Thursday, October 20, 2011

Agree or Disagree?



Now that you have answered agree or disagree to all of the following prompts, you need to take two and develop your ideas into much greater detail. Understand, the only wrong answer is an unsupported answer. Be to the point, be logical, and use examples to state your case. Your word count for each response should be no less that 200 words.

1. A good leader must have moral integrity.
2. In our minds, a constant battle is waged between good (superego) and evil (id).
3. There is always a way to prevent war.
4. Mankind is the cruelest of all beasts, because when we hurt other people, we realize they are being hurt; when cats play with and eat mice, the cat has no idea that the mouse is in pain. This makes people the least respectable of all species (concept from Mark Twain’s The Damned Human Race)
5. Society needs as many laws as possible.
6. When given the chance, people often single out weaker individuals in an effort to make themselves look or feel better.
7. People only hunt in order to feed themselves.
8. Whenever varying groups of people exist, there will inevitably be power struggles.

You will also need to comment on the posts of two other individuals. One you agree with and the other, someone you disagree with.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

“When given the chance, people often single out weaker individuals in an effort to make themselves look or feel better”
I totally agree with this statement. There lots and lots of examples of such behavior in schools, sport teams, work offices, etc.
Everybody wants to look better in the eyes of others or even feel that they are the best in a certain society. And of course the easiest way to create an impression of being better is comparing you to somebody who isn’t as good in a particular area. At school, it’s mostly showing off in front of other gender, trying to get them to like you. Or most of the time, just a psychological need to realize that you are better than everyone else, that people listen to you and would follow you. Although, using a weaker individual to make yourself look better will only make you look cool up until grade 5 or so because later people will have no respect for such behavior.
In competitive sports the same story happens all the time. Sportsmen like to show off a lot and other people who are not as good as they are, are a great opportunity for them to present them as a superior part of a society. But this isn’t right either. In sports it’s all about practicing and talent. But usually those who are more talented don’t show off, they work to develop that talent into a skill and perform at a high level.

Anonymous said...

“There is always a way to prevent war”
I agree with this statement. In my opinion there is always a way to prevent war the same as there is always a way to prevent a simple fight. There is always a reason behind every war which is different from the cause of the war. A cause is usually just one single event, like an attack on a group of civilians from one side for example, that now gives all right for the other part of the conflict to start the war. But in this case the war could be avoided by tracking down the people who are responsible for the attack and having them put into prison. So why would a country start the war on such a cause? There must be a reason for that. A reason is usually a major problem that two sides have between each other. It could a racial hatred, or territories wanted, resources, etc. this is really why a country would start the war. And really, if looking at the reasons of all the wars it’s clear that war could easily be avoided by simple diplomatic conferences or dialogues between the leaders of two countries.

Anonymous said...

“Mankind is cruelest of all beasts”

I agree with this statement because the mankind is one that is the smartest so therefore they kill not for food or any reasons like that, they kill for their own pleasure. For example people these days don’t need to go hunting for the food they just need to go to the grocery store and get whatever they need or want but they still go hunting for the reason that they enjoy it. Another example of human cruelty would be something like bullfighting where people don’t feed the animal for couple of days and then make it fight where it is killed over the period of an hour by stabbing. The poor animal didn’t deserve to die just for the entertainment of the people and their bloodthirstiness. To finally prove that the mankind is the cruelest of all beasts the mankind is so cruel that they are even cruel to their own kind. People invented genocide where masses of people are killed for their ethnicity or their beliefs. Which again proves that the mankind is the cruelest of all beasts. People also invented slavery, which is cruel to the people that are enslaved because they are basically worked to death. I think that the mankind is cruel mainly because it has intellect to be cruel and to invent new ways of how to be cruel to creatures and their own race.

Anonymous said...

“Society needs as many laws as possible”

I agree with this statement and support it in someway. People do need laws for them to know what is bad and what is good and the more we have them the easier it is to be a good citizen since you are told. If we haven’t had laws we would have a anarchical society where warlords and small groups of people with guns and money would be the people that dictated what should we do. The laws help keep everything stable and the more we have them the better it is for the society in general. Although if you are a person that breaks laws will probably have harsher consequences since there would be more laws to break. If there are a lot of laws it doesn’t mean your freedom is restricted you always make your own choices but those choices most of the times will be right rather than wrong since there are laws that control that. Although there is a good side to having as many laws as possible there is also the bad side as you have more laws there is more bureaucracy. If there is bureaucracy the less can be done without the law interfering in your plans and life.

Anonymous said...

"People only hunt in order to feed themselves."
I am totally disagree with this statement. The only examples of people hunting only in order to feed themselves (and we don’t even know for sure) were in BC time. Ancients were killing animals in order to survive and to get food, but not for entertainment. Through the past 50 years people invented many food substitutes, and particularly meat. The examples are: sausages, the “meat” that we see in hamburgers, sandwiches being bought in eateries. The most percentage of composites are soybeans.
Well I think that just killing of animals and then selling their furs, has become some sort of entertainment for people. There is even a hunting season sometime in fall.
My opinion is that it is not right of course. We have already seen bad consequences, some species all around the world have already died out, and these consequences may grow bigger therefore we can just have dogs and cats living. I know that we can’t tell every hunter to stop killing animals, and it is actually quite hard to convince people killing animals, but the only thing that we can do, just remind them about consequences and animals that they kill.

Anonymous said...

'Mankind is the cruelest of all beasts'
In my opinion, this statement is totally true. Humans are the smartest species on Earth and they have the conscience of what they’re doing. They hurt other people or animals without scruples. The human instinct disappeared due to the evolution of our mind control. We are fully able to control our actions – everything we do is thought out in some way. The action might be impulsive, but it still came from the human brain. The rest of the animals on Earth haunt and attack for a reason – either danger or hunger. They don’t strike because of their personal problems, unlike humans. Men can be cruel just because they dislike someone – there is no definite cause. They kill for their own pleasure, guided by their sick mind. Let’s take the Jew genocide – they were killed just because one man disliked them. Hitler didn’t kill because of his instinct; he killed for his own cruel meaningless pleasure. Humans also use their intelligence to take advantage of many other animals. They watch animals fighting – there is obviously no point nor advantage of doing such a thing. Many criminalists torture animals because these poor creatures either felt attacked or for did not fulfill their owner’s expectations. Even though the humans made Earth a great place to live for their species, they still have to remember about some other inhabitants of this planet and respect them and their low intelligence.

Anonymous said...

“There is always a way to prevent war.”
I partly agree with this statement. We have seen many wars and conflicts already happened in a human history, and most of them could have been prevented through good managed debates prepared by skillful representatives form a country. Of course circumstances could be different, and the terms proposed by the opponent can be so ridiculous so that it is going to be hard to accept it.
Usually the reason of staring the war, is a major problem between two countries. Territories, resources, labor etc.
I think its always worth trying to have diplomatic conference and send good representatives to perform.

Anonymous said...

‘A good leader must have moral integrity’
I agree with this statement because a leader must have the ability to define between bad and good. By the definition, a leader is someone who guides, shows the right path. He must have the ability to persuade people. In order to do that, he needs to have certain moral rules that will be acceptable for both him and the society he is about to rule. If the society doesn’t like his morals, they will not accept him as a leader because they won’t let to be lead by an untrustworthy leader. In order be an example for his fellows, a leader must have his personal integrity: he needs to distinguish between good and bad. He needs to have a moral code that will justify all of his action. If his followers are persuaded by it or like it they will follow this person. Humans will not be guided by someone that has morals different from theirs, so a leader MUST have moral integrity. Let’s take the president as an example. He present his morals to the society and the fact if he is chosen or not depends on his ability to persuade and on his personal integrity.

Anonymous said...

"Whenever varying groups of people exist, there will inevitably be power struggles. "
I agree with this statement. In our society there are always different groups of people, in schools, work offices, sports, businesses, etc. Those groups can't generally co-exist, because there will be a fight for power going on. Those groups can't live together peacefully, they need to know which is the main one, the most important and most valuable one. It is all about the power.
When there are different groups in one place, they keep crossing each other’s way. They exist in one place, so naturally know what other groups do. Usually those things are not acceptable by other groups.
For example, in schools in each grade there are two or more groups of students, they hang out in different places, have different interests and values. They may or may not like each other but since they are classmates, they interact with each other a lot and see what others do. Then there comes a conflict, one group does something the other one doesn’t like, or both of groups do something that annoy others, so they have to fight over it in order to show who has most power and who is right. It can start from two people fighting over their own personal drama, and then can expand to people from their groups backing up their friends and turning it into big huge struggle, and it all comes down to who is correct and more in control of situation.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

"A good leader has moral integrity"
This is an somewhat ambiguous question therefore i neither agree nor disagree. The ambiguity lies in the word "good". If you read "good" to mean 'successful', 'outstanding' or 'superior', then there have been many leaders with questionable moral integrity, for example: Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Ho Chi Minh or Ayatollah Khomeni, who have lead their people very successfully, sometimes to the point of brain-washing the entire population. These leaders have led with their intentions and decisions, however, these have not been pursued in a democratic way. These leaders were dictators and autocrats and carried out their aims with no consultation. They followed their own ideology despite anyone else. Fortunately, most of the worst dictators have been overruled and democracies have been established.
If "good" means 'fine' and 'virtuous' then there have been many "good" leaders like Martin Luther King, Gandi and Nelson Mandela, who have shown moral integrity and human compassion. Many of these 'good' leaders have been religious leaders because most religions teach their people to be kind and decent to each other and the difference between right and wrong. Most religions have been built up on love, compassion and loyalty to their 'God'. Ironically, most of the major conflicts in the world have been started by a disagreement in religion and who to follow!
Therefore, a "good" leader will always has charisma, natural leadership and may often be an inspirational speaker but their ideology may not always be the "right" one. In a group, one person will naturally take charge of the group and disputes arise when there is 2 natural leaders.

Anonymous said...

1. A good leader must have moral integrity.

As we have witnessed over the last few months, several dictators have been brought down in what we know as the “Arab Spring”. After years of tyrannical dictatorship, the likes of Kaddafi, Mubarak or Ben Ali were exiled, killed or imprisoned. This is because their lack of moral and social integrity made them corrupt, cruel and power-thirsty, and unpopular amongst their subjects; these aspects of their leadership triggered revolutions and uprisals, which were too big to be contained through their usual oppression and violence and which ended up overthrowing the regimes.
Other countries, on the other hand, have managed to stay free of political turmoil thanks to democratic governments, which ensure leaders are well watched and criticized by rival politicians. The competition inherent to these systems guarantee potential leaders will, at least, attempt to present themselves as honest and true men to appeal to voters. Furthermore, in a democratic nation, if a leader is unrighteous and dishonest, his rule will eventually end and he will be replaced. Such are the advantages of democracy.
If we look at history, we will find that European kings of old were raised in strong Christian or Protestant faith. These provided a moral frame to the leader, and although oftentimes the governments were totalitarian, the monarch believed him/herself watched by God and acted in the fear of hell and the hope of heaven, which is why, up to a certain period of time, authoritarian governments were successful in helping countries prosper.
To conclude, I agree.

2. People only hunt in order to feed themselves.

Hunting is one of mankind’s oldest occupations. It began as a need, when the ice age held much of the world in its iron grip and the Neanderthal hunted mammoth and bison to sustain their massive need for calories; later, when the ice had receded and agriculture was born, it became a means of completing man’s omnivorous diet; Finally, when the homo sapiens began to gather herds and domesticate wild animals, it became a pleasure and a sport, although wild meat was, and still is, a popular bonus to our diet.
In prehistoric times, and in some modern civilizations, a boy’s passage into manhood was marked by a rite of passage in which he would often have to kill his first animal in a hunt. This symbolized the importance of the activity for the clan or family; a good hunter was respected and honoured. Society was based on hunting prowess and the chief was often the best. A man’s spear was his most prized possession, and he treated it with exquisite care. By giving the act of hunting such importance, they acknowledged their mortal state and the supremacy of nature; thus, they gave the prey the utmost respect and did not waste anything. Hunting was not only carried out for food, but also for clothing, lighting, shelter, trade and even art.
With time, other inventions and processes gained more importance, but hunting has always been part of society. It is now a recognized sport, with rules and restrictions to ensure the duration of this archaic aspect of man’s life.
In short, I disagree.

Anonymous said...

6)Human nature, at its worst, is not a pretty sight. If I would describe my visualization of human nature, I would equate it to the Greeks’ description of the underworld: a lot of gray, a good amount of black, and a little bit of sunshine. And although that sunshine tries to shine through, the clouds tend to be a lot more numerous than the rays of sun coming through. So whenever there is the sun has been weakened by outside forces, the bad side of a person will seize the day. Translated into reality, people tend to be mean when they have been put down or feel disillusioned/ disappointed. And that meanness tends to be directed towards other people; humans have never been great at consistently taking responsibility. So we easily jump at a chance to belittle other people and pick at anything that could be considered a flaw because we feel that we have too many flaws and therefore need to distract the world from looking at us. It’s a completely selfish but natural behavior, and it’s very hard to prevent yourself from doing that. The ‘brainstem’ that controls our emotional behavior defeats any good in us.

Anonymous said...

5)I disagree with the idea that society needs as many rules/laws as possible. Human beings cannot develop and flourish if their every thought and move is controlled. They lose their individuality if they follow all of these rules. A good example of a rigidly controlled society can be found in the book The Giver by Lois Lowry. In The Giver, all aspects of life are restricted by laws. Children are placed into ‘family units’ after being born, children are assigned their careers at the age of twelve, emotion is controlled by a pill, and even the appearance of the people is controlled by genetic engineering. Life in this community is very uniform and dull, and the people don’t truly have a life because they can’t enjoy it. They aren’t allowed to by law. However, a society with no laws would not be able to function as well. If people were able to do whatever they wanted without the possibility of punishment, the worse side of human nature would be unleashed. There would be chaos. I feel that laws regulating crimes such as stealing, killing, and other activities that would physically and directly harm another human being should definitely be in place. As for other potential crimes, there is a gray area that would require an essay’s worth of words to explain.

Anonymous said...

"5. Society needs as many laws as possible. "
Laws are made to make sure that people act and live in a surtin way. while it dose prevent many accidents and many crule and selfish things from happening they could as well make the world harder to live in. and could give many people who find gaps in the system to harm innocent people. and while laws are usually made to keep people safe and happy. sometimes they are made to make the government and the big companies who control the economic of the stat a much bigger power over smaller yet innocent business men.

also while laws are made to show people whats bad and whats good if there are a lot of laws, it will effect your personal freedom and it will effect all your choices. also when some people are able to understand the law better then others they can exploit there knowledge to sew other innocent people and get them into trouble.

however there are always necessary laws that have to be made to punish people who have done harm to others and who are distributing the community.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

"Whenever varying groups of people exist, there will inevitably be power struggles. "
while its very sad its the inevitable truth mainly because people always wont power which they gain only by taking it from other people who already have power. but after all the guy who has power docent wont to louse it and it ends up being a loop. while many different kinds of people try to do there best to live with people in a different rase its always the bigger conflicts that are were all the trouble occurs. for example between ordinary people it docent matter what rase you are so everyone is close however when it comes to big dissections and big changes people prefer to work with people from there own rase.
and whenever there is a power struggle many people would like to stick with the side they know best or support the people that are closest to them. and whenever a side have more power then the other. the other would try his best to get more power to his side and then it keeps going back and fourth sometimes causing big arguments and even war.

and sometimes its not about the rase in real however when a reasonable dissection is made and it dose not satisfy one of the sides sometimes they blame it on raseism and how they are being bollied because they are not in a surtin way.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

1.) Mankind is the cruelest of all beasts, because when we hurt other people, we realize they are being hurt; when cats play with and eat mice, the cat has no idea that the mouse is in pain. This makes people the least respectable of all species (concept from Mark Twain’s The Damned Human Race)

I agree with this statement. Humans are aware of their actions, and have a high amount of free-will, especially relative to animals. If a human decides to hurt another, either physically or emotionally, he/she is generally fully aware of the act. Instead of using intelligence to create a community in which people watch after one another, humans have created and mastered methods of exterminating one another and enslaving and abusing one another. The human capability of hatred seems to be just as high as their level of intelligence; their aptitude seems to enable them to have higher levels of emotional unrest, with concepts such as hate, envy and greed. History is paved with the sins of the human race, with an uncountable amount of crimes against humanity. There are many historical events in which humans have a merciless sense of cruelty, watching each other die in vain. Also, not only do humans murder each other, they have watched others murder one another for entertainment (Gladiators) and watch animals die for entertainment (Bull fights)

2.) There is always a way to prevent war.

I disagree with this statement. Human ignorance and pride is often considered a variable that can be avoided and changed, however it is not. It is human nature to strive for greatness, and their conscious and dignity can often be distorted by their personal desires. Desperation can overcome even the most respectable of people, and although it may not be their intentions, anyone is capable of putting their desires before reason. War is often inevitable due to human nature.

Also, a defense often used is that humans learn from past mistakes, and that the past wars will help avoid new ones. However, this isn’t completely true. Past events such as the genocide during World War II definitely warns the future generations of how horrible it can be, and that it should never be repeated. Although this helps avoid wars, the human race will always be confronted with new problems that they do not know how to solve, and therefore turning to desperate measures. When put under excessive pressure and desperation, the human mind can turn to extreme measures beyond anything they would do if not for their desperation.

Anonymous said...

“When given the chance, people often single out weaker individuals in an effort to make themselves look or feel better. “
I absolutely agree with this statement. You can see examples of this everywhere, where there is a group of people doing same job, like in school, work offices and other business communities, and a lot of that in sport teams. There are always people who make fun of weaker people, in order to make themselves look better, stronger, and more popular in eyes of their friends, or even complete strangers. When you are with a weaker person, or person who isn’t as good as you are, it is really easy to show off and impress, since the contrast between good and bad is clearly seen.
A lot of examples proving this quote can be seen in team sports, such as football, basketball, volleyball, etc. Players tend to show that they are the best and that they can do everything by themselves. Although this might be beneficial in single sports, like track events, in team sports this behavior only leads your team to losing the games. That is why the team spirit and sportsmanship is really important in sports, and usually the players that are actually good don’t tend to show, instead they improve their skills.
The reason for an example of such behavior in school would mostly be because person would want to impress someone from other gender and to grab their attention. This can be both girls and guys; main thing is all that showing off needs to be controlled, because if it’s too much it is just funny and not impressive at all. It becomes too obvious that you try to amaze someone and it doesn’t look good, on the contrary it only makes you look like a fool. Although, sometimes people single out weaker individuals in order to show who has the power and who is the leader of group. So it can be an effort to make people follow and respect you. However, in friendly community this behavior is usually not accepted.

Anonymous said...

Society needs as many laws as possible

I do not agree with this because the more laws there are, the more people will try to break them to be rebellious and to see what the consequences are. It is more important to educate society on how to behave, to learn right from wrong, to learn to behave democratically and morally than just blindly obey laws. Many laws were passed during the Nazi reign of terror e.g the Nuremberg Laws. These anti-semitic laws were totally inhuman and unjust. The first two of these laws were: "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" (regarding Jewish marriage) and "The Reich Citizenship Law"(designating Jews as subjects). These laws were discriminating and outrageous and almost unbelievable. Also in South Africa, a law separating Black People from White People was set out under apartheid. One of these laws was the 'Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act', Act No 55 of 1949: This prohibited marriages between white people and people of other races. Between 1946 and the enactment of this law, only 75 mixed marriages had been recorded, compared with some 28,000 white marriages. Another one of these laws was the 'Reservation of Separate Amenities Act', Act No 49 of 1953: Forced segregation in all public amenities, public buildings, and public transport with the aim of eliminating contact between whites and other races. "Europeans Only" and "Non-Europeans Only" signs were put up. The act stated that facilities provided for different races need not be equal.
Fortunately, both of the above regimes were overthrown and these laws disregarded. "Good" laws can only be instated when they have been decided with thought and a due process of law. A law has to be a reflection of what society wants to keep order and prevent anarchy. It must be agreed otherwise nobody will want to abide by it.