Part One: Right from the first page, The Idea of a Local Economy got me thinking slightly off the topic of its original points. Berry spoke about local economies, but it got me thinking about the world as a whole. He said, "we can't hope to solve these problems without an increase of public awareness and concern." From that, I started thinking about how much I hear on a day-to-day basis about the economy, global warming, and just our environment in general. It seems to me that the awareness is one half and the concern is the other half of what we need to solve problems. I see the awareness being pushed out upon people, but seeing concern is not as occurring. I am guilty of hearing about something that is meant to be important and then not really thinking twice about it, but I think that more people need to be in touch with the way the world is today. Berry goes on to say, "Our methodologies of land use have strayed from our old sympathetic attempts to imitate natural processes..." Today's world is extremely, if not almost entirely, based on the new findings in all sorts of technology, and becoming less and less so to do with nature. We are now becoming less grateful, less knowledgeable about our surroundings, and less skillful in the aspects of the natural world, as Berry stated. It really switched a light bulb in me to really want to get out from behind all the technology that we are all blessed to have in this world and get my hands dirty. I want to do things like going outside and gardening with my grandma like I did growing up, and be more involved with nature in general.
Part Two: An important issue that is often undermined is success. The topic of success is broad, but I want to talk about what makes someone successful. Someone who busks on the streets every weekend just to make a little extra cash may consider themselves to be just as successful as someone who owns their own business and can afford to live a luxurious life. Success is not counted by fortune or fame, as some may think. During my senior year of high school, my English teacher gave the class an assignment to write about three different successful people. Many spoke about athletes, movie stars, and singers. In general, they wrote about people that everybody would know, and based their popularity as success. I chose to write about people that I know personally, and explained how I thought they were successful. As a result of using the three people I did, I was told to completely start over. I was infuriated because of the time I spent on that project. The only reason I was being told to re-write it was because my teacher thought that the people I chose were not successful merely for the reason that he didn't know who they were. Success, like I said before, is not supposed to be about the number of figures you make or how many materials you own or how known you may be, and I see so often that people do not pursue what they actually want to in life just because of the fear of "not being successful." In reality, one's success relies on themselves as an individual and not the opinions of others.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Last Exploration from Chris Phillips
"The Idea of a Local Economy" was an essay unlike any other that I can remember reading. Wendell Berry takes a somewhat unique stance on what needs to be done in order for the consumer to take charge of the economy they participate in. As it stands, he says, "[the] economy is in conflict at almost every point with the household." Basically, what Berry tries to argue is that the average consumer should put emphasis on providing all of their own needs, so that they do not need to depend on a global economy in order to survive. He says that communities need to develop what he calls a "local economy," in which citizens focus on stabilizing the needs of the local area. The idea behind this is that it will ensure that the local economy is not entirely dependent on importing their goods and exporting commodities. There are many issues that arise when a global economy arises that is dependent on imports and exports, namely environmental damage. When one area has only the export of logging trees for lumber, they tend to do so irresponsibly. While I agree that local economies could be a decent solution in order to secure the needs of many communities and decrease environmental damage, the whole idea is just too abstract when compared to the way the world works today. The term "world economy" doesn't come from nowhere- every country in the world is involved, sometimes heavily, in worldwide trade. It just isn't feasible that every community or even the majority of communities halt the product of years in trade revolution.
An issue that I think needs to be talked about is the current system set in place for youth education. In the years before college, students are taught that grades are the single most important thing that they can focus on. They are ranked on their ability to follow directions from the moment that they enter gradeschool. In my opinion, the school system in many first world countries could use an entire overhaul. Education should focus on teaching kids how to think critically and analytically. It is these skills that will be most applicable, not only in college, but in the work world as well as every day life. For instance, when you think about middle school biology, what do you remember? What I remember is learning the structure of a cell, and being forced to memorize each piece of the structure. This "memorize-regurgitate-forget" style of schooling is by no means the best use of a student's time. Some might argue that introducing a range of subjects and making students follow the lesson plans can lead students to know what they are interested in, and will help them choose a career path. There are a few easy counter arguments to this point, however. First of all, I know that I don't speak for myself when I say that, by my senior year of highschool, I had absolutely no clue where I would fit in to the working world. The style of schooling I grew up with essentially taught me only how to be good at school, and not that the topics I was being taught were actually interesting. To expand on that, I think that it's very likely that there have been students who lost potential interest in a field they would have excelled in due to the unintuitive method in which it was presented to them.
An issue that I think needs to be talked about is the current system set in place for youth education. In the years before college, students are taught that grades are the single most important thing that they can focus on. They are ranked on their ability to follow directions from the moment that they enter gradeschool. In my opinion, the school system in many first world countries could use an entire overhaul. Education should focus on teaching kids how to think critically and analytically. It is these skills that will be most applicable, not only in college, but in the work world as well as every day life. For instance, when you think about middle school biology, what do you remember? What I remember is learning the structure of a cell, and being forced to memorize each piece of the structure. This "memorize-regurgitate-forget" style of schooling is by no means the best use of a student's time. Some might argue that introducing a range of subjects and making students follow the lesson plans can lead students to know what they are interested in, and will help them choose a career path. There are a few easy counter arguments to this point, however. First of all, I know that I don't speak for myself when I say that, by my senior year of highschool, I had absolutely no clue where I would fit in to the working world. The style of schooling I grew up with essentially taught me only how to be good at school, and not that the topics I was being taught were actually interesting. To expand on that, I think that it's very likely that there have been students who lost potential interest in a field they would have excelled in due to the unintuitive method in which it was presented to them.
Dixon Shapiro: Last Exploration
After reading "The Idea of a Local Economy," I thought that Wendell Berry was very meticulous in saying that the economy is very corrupt, from how big corporations are destroying local, small business's to how the products we get from this economy is ruining the planet's natural resources. One example of this is when she says on page three, "Wal-Mart, for example, as a large corporation...and its small competitors virtually none." She is telling us that these large corporations are putting their competitors out of business, and then completely control their consumers by manipulating their prices to make even more money. When I read this, I became very frustrated at our country. This county was supposed to be a symbol to the rest of the world, where anyone could become anything, and that this was the land of the free and opportunity. Now I know that it is all just a lie, that the citizens of this country are slaves to these big corporations. We rely so heavily on them that they can manipulate us into doing whatever they want us to do. I also agree with what Lillie says about how we are very dependent on others to change things. Everybody should come together to solve the problems our world has. I heard recently from a TV show that goes along with this: "One person might not have 100% of the solution, but if you have 100 people with 1% of the solution..." (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 1).
I would like to talk about how our society has been reducing the number of things everybody reads. I truly believe that people should read more, and not just watch TV. Even I will admit that it's sometimes easier to just watch something instead of reading a book, but there are somethings that a movie can't do that a book can. With a book, you can imagine a person that completely matches the descriptions you read in a book. In a movie, you sometimes have to suffer through a bad casting. Let's face it, nobody liked Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan in the Twilight movies (Yes, I have read all of the books. Don't judge me, it's not the story that made me read it, it was Stephenie Meyer's incredible writing skills). Also, a lot of popular movies were based on books, and there are only a few movies in the world that do not completely ruin the name of the book they based the movie on. One of these few exceptions are the Harry Potter movies (not all of them, I mostly meant the first movie. All of the others are debatable.) and the Marvel superhero movies (even though it's based on comic books, and not actual novels) (Except for Iron Man 2,3, Thor, Thor 2, and anything before the first Iron Man movie, and don't get me started on the movies owned by Fox and Sony). If you want an example of the worst movie based on a novel, look no further than the Eragon movie (I am literally gagging here. That was the worst movie I had ever seen based on a novel). As for a comic book origin, the most recent Fantastic 4 movie takes the prize (worst 2.5 hours I have ever spent in my entire life. If I could erase the memories I have of that movie, I would do it in a heartbeat). Why would anybody set themselves up for disappointment when you can just read the original book that made people want to make a movie out of? I really hope some people will reconsider their viewpoints on books. It is one of greatest paths anybody can take to a whole new world of imagination and creativity.
To those of you who are interested, I recommend these books:
The Harry Potter series, the Eragon series, the Twilight series, and the book "Ready Player One"
These Authors too:
Rick Riordan, (read his books by chronological release date, oldest to most recent. Otherwise some things won't make a lot of sense) and Brandon Sanderson (start with the Mistborn books. They're his best works in my opinion)
I would like to talk about how our society has been reducing the number of things everybody reads. I truly believe that people should read more, and not just watch TV. Even I will admit that it's sometimes easier to just watch something instead of reading a book, but there are somethings that a movie can't do that a book can. With a book, you can imagine a person that completely matches the descriptions you read in a book. In a movie, you sometimes have to suffer through a bad casting. Let's face it, nobody liked Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan in the Twilight movies (Yes, I have read all of the books. Don't judge me, it's not the story that made me read it, it was Stephenie Meyer's incredible writing skills). Also, a lot of popular movies were based on books, and there are only a few movies in the world that do not completely ruin the name of the book they based the movie on. One of these few exceptions are the Harry Potter movies (not all of them, I mostly meant the first movie. All of the others are debatable.) and the Marvel superhero movies (even though it's based on comic books, and not actual novels) (Except for Iron Man 2,3, Thor, Thor 2, and anything before the first Iron Man movie, and don't get me started on the movies owned by Fox and Sony). If you want an example of the worst movie based on a novel, look no further than the Eragon movie (I am literally gagging here. That was the worst movie I had ever seen based on a novel). As for a comic book origin, the most recent Fantastic 4 movie takes the prize (worst 2.5 hours I have ever spent in my entire life. If I could erase the memories I have of that movie, I would do it in a heartbeat). Why would anybody set themselves up for disappointment when you can just read the original book that made people want to make a movie out of? I really hope some people will reconsider their viewpoints on books. It is one of greatest paths anybody can take to a whole new world of imagination and creativity.
To those of you who are interested, I recommend these books:
The Harry Potter series, the Eragon series, the Twilight series, and the book "Ready Player One"
These Authors too:
Rick Riordan, (read his books by chronological release date, oldest to most recent. Otherwise some things won't make a lot of sense) and Brandon Sanderson (start with the Mistborn books. They're his best works in my opinion)
Last Exploration: Lillie Weber
When I first began to read "The Idea of a Local Economy", I was not entirely sure if I would enjoy reading the essay. As it went on I really became interested when Wendell Berry stated, "We have assumed increasingly over the last five hundred years that nature is merely a supply of 'raw materials,' and that we may safely posses those materials merely by taking them"and then later on stating, "... a proper concern for nature and our use of nature must be practiced not by our proxy-holders, but by ourselves. A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life". Those two quotes really made me stop and think about how we are depending on others to change things, instead of taking control ourselves. Many ignore the problems of just using up all the raw materials and pretend that the problem does not exist. I agree with Amber when she said, " A lot of these problems are major problems in our country and people know they are deep down but still ignore them like they aren't there and I don't really know why." People ignore the bad things that happen everyday and it blows my mind how they can just walk away and pretend it's not happening. Or even when people pretend to care about what's happening, and do nothing about it.
One topic that I believe is ignored is mistreatment in nursing homes. Having a grandmother that had to be in a nursing home for a few months, I had noticed and experienced things that I never thought possible in such a trusted place. Many residents seemed dirty, unhappy, moved roughly, and did not enjoy life at all. One day, my grandmother fell and they didn't even document it. Next thing we know, she had to be rushed to the ER. After seeing such horrible treatment in that nursing home, I decided that I wanted to make a difference and take care of the elderly the way they deserve to be treated. I am currently a PCA (personal care assistant). At the place I work at, things are so different than the place my grandmother resided. The other PCA's and I, along with the nurses, take the best care of every single person. Even if they are bitter, even if they can't do anything for themselves and need everything done with them, we still walk into their room with smiles on our faces because they deserve to be treated with respect. Many are veterans, or wives of veterans. Some places seem to forget that they were people before they lost their memory, and that's what causes abuse in the homes. People work at these places when they are not right for the job, get frustrated, and lash out on the residents. Falls go undocumented, which could potentially kill a resident. Many things are wrong within the systems of the nursing homes, and a lot of people don't pay attention to it when they put their loved ones in them.
One topic that I believe is ignored is mistreatment in nursing homes. Having a grandmother that had to be in a nursing home for a few months, I had noticed and experienced things that I never thought possible in such a trusted place. Many residents seemed dirty, unhappy, moved roughly, and did not enjoy life at all. One day, my grandmother fell and they didn't even document it. Next thing we know, she had to be rushed to the ER. After seeing such horrible treatment in that nursing home, I decided that I wanted to make a difference and take care of the elderly the way they deserve to be treated. I am currently a PCA (personal care assistant). At the place I work at, things are so different than the place my grandmother resided. The other PCA's and I, along with the nurses, take the best care of every single person. Even if they are bitter, even if they can't do anything for themselves and need everything done with them, we still walk into their room with smiles on our faces because they deserve to be treated with respect. Many are veterans, or wives of veterans. Some places seem to forget that they were people before they lost their memory, and that's what causes abuse in the homes. People work at these places when they are not right for the job, get frustrated, and lash out on the residents. Falls go undocumented, which could potentially kill a resident. Many things are wrong within the systems of the nursing homes, and a lot of people don't pay attention to it when they put their loved ones in them.
The Last Exploration by Miguel Radilla
The Idea of a Local Economy is an article that exposes the inconvenient truths and realities about our consumerism at large which results in repercussions to the world we pertain to. It starts out going straight to point where Wendell Berry mentions, “We have assumed increasingly over the last five hundred years that nature is merely a supply of raw materials, and that we may safely possess those materials.” We assume that nature is this never ending well of renewable resources and with this false notion, it’s okay to continue going to this well, thinking it will give us resources forever. This type of consumerism is prevalent in the develop world because most of us who pertain to the develop world have indirectly forfeited a skill that is thought to be not important, which is the skill of being able use nature- “Our methodologies of land use have strayed from old sympathetic attempts to imitate natural processes, and have come more and more to resemble the methodology of mining, even as mining itself has become more technologically powerful and more brutal.” The develop world has traded this skill of being able to use nature properly because we rely on big corporations to provide us with products that are feasible to acquire at our convenience as well at an ideal price. These powerful entities (Corporations) provide us with everything we need at an ideal price is the result of predatory pricing because they can afford losses in intent to drive out small /local businesses in the marketplace supplanting competitions anywhere they go. For example Berry states “Wal-Mart is a corporation “freely” competing against local, privately owned businesses has virtually all the freedom, and its small competitors virtually none.” My stance on this article is that I wholeheartedly agree on what it stance for. It pushes for us to support our local economy instead of being stuck in this inescapable magnetic field that are big corporations that only seek to fill their own pockets. The question is that are we willing as a society to change our paradigm? Do we just continue to live in a world where the beautiful lie is better than the inconvenient truth? It starts with us in having a say and a voice to our local economy on fighting big corporate businesses on having legislation to prohibits big entities taking control of our local economies. We can continue living in this façade we call the beautiful lie, but once the resources are squandered, this façade will break exposing the harsh truth and it’ll be too late.
Brian makes great point on saying that it’s easy to live in a bliss ignorant world where “people know these problems exist but they choose to ignore these problems. If these problems are not directly hurting them in their lives, they do not think they have to do anything about it because it’s benefiting them now.”
I enjoyed the part of class where we listened to Dub FX. I wish there had been a project where we chose an artist or genre of music that we love and explaining to our peers why this genre or artist is special to us. This project could include favorite meaningful lyrics, and explaining your interpretation of the lyrics. Also explaining the culture and paradigm behind the genre and artist. Also breaking certain stereotypes and prejudice thoughts behind certain types of music. I feel music is really important, and for example, if you guys have any songs or artist in particular that have special meaning to you, I would be happy to listen to them. Listening to people’s favorite songs or music can really give you an insight to what this person is going through because I believe the music we listen to fits well to what a person is likely going through.
This class was my by far my favorite class of the whole semester. Established great relationships and everybody was super cool. I know I didn’t establish some relationships with some of you, but I still learned things about each of you that I had not known. Good luck to everyone!
Brian makes great point on saying that it’s easy to live in a bliss ignorant world where “people know these problems exist but they choose to ignore these problems. If these problems are not directly hurting them in their lives, they do not think they have to do anything about it because it’s benefiting them now.”
I enjoyed the part of class where we listened to Dub FX. I wish there had been a project where we chose an artist or genre of music that we love and explaining to our peers why this genre or artist is special to us. This project could include favorite meaningful lyrics, and explaining your interpretation of the lyrics. Also explaining the culture and paradigm behind the genre and artist. Also breaking certain stereotypes and prejudice thoughts behind certain types of music. I feel music is really important, and for example, if you guys have any songs or artist in particular that have special meaning to you, I would be happy to listen to them. Listening to people’s favorite songs or music can really give you an insight to what this person is going through because I believe the music we listen to fits well to what a person is likely going through.
This class was my by far my favorite class of the whole semester. Established great relationships and everybody was super cool. I know I didn’t establish some relationships with some of you, but I still learned things about each of you that I had not known. Good luck to everyone!
The Last Exploration- My Thoughts On " The Idea of a Local Economy".
This essay was very well written. Through out the essay Wendell Berry spoke about how the cooperation are effecting the world. I agree with what Amber wrote in her exploration. " A lot of these problems are major problems in our country and people know they are deep down but still ignore them like they aren't there and I don't know why." It is true we do ignore problems that we have here and we know that they could very well be fixed if we really wanted them too. If more people spoke up instead of hiding in silence we could change a lot of things. " What has happened is that most people in our country, and apparently most people in the "developed" world, have given proxies to the corporations or governments to provide entertainment, education, child care, care of the sick and the elderly, and many other kinds of "service" that once were carried on informally and inexpensively by individuals or households or communities" was a line written in the essay that I thought provided a huge point in the essay. We used to not have all the huge businesses like Walmart, Kroger, or Meijer. People used to have to go out to local grocery stores or downtown if they needed something else. We use to be a nation that did things on our own. We had skills and did not have to depend on other people to do them. Instead of now having one person that does something it seems to take a whole business. People seem to be letting themselves go down a path that if we do not change it will not get better.
A huge issue that I think is very downplayed in our culture is eating disorders. I do not remember in school ever having a day where we just discussed the signs and symptoms of eating disorders. We also never talked about the treatment for them and how family members can help someone who is suffering from an eating disorder. One of the hardest things my family went through was the death of my cousin. She had Anorexia most of her life and died from it at the age of twenty eight. She did not know that there were millions of other people who suffered from the same horrible thing she did. Her parents did not know how to find her help and when they did it would be too late. She passed away a couple of days before she was to go into treatment. Her eating disorder had gotten so bad though that most people could not help her because they were not equipped to give her the medical attention that she would need. There should be more centers all over to help those that are in the very worst shape.
The Last Exploration - Allison Clark
The Last Exploration
The Idea of a Local Economy
As I was reading The Idea of a Local Economy, I found myself confused at some points with the terminology. Personally, I'm not one that is up to date or even acquainted with what's happening with the economy now, but I do my best to stay somewhat aware of it. Throughout the whole essay, I definitely found myself agreeing with hat Berry had to say, and his views. Living in Delaware, Ohio, I can really connect and agree with how he feels about local businesses, simply because we have so many here. Our downtown really thrives on it. We have businesses like Son of Thurman and the Bare Bowl, that really bring our community together. This also ensures that the money stays within our community as well. Berry says "Without prosperous local economies, the people have no power and the land no voice." (p.33) With a Walmart and McDonald's right down the road from our prosperous downtown, its scary at times that big business is only trying to break it down, and benefit for themselves. Like Brian says in his exploration, its extremely selfish of these businesses to do this only for their gain. It not only effects local business, but the environment as well, which is extremely alarming. Berry speaks the importance of this struggle in his essay, that I find very important.
My Own Thoughts
Something that I think is under appreciated in our society today is the appreciation for history, and everything that came before us. While many think this includes the long hour one spent in their history class learning about the Indians or the signing of the Declaration of Independence, that's not all it is. Being a history major, I may have a biased opinion to how interesting the subjects are but definitely not the importance that they have to our society now. If we take the time to look back, we can learn so much. Believe or not, history repeats itself in so many ways. We as a society often fail a second or third time because we don't take the time to look back and learn from the mistakes that those before us have made. For an example, if Adolph Hitler had taken the time to look back in history, he may have won the war (not a good thing in retrospect but for him it would have been). The tactic that brought Hitler's reign to an end was fighting a two front war against Russia. This caused his forces to be weak and easily taken down. Before his time, a man named Napoleon Bonaparte did the exact same thing, resulting to the end of his reign as well. It seems silly that we could fix a lot of problems in our society, or at least begin to, by simply looking back in time and taking notes from the mistakes those generations made in the same situation. Society in theory never really changes, it merely evolves. It's like we're in a test and we have the answer sheet in our hands but we choose not to use it. It doesn't have to be interesting but it is important that we know he significance that our history has to our society now.
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