Text 1: "The knowledge of the real by the eye of clear insight is to be gained by one's own sight and not by the teacher's."
Response 1: I read this line several times before I could fully understand it. I can agree with this because I think there are things in life that have to be learned alone and through experiences not by a teacher. There are many things a teacher can teach you, but only you can learn the truth about yourself and the world around you.
Text 2: "The Eternal is real, the fleeting world is unreal;--this is that Discernment between things lasting and unlasting."
Response 2: I think this directly relates to the materialism we always talk about in class. Things that are eternal like love, faith, and friendship are lasting and "real" they are what we need in life. But things like money, goods, and status is fleeting and unlasting, it is not necessary for enlightenment.
Text 1: "One study in Philadelphia showed that the replacement value of the social services provided by congregations in that city was $250 million, and the total investment by the city of Philadelphia in social services was $522 million."
Response 1: I didn't know that congregations provided so much in terms of social services. It's amazing to consider that congregations can actually keep up with the government in terms of social spending.
Text 2: "Jesus forms communities and models generosity, which in turn inspires the crowd to be generous"
Response 2: I think it's important to realize this point. Most people think of Jesus as symbol of peace and love, which is true, but he is also an inspiration. He did not simply do miracles to prove he was God, he did it to inspire others to do the same. Admiring Jesus is not enough, we have to be like him as well.
Text 1: “Upward Mobility gives people the hope that their dreams may someday come true.”
Response #1: I couldn't agree more with this statement. As a business student I have heard the word "incentive" countless times and I think that one word sums up all of Capitalism. Upward mobility is the incentive for people to do anything, if no one has a chance to improve in society there is no purpose and no hope for them. If you look at communist nations this is most certainly true, no upward mobility means no production. The idea of the American dream itself is the just the notion that upward mobility is accessible to everyone.
Text 2: "The richest 1% of Americans owns 40% of the nations wealth, which is more than what is owned by the bottom 95%"
Response #2: I've heard this before many times and I think it's become the battle cry of the 99 Percenters. In truth I think this makes sense and don't see why people are outraged by it. It illustrates the wealth desperity in the nation, but every capitalist nation has wealth desperity, it's inherent in the system. If this statement upsets you than you're upset about a core concept of capitalism. In fact 40% is a low number, it's less than half of the nations wealth. When you consider that the richest 1% include people who run the US and every major industry it's amazing they only own 40% of the wealth, I'm sure in the days before regulation they owned much more (Rockefeller himself is known to have controlled more than 4% of America's wealth in his time).
Text 1: "In the past three decades 1/3 of the worlds total natural resources have been consumed."
Response: I was astounded by this statistic. I never knew we have wasted so many of our limited resources, and it's quite scary to think about. To put it in perspective that means out of the thousands of years man has been roaming the Earth and the billions of years that most of these resources have been available, in just the last 30 years, less than 1/3 the lifespan of a human in this day and age, 33% of it is gone. So someone born 30 years could very well see the entire depletion of all the Earth's natural resources in one lifetime. That is incredible and presses the need for research in renewable alternative energy.
Text 2: "Faith is taking the first step even though you do not see the whole staircase."
Response 2: I found this quote to be really powerful and completely true. Faith, by definition, is trusting in something you can't see or are not sure of. Therefore it takes a powerful person to have faith and it's a journey you undertake where the end is completely in the dark.
Response #1: This is an interesting statement, it makes me think that happiness may be more than just a state of mind, it may be a self-defense mechanism. It also opens the door for people to find happiness within their own situations rather than just gloom. It goes on to show money is not the root of equality or fairness, happiness is.
Text #1: " The 12-hour blaze is another high-profile incident."
Response #2: I found this article in the newspaper about another fire in a sweatshop in Bangladesh. I'm writing about it because I think it holds real relevance to our class and what fair trade can offer. In this fire, 10 people died. That's 10 people that could have been safer and making more, living more comfortably, had they ben working for a fair trade company instead of being forced to work in shabby sweatshops. It just made me really put a value on what fair trade has to offer in terms of literally saving lives.
Text #1: "The businesses foster communion with employees by paying particular attention to their health, well-being, and development."
Response #1: This is a strategy more American companies should follow. Many European and Asian companies pride themselves on caring for, respecting and developing their employees as a part of their culture. This makes employees more productive and improves their self worth. American corporations however belittle and misuse their employees and often pit them against each other in a greed fueled attempt at short term profits.
Text #2: "If this is how human beings really are, than the basis for a common life cannot be love, but fear"
Response #2: I believe that fear of consequences is the driving force behind the cohesion of society. The author is basically saying communities come about because people are forced to work together under some kind of threat, and I agree. Even in today's society a lot of financial agencies and corporations work together simply because they have to in order to increase profits and stay within the bounds of law, if their is no regulation than their is no point in trade or community because it becomes survival of the fittest.
Video 1: "They learned that it was not God keeping them hungry, but the government and the wealthy institutions."
Response 1: I think this is the most powerful quote of the video because it gives us a sense of how destructive a government can be to its own people. It is impossible to overcome poverty if it's institutionalized. The fact that archbishop Romero was able to save so many people in the face of such oppression is astounding and shows just how much a difference one person can make in the fight for equality.
Video 2: "The only ones that can create jobs are the working class"
Response 2: Nick Hanauer makes a great point in his speech: the wealthy can not create jobs. Allowing the rich to get richer doesn't create jobs in the economy because only demand from the working and lower class can create the opportunity for investment and thus jobs. What the US government does in following Reagan's economic doctrine is actually counter-productive to the economy. In order to improve the quality of life for everyone wealth needs to be distributed to the lower classes.
Video 1: "They learned that it was not God keeping them hungry, but the government and the wealthy institutions."
Response 1: I think this is the most powerful quote of the video because it gives us a sense of how destructive a government can be to its own people. It is impossible to overcome poverty if it's institutionalized. The fact that archbishop Romero was able to save so many people in the face of such oppression is astounding and shows just how much a difference one person can make in the fight for equality.
Video 2: "The only ones that can create jobs are the working class"
Response 2: Nick Hanauer makes a great point in his speech: the wealthy can not create jobs. Allowing the rich to get richer doesn't create jobs in the economy because only demand from the working and lower class can create the opportunity for investment and thus jobs. What the US government does in following Reagan's economic doctrine is actually counter-productive to the economy. In order to improve the quality of life for everyone wealth needs to be distributed to the lower classes.
Video 1: "I am the recipient of a genetic lottery"
Response 1: The main message of Ms. Russell's Ted Talk seems to be embodied in the above quote. She claims that all she has was simply given to her due to the genetic advantages given to her by birth: her race and her beauty. However she speaks of it more of a curse, claiming she can not progress in the career path she wants because as a beautiful model no one will take her seriously. Personally I feel that she is very ungrateful, while it is hard to live a life you don't want she must realize how privileged she is. To simply curse her heritage and advantages seems very selfish considering how disadvantaged so many people are. Rather than complain about all she is given she could make a more positive impact on the world by using her advantages to help others.
Text 2: "Are there some things money should not be able to buy?"
Repose 2: This is a very interesting way to phrase the question because rather than say "what doesn't money buy" Sandel phrases it as "what SHOULDN'T it buy." This infers that he believes money is too powerful in the current world we live, and I agree. Money is given too much emphasis and we sometimes forget that all it is is pieces of of paper. While money is extremely important and necessary in the world we shouldn't forget we should also judge the contents of people's hearts and not just their wallets.
Visiting disposablepeople.org was extremely enlightening. It was all about the new age of slavery. I never knew that there tens of millions of slaves in the world, and that there are even still slaves in the US. The new slaves now mostly work in mines, brothels, homes, and just about anywhere they can be exploited. This new age of slavery is even more widespread than any other point in history and is something to be extremely cautious about.
The thing that surprised me the most was the article on shrimp harvesting. I love to eat shrimp, and I eat them on a weekly basis. But I had no idea that they were harvested by slaves. It really makes me think twice about where I buy my shrimp from.
The article on purchasing power was really well written. I appreciate the connection the article makes between faith and fair trade. The fact that Jesus's parables align so well with the message of fair trade is no coincidence. The article touched me because it made a vital link between my own faith and what we've learned in class, not only that but it gave me the impression that my dollar actually helps make a difference in creating a better world
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