For this weekend's homework, please write a 500-word COMBINED response to the four pieces you chose to review from the Collaborative Annotated Bibliography. You should include at LEAST one specific observation about example about each piece. Please use proper MLA (MLA MLA MLA) citations for this, just to get a little practice in.
----------
The first line that struck me the most in the TED talk "Which Country does the Most Good for the World?" by Simon Anholt was the one that said: "All of the grand challenges that we face today, like climate change and human rights and demographics and terrorism and pandemics and narco-trafficking and human slavery and species loss, I could go on, we're not making an awful lot of progress against an awful lot of those challenges." (Anholt, 2014). And this brings up a thought. For all the injustices that the US and other developed countries allow and carry out, we as citizens are rather...forgiving - unmotivated, really. I completely agree with what he says about tolerating or electing governments of other countries - we are so small-minded, and so selfish, that really, we are a large part of why none of those problems get solved. And oftentimes, we are so preoccupies about what goes on internationally that we can control for our own benefit, that we don't think about what needs to be done domestically.
In "The House by the Railroad", the lone subject is a beautiful house, right by the railroad - which are depicted almost as an afterthought, as an post-realization sort of thing. This is perhaps to complement the house in solitude, and develop the idea or question of 'why'. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, railroads were hubs of transportation and economic development - but why this house is alone in all sides brings up the question of what it and its environment actually represents. Is it the rapid industrialization or outdating of the railroad? Or is it just a house that the artist found pretty and wanted to paint?
"Instant Gratification" by Paul Roberts is from the longreads website, and after skimming it through, I found that it didn't directly apply to international aid at all - however, I was able to connect the story and the circumstances to a couple of ideas I had. First of all, I was able to see the perspective from which this was coming from, but I also realized that the overarching idea of materialism and satisfying a person's own "wants" over "needs", especially in a developed country like the US, is a stark representation of the disparity between those who can do this with little consequence, and those who do not have the time or resources to become obsessed with an online game. Similarly but completely differently, The Ocean by Nathaniel Hawthorne carries underlying themes that relate to the negative aspects of poverty and destitution. Honestly, the second stanza relates more solidly - for me, as a bit of a pessimist, I see a relation in how many of the most hardworking people are poor and without resources, and their state of mind when they are struggling on the verge of survival. And sometimes, perhaps the idea of death is their saving grace - to which this poem most relates. "The ocean solitudes are blest / ..... / The earth has guilt, the earth has care / ... / but peaceful sleep is ever there / ...
------------
Works Cited
The Ocean, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Poetry.org)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Ocean." The Poetry Foundation. n.d. Web. 10 Oct 2014.
The House by the Railroad [Painting] (moma.org)
Hopper, Edward. The House by the Railroad. 1925. MoMa.org. Web. 10 Oct 2014.
Instant Gratification by Paul Roberts (longreads)
Roberts, Paul. "Instant Gratification." The American Scholar. The Daily Scholar. Web. 10 Oct 2014.
Which Country does the Most Good for the World? by Simon Anholt
"Which Country does the Most Good for the World?" TED. 2014. Web. 10 Oct 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment