Can There Be World Citizenship

In the article "Can There Be World Citizenship" by Elise Boulding, the author talks about how she is striving for a more peaceful world. A world that is free of war, racism, etc., and she believes that all of this would be possible if the United Nations could do a better job of uniting the countries of this world. Also, she talks about the theory of the melting pot and how she believes it will happen basically letting there be only one common race on the planet. Boulding believes that with all of these pieces being put into place that a World citizenship would be possible. I disagree with what the author believes, and that there can't be a World citizenship. I think that it wouldn't be possible to have this because I don't think all the nations around the World would be free to just drop their borders and let anyone come in and out of the country with no issues. Also, if everyone were free to go anywhere they want and there wasn't any war, I feel like eventually a person or group would get power hungry and try to take over. This would eventually just lead back to where we are right now with new countries starting to pop up. The kind of greed and self think, reminds me of the "Generation Me" and "The Why-Worry Generation" articles, both articles talked about this generation being very selfish and always trying to help yourself out, and this type of thinking is part of what I think would make it impossible to have a world citizenship for everyone.

Generation Y

In the articles, "Generation Me" by Raina Kelley and "The Why-Worry Generation" by Judith Warner, the authors talked about how the Generation Y, or anyone born between 1982-2002, and how they have this new attitude in life where they are very narcissistic and overconfident in life. In the "Generation Me" article, the author talks a lot about how the new generation has produced a generation of narcissists and how they are only all about them. I feel like the good point made in this article was about the strong urge to attain the "ideal" look. 30 years ago plastic surgery was basically unheard of, but now girls are still in high school when they are first getting plastic surgery. Celebrities on TV are putting into teens heads exactly how they should act and what they should look like so people are going out of their way to have the same look. Even if this means to undergo potentially dangerous surgeries. In the other article, "The Why-Worry Generation", the author talked about the overconfidence of the new generation. Today the new generation has been turning down job offers just because they may not be up to their self given standards. 20 years ago anyone would have accepted any job they could get but now the new generation has this ego problem where if the job isn't good enough then they won't accept it.

The Ways We Lie

The White Lie

A white lie is when you lie to another person because you don't want to hurt their feelings, so you tell them a lie that you believe will make them feel better. An example of this would be if your friend came up to you who has been having a bad day and asks you, "How do I look?" and because you don't want to hurt their feelings or make their day worse so you say, "Never looked better!"

Facades

Facades are more of an illusion of yourself to other people. You believe people will judge you based on your appearance so you dress and talk how you want another person to see you as. An example of this would be if you were to buy a nice suit and talk to a person your meeting in a very proper way to make it seem that you are very proper or well educated, when in reality you might not be a very proper or educated person.

Ignoring The Plain Facts

Ignoring the plain facts simply means that you allow something to happen knowing it could go wrong, but just hoping for the best basically. An example of this would be a person with a drinking problem and finally getting them to go to rehab. Then when they get out of rehab they tell you that they have enough self control to go to a bar and not drink. So even though you know what can happen, you let it happen anyways and that person goes to the bar and falls right back into their drinking problem.

Deflecting

Deflecting is a way of taking one issue and instead of confronting it directly, you turn the attention to something else to avoid it. An example of this would be if you got caught stealing something and instead of admitting you did it, you say the reason why you did it was test the security of the place you are stealing from.

Omission

An omission is when you leave out a couple parts of a story, but the parts you leave out completely changes the entire story. An example of this would be if your phone was under warranty for any problems that the phone has, and you drop it and even though it doesn't scratch the outside the phone starts messing up from the drop. So you take it in to get a new one and because they don't see any scratches, and they don't know that you dropped it they give you a brand new phone since they believe the phone messing up was just a manufacturing error.

Stereotypes and Cliches

This type of lie is when you make an assumption of a group based on one person in the group. For example if you watched a person who was very old, fall or trip and you make the assumption that all people who are very old are clumsy, then that would be a stereotype of all very old people.

Groupthink

Groupthink is more of a psychological lie where you ignore facts or even what you feel in order to have the same opinion as the group you are in. An example of this would be if you were in a religious group and they told you that if the group committed suicide that the group would go on to a better second life. Now even though you don't think it's a good idea to kill yourself you do it anyways because everyone else is.

Out-and-Out Lies

This lie is when you ask a question you already know the answer to, just knowing that you are probably going to get lied to. If you have a roommate that doesn't like to do dishes and is always leaving his dishes out and you know that the dishes out are his so you ask him, "Hey do you know whose dishes these are?" and he lies to you saying, "No, I think they are the other roommate's."

Dismissal

Dismissal is when someone tells you something, maybe how they feel, and you basically tell them no that's not how you feel instead you actually feel this way. An example would be if your friend didn't want to go out and party one night and he says, "I feel pretty tired and I don't want to go do anything tonight." and you come back and tell them, "No, you're fine you aren't tired we're going to go out and have fun tonight."

Delusion

Delusion is taking facts and twisting them into excuses that you want to believe. If you're lost in the middle of the desert with no food or water, you might use delusion to try to help you survive by telling yourself that you are going to get out soon and that you are going to find water soon.

Project Rant

Dear neighbors upstairs,
I understand that Chico State has had its reputation of being a party school, and that's fine and everything, but when you guys upstairs decide that it would be fun to do drugs that make you stay up all night and make you want to blast your techno music through your new DJ speakers that you always brag about, it makes us neighbors downstairs a little irritated. I'm all for playing loud music and having fun at night, but really, on weekday nights Monday through Wednesday... Some people actually go to class during the week and have to get this thing called sleep in for a few hours. Now this is very difficult to do when I hear that bass speaker rattle my apartment until 5 am in the morning, every morning. Now just because in your guys' fantasy life of not going to school or having a job allows you to party all night every night, but for the rest of us, turns out there's this thing called the weekend that is usually a pretty popular time to do all these things.  What makes us downstairs a little more irritated is when you wander down the stairs and knock on our door curious of what we are doing at 2 am. Yes, we are trying that sleeping thing I mentioned earlier. Oh, and all the glass bottles that you guys decide to knock over onto the concrete out front of my apartment, well those do break into very sharp pieces of glass that do hurt when stepped on. So if you guys could keep it down, even just on weekdays, that would be awesome.
Thanks from,
Your annoyed neighbors downstairs

P.S. I heard there's a drug, even common to this state, which actually relaxes you. Maybe you should give that one a try so you won't stay up all night.

Why I Like Vicious Online Comments/Make Out Ugly Discourse Better

In the two online articles "Why I like vicious, anonymous online comments", and "Make Our Ugly Discourse: Join the Civilogue", the authors both make points about the nastiness and rude comments made by people on online blogs, posts, etc., but both have very different viewpoints. I agreed and liked what the author of the article "Why I like vicious, anonymous online comments", talked about and how with these vulgar comments made by people all over really show what Americans are like. He talks about how racism, sexism, or anti-Semitism are believed to no longer be a problem in America, but from the comments it's obvious that they still are. The author of this articles opinion on these comments is that he loves them. They show him what people are really like and there "real" thoughts on things without it being filtered because they are things that people are too scared to say in person or if it can be tracked back to him. My favorite quote from this article is, "They show us what the species is really like: the full spectrum of human behavior, not just the part that we find reassuring and enlightening." This quote shows me that when people are online they are saying things they truly mean because they won't get in trouble for it or be judged by it, "That's the real us."

I disagreed with what the author of the article, "Make Our Ugly Discourse: Join the Civilogue" talked about. His opinion was exactly the opposite of the other authors opinion. He believes that when people go and see comments like that they should tell them they are wrong and that everyone should basically not be saying any of this. I disagree because I think that when people say things that are filtered, they aren't saying what they truly believe and they have to hold back which may take away from there point or opinion. This author believes that these comments are evil and that they are "proof that cleaning up this mess will not be easy." What this author calls a "mess" is what I believe are people's true opinions.