"Generation Me" Questions

“Generation Me” Questions:

1)      In the op-ed “Generation Me,” what is the attitude of the author toward your age group? What evidence can you find in the text to illustrate it?

I would say that she is very bitter about our generation. She thinks we are all very selfish and inconsiderate. Evidence to support this is “Perhaps, one day, we will say that the recession saved us from a parenting ethos that churns out ego-addled spoiled brats.” Some more evidence would be all that “Narcissism is a problem that can range from the discourteous—residential advisers at Southern lament students disregarding curfews, playing dance music until 3 a.m., demanding new room assignments at a moment's notice and failing to understand why professors won't let them make up an exam they were too hung over to take—to the disastrous—failed marriages, abusive working environments and billion-dollar Ponzi schemes. Seems that the flip side of all that confidence isn't prodigious success but antisocial behavior.”

2)      To what extent do you think her argument is true? As a group, make a list with two columns: on one side, list the ways you agree; on the other, the ways that you disagree.

Agree: Some people are like this, people our age are more materialistic, and the level of selfishness has increased since fifty years ago. These days you are given more assistance which can lead to laziness and dependability.

Disagree: Not everyone is like this, there are so people who are considerate and compassionate, many people do have to work for what they get and don’t expect things to be handed to them.

Last Lie I Told

Story of the last lie I told:

            The last lie I told actually was not that long ago. I was talking to my friend, who I have only known for about 2 weeks, about going home this weekend. She said she wanted to come with me. When she said this I got really nervous because I would feel uncomfortable if she came home with me for the weekend. I nodded and said “Okay,” without really thinking about what I had just said. When I got home that night I realized I didn’t want this girl to come stay with me at my house and I also didn’t want to offend her because she was my friend. So I decided to lie. I texted her and said that on Saturday I was going to work at my old job from home which she knows I frequently do on my trips home. I said I would feel bad having her just sit at my house all day while I was working, but maybe she could come with me another time. Not only did I lie about having work, I didn’t tell her that the truth of the matter was I just didn’t want her to come with me.

Examples of "Ways We Lie"

“The Ways We Lie”

1)      White lie – If one of my friends was trying on a dress for a school day and turned to me and asked “do I look fat?” I would most definitely tell her something like “no, not at all!” I don’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her that maybe she does look a little fat so it is much easier to tell a simple white lie.

2)      Facades – If you are planning on babysitting a really nice house anytime soon, do not go on a date in a nice suit, pull out a bunch of hundreds and leave a huge tip, then take your date back to the house you’re babysitting and leave out the fact that this is not your house or that you do not usually carry a bunch of hundreds on you.

3)      Deflecting – When my mom asked me what I ended up doing over the weekend and if I finished all my homework, I quickly replied with “mom have I ever told you how much I loved you? By the way the weather is really nice here, is it nice there?”

4)      Ignoring the plain facts – If your boyfriend recently cheated on you and you just found out because his best friend felt so bad for you that he came and told you what his friend did but you stay with him and try to act like nothing happened. You’re ignoring the plain facts.

5)      Stereotypes and clichés – People have a stereotype for what a gay man should be like. I have a friend who everyone has always thought was gay, but never had the guts to ask. He was very feminine and never had a girlfriend before. One time we all sat him down and asked him if he was gay, unfortunately we fell for the stereotype and it turns out he is not gay.

6)      Omission – When homeless people ask me for money, I will usually give them the change in my pocket and add “that’s all I’ve got” but really I have a 5 and a 10 in my pocket, but he doesn’t need to know that.

7)      Groupthink – In order to get my friend to come with us to a party, my other friends and I made up a lie. We said that we had talked to the person having the party and the boy she liked would be there. We knew once she got there she wouldn’t be able to get us all to leave, so as a group we made a pact to stick with the story, until we got to the party at least.

8)      Out-and-out lies – Whenever my mom catches me doing something that I shouldn’t be doing, I always raise my hands and say “it wasn’t me!” Clearly she sees that it was me, but cracking out-and-out lie of a joke always seems to lighten the mood

9)      Dismissal – How many of you have ever said to your parents “I’m freezing!” and they turned to you and say “no you’re not”? Really they are just too busy to deal with the fact that you are cold and they hope that it will keep you from complaining for at least 5 minutes.

10)  Delusion – Sometimes if I really don’t feel like doing my homework and I happen to run out of ink I will go to class the next day and say something like “well my computer ran out of ink and it would have been impossible for me to do my homework.” Because of the simple fact that I really didn’t want to do my homework that bad I lied to my teacher and really convinced myself that there was no other way I could have printed out my assignment.

Rant

People who are stubborn and closed minded. To all the stubborn people, you should know that you’re not smarter or better than anyone else, so stop acting like it. If someone else has an opinion, WHO CARES! It’s not like its life threatening to you to hear someone else’s point of view. If everyone were as close minded as you then we would have never gotten rid of slavery or allowed women to vote. Have you ever had a conversation with someone and they will not stop talking about how they think things should be? This is the most annoying and overbearing thing anyone could do. No one cares what you think and no one wants to hear you extend your reasoning for why you are right and everyone else is wrong for the next two hours. For example, my roommate (whom I’m not going to mention her name) is a very religious Christian. Now there is nothing wrong with that and in no way am I saying that I have a problem with her being religious or Christian. But…just because she is saving herself till marriage and doesn’t drink or use profanity, doesn’t mean she can judge everyone else for it. If she would open her eyes and listen to us for two seconds she would realize that we don’t hate on her for being the uptight know-it-all that she is and she shouldn’t judge us for wanting to enjoy our college years. Now I’m not saying it’s okay to be a slut and drink your life away either. Whatever people want to believe is fine but you cannot go pushing your thoughts onto other people and judging them because they don’t believe in the same things you do. Attention sweetheart it’s 2011.

No Rules

“Why I Like Vicious Online Comments”:

“They say things they would never say in the presence of flesh-and-blood human beings.”

“Some media outlets have decided they’ve had enough of the endless juvenile trolling and hate-mongering, and have either adopted a stricter moderation policy or forced would-be commenters to fill out forms supplying information that would make it easier to track their identities and ban them if they run afoul of the site’s rules”

“You see this phenomenon all over the Internet, including Salon, which, despite having some of the smartest and most articulate commenters on the Web, has also attracted its fair share of vitriol. And it’s not just in articles about lightning-rod public figures such as Barack Obama or Rush Limbaugh, whom you would expect to inspire heated, sometimes obscene or hateful comments, but in the comments threads of online material that is, in the great scheme, inconsequential, as deserving of bile, profanity and wanton viciousness as a smiley-face button or a paper flower.”

“Civilogue”

“It is time for those of us who still believe in the American experiment, who still believe that the passion of our disagreements need not overwhelm the common values that bind us, to take back the rhetoric.”

“Any time you see or read or hear anybody step over the line, call them on it. Do it politely, with kindness and consideration. But do it clearly and cleanly, with a humble explanation of what they did wrong.”

“Yes, this will require time and effort. Reply to every such example you stumble across, in person or online.”

Reasons for not having rules prohibiting what people can say on the internet:

1.      People should be able to say how they feel

2.      If you are willing to post something on the internet, then you are allowing people to comment on whatever it is you posted

3.      Some peoples idea of what is ‘wrong’ to be on the internet, could be completely different from another person’s ‘wrong’

4.      Restricting what people can and cannot will upset a lot of people and some might say it’s violating their freedom of speech

The 'Comment' Box

            In the first article by Matt Seitz, he talks about a specific video clip posted on YouTube that had collected some vicious comments by viewers. “Holy fuck was this gay,” wrote one commenter and the others sounded pretty much the same. Seitz makes a really good point when he states that people say things on the computer that they would never say face-to-face. This brings up the topic of how we should be representing ourselves even when no one is watching. If you are the type of person to act like a certain ‘someone’ in front of people but then go on the internet and talk differently than you would in person, you should revaluate yourself. Seitz talks about how some media outlets are looking to control what can be said in the ‘comment’ box. He shares viewpoints that agree and disagree with the idea of filtering the comments. On one hand, allowing people to write what they want without putting a name on it shows the real kind of species we are today and he actually states that the personality people have on the internet is more real than how they act when in front of others. However, Seitz shares with us that it would only take one simple step of requiring some sort of ID to filter what is said on the internet which can be hurtful and cruel. I believe he makes great points. Freedom of speech is huge and the internet is one way to vent your feelings but is the fact that you are not held accountable for what you say a good thing? And if you aren’t willing to put your name on it, are you sure you even really mean what you’re saying?

            Make Our Ugly Discourse Better: Join the Civilogue, takes a completely different look at what should be allowed on the internet. He protests that people are saying things on the internet that are ‘wrong’ and we should start something called the “Civilogues” in order to make people aware of this in a nice and polite way. I think one of the most interesting parts of this article deals with one simple comment “I allow for no exceptions, even for humor.” This is a huge step in eliminating what is on the internet. There are a lot of websites that are dedicated to making fun of stuff and creating humor out of bad situations. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If people were to go on and make comments about what people have already said, trying to prove to them that they are wrong, it will start ciaos and probably create even more ‘hate’ comments.

What is freedom?

If Haider were to have asked me the question “What is freedom?” I most likely would have had trouble coming up with an answer right away. This is mostly because there is no straight forward answer or definition for the word freedom.

For me personally, I think of freedom as being able to express yourself. That is an extremely broad term so if I had to narrow it down I would probably say something like the ability to be able to express yourself in whichever way you choose to, with the exception of if it interrupts with another person’s freedom.

In the movie Two Wars, Haider describes how in Iraq you cannot walk the streets from sunset to sunrise. Although we might take walking the streets from sunset to sunrise for granite in America, this is a symbol of freedom. In my own life I have the right to freedom of speech. Not only does this allow me to express how I feel but also to have an impact in my community. Last semester I was in Political Science 155 and we were assigned a project that would take place over the entire semester. While doing this project we were given a topic and mine specifically was hunger in America. While doing this project I did a lot of research and the answers came to bother me about what hunger in America is really like. At the end of the project, our entire group of about 30 people got together and discussed what we came up with and how we would help change this if we decided to. The ability to discuss changes that we want and the option to follow through with them if we chose to do so is an example of what freedom means to me.