Who is the Hero?

          To answer the question of whether war is good or bad, you have to choose a side in the war. During World War II, the Allies united against nations like Germany and Japan, nations that were planning to take control of the world and rule it with an iron fist. Most people on the Allies considered Hitler a heretic bent on eradicating the Jews, so they united against someone who they deemed evil. Hitler genuinely thought that he was a messenger from God and that he could cleanse the world of the unclean humans. Both sides of the war thought themselves as heroes, but was there really any? I believe that the Allies were the heroes because we rescued the race of the Jews from being completely exterminated, but I come from a biased stand point. I was raised to believe that discrimination was wrong, but it may have been acceptable back in those times. We think differently now than we did back then.
          And then there are the battles when no one handled the situation right. Pilgrims landed in America and exterminated any Native Americans who fought for their land, and the ones that surrendered were treated like animals. The Pilgrims were wrong by ripping the Natives' land away, but the Natives' should not have resorted to violence so quickly.
          It's sad to see all the lives lost in pointless wars. Wars that are caused by one person so that they can gain power or destroy others. No, I don't think that war would be necessary if everyone was kind and selfless, but there are ruthless psychopaths out there that are able to convince people to do incredible acts of evil, evil that must be put to an end. War is necessary in an imperfect world, to maintain freedom for our nation, to protect others from hostile forces, or to end an evil that has been left unchecked too long.
          War is a curse, but it is ours to bear,


-Elijah Lewis

Why War? Jeremy Sande

If I had to pick between war being inevitable or not, I would have to say it is inevitable. But to me, it is much more than just a simple yes or no question. You have to answer a couple of questions before making a final decision. “What causes war?” In my mind the short answer would be conflicts between people whether it be based on morals, ideas, or anything else. “What purpose does war serve?” There are many hypotheses on this topic, each one given by a different person. The only thing I have found universal among all of them is that war causes change. Whether or not this is good is based on the individual. “What will happen if war stops?” Through my experiences, I have found that most people would say something along the lines of a “The world would be a better place.” For me I believe that if war was eradicated the violence would be placed somewhere else thus solving nothing. The final questions references Why War? ”Is war a bad thing?” This is a question I can't find an answer to. The logic of it conflicts with my morals.

    After all of these questions, to me war may be eradicated but conflict is constant within the limits of humanity.

Jeremy

Why War?

I do not think that war is a part of the human condition. Humanity has found violence to be an effective way of dealing with conflict. In the times of ancient civilization there was glory and honor to be won and to be fought for. As Freud said “- in it’s present-day form war is no longer an opportunity for achieving the old ideals of heroism and that owing to the perfection of instruments of war destruction a future war might involve the extermination of one perhaps both of the antagonists.” Notice that Freud, a psychologist, stated that both combatants in an act of war are ‘Antagonists’.

Mankind as a member of the animal kingdom has an instinct located somewhere in their reptilian brain, that has programmed them to have an unpredictable need to assert their dominance on one another. This primal instinct and not war is a part of any human. I raise this question, when a human holds power over his peers for selfish reasons, is there an internal conflict taking place between the mind and the soul? If babies are born completely innocent capable of nothing more than learning and loving, that urge to take control over other human beings therefore must be an internal war with the purest most innocent part of your soul. This internal conflict results in the feeling when you know you are making a decision that could have a negative effect on you and the people around you.

Julian

     After reading your story for the second time I discovered, possibly, something you may not particularly like. Actually, I am pretty certain you are not going to like it at all. So here it is, you mirror your mother.
     The first and most obvious similarity centers around the suffering you both lived through. Your mother finds delight in her personal sacrifices, priding herself on her ability to give things up. You on the other hand, pride yourself on, and I quote, "In spite of going to only a third-rate college, he had, on his own initiative, come out with a first-rate college education; in spite of growing up dominated by a small mind, he was free of prejudice and unafraid to face facts," (156).  Here, you pride yourself on 'giving up' the easy life, where you could have gotten a third-rate education and a small mind.
     However, in your last bit you attempt to blur the definition of 'prejudice', perhaps to save yourself the shame of recognizing the similarity between you and your mother. Yes, you are free from your mothers prejudice against blacks, but you fill that empty spot with a prejudice against whites. A perfectly logical prejudice, but a prejudice just the same.
     So while you're recovering from you mothers death, I suggest you spend some time soul searching as well.

Megan

Dear Julian,

           You seem to be a smart person, but you aren’t treating your mother right. In fact, it seems to me that everything you do is out of contempt for her. I know that times are tough, but that is no reason to treat your own mother worse than a stranger. An argument every now and then is normal, but you are showing constant maliciousness towards her. You have got to remember that you only get on mother, and when you lose her you want to have the closure that you treated her well. I am afraid that you won’t have that closure, and when she does die, you’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life. Show your mother some kindness before it’s too late.

-thx,

Elijah

Pleasure in Darkness - Megan

While I agree with Elijah that the death of a loved one is bittersweet, I have a somewhat more 'pessimistic' view. In today's world teenage girls are constantly over-glorifying pain and depression. It has suddenly become 'cool' to be damaged and broken; some girls showing off cuts on their wrists like trophies, like the physical evidence of pain makes their pain superior. Girls fake a mental or eating disorder, just to grab attention where ever they can. Girls are seduced into finding a kind of sick joy in their unhappiness, because as 'one of the damaged' you can enter a community of broken girls all basking in their misfortunes; supporting each others recovery, but each not really wanting to leave the comforts of belonging to a group of people. It's disgusting that these girls are driven to the extreme of faking this kind of pain, just to receive the attention that all humans crave; and because of this girls and boys alike who desperately need help and comfort and kindness are denied these things since no one can tell if they are faking it. 


(Side note: Boys may be included in this too but frankly I haven't a clue what goes on in your bloody minds.)

Pleasure in Darkness - Elijah

Elijah's Post

I don't know if everyone will agree, but I think that the pleasure in sadness comes from love. You only cry when someone you care about has died. Maybe you feel pleasure that you knew someone that you loved enough to cry over. When my great grandma died, we were really sad for a long time, but we knew that she was in a better place. We also knew, with her suffering from Alzheimer's disease, that life was difficult because every day we saw her, years of her life were erased and she could barely remember any of us. It was only until the last week or so of her life that she completely remembered us and that was one of the few times I saw that she felt as if she was with her family. Sadness is bittersweet, but I like remembering the best of the people who passed on, freezing the moment they were at their happiest.

Pleasure in sadness - Asher

     I've never fully understood how someone could possibly find pleasure in sadness. Is it because them being sad provides them with the breakthrough they've been waiting for? Perhaps being sad is the only way that they can feel true emotion, and in turn that brings them pleasure. As i said I truly don't understand it and I may never do so. I suppose it's one of life's many unanswered questions.

9/11/13

Great conversation on Rothschild's Fiddle today!  NICE thinking you guys!   Here are some of the themes you came up with after our discussion:

• appreciate whet you have when you have it.
• pain can be consuming and blinding
• closing yourself to others hurts you more 
• you have to be able to forgive, even if it is forgiving yourself
• you cannot learn or grow from a painful experience if you stay in non-forgiveness of self
• try to see people's true character, not just what is on the outside
• to be the best version of yourself, surround yourself with people that help you to grow.

wow - that is great.

Here is what we are blogging on this week.   Because there is no additional reading, I expect well thought out paragraphs on this topic that you chose!

WHY IS THERE PLEASURE IN SADNESS??

happy blogging!

Rothschilds Fiddle - Megan

Megan's Post

I think that Jacob did not change his behavior towards his wife, even when she was a few days away from dying, because changing the attitude you have held for a lifetime is incredibly difficult, and takes time, determination, and a public acceptance of your past behavior. Jacob, close to his own death, did not see a profit in changing his attitude so late in the game, and therefore he did not change.

Rothschilds Fiddle - Elijah

Elijah's Post:

Jacob doesn't show Martha affection because he already has his heart occupied by greed. His life would have been worth something if he was kind, took care of his wife, and wasn't hostile to everyone who took a second to talk to him. I personally feel sorry for his wife who lived in terror of him in the 52 years she lived with him.

Welcome!

Welcome to Great Books at HuckleBerry!

We're going to use blogspot to talk about a weekly question that relates to our reading for the week.   Your blog answer can be long or short.   It's up to you!   But try to extend the conversation.   If someone submits one idea, don't just agree with it.  Extend the thought with your own ideas, supporting evidence, or why you disagree because of some experience or thought that you have.   This is JUST blogging, so you don't need to have all of your evidence and a thesis and all of THAT.   Let's just use this as a way to engage each other outside of class with some of the discussion that is going on.   Your blogging shouldn't take more than 30 minutes!

For our first conversation about Rothschild's fiddle, let's discuss the following question:

Why doesn't Jacob show his wife any affection, even after he knows she is dying?