Web Page 14: Einstein's Letter

This week one of the readings we surveyed was a letter written by Albert Einstein to a sixth grader in a response to the question, “do scientists pray?” Einstein begins his letter by providing a logical outlook on the scientific world, explaining just exactly what scientific research is all about. Einstein uses emotional diction in discussing prayer, referring to prayer a “wish” addressed toward God, which Einstein calls a “supernatural being.” Einstein ends his letter at an ethical standpoint, insisting that anyone in the “pursuit of science” understands and knows that there must be some type of deity, some kind of God out there. Einstein instructs the questioner that some things just couldn’t have happened on their own.

Web Page 13: Looking Back on my Web Pages..

My first web page published in November dealt with the relationship between meaning and language. In this discussion, I suggested that that the relationship between linguistics and written expression was one that could never fully capture the intent, passion and nature of one’s thoughts. One argument I provided, for example, suggested that perhaps when one simply and eagerly seeks meaning within and behind words only, one may lose or overlook the truest and utmost intent or passion. Perhaps, I argue, one or many words simply cannot capture or express that intent or passion. Words do fail us; evidentially, linguistics cannot.  

The next four web page postings dealt further with this relationship between meaning and language. Describing characters from both Chaucer and Beowulf, I attempted to distill and convey the author’s message. Chaucer, for example, describes the knight as not having flashy attire or shiny armor; he wears commoner clothing or a “fustian tunic.” Through this descriptive language, one can infer that the narrator looked-up to the Knight, not for what he could be or for what others think he should be, but for whom he was: an ordinary person who did extra-ordinary things, but never boasted about what he did.

Two web postings dealt with Carlyle and Wife of Bath, expressing how the author uses rhetorical devices and other techniques that authors or speakers use to convey to their audience meaning with the goal of persuading such an audience toward considering a topic from a different perspective. In the Wife of Bath’s Tale, for example, Chaucer uses alliteration, similes, and allusions as rhetorical devices. Here’s one simile used in the Tale and discussed in the posting: “Here was but heaviness and grievous sorrow; For privately he wedded on the morrow, And all day, then, he hid him like an owl; So sad he was, his old wife looked so foul’’   ( 226-227). This simile compares the Knight to an owl, comparing the Knight’s hiding from his wife-to-be (fiancée) all day, as does an owl hide all day, for they are nocturnal and only come out at night. A few of my web pages, entitled, The Motivation of Learning, James Baldwin and Education deal with the issue of society and education. For example, in James Baldwin’s essay, A Talk to Teachers, he states that society’s only hope for change is through those individuals who question.  If no one questions life about and around them, Baldwin maintains, everything remains the same and no change occurs or can occur. Baldwin suggests that tension occurs when society suppresses this questioning.

Three web page postings, Technology Versus Morals, Francis Bacon and Poverty, I consider outliers as they do not fall into the main discussion categories of meaning and language or society and education. Technology Versus Morals, for example, dealt with values (both  people and society) and how each influences our technology but I find that it does not really fit neatly into any educational aspect of discussion.

Web Page 12: Thomas Carlyle

Carlyle uses many literary devices to boost his argument. Carlyle writes “In this mitigated form, however, the distemper is of pretty regular recurrence; and may be reckoned on at intervals, like other natural visitations; so that reasonable men deal with it, as the Londoners do with their fogs, — go cautiously out into the groping crowd, and patiently carry lanterns at noon; knowing, by a wellgrounded faith, that the sun is still in existence, and will one day reappear.” Here Carlyle employs the device of imagery, equating human thought and theory, from religion to science, as a fog from which we all know sooner or later will lift. Before the fogs lift, however, we walk about with our lanterns (light or thoughts) and bang into one another, perhaps, much like religious or scientific discussion. The image is concrete.

            Carlyle writes that “there is a deep-lying struggle in the whole fabric of society; a boundless grinding collision of the New with the Old. The French Revolution, as is now visible enough, was not the parent of this mighty movement, but its offspring.” Here, Carlyle commands an oratory, a high speech, much like that of the great orators he mentions within this satire. Employing such terms as “fabric” and placing it against such terms as “boundless grinding collision” escalates the manner of speech to oratory. With such oratory, Carlyle’s satire becomes less argument and more poem.

Carlyle writes that “the King has virtually abdicated; the Church is a widow, without jointure; public principle is gone; private honesty is going; society, in short, is fast falling in pieces; and a time of unmixed evil is come on us.”  Carlyle employs a few devices or techniques here to win over his reading audience. In one, he uses personification (Church and widow), which lowers the institutional level of the Church to a more personal level, to the reader’s eye-level, if you will. The Church is no longer stone but flesh. Second, we notice the quickening pace of this passage as it descends: abdicate, widow, gone, going, fallen to pieces. The world is unraveling, from King to Church, public to private, until we arrive at evil. Carlyle portrays this “sky is falling scenario” in quickening, abrupt phrases. Carlyle condenses this free fall and accelerates it again through simple punctuation. As we pass each stop (semicolon) we gain more momentum until we hit the period at the end.   

Web Page 11: Synthesis Essay Response

Poverty, it seems, is much like pornography. As one Supreme Justice and decision often quoted reflects: You know it when you see it. That is, an agreeable definition and measurement of and for poverty is lacking. Poor is poor. But when is poor poverty? Several arguments from researchers admit that no agreement exists on the very definition of poverty but research nevertheless attempts to suggest viable measurements and methods to better characterize toward a working definition of poverty. Based on a lack of agreement on a definition of poverty and how best to measure it toward such a definition, one may be best left with “I know it when I see it” understanding. 

Atkinson writes that “the methods employed in the measurement of poverty have been

the subject of criticism,” examining the three basic issues in measuring poverty, which include, the “choice of the poverty line, the index of poverty, and the relation between poverty and

inequality.” Atkinson acknowledges that there remains a “diversity of judgments which enter the measurement of poverty.” Atkinson’s definition of poverty remains judgmental.Glennerster discusses the American contribution to the study of poverty over the past 25 years, viewed from a “comparative perspective.” Glennerster argues that the “U.S. poverty line” has “remained fundamentally unchanged” since 1977 “despite increasingly important deficiencies in the way” poverty was calculated.” The definition of poverty through metrics did not change for Glennerster.

Brady suggests that to derive a definition and better measurement for poverty, one should consider and do some of the following things. One should first measure comparative historical variation effectively and be relative rather than absolute. One should conceptualize poverty as social exclusion and assess the impact of taxes, transfers, and state benefits. And last but not least, one should integrate the depth of poverty and the inequality among the poor.

Atkinson, Glennerster and Brady, researchers all, fail to adequately define, measure and quantify a usable “talking point” about what poverty is. Ask an impoverished person for a definition, accurate measurement or quantification and the impoverished might simply point out that you must know me because you are asking me. You know it when you see it. Apparently you can’t easily prosecute it.

Web Page 10: Synthesis Topic

Poverty:

(1) http://www.oed.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/

(2) On the Measurement of Poverty

A. B. Atkinson

Econometrica
Vol. 55, No. 4 (Jul., 1987), pp. 749-764

Published by: The Econometric Society 


(3) United States Poverty Studies and Poverty Measurement: The Past Twenty‐Five Years 
Howard Glennerster

The Social Service Review
Vol. 76, No. 1, 75th Anniversary Issue (March 2002), pp. 83-107

Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/324609

(4) Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty

David Brady

Social Forces
Vol. 81, No. 3 (Mar., 2003), pp. 715-751

Published by: University of North Carolina Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3598174

(5)http://www.onedayswages.org/about/what-extreme-global-poverty

(6)http://www.policyalmanac.org/social_welfare/poverty.shtml

Question: 

In what ways can poverty be defined?

Web Page 9: Technology Vs. Morals

According to Thomas P. McManus, “it is important for liberal studies students to understand the relationship and interaction between science, technology, and society, and the role human values play.”As technology develops and advances we hold the same conventional kinds of moral beliefs we've always held, but scientific advancements add a twist because different issues now apply to the equation in the choices we need to make. It ultimately comes down to a question of whether or not we should take the scientific direction simply because we can do it. The question of whether or not we should is the real question that makes one question; when scientific advancements make something an option does this mean we should actually do it? Is it morally correct to do it? Is it safe? What are the negative outcomes that could occur from this [scientific advancement]?  Advancements do not mean we change our values completely, but it does mean that technology allows us to make choices we may or may not have previously made if the option wasn’t available.

Today’s society has become so reliant on technology because as McManus said, “it’s a source of power to make life easier and more productive.” We’re reliant to the point that we forget our actions have consequences. For example, if you call someone stupid to their face, you would expect for them to say something back or for a physical altercation to occur. To some degree, our expectation of this negative feedback confines our behavior and reminds one of their morals. Whereas on the internet and computer we don’t receive that feedback, we begin to forget that our words have real effects on others.  Communication of the computer is just emotionless words and talking, you can’t see the person’s actions or really know how they felt. This gives us the courage to say whatever we please, because we aren’t say it to a real live person sitting next to us, but a computer screen.

           

Web Page 8: Education

Education and schooling have and continue to serve as an integral part of my life (going on 13 years now with, I hope, many more). Every day since I turned 3-years-old, I’ve spent some 6 hours a day, 5 days a week in school. That adds up to a lot of time in school. And I often, lately, ask myself: what has all this time consumed in schooling done for me? And I always, even lately, answer my question thus: education affords me the reliance to think for myself as an individual.  Education allows me to use the knowledge I learn in school to help me unravel the unanswered questions of my world—to discover and explore it. Schooling pushes me to engage, question, answer and argue things logically and rationally; sometimes I’m pushed far enough to engage, question, argue and think outside of the box (and when I nudge beyond the cliché, I think outside of the circle). Education and schooling provides an experience for me that allows me to sift through many different subjects and topics, helping to form and determine my many likes and dislikes. But clearly, education and schooling helps me in a very real and practical way: to set goals for myself. Without goals, I’ve found, I can get easily lost, distracted, off-track, less motivated and generally directionless. Education and schooling shows me why a boat needs a rudder.

            Defining education as “the gradual process of acquiring knowledge,” I know and understand that my education and schooling won’t end when I graduate  high school and college (not to mention post-doctoral and the fellowships—did I mention goals?) Education is not a thing to be terminated like a contract or even a relationship. We must grow and learn (and re-align our goals as we do) everyday of our lives. The day we don’t is most certainly our last one.