Omar Yusufzai's List: Nature vs. Society

• There are many rules and regulations set by the society that we live in. Some of these are good and necessary. I certainly do not believe that we should live in a lawless state.

  • Need to open with showing both sides of the argument.
    
    This statement is a great introductory statement that could potentially lead to the thesis of the paper. It offers the other side of the argument. Having a lawless state is somewhat unreasonable and one cannot merely live without rules and regulations. The idea here is that one must find a way to break free from society's limitations but not drift so far that he/she ends up omitting important moral and practical guidelines.
• We may gain approval and admiration as a ‘reward’ for conforming, and be ‘punished’ for going against the crowd. This punishment can take the form of sarcasm, ridicule, criticism, or being outright ignored. While praise can be a pleasant thing to hear, you have to ask yourself whether it is really worth it. Ridicule may hurt, but could it be more painful than a life spent denying your own wishes in order to fit in?

  • I really enjoy this passage because it can be used as a motivator, like Kairos. Maybe this wouldn't fit too well in my introduction but I will definitely consider using this in my conclusion. The advice given in this quote comforts one to being who they want to be void of any influences or pressures from peers and society.
• Becoming aware of how much social conditioning affects our lives is the first step in breaking free from it. If you are making choices in your life, either big or small, that don’t feel good to you, ask yourself why. Don’t make yourself miserable by living life in a way that you think will stop the neighbors talking behind your back. They will most likely talk anyway!

  • This is a practical approach to really just becoming free of all complexes and insecurities. The author is being quite pragmatic here as she states that people would still judge you even if you behaved in a pleasing and acceptable manner (according to them). In a way this quote is a motivator for you to start basing your decisions and actions on your personal beliefs and preferences.

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• society that is responsible for the misconduct   of the individual.
     

  • Highly supports thesis and really provides back to the argument presented. It may consider 'misconduct' from a different perspective than most people, but Rousseau has a valid point and would fit perfectly as a primary example.

  • Highly support
• Rousseau observed that although life was peaceful in the state of   nature, people were unfulfilled. They needed to interact in order to   find actualization. Evil, greed, and   selfishness emerged as human society began to develop.

  • Supports the idea that corruption is one of the greatest downfalls of a society. It is the impurity a loss of innocence which comes along with socialization that causes 'greed' and 'evil' and 'selfishness' to emerge from within us. I'm suggest that human nature is genuinely sincere, kind, thoughtful, loving and peaceful and the human products of society have truly lost their original human nature.
• In Rousseau's educational system, a child would explore   nature and its requirements in order to learn what he needs   to know. The child would have a tutor who would secretly   devise situations in which nature would teach what the tutor   wants it to teach

  • It would be contradictory to argue that one must break free from society and disregard education while writing an English 11 Report. Rousseau proposes an alternative for 'school'. He doesn't blatantly suggest that we should blindly walk in to nature and learn from mere experience, he offers a scenario where a teacher and student still interact, outside the social world. Education is an important part that socializes all of mankind. This incorporates Education and Nature while still disregarding society.

  • Education is an important part that socializes all of mankind. This incorporates Education and Nature while still disregarding society.

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• Although everyone should have the right to protest in a free society, that right has limitations: no one should be allowed to impinge on someone else's freedoms.

  • Freedom of speech has been quite an issue and can be considered one of the greatest limitations of society. If one is not able to talk about their thoughts or expose their beliefs and point of views to the entire global community, society is holding them back. It is these restraints of society that impair one from reaching his/her full potential. With this limitations one becomes more structured and modeled to society's preferences rather than a natural being.
• There is a natural instinct in parents to protect their young. Since there is not always universal agreement on what hurts and what helps children, conflicts arise. A book that might be appropriate for ninth-graders might be very inappropriate for third-graders. Doesn't a parent have a right, if not an obligation, to speak out on such an occasion? And that's why districts should have clearly defined censorship policies in place, defining a board to hear the complaint, read the offending book, and make a decision on its appropriateness.

  • This passage provokes a great argument. Since third graders have not reached the appropriate age level/maturity level to read such a book, should it be banned? Personally, I believe the parents should be held responsible for what their child chooses to read and no book should ever be banned. Well then what if a child walks into a library a picks up a highly inappropriate book for his age level? Well then it is the parent's fault for allowing this to happen. Furthermore, there are many families who would believe that their child should be able to read anything and these families would be against censorship completely.
• The book-banners might also consider the concept of "forbidden fruit" and its effect on human behavior. Seldom is a book successfully banned but sales and circulation always increase as a result of the attempt. Book bannings make as much sense as a parent telling her children in December, "Don't look in the back of the hall closet." You've just advertised the fact that something is there you don't want them to see. This is true for both children and adults.

  • Really enjoyed reading this. This psychological effect is notable in many occasions. It is because the fruit is 'forbidden' that we want it even more. This can relate to how society imposes so many rules and regulation that people have a desire to break them. Could it be possible to keep a crime free, honest society if there were no rules. They say "walls were not built to keep people out, but to see who would climb over." Obviously a lawless state is not the road to proceed on, but maybe if these rules of society were not as strict, there wouldn't be so many transgressions.

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  "Society is something in nature that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life, or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god."
   

  -Aristotle

  • In the end, we cannot break free because we are neither god or beast.

• . Hobbes thought that civilization was good, because it controlled the antisocial nature within humanity. In contrast, Rousseau believed that civilization, though inevitable, was destructive.

  • Reinstating thesis and presenting the counter-argument once again. Would fit perfectly into the conclusion of this report. Might have to elaborate on Hobbes and his point of view, by saying that he really believe that a part of humans naturally prefers to be in solitude rather than interact with society and civilization actually helps balance this 'antisocial' factor out.
• O Man, from whatever country you come, whatever your opinions may be, listen: here is your history as I thought I read it, not in the books of your fellow men, which are deceptive, but in nature, which never lies. All that comes from nature will be true; nothing will be false except what I have involuntarily put there on my own. The times of which I am going to speak are very remote. How much you have changed from what you once were! It is, so to speak, the life of your species that I am going to describe to you in accordance with the qualities which you received and which your education and habits could corrupt but not destroy. There is, I feel, an age at which the individual man would like to remain; you shall seek the age at which you would have desired your species to remain. Discontent with your present state, for reasons which promise still greater unhappiness for your unfortunate posterity, perhaps you would like to have the power to go back, and this sentiment will celebrate your early ancestors, criticize your contemporaries, and frighten those who will have the misfortune to follow you....