1). The section the most to me was #21 because of how it highlights the flaws in our ways of thinking about peace and how we justify the violence we use in the name of peace. There is money to be made with war but there is as of yet no way to make money with peace really. I also like how he differentiated peaceableness with passivity "What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of mind." (Berry, Thoughts in the presence of fear, XXI) I think that is an imprint distinction to make.
2). In the second essay I found it interesting the way he delineates communism and free market capitalism. The way he describe the futility of both systems thusly, "Both justify violent means by good ends, which are always put beyond reach by the violence of the means." (Berry, page 15)
This echoes the previous essay in that with peace we often see violence as the means to obtain it. In the means we will often see that the violence used to gain the peace will forever create new problems and leave peace counter indicated.
3) Because of the structural importance to the essay, I chose to define and research the word community. The Oxford Dictionary defines community as "A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common."(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/community).
This would be vital to the idea of a local economy because it would rely on a shared set of values and pride in what you have in common. What makes a community strong is the shared sense of identity and the lessons that have been learned with each other. As we move more and more away from this we will see individual cultures and identities become increasingly scarce.
4). The question I have is why do we as a people continue to ignore the way we seem to be heading?
It would seem to me that the less we rely on ourselves for even basic things, the more we rely on others to fill those needs. I know this seems to counter the points I made in my last paragraph about the values of communities. The way I see it, with a community anyway, when people rely on each other there is a reciprocity that takes place. If I help you milk a cow, then you might fix my car when I need that. When we think about delagating our basic functions away from people we trust then we are at risk of being taken advantage of. I think the main point is to at least rely on people we trust more then people we don't even know. I chose to put a link to some quotes from one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's books called self reliance.http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1758578-self-reliance
I can remember reading bits and pieces of it a long time ago and this research has sparked some further interest to finish it. I would encourage you to take a look at some of the quotes and see if you are moved to take a look at it as well.
I really enjoyed your last part of your blog post. The simple question asked, "Why do we as a people continue to ignore the way we seem to be heading?" This is something that as I was reading, I took a few moments to ponder and really ask myself that question. I think that we as a nation are simply stubborn and tend to get into a routine that is unhealthy for us. In order for us as a nation to expand and grow, we must open up and make room for change.
ReplyDeleteJacob I could not agree with you more. When we stray from a locally based economy and search out cheaper options, we only hurt ourselves. We go to people we do not trust and risk being taking for a ride. Instead of taking the more expensive or slower local option we go straight to outsourcing which is in my mind the most blatant disrespect of a local economy today.
ReplyDeleteJacob you did a great job on this journal, and I agreed with several of your sections. For the first section I agreed with the idea of peacefulness and how we to many times feel that the means justifies the end. But in some cases it is possible to pursue something to much and defeat the purpose of your original goal. This happens far too often in war. Some countries start on a straight path but begin to blur the line between peace and victory. As for some of the wars the US have been involved in, we have settled more for victory than for peace which in one case led to a second world war.
ReplyDeleteJacob I agree with everything you say in section. I agree with the fact that starting wars brings in huge amounts of money to many corporations. Corporations like arms and ammunition dealers and corporations that do defense contracts. So they believe that war is necessary. I don't like how you say that peace brings in no money because it really does. If you think about it taking a peaceful route would help countries save millions maybe billions of dollars. The countries would save money because they wouldn't have to spend money on buying weapons or training soldiers. I really enjoyed your question because it was similar to mine. We as people need to learn how to balance using technology and also keeping human interaction alive.
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