Ishmael blog post 1

1. Two ways to identify people from our culture are through our way of keeping food under lock and key, and identifying ourselves as fundamentally flawed. Ishmael says that people all over the world are of the same culture, and I agree with him. The kind of culture that Ishmael is talking about is the culture of agriculture, which is what seperates us from animals. The majority of the world are takers while very few remain as leavers.
2. Ishmael says that humans are inheritly flawed, and I disagree. I feel that Humans are not inherently flawed. But our culture is. The leavers were not really flawed, but when we expanded to something we didn't really know by becoming takers. We did not know how to make a civilization and were then destined to fail. One can not try to expand onto a failed experiment without scrapping it and starting over. The leavers were going along perfectly fine before the takers came. Humans are not inherently flawed, just takers are.
3. Leavers are those who didn't take up agriculture while the takers were practiced and picked up agriculture as their way to survive and formed a civilization. Americans are what are known as takers. We are completely based on the beliefs of the takers, and thus also believe ourselves as fundamentally flawed and destined to fail without trying to save ourselves. We feel that the only way to find a way to live sustainably is to find a different race to show us the way and save us.

Freedom and sustainability

1.Living sustainably is something that humans have yet to achieve. We are not living sustainably, we are continually expanding and continuing to use up more of Earth's space and destroying the planet. To live sustainably would involve controlling expansion and reducing the need in order to survive. If one was to reach sustainability, one must also destroy continued growth or you would be forever traveling and expanding until you eventually run out of space and can no longer be sustained, and start dying off taking everything with you. To be sustainable with food and living is to be sustainable with growth.

2. As a 14 year old the amount of freedom you have is limited. You can't drive yet, and even once you get your permit you must drive with a parent before you can drive with yourself. You can barely leave home without permission and still rely on parents. We have to go to school and have to continue to schedule. There is a lot of stuff you can't do until you grow up, drinking, jobs and much more. Even when you grow up there are still lots of things you can't do.

3. There is not much you can do at 14 to become more sustainable. You don't control your funds or even what you eat or how much. That is all determined and there are many decisions you cannot make. You can try to conserve power and not eat as much sure, but there is not a very large area of difference because you are not in control.

Semester goals

Patience is a virtue

When I started school back in august, I wasn't sure what to expect in my first year of high school. I have, without a doubt, grown outside my original group of friends. Many of my middle school friends went to another school and the ones I remember, I go between. I am not always with just one group of my friends. I have really gone outside my comfort zone and tried many new things. I feel I'm more likely to try something new then I was before.
One skill I think is important to survive in humanities is patience. If you try to take short cuts you really will not do as well on assignments or class work. You have to be patient so you make sure you get everything and take your time. If you try to just get an assignment done you really are not putting your full 100% effort into it and that can be drastic in humanities specifically.
One thing I need to improve in is in fact taking my time while reading. I tend to end up skipping over words while I am reading, which leads to less understanding because I miss a few words. I am really going to have to tell myself to read slower and make sure I read every word. If I have to I should re-read pages multiple times until I think understand the page pretty well. If I don't do this I will not get as much from the books I read.
The subject that I want to research the most is something more in the biology section. I find animals quite interesting and there is never a limit to what they can do. I've found them interesting for a long time and I would want to research them more.

Semester goals

Dialectic journal books 7 and 8

Page 340, Doreion, Hound and Ball Player were all dead. The living would need us more then ever.

Though this would seem like the end of the adventure with casualties, especially for the dead, that only means they have to work harder then ever. Just because they want to mourn the deaths of their fallen comrads, that doesnt mean they can actually stop to accept the deaths or mourn them, especially with all the deaths that are going on back on the battlefield if they were to take a break. Nothing is ever easy in war, but is anything ever easy?

Page 321, Ball Player assumed a stance to urinate. "Don't," Alexandros nudged him. "Or the deer will never use this nest again."

It is odd how a small act like that can create such a large effect to someone else. Ball Player wouldn't have thought twice about his actions, but it could change the deer forever, they would never nest there again and it would create a large overall effect. Luckily there are still people like Alexandros who think about these kinds of things and care enough to stop it from happening. It only takes one person to make a huge difference for somebody else by standing up to somebody.

Page 323, I have searched all my life for that which you have possessed from birth, a noble city to belong to. 

This returns to the theme of having a city to belong to. Xeo felt worthless after he had lost his city and searched for a new city to set down his roots and try to join. Another quote comes to mind here, when Xeo choose the spartan city of spartans, over Athens because it raises men instead of profits. He wants to be able to make himself be something and help his city, rather then be something himself. He would rather have something that he works to represent.

Page 374, Those were the last tears of mine, my lord, that the sun will ever see.

He is finally ready to embrace his fate, and is ready to die. He has accepted all the deaths up until now and has set them aside, so he can concentrate fully on the battle coming up, the final battle with no survivors. There is no longer a way out for him and he will fight to the end and try to die with honor and kill every last persian he can.

Page 380, They had defeated the mightiest army and navy in history. What lesser undertaking could now daunt them? What enterprise could they not dare?

This is taking place after the battle of Thermopylae the Greeks were able to win against Persia. They were inspired from the works of the Spartans and the fight at Thermopylae. The Greeks were literally the strongest force in the world, for they had defeated the mighty Persia with less numbers, but more spirit and power in the numbers. The spirits of the Greeks won out in the end and became the worlds strongest. They were truly the victors (though still with many losses.)

Grateful

It is important to be grateful for everything, even if you don't seem to notice why at first. Those differences between people, even people you don't like. If we truely liked everybody then the world would not nearly be in the stage it is today, especially regarding technology.

Another major thing that people don't really think of to be grateful, is "the greatest mistake in the history of mankind" domestication and agriculture. We would still be in tribes and be cavemen if it was not for domestication and agriculture.

Everything is truely there for a reason. If it is for good or bad we should still appreciate it for existing on, especially if it is something we don't like. It could be hard for it to keep going when the whole world is against them, so it's important to appreciate the things you don't like and don't appreciate the most.

Dialectic journals 7, 8, 9

pg. 72 Polynikes demanded to know which it was. Because if Ariston was afraid of him, then he was a coward. And if he wasn't, he was reckless and ignorant, which is even worse.

The training that these not even grown men was quite similar to the training we can put some adults through before the join the army. They give the people in training a dilemma, two equally unappealing sides of a question and they are required to answer it and get punished either way. It is a way of toughening up soldiers.

pg. 74 On it would go, into all-night shield drill which by mid second watch would have reduced the boys to involuntary regurgitation and defecation; they would be puking and shitting themselves, their bodies shattered utterly from exhaustion, and then, when the dawn sacrifices at last brought clemency and reprieve, the boys would fall in for another full day of training without a minute's sleep.

This is another example of the harsh training they would go through. The chapter is focusing around the training that they are going through and this could easily destroy a person from the inside, if not the outside. They are on the edge with no recent food or water, or even a minute to just sit down and rest after a long day of training. If this exercise routine goes on for too long, I would be very surprised if even the instructors made it out of this training regime alive.

pg. 115 That half of him, the best part, a man sets aside and leaves behind. He banishes from his heart all feeling of tenderness and mercy, all compassion and kindness, all thought or concept of the enemy as a man, a human being like himself.

This quote really strikes me as showing what exactly a warrior is in the eyes of the Spartans. They are pretty much bloodthirsty animals and stop showing mercy as they finally become a warrior. They lose a part of them that put them in with the rest of the towns and villages, they lost their common decency, and become killing machines. It is the reason that the Spartans can triumph over all others in battle, they push themselves to the human limit and beyond, and leave part of themselves behind.