...From: Fiona Doda Subject: “ Are people innately good” Date: 22 June 2014 In this world are many good and bad people. We don’t know why some of them turn to be good and others turn to be bad. We don’t know what causes these different changes in the people. “ Kluger” argues one most mysterious topic of all times: What makes human kind become unethical. We are great species who have accomplished so much, capable of giving unconditional love but in the same time jealous, selfish and destructive. Through centuries humans have struggled to define what is good and ethical and tried to remain moral by creating the law, but this doesn’t say that if it is lawful is ethical. This is what “ Jefferey Kluger” describes by giving us the example of the “ moral ape”. “The empathy we feel towards each other, the understanding to know what hurts, and how is it going to effect the next person.” “ He argues that we are not the only species who feel and less complex species than human do have empathy. Which leads us to the today’s essay question “ Are people innately good”. I believe that we all are born good but life consequences, Human communities and tragic event influences the way on how people behave. Human communities are another factor that plays an important role on how people are. Communities have rules and you have to obey these rules and these means that you have to go beyond your believes and thoughts. Kluger discuses “ The phenomena of Good Samaritan laws that require passerby to...
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...Good Action/Good Person I consider a good action to be something that helps others and is unselfish. Within the last year I have helped my Grandma through her cancer treatments. I believe that this is a good action because it was helping my Grandma in a time of need when she needed an extra hand. I took time out of my school schedule in order to help her get to and from the treatments, helped her around the house and visited with her giving moral support. I would get up early and drive her to the doctors every morning then go to school and then back to her house to take her to the doctor’s office again later on in the day. She had surgery twice and each time I spent the night at her house just to make sure she would be alright since she was not used to taking medicine. It was a rough couple of weeks but worth every minute of my time. In the end she was cancer free. A good action is something that you do not have to do but choose to do so just to help others. I decided to help my Grandma because I thought it was the right thing to do and it was something that I wanted to help her get past it. I call helping my Grandma through her cancer treatments as a good action because it helped her through a very difficult time and made me feel good about helping her. I wish I would have gotten the chance to do this on better circumstances but I would not change my decision for anything I know that my Grandma greatly appreciated everything that I did for her and that is all the thanks I...
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...The story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is about a family going on vacation to Florida. The grandmother attends to the bratty children in the back seat while the parents sit quietly in the front seat as they travel. After the family has a car accident, a car pulls up with three men in it to “help”, it turns out to be three escaped convicts, that the grandmother has spoken of earlier in the story. When the grandmother identifies the misfit, she attempts to convince him that he is a good man, and everyone has sinned at some point and time in their life. She continues to tell him he has good blood even though his men as lead the rest of the family into the woods and killed them. The theme of this story can be good vs. evil or everyone has sinned....
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....One reason that people are born good is that even when the Germans came into town and started to live in other people’s homes the Jews were still optimistic. A quote to prove that statement is on page 8 “The Germans were already in power in town, the Fascists were already in power, the verdict had already been pronounced, yet the Jews of Sighet continued to smile’’. That proves that people are good at heart, but when under harsh conditions it tests the persons personality and some people pass the test and stay good while others turn to the path of evil. A quote from page 22 states “"Look at the fire! Look at the flames! Flames everywhere…Once again, the young men bound and gagged her. When they actually struck her, people shouted their approval…Keep her quite! Make that madwoman shut up…She received several blows to the head,...
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...Essay #1 “Good People” by David Foster Wallace Karin Shoemaker When you hear the comment, “They are good people” what is your first impression? Do you ever wonder what exactly is good people? What truly gives people the title or role of being “good”? In the story, “Good People” by David Foster Wallace, those are the questions that the main character, Lane Dean Jr is faced with. Lane and his girlfriend have just found out they are expecting. They are a young couple still in college and very scared about what the future may hold. Throughout this short story Lane is having a subconscious battle; a battle based on his own morals stemming from his personal thoughts of what faith means and the struggle to maintain the status of being “good people” for not only himself, but his girlfriend also. When a person, or people are faced with the consequences of a poor choice, such as unprotected premarital sex, must it define them as bad people? Will it follow you for the rest of your life? Why would you not be considered “good people” because of a particular situation, and who makes that call in the first place? Is it God or is it was society leads us to believe? The stories setting takes place with the couple sitting on a table top of a picnic table right next to a lake. “It was springtime, and the parks grass was very green and the air suffused with honey suckle and lilacs both, which was almost too much. There were bees, and the angle of the sun made the water of the shallows...
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...When Bad Things Happen to Good People Man’s search for understanding why bad things happen to people have raised many issues and challenges resulting to some questioning their faith. When tragedy occurs many are quick to ask why, and begin to question God for allowing those things to happen. We often blame others, ourselves, or even God, resulting to bitterness, hatred, and even loneliness. How tragic the news is when we hear something very distressing or how awful it is when it hits so close to home. Why do we react in that manner? Why must we blame God? Why do bad things happen to good people? Harold Kushner’s, When Bad Things Happen to Good People allows one to better understand why he wrote the book and his positive insight bringing light to a seemingly dark matter. Kushner is a Rabbi, a man of God, whom “spent most of his life trying to help other people believe, and was compelled by a personal tragedy to rethink everything he had been taught about God and God’s ways (p.3)”. Hence, it was difficult for Kushner to fathom why or how this could happen to him, his son, and his family. It is easy to sympathize with Kushner because we would probably have reacted in the same way if we were in his shoes. True, it seems unfair how bad things can happen to some, more than others, especially if one attempts to live a life led by God and believes in the goodness of the world, we ask, "how can God let this happen? Kushner contends that the main reason...
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...When Bad Things Happen to Good People By: Harold Kushner Pablo Falcon Spring 2010 When Bad Things Happen to Good People Written by: H. Kushner “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” is a very personal book. The author talks about his belief in God and how people perceive the situations they get in as an act of God himself. The author explains that when unfortunate happenings occur people tend to blame it on God or the simple fact that the unfortunate happened because “the person must have deserved it”. The author also reflects upon the feelings that many people have when something bad happens to them or a loved one. They begin to question their faith. Why didn’t God answer my prayers? Is God real? What is God her for anyway? The main point the author illustrates is that the things that happen are not God’s doing. There is one point in the book that Kushner makes about how flight 205 crashed instead of flight 209. The plane crash caused people to die. God did not choose what families to afflict tragedy and pain on. If it was God’s choice he wouldn’t have had any of the planes crash. God gave flight 205’s families the courage to live on and look forward to the future. He did not cause the plane crash. Kushner says that, “Adam and Eve ate from the ‘forbidden tree’, also known as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”. Adam and Eve were given a test to see if they were going to be human or animal. Humans face choices. Animals have instincts. Adam and Eve became...
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...“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, was published in 1995. The genre of the story is southern gothic. Gothic tales are usually creepy, like in this story there is a missing leg and a missing glass eye. Gothic tales are also describes by a small or enclosed place. Half of the setting takes place in the kitchen making it clear that it is from Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell’s point of view. The Climatic action takes place in the barn loft emphasizing Hulga’s vulnerability. The reason the story is southern gothic and not just gothic is because it takes place in the South. The title of the story is a phrase repeated by Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell throughout the story. Mrs. Hopewell thinks she can decide between if a person is “trash” or if they are...
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...Education: The Value of A College Education Name College Name Class Section Professor Date Why Is Important Value Of College Education? Many people have their own views on the value of a college education it is what many people now a day need for a better life. Education plays a major rule on how your life will be. Many believe that the education you receive will benefit you in many ways. I would have to agree with them. Personally I believe education determines the life you will have. Education allows you to be financially stable, have a better life style, an allow you to be a role model to many. First of all having an education allows you to be financially stable. Many people do not have education which causes the problems. For example, many families will struggle with many which lead to many problems. Furthermore, being financially stable gives you an advantage in this economy. It is known that being in financially stable home makes a family less likely to divorce. For the most part an average of 70% of the families are not financially stable, many of this have had an education. Meanwhile some of those who have an education may continue to struggle. For instance, many times they may not be able to find a job. When it comes down to it education benefits many people. In closing, being financially stable allows you to be stress free. Question 1: On a completion scale of 1-7 with 1 being the lowest and 7 being the highest, where do you rank...
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...Emily Nole Professor Bruce Poteet English 161 4 November 2014 “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” and “Good Country People” Literary Analysis Flannery O’Connor’s works are perfect examples of distortional point of view, and literary irony. Through her work “Good Country People,” O’Connor uses her humor and uses distortional point of view through her characters Hulga, Mrs. Hopewell, and Mrs. Freeman to “humble and expose the biases of the overly intellectual and spiritual bankrupt.” Through her work “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” O’Connor uses her humor and uses distortional point of view to convey and emphasize that we each experience reality, however distorted, through the unique, sometime morally-distorted lens of individual perception, through...
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...shirts. They sat up on the table’s top portion and had their shoes on the bench part that people sat on to picnic or fellowship together in carefree times. They’d gone to different high schools but the same junior college, where they had met in campus ministries. It was springtime, and the park’s grass was very green and the air suffused with honeysuckle and lilacs both, which was almost too much. There were bees, and the angle of the sun made the water of the shallows look dark. There had been more storms that week, with some downed trees and the sound of chainsaws all up and down his parents’ street. Their postures on the picnic table were both the same forward kind with their shoulders rounded and elbows on their knees. In this position the girl rocked slightly and once put her face in her hands, but she was not crying. Lane was very still and immobile and looking past the bank at the downed tree in the shallows and its ball of exposed roots going all directions and the tree’s cloud of branches all half in the water. The only other individual nearby was a dozen spaced tables away, by himself, standing upright. Looking at the torn-up hole in the ground there where the tree had gone over. It was still early yet and all the shadows wheeling right and shortening. The girl wore a thin old checked cotton shirt with pearl-colored snaps with the long sleeves down and always smelled very good and clean, like someone you could trust and care about even if you weren’t in love. Lane Dean...
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...Who was Flannery O’Connor? Flannery O’Connor was a female, American writer and an important voice in American literature, who wrote two novels and multiple short stories throughout her lifetime. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People,” Flannery O’Connor showcases a genre of themes throughout her pieces and a style that is interesting and different compared to others. Like most of her short stories, both of these writings are very interesting and narrated in a third person point of view. It is clearly obvious that O’Connor’s influence upon these two short stories illustrates her own version of southern gothic with a twist of religion, much like many of her works. There were many factors to her style of writing but two that she uses were “...distortion and exaggeration…” (Shloss 35). The focus of...
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...Michael DiNofa Mr. Stewart Fundamentals of Catholicism 24 March 2015 When Bad Things Happen to Good People The speech “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Harold S. Kushner discusses God’s role in tragedy and how humans should respond. Kushner states that a common response to tragedy is, “Why would God allow this to happen?” He says that there is no answer to this question and that he does not know why bad things happen to good people. However, he says that it is not God who is causing the tragedy. He states that we live in an imperfect world where things will happen that are beyond our control. Kushner says that the best way to deal with tragedy is to understand that God did not cause the tragedy and that he is weeping with us. He also states that we must ask ourselves what we can do to get over it and prevent it from happening to anybody else instead of asking ourselves why God would allow it to happen. In the speech, Kushner references the story of Job. The...
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...Flannery O’Connor “Good Country People”: Questions 1. The relationship between Joy-Hulga Hopewell and Manley Pointer started as an attempt for romantic relations; at least the woman believed the salesman fell in love with her or had some similar feeling. Hulga decided to use his feelings and try to seduce Manley to “reckon with his remorse… [take it] in hand and [change] it into a deeper understanding of life” (O’Connor 12); the woman thought the Bible salesman needed such procedure to become more experienced and loose “rose-colored spectacles” he sees the world through. The irony was in the fact that Manley’s job belonged to a totally opposite side than his personality. The salesman showed himself as a cynical, amoral person that know how to use others for the own benefit....
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...Many people hold destructive opinions without considering their full implications. “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is a short story about Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Hulga, and the tragic consequences of their misconceptions about the world. The importance of challenging one’s common convictions and the dangers that can arise from being narrow-minded is carried by the mother’s dissatisfaction of diversity and women’s education. The devastation of both women implies a sense of desired moderation in the realm of perspective, depicting evils of nihilism as well as the vulnerability of narrow-minded, traditional thought. O’Connor’s purposeful use of point of view allows her to develop characters in order to criticize the blindness of human nature....
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