Monsters vs Ourselves

     A lot of the books that we have been reading and talking about lately have suggested the innate ugliness of human nature.  For example, Dorian Gray uses the portrait of Dorian to show how Dorian's soul is rotting and becoming gradually corroded and corrupted.  In Jekyll and Hyde, Hyde is the corruption and badness within Jekyll's soul.  Jekyll likes being Hyde and he gets enjoyment from it.  Everyone scorns Hyde's animalistic tendencies.  The message of both books to me is that humans are innately ugly.  However I disagree with this idea that all humans are like that.  These authors try to make it seem like people are just bad inside and I think that even now in modern society, we are always blaming people for being bad or saying even that the badness should be celebrated. Why does everyone think that we are so animalistic? I read some of these things in books and see it on social media, blaming people for social problems, acting as if it is normal to be this way and that everyone is at fault in some cases.  Honestly? None of these thoughts or ideas even cross my mind and I have such a hard time relating to books like Dorian Gray and Jekyll and Hyde is because I just don't get it.  I know a lot of people who will do some things even if it doesn't benefit them in any way. They are nice people and they would not do things to hurt people even if they could.  We are born with an innocence that is, yes, eventually broken, but it is what people decide to do with that loss of innocence that determines their true character.  It is a conscious decision and has nothing to do with how we are born.  It is based on how we develop our character and events that happen surrounding our lives.  Some people may have more traumatic events while others do not, and don't become bitter, which may not cause them to have those irrational and malicious tendencies.  Therefore I do not think that the innate tendencies of humans as depicted in the novels to be monstrous, are in fact true.

31 January 2015

Feminism

     I think that while feminism was once a prominent issue in the past,  it has gotten a lot better especially in recent years.  Ironically, the less feminism there actually is in society, the more enraged women become about their rights.  For example, in "A Doll's House", Nora was treated like a trophy or a pet rather than a wife or a life partner.  She would sometimes be able to use it to her advantage to get him to forget about all of the stupid mistakes that she made. She played dumb but to an extent, it was her fault.  This was around the time when women were first starting the movement to gain rights.  People were more disdainful towards the character of  Nora instead of her husband because, "How dare she try to think for herself. She's only a woman".  Now, if a man were to so much as (for example) pity a woman who had a child out of marriage who was living on her own, he could be scorned and thought of as sexist because somehow it is misconstrued as him thinking that she can't make it on her own with a child.  The media especially  makes a big deal out of things that people sometimes accidentally say and turn it into a feminist issue when it is not necessary.  Everyone wants to be equal, but nobody feels bad bashing white males.  Issues like this have turned society to complete political correctness.  While I think that this is necessary to an extent, too much of it turns this world into something that it isn't and inhibits people from their own feeling.  Sometimes, people have reasons for not agreeing with certain policies or ideas of certain groups.  It isn't necessarily because of the color of their skin or their gender or their religion. It's just one idea that they agree with, or one simple misinterpreted question.  I think that people, particularly Americans, should stop being so sensitive about all issues, including feminism.  Instead of taking it to mean that all women are doomed and discriminated against, they should put themselves up to the challenge to prove everyone else wrong.