Blog 17

“Civil Disobedience” is an interesting read by Thoreau because it can still be applied to today’s government and makes us think about how things are being run today.The excerpt is very universal because we always crave for the figurehead that stands for order and what we need for a calmer society.  Thoreau openly accepts the motto “That government is best which governs least” and this motto is used throughout the reading to prove Thoreau’s point.The motto “That government is best which governs least” speaks volumes of the governmental system and how it should be run.”That government is best which governs least” explains that the government that doesn’t have to keep making its presence known is the best government because their people can live their daily lives without the idea of the government stepping in there daily lives.This motto states the government’s role is to govern the people and keep order but it should just come naturally due to human instinct, The government shouldn’t  have to impact the daily lives of there citizens.In this excerpt. Thoreau talks about almost this ideal government “Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. . .” this shows the idea that mans ideal government has to be worked toward and together so they can achieve their goal.I feel like Thoreau was talking about a government that is controlled by the people about the idea of it being a democracy.Democracy is the kind of government that is created by the people for the people so they have a say in the government’s policies and laws.  Democracy is the kind of government that’s created by the people for the people so they can get their opinions out there so this government demands the most respect because it made by the people from there own ideas.Civil disobedience has shown influence to Gandhi, Martin Luther King jr of effectiveness in their protests by showing that peaceful protest is the only way to gain the influence of the public.This excerpt should still be referred back to even today for the almost “guidelines” of how to peacefully protest.

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Blog 16

Emerson and  Thoreau have very similar points of view of philosophy and life.They have very similar concepts relating to there own way of life.Self-reliance is a major point because they believe that to achieve your own greatness you must rely on yourself to find it.They share the point of divinity because Thoreau keeps mentioning goddesses, celestial and eternal but he always keeps relating this back to nature and how its such a godlike entity and interestingly how Olympus can be found anywhere.They do both believe together that the earth is a beautiful place and that the earth wasn’t created for us that we are created for the earth and we shouldn’t have abused it as much as we did.They also believe this oversoul concept and human potential.Thoreau believes that we should live not just for the sake of living/surviving he wanst to live a Spartan-like life of living on the edge and having ultimate meaning.A major difference is when Thoreau was talking about how the brain is just an organ for burrowing, which basically means that we hid behind or thoughts and ideas while Emerson completely believes that oversoul, the idea we have so much potential in our lives and we cant even understand it, which we can live up to if we are too focused on the future or religion.The good and bad idea is where they differ a bit because Thoreau believes times change it while Emerson believed that if you worked hard at finding the good in your heart then you must be good.The main idea of the first part of the excerpt is the idea of going out into Nature and becoming self-reliant.As well as we shouldn’t just be surviving, we should be striving for something greater to live up to our full potential.The main idea from the conclusion is we shouldn’t become used to the same thing and we should want difference and to live them to just one to wear away at the others.I think some benefits were that he learned that his life became same cut and dry nothing interesting or different.I would miss talking to my friends and having that social interaction because we are social creatures as much as we may not want to accept it we need each other.The modern reader should take out of transcendentalism are we have potential and a meaning to our lives even though we may not know now, we will, transcendentalism is a great philosophy and everyone should know the basic concept.Image result for woods

Blog 15

Reading is an important thing in life, some people choose not to read at all while others have their nose in a book constantly.The purpose of independent reading is to hone our skills on reading comprehension and to understand the difference in writing and how we can improve ours. Reading can open your mind to a bunch of possibilities like enhance your creativity and being able to think differently with a different perspective.I feel like reading shows us contrasting perspectives compared to other people and teaches us how to understand situations unlike anyone else. We can encourage more reading just by visiting the library more often and just having our librarian talk about the new book he got for us.He is always getting book months before they come out so we can know before anyone else.I choose the book “The girl on the train” by Paula Harkins.I choose this book because ive been waiting forever to read it and ive been recommended this book so much, that I couldn’t just ignore it.After reading the first chapter of this book I can conclude a lot of things and I have many thoughts on it.The book goes in days and a certain perspective of one of the main characters.My initial reaction of Rachel is that she needs to get away from the past and stop putting herself in other people’s shoes and just try and make her life better.In the novel, I think Rachel will confront her old husband tom and find out the reason why he cheated.She is probably going to find out who the clothing by the train tracks belonged to and, maybe meet Jess and James.As well as I think she will have to face her fear of going back to her old house and make peace with her past memories in there.I wasn’t present when you talked about the book trailers so I’m kinda nervous just in general because I don’t know what really happening other than I have to read my book.I just hope I don’t have to video editor learn a whole new program for this assignment.I DID NOT CHOOSE THE CHUG LIFE THE CHUG LIFE CHOSE ME | image tagged in scumbag hat,thomas the tank engine,deal with it,puns | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

Blog 14

My initial thoughts on transcendentalism were that it was the way back then of questions what you’ve been believing your whole life.Which is basically going against conformity and standing for what you believe.The big meaning of transcendentalism is to take a different perspective on a certain topic and ask questions about the original perspective.In “nature” the original perspective was from the bible that the earth was specifically created for us but it was truly the earth would be in severe disaster because of us. This original perspective leads to misuse and pollution of the earth.Then Emerson looked at it differently and the whole nature excerpt shows that we coexist and we should be taking care of the earth.This related back to the nature of man because we sometimes get lost and rooted not paying attention to the future.Then in self-reliance, it says that we have paths that are already preexisting and we need to follow them or god would be disappointed.I don’t believe the man is naturally good nor bad we do have the potential to be great it’s just the line between good and bad is hazy and all due to perspective.An example of this thinking is, A man is regarded as a hero in a village and saves his people from attack from another neighboring village.In the man’s village, he is regarded as a hero yet in the other village he is evil because he killed their own villagers. I do not believe man is not naturally evil but society does keep a man in place for norms and morals. Society may not be regarded as a good thing but it does keep us to have similar morals and goals so we are not alone in our society.Society keeps us in place to not do outrageous things but does affect a lot of things.Society can give us a sense of community but societal norms are quite terrible as well as good.One effect of it for being good is that we won’t just start treating people badly for the fear of other people watching and conceiving us as terrible. The bystander effect is when we don’t act on someone in help because other people are around.Image result for brain