conditioning.

I believe that the author is right in his thinking. Every society is different, but we cannot judge other societies without know the full truth. Other societies practice different things that may seem strange to us, but what we practice may seem strange to them. There's no right or wrong way of going about life. We should accept other people's way of life, we don't have to practice what they practice, but accept it as being okay for their society. In my opinion there is good to Cultural Relativism because of how it shows use the differences in other cultures and that we need to have an open mind about other societies.

In our society even, there's small differences. If you go to different parts of America there are people who speak with different dialects and have different morals. Not everyone is the same. Some people don't go to church, or practice different religions. Also, there's differences in the way we go about life, like whenever I go south my one friend always comments you Northerners. He told me that if he ever went up north to visit he would be judged for things he says or does, just like when I go down south. In our society though we accept different cultural backgrounds because not everybody is the same. Some people are German, Irish, Native American, or Scottish. Everybody goes about doing things different ways, but we are more accepting of it,

When Tragedy Strikes

    In Oedipus there's the topic of fate that plays a major part in the death of Oedipus' parents and the blindness of himself. Oedipus' parents tried to avoid the fate of their son by having him killed, but when one of their men couldn't do it, they were faced with the fate that they were given without even knowing it. Oedipus went to live with another king and queen who took him in as their own. When Oedipus got in a fight with a man he found out the truth about his prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He refused to believe it, but fear drove him out of his kingdom. He ended up having a confrontation with a man on his journey and ended up killing him. When he arrived in the next kingdom he married their queen and became their new king. Later on after having a daughter with this queen he found out the truth through Teiresias that his prophecy, in fact came true. His mother/wife found out the truth and killed herself and then Oedipus because of all this blinded himself and banned himself from his own kingdom. In the end no matter what he did he could not escape his fate.
     In modern day we do have those people that believe in prophecies and believe in oracles and fortune tellers. People go and get their palms read or go and get a tarot card reading. There's also those people that want nothing to do with fate and they believe that they are in control of what happens, that there is no god that can determine what will happen to them. There's a big controversy over whether or not our whole life is planned out for us and whether or not we can be in control of our life.

The Meaning of Earnest

In "The Importance of Being Earnest" we are introduced to two characters, John and Algernon, both are from completely different life styles, but they have one thing in common. That is they both want to be Earnest... or Ernest. Both John and Algernon come up with a secret identity to hide who they are. Everyone around them believes them and they begin to have a new identity. They begin to forget, in a way, who they really are. This new identity is no longer just an escape. It's their life. It's what they live through now. There's too many connections for them. John loves Gwendolen who can only love a man with the name of Ernest. Algernon loves Cecily and he steals John's made up identity of Ernest to capture her attention and have her fall for him, but she also says that she can only love a man with the name of Ernest. This becomes a conflict for the men because they can no longer lie about who they are. It has gotten farther than both of them have planned for it too. When Gwendolen and Cecily find out the whole thing blows up for both John and Algernon. The women stand their ground and refuse to talk to the men, but this doesn't get them far. The men get easily distracted as they fight over the new crisis of how their loves despise them for lying to them, they begin to fight over muffins and completely go off topic forgetting about the women. This angers the women and they finally talk to the men. In the end, everything works out for John and Algernon, but the lie that they told could have cost them their love.

In our society we face the same problems, now we don't fight over muffins instead of worrying about our made, girlfriends/fiancées, men are more considerate now, hopefully. We still deal with identity theft, like when Algernon stole John's fake identity. We also have people who are "two-faced." I always tell my dad that he never has to worry about me lying because I won't do it because I'll end up forgetting what I told him and mess up anyway so I mind as well tell him the truth in the beginning. Algernon and John had to cover their tracks and lie to the ones they care about to get out of situations but the truth always comes out and in the end it did and they almost lost everything. Lies in relationships come out, especially now with online dating. The person online can be someone completely different than who they say they are. It has become easier to lie about who we are, which makes it harder to trust people. It is becoming a greater problem with advances with technology. Just today on the news I saw a video of someone photo shopping a photo for a magazine. It took 30 seconds for them to completely change the model from her eyes, to elongating her neck, to sculpting her back, and making her legs longer. It's so easy to lie now that we have to watch out for the John's and Algernons that are not as Ernest as they say they are.

To Be or Not to Be... The Invisible Man?

In “Invisible Man” the main character goes underground in attempts to discover who he is. He is not really an invisible man but a man who is not noticed by others. The character struggles throughout the novel to be seen and noticed. He at first is highly anticipating the speech he is to give to the respected white men in his community for a scholarship, but he comes to realize that the only way he will be able to give the speech is through being degraded in the battle royal where he competes against other youth black men. He then receives a scholarship to a university where he looks up to the dean of the school. Again, though, he is brought down and looked down upon when he tries to do everything that the dean tells him to do to impress him and be known. The dean in the end expels him from the university. Another instance in the novel where the invisible man tries to be seen is through giving his speeches on racism. That, again, is brought down by the brotherhood who downgrade him to giving speeches on women’s rights and not about what he truly is passionate about speaking about and where people actually want to listen to him and be strongly impacted by.

This can relate to our society since the beginning of time. The competition for wanting to be seen is shown throughout everyone’s life. Whether it be through wanting the lead in the play or wanting to get the boss position at your job. The struggle to be seen can be shown in even little things like competing to be your mother or father’s favorite child. The issue of being the invisible man can also relate to racism the main character was discriminated against for the color of his skin and that is the reason for why he was strongly degraded throughout the novel and why some people did not respect him as a person. Racism is another extreme issue of invisibility that we have in our society still today. It’s something that we will never fully get rid of in our society.