Why Do We Question?

          The title of my blog post may seem a bit ironic, but by reading the book Socrates Cafe, I set out to find an answer. Let me begin with some background info. The book is a non fiction narrative by Christopher Phillips. In it, he describes to us his quest for identity as well as knowledge. Phillips began his journey by questioning himself and whether or not he enjoyed the life that he was living at the time. Realizing that he did not, he began to ask himself what he would like to do with his life. After a series of questions and many moments of doubt, he quit his job and moved to Montclaire, New Jersey. There, he set up the first of his weekly philosophical meetups. He called it Socrates Cafe. People noticed and came, every week there would be a new question or topic. Phillips taught a method called Socratic Questioning-- which is a critical and analytical way of observing and asking questions in the hopes that they may become more specific and easier to answer. The questions he discussed were all different each time. Some were about friendship, others about the meaning of life (those he quickly simplified to "What is the meaning of my life?" and "How can I give my life the meaning that I want it to have?") He not only held these meeting in cafes, he would visit schools, prisons, and elderly homes. He would host philosophical discussions with people of all ages and  from all over the country. His mission was simple; he wanted to reawaken philosophy and share ideas and learn from the people that he met.

          One of his Socrates Cafe groups in San Fransisco discussed my inquiry, why do we question? Though they pondered it for a while, the children where able to come up with the best answer, "Because we wonder.", "Because we want to gain knowledge.", "Because we're curious.", "Because we've observed something we don't understand." (Phillips 195)  In other words, they believed that it was human nature to wonder and ask continuously. 

          But what about wondering too much? When does questioning become excessive? Though Christopher Phillips did not discuss this, it led me to asking if the amount of philosophical inquiry that Phillips was doing was 'too much.' Throughout the book, I began to notice that sometimes the questioning that Phillips was doing seemed unnecessary. Isn't it better not to know the answers to some questions? Shouldn't some knowledge be kept out of the reach of humanity? Some of his questioning became borderline obsessive. At a certain point I began to notice that he was asking questions that seemed to even possibly take away from the experience of living life. Isn't it beneficial to stay ignorant in relation to some topics? For example, it is healthy to question about the meaning of life, because one knows that there can be either no specific answer or a multitude of vague answers. However, questioning becomes obsessive, in my opinion, when one begins to ask about human excellence or begin to compulsively seek out a meaning to assign to their life. Many in the book begin to obsess over how they may achieve that excellence or provide their life with a more desirable meaning without realizing that this may actually be unhealthy or that it may harm them. They may end up seeking a superficial perfection. Once they arrive at it they may begin to understand that the 'perfect' meaning to life is actually just a popular misconception. Or worse, if they do not arrive at the 'perfect' meaning they may become consumed with searching for it and end up being disapointed or waste their life on something so meaningless. To summarize, sometimes it is better to live the life you are living now instead of obsessively searching for a meaning to apply to it.

         My group and I came to the conclusion that questioning, and some questions, are healthy to the individual, to a certain point, after which it becomes excessive and questions begin to hurt the individual.  

Non-Fiction Reading Response: 

Snowden: Traitor or Hero?

          The world's most famous fugitive, Edward Snowden recently received asylum in Russia after leaking classified information about N.S.A. spying programs. Working as a computer systems contractor for the N.S.A., Snowden collected top-secret documents about surveillance programs in the U.S. He decided to make them public and, having copied the information, leaked it to the journalists. The most controversial of the surveillance programs was a large data base with information gathered from phone calls regarding who was called and when, the actual conversations were not recorded. Besides collecting that information, U.S. spy agencies also monitored cellphone conversations of world leaders, allies not excluded. Though these surveillance programs are necessary to prevent further terrorist attacks on America, like 9/11, some Americans feel as if these programs are being taken too far and are overstepping the boundaries between necessity and civil liberty.
           Some may argue that Snowden is a traitor because he exposed government secrets and may have endangered the country. According to the article Edward Snowden: Traitor or Hero? Upfront Magazine, "Among the many things Snowden's leaks revealed was how the military secures its telephone and computer networks and other details of current U.S. military operations." This knowledge could have put military troops overseas at risk. In fact, some are sure that the leaks are going to have lethal consequences and in general made the U.S. forces vunerable.
          Yet others believe that Snowden is a hero. This is not the first time that information about U.S. surveillance systems has been leaked. However, this time, Americans believe that the level of surveillance is violating civil rights and is unconstitutional. Furthermore, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board determined that the N.S.A.'s phone records collection program has "provided only minimal benefits in counterterrorism efforts." Basically, the N.S.A. was violating the Fourth Amendment for no reason.
          In conclusion, it is still unclear whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor. This issue will be more discussed in July 2014 when Snowden's temporary asylum in Russia will expire.

Poetry Response:

        In the quickly evolving and developing world today, some things never change. Generations may come and go, times may change, fashions, ideas, technology, but one thing stays constant: the way humans communicate and interact with other people and the outside world. Some may be excited to go out and learn new things, while others may be shy or even frightened of the outside world. The poem Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Maya Angelou is exactly about that. One prominent theme in the poem is that one shouldn't be afraid of the world or any mental fears that they may have. The poem teaches us to be brave by looking at the world from a more innocent perspective of a child.
         An example of a fear of physical things can be found in stanzas six and seven. The speaker says "Tough guys fight/alone at night/ life doesn't frighten me at all/ Panthers in the park/ strangers in the dark/ No, they don't frighten me at all." (Angelou 22-27) The things described in these stanzas do not seem childlike or lighthearted. In fact, they are examples of more adult issues. However, the speaker says that they aren't afraid of those things, letting the reader know that they aren't important or frightening enough as other things hinted at further along in the poem.
        An example of a fear that is more psychological is in the lines "That new classroom where/boys all pull my hair/ (kissy little girls/with their hair in curls)/ they don't frighten me at all." (Angelou 28-32) This represents the teasing, and perhaps even bullying, that exists in schools. The speaker states that they are not afraid of that and they are not afraid of being judged by other people.
        The final example of a fear that is mostly in the speaker's mind is "If I am afraid at all/ it's only in my dreams." (Angelou 35-36) This signifies that the speaker is only afraid of the things that he or she can not control. If they are in control of their life, then they have nothing to be frightened of.
        Maya Angelou shows the reader of the poem Life Doesn't Frighten Me that as long as you are in charge of your life there is nothing out there in the world that can really scare you. The greatest fear is loosing control of what is going on around you. This poem teaches its readers to be brave and not be frightened of insignificant things.

Poem:

"A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place." 
                                            -Rainer Maria Rilke

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place.
Kept preserved within it; the memories, the things
we'd rather forget, the truths and the lies
we tell ourselves for decades and milleniums.
A place is not supernatural, neither is a spirit. They
are both physical and mental hurts of the
shells of people left behind. They are not unlike pressed flower petals
in a musty tome found on your great uncle's bookshelf
in the middle of a winter, keeping safe the sunny technicolor days
he spent with your grand dad who passed away last spring.
For the thing that places and ghosts happen to have in common is
our need to get rid of them without letting go.

Reading Response:

          Jessica Daniel, a detective, has received a new case: a person has been murdered inside their own home, with all the windows and doors locked from the inside. As more bodies are found in the victim's own homes, Jessica learns to focus on her physical surrounding versus concentrating on how the killer got in and who they could be. This book, Locked In by Kerry Wilkinson, stresses the importance of being aware and paying attention to one's surroundings.

          The first example of how the book stresses the importance of paying attention to one's surrounding is on page 178 of the book, when a friend of a friend shows Jessica how easy it is to divert one's attention from the important details. When Jessica first meets this person what she notices most prominently about him is the fact that he is wearing two watches and odd shoes. But later he proves that the most important thing that she did not notice was how he preformed a seemingly impossible magic trick. He then gives her advice, " I do know that with anything that looks impossible, the obvious answer is almost certainly the correct one." What this means is that Jessica has been overthinking how the murderer got in while the answer is quite simple. She is missing all the obvious clues that are hidden in her surroundings.

          Another example of paying attention to one's surroundings is on page 220 when Jessica chooses to double check a persons background and accidentally finds another lead that unravels the whole murder case. Because Jessica was so thourough in checking the people in the background that were still somehow related to the murder, she found an important clue. If she had not paid attention to the minor details, she may not have solved the mystery. "Jessica felt there was something important still left to be said." By not backing down and being persistent on working on the minor details, she manages to find a large piece of the puzzle.

          The final example of the importance of paying attention is on page 278 when Jessica chooses to follow a lead on a hunch. Previously, Jessica talked to the families of the murdered people, she noticed that in two of the homes, there was a robbery, and in another, someone put glue on the locks. " One of (the kids) put glue in the front-door lock one night. We had to climb out a window." She double checks the lead and remembers the advice that she was given earlier. She realizes how easy it would be to enter and then lock the house from the outside after murdering the people if you have an extra set of keys. She finds the locksmith and consequentially finds the murderer.

          In conclusion, the detective novel, Locked In by Kerry Wilkinson, displays the importance of paying close attention to details by showing us how small things aid Jessica Daniel in solving the murder case.

The article "The White Rose" by Robert K. Elder teaches us the importance of standing up against higher power and doing the correct and humane thing in a difficult or dangerous situation.

               The White Rose was an anti-Nazi organization in the midst of Nazi Germany. Composed of college students, the group fought to inform the oppressed people of the issues and moral wrongness of murder a people because of their religion and traditions. The leaders, Sophie and Hans Scholl, had grown up as Hitler Youth children, however, they grew to detest his ways of oppressing and manipulating the general public. They organized the White Rose group from the students at Munich College.

               This group wrote and spread pamphlets with quotes from famous philosophers. They wrote poems and essays and then placed them in public locations. The pamphlets would describe the natures of Hitler's anti-Jew program. They would tell the people of how wrong this was and how many people suffered. The White Rose organization hoped that this would attract attention from the general public and make the people realize how unjust the Nazi rule was. We need to remember, that the White Rose was not a terrorist organization, they did not have power and could not threaten people, they were a group of brave college students who stood up for what they believed was morally right despite the obvious danger. They risked their lives for what they believed was morally right.

            In the end, the White Rose was caught when Sophie Scholl threw pamphlets of anti-Nazi essays into the air in the crowded hallway of Munich College. A janitor had seen them and turned them in, resulting in five students and one professor being hung for their efforts. Their story teaches us to be brave in the face of danger. These students teach us to stand up for our rights and the rights of others. Although the White Rose is long gone, the members leave behind a legacy of determination, nobility, and courage.

Reading Response

Though the book Feed by M.T. Anderson is set in the future, it has many themes and social issues that we today can relate to. One of these social issues is humans' unhealthy reliance on technology. The humans in the book rely on technology for nearly everything, from day-night cycles to job interviews to their own survival. In the world of Feed, most people have a microchip inserted and hooked up with their brain. This microchip, called a Feed, controls nearly everything that surrounds the people. The people never stop to think about what would happen if the Feed no longer existed. When their technology breaks down or malfunctions, they die. Humans are too reliant on technology in their everyday life.

The first time this issue appears in the book is when the main character and his friends go to the moon and are attacked by a hacker/terrorist. When the terrorist hacks into their Feed, he causes them to malfunction and black out. The bodies of the humans could not deal with the hack because they depended on the Feed to send signals to the rest of the body. When the Feed broke, it was sending too many impulses that the body could not deal with. If their body was not so closely linked with the Feed, that would not have happened.
Another example of when people rely on technology appears in many descriptions of neighborhoods in the book. The wealthier people have their personal sun  and sky that they control. This artificial sun, in wealthy families, is located at about one per house. They can control this sun by using their Feed. The families that are poor, however, usually have one sun per block or per neighborhood. In poor neighborhoods, the artificial sky is always peeling off like wallpaper, and the suns don't seem as bright or they aren't the latest model. People don't have a real sun so they have to use machines in order to keep track of time, this can lead to issues if someone's sun is not in sync with all the other ones.
Finally, in the book, people who have the Feed are given more advantages than people who do not have one. At job interviews, people who have the Feed can communicate and talk about someone in private. One does not have the advantage of knowing what others are thinking and saying to their peers. And, in some instances, people without a Feed may not be given the same job as people with a Feed simply because they do not have the microchip embedded in their brain. It isn't fair if some people are given an advantage over others because they have a certain piece of technology. People have become too dependent on technology to bring them information and give them an advantage at life.

The problem that exists in the world of Feed, also exists in our world. Humans have become too dependent on technology in the modern world. Statistics show that the average human checks his or her phone at least 110 times a day! When the machines fail, the people panic. We are so used to things being done our way and technology always working that we never consider what would happen if all of those machines stopped working. What if, one day, it would happen just like in the book Feed and technology would fail just when we needed it most? To minimize the damage caused by technology if it fails, humanity needs to learn to do things on its own, like it did before computers.

The book Feed by M.T. Anderson displays some of the issues and shows us the after effects of relying on technology. The reliance that people have on technology is severe and addicting. If it isn't stopped, problems will occur in the future.