Should We Protect Ourselves?

A distinct memory from my childhood relates to the T.V show Sponge Bob Squarepants, and the banning of it in my house by my parents. They did not allow me and my three sisters to watch the show. The reason for this was because my parents believed that they had predetermined the best way for me to grow up. Even though it was only a t.v show, it did not align with the childhood they had picked out for me. This situation can be applied to the reason all books, ideas, music etc. are banned. The reason is protection. The person trying to do the banning believes it will protect future people from harm from the certain thing. This is very obvious if we look at things in our country today that have successfully been banned, such as drugs. The government has taken a look at these substances and determined that the consequences are harmful to the public and society. Therefore they have been banned. Although most citizens would not do drugs anyway, the government makes the choice for all people so no everyone is protected. The government believes it can make a better decision than the people can, so it takes the choice away.

In my belief, I do not think we should protect ourselves from ideas, books, music etc. I believe this because once one book, idea or song is banned, it opens a door for a restriction of communication, something that can be very dangerous. Although it may not be a big deal if one book is banned, it will be a big deal if it becomes a common practice because it means information will not flow freely. Books, music, ideas etc. are the carriers of information and if stopped, even for protection, will lead to the restriction of info in our society.

What Have I Discovered About Myself?

During the summer, I had an amazing opportunity to travel with a group of thirteen girls to a region in China called Inner Mongolia. For about three weeks, the girls and I stayed at an orphanage in a city called Wulanchabu. The orphanage staff wanted us to spend time with the children, help the children with disabilities, and learn about each other’s cultures. At the orphanage, I spent a lot of my time hanging out and helping children whose ages ranged from newborn babies to eighteen. During our stay, we were assigned “jobs” where we were assigned to a certain group of children. Some of us would help the nannies with the toddlers and the disabled children while the rest of us would teach the older children English.

When we weren’t working, we would see a lot of the children on the playground. When we hung out with them, they taught us a variety of games and tricks. One girl taught me how to form shapes out of a hairband, and another girl attempted to teach me an interesting trick with some jacks and a bouncy ball. Everyone in the orphanage had very little experience with English (and we also had very limited knowledge on Chinese), but we were able to communicate through emotions and laughing a lot when one of us did not understand what the other said.

It surprised me to see that all the children were extremely cheerful even when they did not have loving parents or have as many opportunities as other children their age. Even though they did not necessarily have the newest clothes or technology, they found happiness in small things such as hanging out and playing games with each other. Since I spent three weeks bonding with the children and learning how they have fun, I discovered that the simple things such as making a child smile and spending time with people I care about is what really makes me happy. Although these children seemed very happy in the orphanage, they still missed out on many of the opportunities we take for granted. This made me discover that I am also very lucky to have the life I have.

Should We Be Protected from Ideas, Books, Ourselves?

For many years, information has has influenced many our lives, and having information can lead to power. Today, information has countless ways to travel from one person to another. Due to the evolution of technology in the past few years, we can access and share ideas quickly through the internet and social media. Since information is easily accessible, many people believe it is in our best interest to protect ourselves from anything corrupt in our society. Many parents will make sure their children do not watch scary shows on TV.  Not only do parents shelter their children from media that is considered “too old”, but the government also censors controversial ideas including those in books. Even though many people believe that we should be protected ideas, books, and ourselves, I believe that having access to this knowledge allows us to see things in new perspectives, and we should be able to know what happens in our society.

I believe believe that sharing ideas  allows us to see another side to a story and to think more diversely. If we protect ourselves from some ideas, we limit our knowledge on a certain topic. Someone’s idea might make you think about a subject entirely differently. When we share ideas, we learn about the lives of other people that we might not know as much about. When we know the cultures and lifestyles of many people, it helps us become more diverse. Also, people should be able to share their experience with others, because someone else might have a similar experience, and their information could help someone else. Similarly, in books, people spread knowledge and personal stories that we shouldn’t be protected from. Books will have important life lessons that we should have the opportunity to learn from. If we protect ourselves from ourselves, we limit the experiences that we can have. The best way to learn is from experiencing something first hand. I believe that the knowledge we gain from our own experiences lasts longer than things we learn from other people’s experiences. We should be able to have the ability to share our ideas and learn about other’s’ ideas because it helps us learn about ourselves and others and their experiences.

“Should We Be Protected…” Blog

Sally Little

A Block

September 21st, 2015

“Should We Be Protected…” Blog

Throughout history, and even modern times, people have been ‘protected’ from things such as books, ideas, and ourselves. But is keeping people from having access to information really protecting them? Some may say, yes, what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you; but on the contrary, knowledge is power. We should be allowed to have access to most everything so we can learn from previous mistakes and so history doesn’t repeat itself; if something is offensive to someone, they have the ability to simply not engage themselves in it.  

Books were meant to be read. Even if the subject matter is controversial, they are supposed to spark change and teach others. A horrifying event that took place during the Holocaust was the book burning ceremonies where the Nazis burned literature by any Jewish author. They thought this was protecting the world from the evil of Judaism, but in reality it was just taking away literature from the world. Some books are banned, but this is not really protecting anyone, as these can be used as valuable resources and there is a lot to be learned from them. If someone is personally offended by the book they can choose to not read it. Again, it should come down to personal preference.

Living in the US, we are lucky to have freedom of speech so we can freely express ourselves. This is not true for all other countries, and in some, especially a long time ago, you could be punished for speaking up about what you believe in. In some countries, you can go to jail for speaking poorly about the government or high ranking officials. They say this is to protect the citizens, but the only thing being protected in that situation is the government itself; it is manipulative. It should be someone’s personal decision to what they expose themselves to. People have varying opinions about many things and these may offend some others but despite this, everyone should be able to express themselves and their ideas.

Books, ideas, and ourselves are not something we need protection from. Books and ideas are meant to be read and discussed, protecting people from these by not allowing them is not really protection it is more manipulation. People do not need protection from these things and should be able to choose what they expose themselves to.

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” – Albert Einstein

A spark of life. Born into the word as a clean slate. No knowledge in the infant’s brain, which is to be filled with tactical, social, and cognitive skills. Most say that knowledge is power, although in many instances, knowledge has seemingly proved to be the root of most human complications.

When one is young, the world is slowly introduced and common emotions are proved to exist. Fire is to be feared but also utilized when necessary, water is essential although may be a possible demise. As a creature learns of it’s surroundings, the brain grows and advances in complex forms of neurons connecting and stimulating in order to remember and preserve. Not only is this an amazing advance of life, but it’s also evolved to be a way to never forget the important. To love is to release many pleasure hormones that bring the charm of breathtaking addiction to the action of falling in love. But alas, how would a child know love if not introduced by the joy of seeing its mother’s smile? Or the happiness of its first case of puppy love? This theory poses true for negative emotions, as how would we survive without fear?

Positive emotions are taught with joy, and negative emotions are taught with malice. Although one is never taught the pain in the end of a love or the joy of conquering a fear. To not learn is almost impossible, but to not learn of the harsh rules of society is possible. Albert Einstein said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” By this, he is proving in this theory that to be smart and intelligent is not given by learning in a classroom or reading letters pushed into words, shoved into sentences, and mashed into paragraphs, but by allowing the brain to express it’s creative, beautiful thoughts and ideas to the world.

We should be protected from the knowledge that prohibits creativity. The knowledge that inflicts bad feelings in order to allow a being believe that they are of worth in the world due to artificial quotes and facts spoken from the mouths of countless historians, mathematicians, scientists, professors, in a room full of other people listening and believing one’s knowledge instead of using their own creativity to blossom and learn themselves, should not be taught. What should be taught, is that you must learn yourself in order to find your own form of genius.

Whoever said we must learn all there is to learn in the world instead of learning in our own way?

Is Shielding People Against Ideas and Actions the Right Thing?

Everyone makes mistakes and that is part of learning. You try something out, find out it doesn’t work, and don’t do it that way anymore. Parents will try to tell you about their mistakes so you won’t make the same ones. They’re trying to protect you when they do this though it doesn’t always work, you’ll make the mistake anyway. Protecting people is generally the reason for preventing someone from being exposed to certain things, but is learning second-hand the same as doing it yourself?

I believe that warning someone off from something is fine to do, but completely preventing them is not ok. Take banned books and censorship for example. When a book is banned there is not free access to that book because it has content in it that could have been determined “inappropriate” for a number of reasons. They most likely contain information or opinions that do not support or agree with a certain group. Learning those opinions helps to show another side or show a person what is like to be someone different from himself. Being able to see a situation from a different point of view is important while problem solving, so reading books with varying points of view help that skill.

Censorship of information is based around the same idea and so people have a right to know. It allows you to be more informed which of course makes you more capable of making the right decision.

Attempting to shield people from information is not entirely a bad thing because it is often (but not always) with good intent. Though people need to be able to access to ideas, books, and information that forms who they are as a person.

It’s a New Age Every Day

Ideas are always changing, philosophies evolving, and algorithms advancing. People are listening to one another and in doing so advancing all of society. Through appealing to others and consuming new information we begin to create our own opinions. In order to consume effective information it must be both good and bad. Someone who only views the good, might expose himself to be vulnerable and ignorant to the bad. However someone who views only the bad may not know the kindness that humanity possesses. It’s only through the exposure of all information that one may truly be there own person and formulate their own ideas. It is these people, the ones that seek to quench their souls, that really change the world.  Every day is a new age, but without the sharing of ideas the progression of society will slow and people will seek information more than ever.

Will protecting our own innocence sacrifice other’s?

For most of my life, I wasn’t knowledgable or even aware of a world outside of America. I didn’t think about the place outside of our happy, safe borders or what was happening there. It’s not that I didn’t care, it’s that this part of our world was never brought to my attention. We have history classes about genocide, and slavery, and we think, “this is justhistory” But these things are going on without us knowing because the administrators and the authority think it is too graphic, or too sad for us to handle. We hear about horrors like child marriage and slave trade, but our society would never dare to show that type of reality on tv, unless they can romanticize it with actors and a fake plot. By keeping these current issues from our sight, our society seems to detach them from reality all together, making them seem unreal. By protecting our innocence and keeping us uneducated on these subjects, they are eliminating our chance of ever creating a better world for these people. So the real question is, by censoring ourselves from the rest of the world, are we sacrificing others innocence to protect our own?

To Shelter From Reality or Let One Learn On One’s Own? — Maeve Power

Many people debate the issue of the sheltering of children from the real world, either through restrictions on books, the spreading of ideas, or our own actions. The pros and cons of banning books has often been a controversial topic between people who support it and those against it. For example, in Oregon the childrens’ book The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, was banned because of its theme of cutting down trees, which is a major industry in the state. Children had been coming home asking their parents why they would cut down the trees, as it is seen as a negative thing in the story. In order to prevent this, the book made it onto the banned books list. The pro in this example is there because the book’s topic negatively affected their way of living, so without the book being read by there children, the kids do not question the morality of their parents’ way of providing for them. But as children grow older, this list of banned books should accordingly get smaller, for they are maturing and need to learn the lessons these books teach, no matter the negative light it may shine on any topic. In fact, because of the negative aspects introduced, as it challenges an individual’s sense of morality which shapes a person into who they will become. Unfortunately, the line between what is appropriate per age group is an often debated. The newer generations have tended to be more coddled than the older, and parents want to preserve their childrens’ innocence as long as possible. But in my opinion, this simply is ill preparing by the parents for their children, because they can’t stay home and under one’s protection forever. At the very least, high school students, in their state of discovering who they might be, should not be shielded because it stunts their maturity growth.
The growth of the internet has broadened the capability of kids to learn new ideas from various sources. One would have to go to extreme lengths to restrict their child from this access these days. With this new power at the fingertips of students with a need for information, I believe the only thing to do is to give one’s opinion and leave it to the student to decide what they believe. Freedom to make one’s own choices is vital for growing and maturing kids.
The sheltering of kids from their own actions is as old-school as someone can get. Many parents believe that they should stop their kids from doing something they know they will regret, and I believe this is good in a certain aspect. But there are times where the phrase “learning from one’s mistakes” is very important. It is one thing to tell someone not to do something and why, but the actual experience of discovering why what you have done was wrong or incorrect stays with a kid for the rest of their life. Of course, then the pattern repeats itself, as that kid will grow up and try to prevent their children from the same mistakes. The best thing I believe that can be done in this instance is to just go with the current flow of sheltering someone from their own actions, as there’s no definitely right or absolutely wrong way to approach it.

Knowledge and Protection (John Gendron)

While censorship today is a large controversy, the idea of it is necessary. While humans are built and designed to explore the unknown, some ideas and concepts are too much for humans to handle. The line here is blurred; between what is considered to be unnecessary or harmful restriction of knowledge and what is too damaging for the public eye. On the one hand, censorship can prevent people from knowing and understanding how their worlds work and without knowledge of how other societies exist or even how time functions people can be easily manipulated or forced into believing in only one way which can be inhumane and oppressive. On the other hand, without censorship extremist groups could easily prey on younger more malleable minds, violence and other dreadful scenes could be exposed to the public more easily and destructive ideas would have no more boundaries or limits. Because of the consequences of having too little censorship or too much, the necessary only solution can be to try and find the ‘Goldilocks zone’, where the public can freely access information and knowledge, but have limitations on destructive ideas and images so that the public isn’t exposed to destructive or harmful items. Censorship is necessary but it can be a tricky thing to moderate since too much or too little can lead down a destructive path, but by censoring things in just the right places it can allow the media and other sources of information to keep the public knowledgeable and safe.