Sunday, January 24, 2010

class

Language Arts class took a pleasant spin from talking about sexism to talking about real bodily stuff (such as drugs and disabilities). This is obviously good for me (though it might be bad for others), because I simply have more to say about the whether or not some drugs are good or the extend in which a disability would be an obstacle for the future (they even got into dying with dignity which I would get into on my next entry).
We will first start with drugs. Drugs affect the body through altering the mind (IE drugs get people “high” because they chance the way people think). Drug was discussed in a few different ways: first is of course, the conventional drug (marijuana, cocaine, etc) and second is a little more evasive, television and violence. Conventional drugs, of course, alter the body by altering the mind. The debate here is whether or not these alternations are accepted. It is much easier to see this argument if we take a step back from drugs like cocaine (which, there seems to be a consensus of it being bad) and look at drugs like painkillers. Painkillers are legal and are widely prescribed by doctors, but if they are use in excess then there is no difference between that and a schedule 1 drug. The way that television and violence is related to the mind is that both have become intertwined into society as a social norm. People argue that this causes a dependence on these “drugs” which also alter the way that we perceive the world. The argument here is to determine whether or not these influences of television are actually happen and if they do whether or not these effects are good. A good ground for this debate is to assess the direct influences of television. While it is true that television offer pretty violent scenes, but it also offers educational videos and shows. The question now becomes does the harms created by the violence outweigh the good produced by those educational clips.
The other topic that the class delves into is one that pertains disabilities. This has to do with the body because disabilities offer a severe limitation in what the body is capable of doing. To spur a discussion on this topic, we watched clips on whether or not life is worth living with a disability. We saw how people are able to adapt to the world and live a “normal” life despite being crippled. We have read how people do not like it when they are regarded as being unable. While there are people who deal with their disabilities, others decide that they rather die than live “without dignity”. Naturally the debate is about whether or not people of disabilities should die or not. The argument would be about how able are the people to adapt to their conditions. This debate, however, could easily be muttled because the answers to most of these questions are situational. Factors such as whether you are born with this disability, how you got disabled, what are your emotional stability levels, all factor into the decision of whether or not it is appropriate to pronounce a disabled man dead.

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