Bought Freedom

How does Linda finally attain her freedom? Why does she have mixed emotions about this at the end of the book?

Her friend Mrs. Bruce buys her from her mistress' husband, then sets her free. She has mixed feelings about this because she believes that freedom is a right, not something that can be bought. She feels a little insulted that she could be bought and traded and sold like a piece of property, especially in a 'free' state like New York. It's also a little upsetting that her friend, the kind and helpful Mrs. Bruce, can just buy her as well. Not just bad people buy and trade in slaves. Mrs. Bruce also bought her without really talking to her about it first. So Linda also feels more like a piece of property without a say in her own freedom, even though Mrs. Bruce had the best of intentions and actually did free her. Despite all this, though, she still is glad to be free, and thankful to Mrs. Bruce for buying and freeing her.

Honesty for Credibility

Pick a passage in which Jacobs is using her own honesty to establish her credibility. Explain how and why she is doing it.

It's difficult to pick just one passage in particular, since throughout the whole book she is using her honesty to establish her credibility. She's a slave, telling a true, horrifying story. She's been there and done and seen those things, so people can believe what she's saying. One of the passages that illustrates this best is when she's describing her situation as being better than others. She's honest enough to explain that hers is a better (definitely not best) case scenario than people who have to toil in the fields. But she also is quick to explain that that's not to say that she's happy, well-treated or in any way okay. She's not being whipped to death- not physically. I can't find the exact passage- but that's basically it. The reader is drawn more to her cause because they sympathize so much with her plight- and to thin it could be worse! She's being honest, and gaining credibility as an author. And she's been there and done that. She's obviously not making this up.

Truth

Why is it important that this book is truth, not fiction? Why is it important that the editor didn’t clean it up, either in terms of language or content?

This book was written to persuade people that slavery is evil and wrong. A fictional account of a slave's sufferings would be dismissed as imagination. Fiction is not fact. People could dream up numerous horrors a slave might have suffered, yet no one would believe them. The best way to reveal the truth is to tell the truth.

Again, taking the book in context of its times, it's important that the editor did not clean it up because it would become less truthful. People might suspect from the better language and grammar that it was fake, written by a better-educated person than a slave. Or they would think that all slaves had enough opportunity, somehow, to learn to write so well, and assume that slavery couldn't be all that bad. As for content- the whole purpose of the book was to show the horrors of slavery and the whole experience of slavery. To cut any of it out would be to lie by omission- to present a different, untrue version of slavery.

What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?

What is Douglass saying? How does he support himself through appeals to logos, ethos and/or pathos?

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Douglass is saying that all the ideals that America is built on- equality, the right to the pursuit of happiness, etc.- are hypocrisies because slavery violates all those ideals.

Logos: He says that he does not need to argue some points, such as that slaves are human, but he does, anyway. He points out that everyone already acts as if slaves are human, they just delude themselves into saying that they're not. His logic there is interesting and it makes sense. He uses lists of examples to prove his points as well. He addresses their interests, too. He says that everyone wants abolitionists to persuade people instead of accusing them. He addressed that point by saying that there is nothing to persuade- everyone knows, on some level that slavery is wrong- all he needs to do is make them guilty enough to do something about it. That would fit in with pathos as well.

Ethos: He is a slave. He speaks from experience and is more effective because of that. He also is aware of his audience's feelings and begins and ends on a note that would be taken well by them- praising in hope for America.

Pathos: He lists in graphic detail what slaves have suffered. An example: "...it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters..." He also asks people to have hope by saying the issue is fixable.

Socialization

What is the “socialization process” according to Parrillo? Do you agree that prejudices – or really any beliefs – are instilled in this way?

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According to Parillo, the socialization process is when "...individuals acquire the values, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of their culture or subculture, including religion, nationality and social class." Later on in this article/excerpt/thing, Parillo also says that prejudice has a number of complex causes. I agree with him, there. Socialization is definitely a major factor in instilling prejudice, though. Let's take an extreme example. Children in parts of the extremist Muslim world are brought up to hate Jews. Their prejudice is caused by everybody telling them that Jews are bad all the time. Whereas here, people are not (for the most part) brought up to hate anyone in that extreme. So fewer people do. What your parents believe is definitely a major factor in determining what you believe. And then, at a point, depending on how well instilled said beliefs are, you might change your mind and disagree with what you've been brought up to believe. I think the first time you are away from your parents, college for example, would help to adjust your beliefs.

Jefferson Views

Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia show him to be a different person than what other sources have told me he is. In history classes (not just this year) and books about history, people have talked about how no one was really what they seemed. This year in history class we read about him and got a more realistic picture of him. However, apart from history class, everything and everyone seems to portray him as some great hero- writer of the Declaration of Independence and purchaser of Louisiana. I'd read that he might have supposedly fathered a child by a slave. Looking at his descendents and the general record of him, everyone or almost everyone seems to think of him as an almost perfect being who absolutely supported equality. That picture of his descendents shows white and black people, equal.

To me, that's a little silly. Most of the founding fathers and people of their generation and around it said that they were against slavery, yet did little about it. It wasn't just blacks they were prejudiced against. Indians, women, immigrants, foreigners, Northeners, Southeners, nobody liked each other. So what we read wasn't really surprising. Thomas Jefferson thought the same things, generally, as the rest of the people around him. So it is a little disturbing to see it written so clearly his thoughts on others, but it isn't unexpected.

For the Declaration of Independence, he (and the others who wrote it) weren't trying to cover every situation. They weren't trying to draft a carefully scripted record of who deserves what, for why, and the circumstances of being equal and who should be equal. They weren't trying to write the fine script. They needed a provoking, defiant speech against the British. That's all. They had to be as general as possible so that as many people as possible would help fight against the British. They couldn't outright condemn people who were different (except the British, obviously), for they needed all the fighters, black and white, they could get. They couldn't condemn racism, or slavery, or else the wealthy plantation owners would withold their aid. They couldn't do anything in fact, except state that everyone's equal and ignore the fact that no, they didn't really mean that. Jefferson wasn't racist. Even reading Notes I didn't feel that he was. He felt superior, certainly, but he reasoned through the fact. (Even if his reasoning was incredibly flawed. He based intelligence on musical ability? Well, then, I'm certainly not intelligent, then!) He didn't hate blacks.

My conclusions from all this are two: that people's real personality gets filtered out through the ages, and that Thomas Jefferson was more ordinary than anyone thinks. He was not the true advocate of absolute equality, but he wasn't a horrible person, either. You have to take him in context of his times. And whether he meant to or not, he did lead to a better America.

Willy vs Cora Tucker

Compare Cora Tucker to Willy Loman. Where does one succeed where the other fails?

Their definitions of success are different. Cora Tucker sees success as making a difference in one's community for the better. Willy Loman sees success as having a good, steady job because one is well-liked. Willy is not well-liked (or a good worker) so he gets fired. He loses his success. Cora Tucker doesn't have the best job, nor is she well-like by everyone. Yet she makes a difference for the better in people's lives so she has achieved her version of success. She is also happy, as well. If you switched their definitions of success, they both fail. Willy doesn't make a difference in the community- he is preoccupied by himself and his sons alone. Mainly Biff. Cora Tucker isn't the most well-liked person, nor does she have a well-paying, good job as Willy defines it. But success is measured by one's own definition, so she is successful. Kind of interesting, that.

Willy and Individual Opportunity

What does Willy believe about ‘individual opportunity’? What does he thinks makes someone able to be successful?

Willy believes that to be successful, you have to be well-liked. To him, that means that you have to be popular and liked for your personality, not your ethics or virtues or good things. He bases his whole mindset off this idea. He expects people like Biff (and, I think, Happy) to be successful and respected because they're social and friendly. Supposedly, anyway. He can't understand that being simply hardworking and intelligent will get you places.

To me, liked in Willy's mind stands for being respected as we think about it and well-liked stands for simply less. When you're well-liked, people think you're a great person, they love you and invite you to parties and stuff but don't give you great jobs. When you're liked, you're more likely to be respected. You don't have to like someone to respect them. I expect there are people who hate their bosses, but if their boss is efficient and fair, then they respect them. They don't like them personally, but professionally they do, if that makes sense. Willy doesn't understand that, and that's why he gets fired at the end. He doesn't understand that he isn't respected- he may be a nice guy (or in his case, may have been a nice guy)- but he is not good at his work.

(Personally, I think Willy's a dense idiot, but that has nothing to do with the question so I won't say anything else.)

Speeches 1&2

I forgot to blog yesterday about this. So I'll just do one longer entry.

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The speeches were actually really interesting. It was cool to see how most people set up things differently. We all had the same basic outlines: History, claim, reasons, backing, qualifier, conclusion, etc. But we all wrote and presented our speeches differently. Some people had more than others and some people had less. Some people relied almost completely on emotion and some people relied almost completely on logic. Most people were in the middle. There were quite a few really good speeches, too. The way people drew upon quotes and personal experiences was interesting, as was everyone's approach to the conditions of rebuttal/qualifier part.

The first day we did it was more interesting than the second, simply because I don't have to ability to focus for that long on the speeches. I kept spacing out and going all distracted. It's not that the last speeches were more boring- it's just that I was losing concentration.

My speech went better than I thought it would. I thought I would fail. I ran out of time and didn't do everything justice. But all in all, I think it went well. I have no idea if that was a problem for other people as well. Five minutes is a lot shorter than I thought it would be. I was also a lot less nervous than I thought I would be. Maybe that was because I was thinking about lunch the whole time.

EDIT: Were we supposed to blog about one person's in particular? I can't really remember what people said what anymore. I do remember that I thought that Brittney and Nick M had good presentations. I know other people did too but I've forgotten anything else. Oops.

What is Emerson saying it takes to be successful? Do you agree? Is it that easy?

Emerson is saying that to be successful, one has to trust only in himself, reject as much authority over yourself as you can, assume that you and only you are brilliant and think of everything in a new way. He goes into a lot of detail about all this- explaining how people have become the unthinking sheep of great thinkers- always accepting others' views on things. He says that if you accept authority from above- from a government, God, or whoever- you cease to think for yourself and acquiese to their ideas on everything. He says that people have the ability to be absolutely individual and not allow others to influence them at all. He explains this in far more detail than I can summarize here- but that's basically his idea.

I disagree. People cannot think only their own thoughts, unless they're a hermit living out in the middle of nowhere, and even that's debatable. We are all influenced by everything around us. We think the thoughts we're raised wiht and influenced by and even our most original thoughts are simply extensions of a disagreement with the norm. I could have been born in Outer Mongolia and thought only of camels and sandstorms. Instead, I'm typing this. Not because I'm more or less original, or independent, but because I have to be. I have no choice. I find it difficult to think of something completely my own. How is it possible to form a completely original hypothesis when one lives in a world where everything you can draw on to help form your conclusions nullifies the originality in it?

Also- I disagree with his points about authority. He explains that when people put their minds and services for the use of one (or many) person(s), then they lose the right to express themselves, and that's bad. He's right to some extent. If, say, a despot takes over and orders them to do stuff, then they will to save themselves. Sometimes, people die to fit the whims of a dictator- losing every other right as well. I agree that that's awful beyond just bad. But people can't descend into anarchy. They can't reject all authority. We need someone to look up to, to base our moral judgment on, to keep us from falling into random violence. If everyone was allowed to do whatever they wanted because everyone is right about everything there would be murder and prejudice and collapse of civilization. Serial killers believe that they are right. According to Emerson, they are. And yet I know no one who would condone a society that lets them roam unhindered.

Emerson also states somewhere in his long essay that he doesn't care about the poor, because they're not his poor. He says it takes courage to defy the societal norm of giving to those less needy. He says that charity is simply a way for people to follow authority and example and do what everyone thinks is right, not what they think is right. He says it's an immoral act. I don't think so. The poor, etc., need help. Does it matter if the help is given wrongly or grudgingly? Isn't some help, or help for wrongful reasons, better than none at all? Don't the ends justify the means in this case? Good things are done. The means hurt nothing save perhaps pride. It doesn't matter if you hate someone simply for your own reasons, or only because you feel no connection to them. If they are hurt, you should have a duty as a fellow human being to help them. Of course, I wouldn't say to help Hitler or someone like that. But denying aid to the poor simply because you are not, and never were poor is far more wrong to me than rebelling against society and harming people by omission in the process.

I was going to say something else, but I forgot so oh well. :)