Masculinity and mass media

Masculinity describes the traditional attributes that a man should have. Courage, pride and strength are all commonly terms that come to mind when masculinity is brought up. As far as history dates back, men have been the bread winner in all cultures, and by being the provider of the family, he is respected and recognized as a man. . However, in modern society, the term masculinity means less as females are seen as equals to men and the traditional image of men is beginning to fade away.

From the novel 1984, several points seem to indicate that Orwell had the thought of masculinity in mind. Seen how the main character is a male, the main figure head of the government is masculine and it seems that most of all the other important characters are male, we can see that during the time that the book was written masculines had a superior role as to females. In the novel, Julia, the female protagonist of the story is displayed as a female that relies on men in order to fulfill her needs. Winston however is demonstrated as the provider towards Julia, he is also given a superior position career wise and affects the storyline the most.

In modern media, masculinity can also be seen as a marketing technique. In commercials, often a handsome successful man in a suit is shown driving that car. By display such a commercial to a male audience the viewer may feel a need to purchase such a vehicle for himself in order to be as masculine as the model displayed in the commercial is. In most action movies (excluding films such as Tomb Raider Lara Croft and where it's just hot girls and guns in order to capture male audience), the male protagonist comes saves the day, defeat the bad guys and save the female protagonist from an ill fate.


Masculinity was a very important aspect of the past, for if a man lacked masculinity he was frowned upon by others. However in modern society, it is acceptable for a man to be less capable than a female. Over time, mainly after WWI where females showed their strength in supporting the men in the battlefield by working in factories, the whole masculinity idea had begin to fade away.

Curtis' /Happiness Machines/ and Freud's /Civilization and its Discontents/

In response to Adam Curtis' documentary "Century of the Self" episode one, Happiness Machines, I believe we cannot be trusted to take care of ourselves, instead selected individuals should be given power to watch over humanity. Mainly the reason for my belief is that not everyone is capable of managing on their own, some people are better at other things then others.
For example, a CEO of a very busy company cannot be expected to manage everything by himself, things such as keeping track of meetings and sorting out minor things are done by the secretary. Similarly in modern society, not everyone is capable of taking part in maintaining a functional society, some like Freud and Bernays are better educated and naturally talented in this field. Taking care of ourselves is quite a heavy responsibility, it may sound great to the average person if offered the chance to be break free from government and society's chains, however then you also lose all the benefits you may within your current lifestyle, the protection from police, the medical support from paramedics and hospitals, the assistance from firefighters.
I am actually quite satisfied with the current lifestyle I have now, perhaps i might be deemed as stupid by Sigmund Freud if he was still around, but since birth till now, my whole life has been setup for me. Educational systems, health and dental benefits, even meal systems were all preset either by government or massive companies. Perhaps some people may actually be capable of taking care of themselves, however most of the people I know are unlikely to be able to take care of themselves. For example, I currently am having much trouble with selecting courses for university and that only requires me to pick four courses. Now imagine if I was to be held accounted for in making decisions that would change the way society functioned. Unlike others, I much rather have someone who is capable of directing parts of my life than having me make decisions at every point of life
.

1.Do you think these charges are legitimate? Is this a fair trial?

Do you think these charges are legitimate? Is this a fair trial?

The charges laid on Socrates for corrupting the young by corrupting the youth, introducing new gods and denying old ones and being impiety is clearly a illegitimate charge seeing it from the perspective from a student growing up in the 21^st century. However for the people back in around 400 BC, religion was something that they believed in with no doubt. If this case was in the 21^st century, this charge would not even make it to the courts with all the laws that ensure the freedom of speech and opinion. In comparison to the people of the 400BC, they believed that doubting the gods was a very serious offense and would cause them trouble with the gods and for that the person must be punished.

Meletus claims that “[Socrates] invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones” ("Euthyphro" 1-15), however this is highly questionable. “Euthyphro, in thus chastising your father you may very likely be doing what is agreeable to Zeus but disagreeable to Cronos or Uranus, and what is acceptable to Hephaestus but unacceptable to Here, and there may be other gods who have similar differences of opinion.”("Euthyphro" 1-15) , from this we can see that Socrates does in fact, respect the old gods. In some cases he does indeed make reference to a new god, but that is only to make sense of the flaws of the old gods. Meletus also claims that Socrates was “corrupting his young friends “, once again, this claim is questionable as this is a highly bias claim. Indeed Socrates was most likely distracting the young people with his endless and confusing conversations from their proper work and corrupting, however in no way is distracting a person from their work a crime.

There trial was not fair in anyway as everyone at the time of this trial was heavily religious. The people of the court believe that they are serving under the gods in order to punish those who are impiet, and with the charge that Socrates is charged with, the people of the court would without a doubt form a bias judgement and punish Socrates for such a crime.

In my opinion, the charges laid on Socrates was in no way legitimate, to judge someone for thinking differently and questioning the unknown is just unreasonable in the perspective of someone from the 21^st century where people are encouraged to do such a thing. In a way the arrogance of the people in the past was what delayed the advancement of humanity and if people like Socrates had not existed we might still be worshipping the Greek gods and punishing people that have committed “crimes” because they did something that the people think the gods will not like. 

 Euthyphro. 1-15. Web. <http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/lange/ch201/Texts/Euthyphro.pdf>.

Omela and the society of today

On my first read of "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", I had thought of it as a very far away place, a place that perhaps does not even exist on the face of planet Earth, however after my second read and the discussion in class, my opinion on Omelas changed completely.

Never until reading this story had i realized the society today is actually very similar to the situation of Omelas. Omelas, an utopia where one person suffers for the sake of everyone else just as the world today, where a certain populations in the world works under dangerous conditions, long hours, lack of benefits and rights, just for a single meal.

The majority of the better off population is aware of the terrible conditions of the mentioned population, however only a very small amount of people attempt to make a difference. Which brings up the question of why only a small amount of people try to change this. After the people of Omelas see the suffering child in the closet, realize that the suffering of the child is what keeps their utopia perfect and just carry on with their lives, while some realize that the child's suffering was wrong but they don't have the power to do anything about it therefore they walk away. Similarly, there are children working in third world countries in inhuman working conditions producing the very clothing we are wearing now, yet we continue to wear and purchase more in order to sustain our living standards. They are often people that attempt to stand up for this cause, however this is a global issue and most global issues cannot be resolved overnight.

To think that everything I have taken for granted so far in life had been at the expenses of others. As much as I hate to admit, modern society now seems much further than perfection than it did before.