The Attractiveness of Freedom

If you had to choose between living at home with your parents or having your own decent apartment, which would you choose? The average man in our contemporary would feel ashamed to be living with their parents after they went to college. Even though there is more safety in the first option, it is overruled by the dominating drive for independence and freedom. Freedom, in a contemporary society, is the ability to make decisions without having to consult someone else and having many options. While there will always be some limits, such as federal laws, there is still a huge difference in the amount of freedom one has depending on who they live with, what job they have, and how many options are available to them. Mencken once wrote that, "The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe." This may have been true during Mencken's time, but modern society has turned against safety, branding it as "the easy way" and "boring". When safety is a boring option, the average man favors the risks of freedom.

One of the biggest stigmas in modern society is that against grown men and women living with their parents. Many college students and graduates find themselves living back at home again when they struggle to conjure the money needed to buy their own living space. Parents with stable incomes can offer a safe place to live, where college students can live and worry about other issues. However, our modern society looks down on this, seeing it as an unwanted level of dependency. Anyone who lives with their parents after high school is guaranteed to be embarrassed when admitting to it; conversely, one is likely to see college students proud of the fact that they can afford their own apartment away from home. The fact is simply that contemporary society encourages freedom and the risk associated over options that are safer but dependent on others.

Another area in which people are likely to compare themselves is occupation; the type of job one has can have a huge effect on how others see him/her. For example, think of the difference between a secretary and CEO of a company. The average person in contemporary society would rather be a CEO than a secretary, because being a CEO is seen as more interesting. Secretaries can earn decent salaries and usually hold stable jobs, but are not in charge of as many decisions. A job that depends upon the decisions of someone else is seen as easier and less exciting than a job that allows for more decisions. A job as a secretary is safe, in that it generates enough income and is a full-time job, but does not impress the average man. CEO's are often idolized and payed attention to because they are in charge of so much and make all the really important decisions. While this requires a lot of responsibility and involves a lot of risk, it also involves a lot of freedom, which the average man craves more than safety.

A final aspect of freedom desired by the average man is a variety of options. It is so engrained into our modern society that most people don't notice it, but the truth is that variety is a must-have in everything from career options to food options. Imagine you're going out to dinner with your friends and have to pick where to go. One option is a nice restaurant that you always go to, which you know has food that you like. On the other hand, there are a few other restaurants in town that you've never been to before but sound interesting. The safe option would be to go to the same restaurant as always, because you are basically guaranteed to enjoy the food. Yet, the average man would be encouraged to pick a new restaurant because of the need for risk and expanding one's future options. If you always go to the same restaurant, you will always have a good meal, but if you try a new restaurant and like it, you will have one more option for next time. It may not seem like it, but it is a risk that the average man instinctively accepts as proof of individual freedom and avoidance of habitual safety.

For centuries, mankind has been driven to focus on protecting itself and ensuring safety, but the establishment of safety has reversed this process. It is in man's nature to keep moving forward, and the next step from safety is freedom. Since Mencken's time, modern society has stigmatized safety and become addicted to freedom.

A Reflection on Standardized Testing

I really enjoyed reading two different opinions on the effectiveness of standardized testing, since they both brought up really important points. On the one hand, Tyler brought up the really important point that standardized tests can only test certain abilities. Speaking specifically about standardized tests such as the SAT, it is true that only certain subjects are covered and in a certain way. With such a wide range of abilities to test for, most standardized tests focus on math, reading, and writing. This is because they are mostly universal subjects, as opposed to subjects like language or sciences, which can have hugely varied curriculums across districts, states, and even countries. Even if standardized tests were able to incorporate other subjects in a fair way, Tyler points out that this is still limited to academic skills. If standardized tests were designed to assess the overall abilities of a person, then they would be ineffective for that reason. However, as Jonah touches on briefly, standardized tests aren’t meant to determine a person’s character; tests like the SAT are only meant to evaluate very specific skills that are seen as important to schools all over the world. An important point that was not brought up is the fact that standardized tests are extremely helpful to very large, competitive schools that need to narrow down the list of applicants. Popular colleges such as Harvard and MIT, for example, get way too many applications every year to pay close attention to every single one. To solve this problem, they use SAT or ACT scores from applicants to ease the admissions process. Without that option, they would have to enlist an army of admissions personnel to get anywhere with applications. In favor of standardized testing, Jonah cited a lot of numbers from polls that seemingly express support for standardized tests. Unfortunately, polls aren’t always an accurate representation of the overall population, and there was no mention in either blog post of how students feel about standardized tests. For many students, standardized tests are extremely stressful, since they have such a huge effect on what schools they can get into, and they are being compared to their peers. Additionally, neither blog mentioned that in some schools, the curriculum is changed for teachers to “teach to the test”, which takes time away from other important material that they could have taught using that time. Arguably, this means that students are being tested not on their knowledge, but their test-taking skills and ability to deal with stress. Even if standardized tests weren’t originally designed to test the ability to deal with stress, it is still true that dealing with stress is an important life skill. Overall, while standardized tests may not be enjoyable and don’t assess every single ability of a student, they do test important skills and are crucial to the admissions process for universities and colleges.

In response to the following blogs: Tyler's blog: http://tmahlmann.blogspot.com/2015/02/blog-debate-1st-argument.html?m=1   and     Jonah's blog: https://jonahhelmer.wordpress.com

Response to "Denying Humans"

While same-sex couples should not be denied service based on freedom of religion, the author’s current argument stands very weakly. Anyone who already agrees with this point would not bother to disagree with any of the emotional points brought up, and might feel uncomfortable because of certain assumptions made. However, for any readers who either lack an opinion or have the opposite one, this argument is not sufficiently convincing due to a lack of ethos and logos, as well as a misuse of pathos.

First, the connection between racial discrimination and refusing service to same-sex couples is not made as strongly as it could be. It’s important to reference Title 42 in the US Code (federal public accommodation laws), which states that public services, such as restaurants, cannot refuse service based on race, color, religion, or national origin[1]. This law does not currently include sexual orientation as a possible discrimination, which means that same-sex couples are technically not included. It is still important to note, mainly because the law was enacted in response to the civil rights movement, to prevent blacks from being denied service in restaurants and other public facilities. A similar step could be taken, feasibly, to include same-sex couples in anti-discrimination laws.

While it is tempting to utilize, the author’s use of hypothetical situations is an example of overly sentimental appeals. As with the rest of the argument, it is simple as a reader in favor of rights for same-sex couples to agree with the views expressed in the examples. However, it’s not a good argument because it is hypothetical, based solely in emotional appeal, and not backed by hard evidence. Of course, this isn’t to say that the situation described does not occur, but rather that a real-life example including a same-sex couple denied service would be more convincing to an unbiased reader. Unfortunately, the section of the argument based on a hypothetical situation also includes a hasty generalization. Even though many people in the United States are well educated in the realm of equality, it is not true that “no one would ever think of restricting their services to one color.” Sadly, a significant number of people in the US still hold racist views, and many cling to homophobic views. As recently as in 1994, a restaurant chain called Denny’s was sued for numerous cases of racial discrimination, and is still accused of racial discrimination in some cases today[2].  Although it would be nice to live in a country free of discrimination, the fact is that many people, including owners of businesses, still discriminate for a multitude of different reasons.

The author’s argument is also flawed by several assumptions. Assuming that Christians are the only ones, or even main ones, denying service to same-sex couples is likely to offend the audience. Despite the truth that many people restricting service claim to be Christian, this is not always the case. Even if only Christians were guilty of this event, it would still be a mistake to target them, since it narrows the range of people that will be attracted to and agree with the argument. Additionally, the assumption that a religious text must be followed strictly to avoid hypocrisy is inaccurate. It is true that many Christians do not follow every single “rule” in the Bible, but this is true for non-fundamentalists of every religion. I, for example, am a Quaker, but I don’t follow George Fox’s lifestyle word for word. Case in point, I have never gone to random churches to tell the assembled congregation that they are wrong and should go to Quaker meeting instead of church. Does that mean that I am a hypocrite when I say that because of my religion, I believe in the extreme importance of equality?

A few important points are brought up in the author’s argument, but lack the standing to be truly argumentative. Especially with a topic that most people feel strongly about one way or the other, it is crucial that the author does not get caught up in emotional appeal and hasty assumptions. If the author were to rethink the argument from an unbiased standpoint and open view, it would be clear that the same view point can be argued with unbiased ethos and logos.

Link to the blog post being responded to: https://joshhoffman12.wordpress.com

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[1] Federal Public Accommodation. 42 USC. Sec. 2000a. 1964. Legal Information

     Institute. Web. 18 Feb. 2015. <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

     text/42/2000a>.

[2] "Denny's Racism Charges 1994." The Baltimore Sun. Baltimore Sun, 16 Dec. 1994.

     Web. 18 Feb. 2015. <http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-12-16/news/

     1994350042_1_denny-restaurant-flagstar-discrimination>.