The Writing Center

My entire experience at the writing center lasted for about 10 minutes. I walked in sat down, turned on my computer (that probably took up most of the time I spent there) and then I showed the helper what I had already written down. I had a few notes about the sonnet that I was thinking of writing about already scribbled down on my computer. He read my notes, agreed with what I had to say, told me I was good with what I had and if I needed anymore help once I started writing it then I could come back. Then I left. There is not much for me to say about our conversation because whatever we said was really short and he didnt have much advice for me at all.
I did not change anything from the time that I went to the writing center to when I sat down to write my essay because they honestly did not give me any advice at all. Since I also went to the writing center with no essay completed or even started I could not have changed anything in my actual writing based on my writing center experience.

It's the American way

The article assigned to us was "Faustian Economics" by Wendell Berry and it was one in which he criticized just about every aspect of American life. The point of this article though was to convey to us how little we are actually doing to help our ever growing climate problem, and the useless steps that we take to "fix" it. Overall I felt that the author just doesnt like America or our way of life at all for the most part. He claims that we view our way of life as "indestructible", the idea that we are able to consume anything and everything that we want at the expense of the world.
Berry's ultimate solution for this is that we must abolish this standard that we as Americans have if we want to actually fic the climate problem. All of the "biofuels" (Berry 2) which he feels only benefits the manufacturer, is not a legitimate way to solve global warming. We must get rid of our greed and wastefulness because through all of this we continue to burn more and more fossil fuels everyday. If we were to all cut back then this would have a real impact. Driving around hybrid cars is not the ultimate solution for all of this.
Along with these thoughts, Berry also touches upon a philosophical aspect into what we do. According to him it seems that everything we do in our ways to fix our problems, mainly climate, is rooted in our way to consume constantly and also in our high standard of living. The biofuel example is one such because it shows that we still look to produce ways to fix our problems but they will com at a cot and in the end someone or another will profit from it all. Is the American way too greedy? He writes about the ideas that we only look for high costing solutions which involve advanced technology and machinery, while his views are that we must stop consuming and wasting on such a grand scale. This would have a greater impact on the fight against global warming. One other example which believes me to take this as a philosophical account is that he touches upon how we classify ourselves, "animals" the idea that we are limitless in everything that we do proves us not to be animals but "limitless animals" as Berry puts it. He uses the eample of how the God of Exodus does not choose to classify or define himself because by giving a definition this implies that we have limits. He merely says that "I am that I am" meaning that he simply is and is limitless. (Berry 2)

What's waste look like?

Faustian economics is an article that over describes waste, the author parallels countless examples most of which made no sense to me. For me waste, as Berry wants us to see it as, is like buying two of a specific item just for the sake of throwing one away. Like when you were young and sitting at the dinner table with your parents telling you not to leave until all of your food was gone and then feeding it to the dog under the table when no one was looking. Like taking you whole plate and dumping it in the garbage. It's when our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, we order so much food and then eat less than half of it all. Going to the supermarket when you're hungry and buying every possible thing imaginable and then a few weeks later you find that snack you bought and it goes right into the garbage,unopened and all because you know no ones ever going to eat it. This is how I think Berry describes waste in his article. We just want and want, but how much do we really need?

Making Language

The two poems "The Problem of Describing Trees" by Robert Haas and "Hubris at Zunzal" by Rodney Jones both metaphorically describe the complexity behind language and how it is created. "Hubris at Zunza"l is one which describes a man floaring out in the ocean at about sunset. This man then goes and dumpes his drink into the ocean, yet when it comes back over him there is a feeling of sweet relief in a sense. All of this is a metaphor for language because by him dumping his drink into the ocean shows to us how langauge (his drink) can be lost so easiliy in the vast ocean. His one drink was just a small thought for language where as the ocean represented the collectiveness of everyone else. His thought was mixed in and unable to be retrieved because language is so slippery and delicate. Just as trying to retrieve that drink is impossible, his thought is now gone and mixed in with everything else unable to be retrieved. But when the wave came over him, his thoughts were back to him, they were retrieved for a short time and them mixed back into the ocean. His thought had resurfaced only to be taken back by the ocean which he once gave it away to.
The second poem "The Problem of Describing Trees" is one which describes the complexity of language and how it can grow and develp just as a tree can. The poem uses verbs such as "flutter", "dance", "threw up" and "capitalized" in order to show how a tree can grow. It shows the tree from its earliest stages as a "wobbly stem", to an art form all the way to its fullest and most dominant, final form. The tree capitalizes over all other plants and often people to make itself strong. All of these stages are ones which language goes through as well, it starts off shaky, makes itself beautiful and metaphoric and then its final form delivers the punch that language needs in order to stick with people and make its point. This is how language capitalizes.

The Power of Writing

In the video of an interview with Jacques Derrida he talks about his true feelings regarding his writing. Derrida begins the interview by saying that he has never renounced anything that he has written. He feels that everything he has written is something that was needed to be conveyed to everyone and that he could not hold back no matter how controversial his arguments may have been. At times he has even argued with himself about whether or not he should go ahead with what he is writing. Often he has considered what he was writing at the time to be too controversial but he still kept his position and his thoughts did not stop him from writing. This has often come up when he was attacking politicians or groups of people where his thoughts might be considered controversial. Derrida tells us of how he compares himself to the classic childlike dream that Freud spoke about, where a child is scared because everyone sees them in their underwear. This could comparable in a sense for Derrida because he is making himself "naked" to the world in such a way that everyone is watching him when he makes outlandish and controversial statements. He is then the center of attention just as a child in their underwear.
One thing that I found to be interesting is when Derrida mentions how when he writes he "says" what must be "said". Incorrect english because when we are writing no one is talking. The paper is telling us in written language, not spoken. It is almost as though Derrida is hiding behind his pen and paper and maybe that is what gives him the power he feels to write whatever he wants no matter how controversial it may be. Because when he is writing it, who is there to argue with him? No one. If he was to speak it, this is where he would run into more problems.

Let's collaborate.....

The article that we were assigned to read was entitled "Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind" by Kenneth Bruffee. This article started out looking at the idea of whether or not we should have collaborative learning in the classroom yet it seemed to drift more into the philosophical and psychological views on the subject matter. The main idea of this article is to provide thoughts on whether knowledge for us as human beings is an innate gift which is born and bred in us or is it something that we attain from interacting with others? Kenneth's begins his argument with the idea of our thoughts in general and then from there he is able to develop and decide how we are able to attain knowledge.
Brufee's ideas on thought is that it is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. It sets us aside from the lower animals in the world because we have the gift of reason. This in fact is the only thing which provides us with the capacity for thought. If it was not for this then we would merely be animals with instincts and desires, but no reason to fuel those wants that we have. Reason is how we are able to think about what we do and how we are able to make the right decisions in our life. Our minds are able to evaluate what is right and wrong for us to do because we are able to perceive and interpret the world around us in a way that is different from other such animals. Brufee tells us that thought is inbred in us because of this capacity for reason. This is how we are able to come up with our own thoughts, this is not however how we are able to attain knowledge.
In his article Kenneth refers to knowledge as the product of a social interaction between humans. This is because we have the thoughts in our mind that we have come up with, about anything at all, but how are we supposed to be certain that these thoughts are correct unless we are able to collaborate and work with other people as well? He uses the example in the beginning of a doctor with a team of medical students who are attempting to diagnose a patient. Instead of having each student try to determine what is wrong with the patient one by one, the doctor tells them to work as a team and to pool their thoughts and diagnoses' together in order to attain a more proper and certainly faster diagnosis. This example i perfect for the topic of thought collaboration because that is precisely what the students have done. They put all of their thoughts together to form one idea which is more likely to be correct than if they each had their own thoughts. This is so because it is possible that each student has a different diagnosis but each student might also know more than the next, by therefore comparing their ideas together we are able to get a better picture of what is truly happening with the patient. This is the same in any common day example, all of us do not know everything and it is always possible to learn things from other people as well. Because of this it is necessary for us to work together and collaborate with one another in order to have a better understanding of the world around us.
Having a taken philosophy last semester and ethics this semester at Hofstra, this topic has been covered many times in my courses and everything that Kenneth Brufee says in this article is founded from a philosophical standpoint. I did not like the article because I personally hate philosophy classes, but I was able to understand it more having taken both of those classes already.

My Montage 3/7/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

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