Why Do We See Ourselves As Superior

The world around us is filled with many different forms of life.  Some include plants, insects, animals, and other people.  I find it interesting how each of these is a form of life, but are still seen in many different lights when seen through the human mind.  We perceive ourselves to be the most intelligent and dominant species on the planet due to our enhanced mental acuity.  On the other side of the spectrum, insects are seen as one of the lowest forms of actually moving life. We are made up of the same fundamental elements as insects and our bodies are both made up of cells, yet we live such different lives and perform such different functions.  When focusing on the life of a simple insect like a moth, Virginia Woolf stated that a singular moth sees to have the "energy of the world within him," but when looking at the world as a whole, the moth seems to have a "frail and diminutive body."  When focusing on ourselves it seems obvious that we would see ourselves as superior because we have only seen life through our own eyes, and this makes us see our lives the most important.  Unfortunately this causes many people to feel little to no sympathy for these "lesser" animals when stepping on them or using other methods to kill them.  This is similar to a previous piece we read called "Consider The Lobster," where lobsters, also called sea insects, were mass killed without remorse just for luxurious food.  In all these cases the common factor is humans asserting their dominance over another species.  It is true that the human race has higher mental processing than any other species, but that does not give us the right to mass kill another species just on a whim.  Besides, in the end, no matter what the species is, we are all bound to die in some way or another.  So no matter if you are seen as inferior or superior in the eyes of another, death is the great equalizer and will bring you on to the same level as all others.

Why Does Stockholm Syndrome Exist

The psychological term of Stockholm Syndrome has always been interesting to me.    Common sense would lead you to believe that in the event of a kidnapping, you would feel despair and hate the perpetrator of your capture, but this is not always the case.   Stockholm Syndrome is a feeling of trust or affection felt in many cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking by a victim toward a captor.  Stockholm Syndrome is not the norm since most people will continue to be terrified during a kidnapping.  One large example of many people being held captive is the time period of slavery within America.  Millions of slaves were held against their will to work on plantations.  After the Emancipation Proclamation, the slaves were free of their captivity, but the slave owners still wanted workers.  When one slave owner asked his former slave Jourdan Anderson to come back and work for him, Jourdan replied with the biggest understatement of the century by saying "I have often felt uneasy about you."  Because he disliked his captor, Jourdan did not return to work for his former owner.  However, if Jourdan had Stockholm Syndrome, he may have never left his owner in the first place, even after he was free.  Now we must wonder what would cause someone to feel any form of affection towards their captor who took them away from their normal life.  The only explanation that I could think of is that it is a coping mechanism that went too far.  If you are in a situation such as a kidnapping, you are under  great amount of duress and your mind had to find ways to cope with the terrible situation.  In these cases, the victim usually only gets to interact with their captor and the captor brings them the food and water they need to survive.  To cope, the mind probably sees that as a sign of good and starts to form a bond with the only person who is "helping" them in this time of need.  In the end, Stockholm Syndrome is probably the result of a person in a very stressful situation and trying to make the best of it.

Why Do We Judge

I've always been interested in thinking about how other societies see American culture.  There are all the memes and stereotypes we hear about how Americans are all gun toting and morbidly obese people who are selfish and feel that all other countries are irrelevant.  This doesn't just go for America though.  Many talk about how all British people are snooty and wealthy people whose only purpose is to live until tea time.  All societies seem normal to the people living within them, but from the outside it can seem extremely unusual when shown to an observer in the right way.  This is shown very well in Horace Miner's "Body Ritual Among The Nacirema" where American society is described in a way that makes it sound primitive and repulsive.  When first reading Miner's article I did not realize that he was describing America and I was just thinking about how terrible this "tribe" seemed to be.  It is just weird to think about how the source that I was getting my information from made a normal action like brushing your teeth seem like a "ritual" that "strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting."  If the wording of just this article could do so much, it opens up the world to so many other possibilities.  The media has such a large impact on our lives that the, and they can easily manipulate the information they show us to make us believe what they want.  The government in China has been censoring any content on the internet that they do not want the public to see.  For example, any records on the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 and the infamous "Tank Man" have been erased and are forbidden to be remembered.  The government there is only allowing the general public to see things that make them look good which is a distorted reality for the citizens. If there is such a large possibility of the information we observe to be misleading, then what can we do to get our own truth?  The only true way for someone to see the truth in something is to experience the event or situation with your own eyes and make your own judgments without the outside influence of others.  If we had been able to observe the "Nacirema" ourselves, then we would not have been as disgusted with their society as we had been while reading Miner's article.

Why Do People Need Support

In class this past week we read the passages titled "On Dumpster Diving" by Lars Eighner and "From Serving In Florida" by Barbara Ehrenreich.  In both passages the authors were experiencing less than ideal living conditions.  In the first story, the author is homeless and living off of scavenging through the refuse left behind by other people.  In the second story, the author is working a hellish job at a diner in a cramped home and barely any free time.  Other than bad living conditions, another similarity that the two stories share is that both authors, previous to their downfall, were decently successful and were living and working in normal conditions.  Going from a successful life to experiencing many more hardships is a rough situation for anyone.  The question we must ask now is how do these people manage to get through these tough times? The solution we see in the passages is through a support system of people to talk to that can help you when needed.  In the case of Eighner, he had the support of his fellow scavengers who helped teach him how to survive by scavenging as well as the love and support of his dog.  Ehrenreich made friends with the fellow employees on her shift.  Ehrenreich's supprt group at the diner would "'bev' a table or even carry trays" for someone if they are felling ill, and they would "do their best to conceal her absence" from the manager if she needed to go on a bathroom break.  Without these support groups the authors of the two stories surely would have fared much worse than they actually do now.  Everyone in life experiences some sort of hardship, just with different severity.  Support groups are one of the best ways to deal with this and get through rougher times.  This is one of the reasons why many alcoholics and drug addicts go to support groups to try and get better and go clean.  It feels good to know that you're not alone and many others are experiencing the same as you and want to help you.  You never know the hardships someone is going through so you never know how one of your small actions of support may greatly impact someones day for the better.