If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Master of Puppets about drug abuse. As in the drug is the master and the victim is the puppet. The drug controlled the person, listen to the lyrics, all of them make sense. You can read them here: http://www.sing365.com/music/Lyric.nsf/Master-of-Puppets-lyrics-Metallica/E4A0BDC3BD0F5DAE4825688D00333533
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 136[Branch from no. 20] Posted by James Luton on Thursday, September 7, 2006 7:06am Subject: Re: Music and Psychology Too true. 'Chop your breakfast on a mirror'. If that's not a reference to crack, I don't know what is. But then again, the chorus is "Master of Puppets, I'm pulling your strings, twisting your lives and smashing your dreams, blinded by me you can't see a thing, just call my name 'cause I'll hear you scream." So I doubt they were trying to glorify drug use. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 256[Branch from no. 136] Posted by Michael Burmeister on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 2:30am Subject: Re: Music and Psychology In message 136 on Thursday, September 7, 2006 7:06am, James Luton writes: >Too true. 'Chop your breakfast on a mirror'. If that's not a reference >to crack, I don't know what is. > >But then again, the chorus is "Master of Puppets, I'm pulling your >strings, twisting your lives and smashing your dreams, blinded by me you >can't see a thing, just call my name 'cause I'll hear you scream." > >So I doubt they were trying to glorify drug use. Correct and yeah the song is pretty negative towards drug use ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 261[Branch from no. 256] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 12:02am Subject: Re: Music and PsychologyIf that's not a non sequitur I don't know what is.
What the heck are you talking about?
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 5 Posted by Heather Clark on Thursday, August 17, 2006 11:24am Subject: different perspective The class has already tought me to look past what everyone is saying about something and step back and really think about things. For example the magazine that said "Is Jessica Jealous" usually i would just agree and figuare that since shes not dating anyone than she thinks Nick shouldnt either. I would'nt have thought that maybe she is taking a little longer to get over their relationship, and maybe she is a little more upset about their break up rather than the media portrays. It maybe silly but the class is already changing my ideas about things. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 7[Branch from no. 5] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Thursday, August 17, 2006 12:38pm Subject: Re: different perspective i deff. agree wit you he's has already made me think about things in life i usually wouldn't think about such as my music and the iPod's. he seems like a great teacher and i have left everyday so far just waiting for the next class ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 9[Branch from no. 7] Posted by Chris Woods on Friday, August 18, 2006 3:17pm Subject: Re: different perspective I also agree. On tuesday i was driving to class and i cut a guy off in traffic and he flicked me off and was saying words that i havent heard before. Instead of getting mad at him i just wondered why he felt the need to keep reminding me that he didnt appreciate it. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 10[Branch from no. 7] Posted by Dana Bosworth on Friday, August 18, 2006 7:48pm Subject: Re: different perspective i totally agree. just even after the first class it made me really sit back and think about things that normally i wouldnt. i really enjoy his class even though its at 8 i dont mind getting up cause i know i will leave that class actually wishing it could have been longer! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 11[Branch from no. 10] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Friday, August 18, 2006 7:58pm Subject: Re: different perspective i always leave wishing i didn't have 2 classes back to back i almost always want him to hold us longer ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 107[Branch from no. 5] Posted by Anne Marie Beasley on Monday, September 4, 2006 12:02am Subject: Re: different perspective i totally agree with everyone!!! im super excited bout all we will learn bout the brain and how works in psychology ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 111[Branch from no. 107] Posted by Julia Gray on Monday, September 4, 2006 10:44pm Subject: Re: different perspective this class really actually interests me, like i never thought that psychology would spark something with me, but im just sitting there in class hanging onto everyword because it just clicks and i love it! so im still excited to hear what he is going to say or talk about in class ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 6 Posted by Willie Pappas on Thursday, August 17, 2006 11:57am Subject: Random This class is rather interesting as to it does make you look beyond our everyday lives. Truly I begin to question the world we live in, in a whole new way. I can't wait to see what the rest of the semester holds. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 16[Branch from no. 6] Posted by Kanjulla Johnson on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 1:55am Subject: Re: Random I agree. I listen to Mr.Kunkel with excitement. I am always on my toes when I enter his class. There is ALWAYS something interesting going on in class. I am so anxious to find out what the rest of the semester holds for me. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 17[Branch from no. 6] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 2:44am Subject: Re: Random I agree. My minor is Psychology so obviously I'm interested in the course, but i had no idea I could be anymore interested than I already was! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 67[Branch from no. 17] Posted by Chiquita Felder on Sunday, August 27, 2006 8:22pm Subject: Re: Random The class is very interesting but confusing at times. I'm enjoying Dr.Kunkel's stories and how they relate to some of my on. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 8 Posted by Mark Kunkel on Friday, August 18, 2006 9:33am Subject: Self-awareness and extra credit opportunity... I've uploaded a file describing an opportunity for some of you to participate in some interview and testing activities with graduate students under my supervision...you can find it under the "course materials" button. I hope that our trip through the park thusfar is to your liking and that you are finding plenty in life about which to be curious...sooner or later we'll have some more tools for that curiosity. All the best, Mark Kunkel By the way, I'm delighted to see some postings on the bulletin board. Keep it up--this will be a helpful component of the class for you. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 12[Branch from no. 8] Posted by Ryan Liccardo on Monday, August 21, 2006 11:12am Subject: Re: Self-awareness and extra credit opportunity... When does this start??? I am interested in doing this and wanted to know when this started. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 25[Branch from no. 8] Posted by Rodolfo Vasquez Argenal on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 4:40pm Subject: Re: Self-awareness and extra credit opportunity... is it still possible to take the "information and consent form" to tommorow's class? august 24, im really interested in paricipating in the interviews ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 35[Branch from no. 25] Posted by Melissa Nunnally on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 9:24pm Subject: Re: Self-awareness and extra credit opportunity... Yes I'm pretty sure you can still do it... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 26[Branch from no. 8] Posted by Jennifer Knight on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 5:09pm Subject: Re: Self-awareness and extra credit opportunity... I was wondering if we could still bring the "Information and Consent Form" to tomorrow's class, August 24. I am really interested in this extra credit opportunity, and what it will have to offer. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 27[Branch from no. 8] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 5:38pm Subject: Re: Self-awareness and extra credit opportunity... Hi there. Take a look at the information and form I've uploaded on this site. The activity won't start for a couple of weeks, but will require some involvement on your part throughout the semester. It's not too late to sign up...I can accommodate another five or so volunteers (the first five papers on the front table tomorrow). All the best, Mark Kunkel ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 13 Posted by LaShondra Seastrunk on Monday, August 21, 2006 2:05pm Subject: Textbooks I wanted to know, which book did everyone get. Did you all get both books or just one? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 15[Branch from no. 13] Posted by Melissa Nunnally on Monday, August 21, 2006 6:41pm Subject: Re: Textbooks I only got the text book, "what is psychology" and it comes with a CD. I'm pretty sure thats all you need. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 14 Posted by Malana Dejean on Monday, August 21, 2006 3:27pm Subject: Perspective on First Day's Disscussion On the first day of class when Dr. Kunkel was speaking about the experiences or feelings of bringing someone to Six Flags for the first time made me realize the comparision between that experience and the experiences of a freshman in college. These experiences can be compared in many ways. You dont really know what to expect during both of these experiences but you know there will be excitement and also some sense of fear because you do not know exactly what is comeing at you. I can compare to both because i not only work at Six Flags but I have also recently brought my newphew to Six Flags for the very first time this summer. I can compare to the college experience because I am a seventeen-year-old college freshman experienceing all kinds of new things. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 18 Posted by Feyi Alabi on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 2:29pm Subject: Evolution makes me unhappy Today when Dr Kunkel disussed about people who say that we all were derived from chimpanzees, in a way I was unhappy, because as a christian I do not believe that at all, instead I believe that we were made from his own image. But I guess that we are all entitled to our own opinion. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 19[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Jennifer Straker on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 3:52pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy We are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs; I think Dr. Kunkle just wants us to be open and consider what science has to offer. We don't have to change our beliefs (whatever they may be), but we should approach all ideas or theories with respect and an open mind; whether we believe them or not. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 21[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Pamela Mikell on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 4:32pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy If you went back to todays notes and followed the link, I think you would find that the question was whether we believed we were derived from "earlier species of animals." You are right! We are all entitled to our own opinions, but no one is saying we evolved from chimpanzees. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 22[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Britta Durham on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 7:33pm Subject: What is there to be unhappy about? I think the most important thing I will take from this class is the idea to be more open- minded. I can be a very opinionated and stubborn person when it comes to things I am "absolutely sure" about, but this course has opened my eyes as to maybe that's not the way to be all the time. Maybe I am not absolutely certain, especially when it comes to issues as large as this. Maybe I need to keep an open mind... who knows, I might just learn something...? If, instead of automatically shutting it out, I would actually think about the idea that is being presented with a "kind and clear" attitude. What a valuable thought. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 23[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Anthony Darden on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 7:45pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy Yes I see what you are talking about with the derived from animals things. The way I deal with it is just put my personal opinion aside, and take in the information that is given. People shouldn't get upset if they are secure with their religion, but I still understand if they do. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 24[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 11:22am Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy Well, it's all very simple, really; you believe that this and this happened, but so long as you don't say, "This is exactly what happened and I know it and you should know it too!" then you're doing alright. See, now, I don't believe that we evolved from chimps or anything either; I just vaguely acknowledge the fact that our DNA is about 97 percent identical to theirs. On the flipside, I vaguely acknowledge the fact that recorded history doesn't go back all that far, so what of evolution do we know? I mean, other than the fact people are getting taller, losing their wisdom teeth, and so on. As long as you say, "Well, I think that, perhaps(and while I'm not entirely sure!), maybe, and keep in mind this is just a possibility and a result of my own natural thoughts and processes which are far from perfect and very close to imperfect, evolution might not exist in terms of humans evolving from Chimps", then you should be getting the jist of what he's saying. Just so, an Atheist should say, or would say on the subject of God, "I don't think God exists, but I could always be very wrong." Although, that would warp his beliefs to that of a very extreme Agnostic, I s'pose. Whateva. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 38[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Andrew Huddleston on Thursday, August 24, 2006 9:59am Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy I think that evolution is so much more complex than "we came frome monkies". I believe in evolution because it has been proven and there are facts to support it. There are no facts to support creation other than a book written by some dudes a long time ago, and i might add that book has been revised many times over the years. I think that evolution is more survival of the fittest. Species "evolve" to meet and conquer the new threats in their environment. I also beleive that everyone has their own opinion and so long as no one is shoving their opinion down someone else's throat then its ok to believe in whatever you want. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 39[Branch from no. 38] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, August 24, 2006 11:28am Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy Well, well, well. It seems that we have people on both sides of the fence. It may be more complex than 'we came from monkies(sic)', but it can also be as simple as men preferring brown-haired women over red-haired. That's not so much survival of the fittest as it is bad luck for the red heads. There's not exactly much reasoning to it outside culture, and therefore, our frontal lobes, therefore, not so much to do with our primal instinct and so on(I'm assuming. Not saying or stating as fact. After all, I'm just a student... what do I know?). People who are unnattractive, unhealthy, or mentally retarded manage to survive and mate, bringing about offspring that, in a survival of the fittest environment, doesn't compute. You can argue that survival of the fittest has perhaps extended beyond all that, into perhaps being educated makes your more fit and able to survive. However, in the U.S. of A., plenty of people survive without being fit in any manner of the word. You can be stupid, ignorant, overweight to the point of disability, and yet you can live on and have kids. So, evolution seems to lack a point for humans at this stage of their existence. So, the question doesn't seem to be, do we evolve, but rather, did we evolve? The best example of evolution would be in Darwin's finches; in observing them over time, certain species of finch have indeed changed, thus proving evolution. So it can be seen that evolution does exist and is very easily proven. Can you, however, go to the extreme and call that evolution, or is it perhaps merely adaptation? These finches aren't changing what they are; they aren't making major changes which would require a change in their kingdom classification, as is brashly stated when you say that fish came onto land, grew feet, etc. These are subtle changes within a species that occur over a couple of generations. You can prove that animals change over time, that's fairly simple. Hitler tried to eradicate all Jews, and in a sense, that is also evolution, albeit forced and not exactly natural (though aren't we products of nature, assuming evolution((which is natural, apparently)) made us the way we are?). Because, if evolution is survival of the fittest, and the Jews were apparently unfit to be alive, then that in itself is evolution; we now have a smaller sect of Jews, all thanks to survival of the fittest, because that's the way evolution made things! Well, wait, no, that doesn't sound right. It sounds fairly... morally decrepit, and so on. Some people way think that Jews, whites, black, any certain group of people are 'less' than them, but who can prove it? How is one group any better than another? An arctic husky can survive in some places by itself, albeit cold ones, but can it survive in a desert? Are there substantial enough differences between human ethnic groups that we can assume that they evolved that way in order to adapt, in order to be the fittest group of humans to outlive all the others around? If we all evolved from a different animal, we must have evolved from the same animal, and adapted to different climate. Whoa, whoa, whoa. How did we make it all over the world, then? Here's a big question: how did the Hawaiians end up in Hawaii? How come humans are in every part of the world, even before they had the technology to end up there? There are a million explanations of this, but there is no irrefutable proof. Ice! Ice is how they got there! they walked on ice to get to North America, and so we have Native Americans, too, and Hawaiians! Why, exactly, then, did the Hawaiians stay in Hawaii? If they were chasing after food, what was there that made them stay? There are a lot of questions to be answered, and even more to be asked after you answer them. Evolution may have proof, but it constantly comes under scrutiny, and well-based scrutiny as well. The only real answer to find out if God is real would be, bluntly, a bullet through the head. Or, well, not there, but to a more precise area. Y'know, the one we learned about it class. At any rate, there is no proof to God's existence; there is, for the most part, a resounding amount of faith, and within religion, like say, Christianity, there's this thing, blah blah blah, 'without faith, I am nothing'. To try to prove god's existence is a bit pointless, because this means you have no faith, and if you have no faith in him, then you're not a good Christian, and have therefore eradicated God's existence from your life. Basically, there's no good way to prove or disprove God's existence; if you believe in him faithfully without proof, he exists to you(regardless of whether or not he's there, you have that comfort, which has a number of benefits for your health). If you don't believe and thus seek proof(whether to prove his extistence or disprove), he might exist to some, but he doesn't exist to you because to YOU he doesn't exist but to OTHERs he does exist. Here's a final interesting tidbit; if I pretend I can't see, hear, taste, feel, that I don't have any of my senses, there is one thing I can still sense; myself. I can think. And, perhaps, I can feel the presence of God, but that's a matter of spirituality, I suppose. At any rate, without any of these senses, I exist, but guess who doesn't? You! So, maybe, you don't exist. I mean, if I shut my eyes, I can't see you. So whose to say you exist? Nobody can say either way. You can say we evolved from something else, but then, where did the things we evolved from came from? More questions! You can say that God created us in His image, but who's to say he's real? Who made God? He's been here forever? More questions, more confusion! So, perhaps the best answer to all this is this(circle whichever answer best applies to your religion, philosophy, etc): God might exist, he might not. I think/believe that he does/doesn't. We may have evolved from other animals or beings, or we may have been created by God. I believe/think that God/we created/evolved out of his own image/animals. No one can truly say either way to any question; did you eat pizza today? Well, I remember eating pizza today. But as it happened before, you only have your vague, fractured memories(which are made of mostly stuff you made up and based on what you'd like to remember, I think, not sure, don't quote me on any of this), and anything that happens right now may or may not be happening; no one can say that any of what you see and experience is real, except, say, God, and even if he did, he'd have a billion people telling he's wrong ,that he doesn't exist, and to let them live life on their own. But uh, remember: I could very well be wrong. In fact, I probably am, most because, no one's entirely right! Especially not me. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 50[Branch from no. 39] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, August 24, 2006 5:53pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy If we all evolved from a different animal, we must have evolved from the same animal, and adapted to different climate. Should be... If we all evolved, it must have been from the same animal and adapted to different climates, or something along those lines. A similar explanation could be explained about why dogs are all different looking in size and shape(but they're all dogs) and they can crossbreed(even though they have very distinct differences) Also, whose should have been who's in one of the cases... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 73[Branch from no. 38] Posted by Benjamin Smith on Monday, August 28, 2006 10:35pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy Is it okay to believe in what is not the truth? Is it really okay? Because to be ignorant is foolishness, which, regardless of what you believe, is not really okay. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that anybody here is ignorant or foolish, but as a general issue, a moral principle.) Creationism is not just based on what the Bible says; it is also based off of genuine scientific evidence from nature that supports the Bible. The only problem is that that stuff isn't really taught in public schools. Evolution is the more politically correct idea, the more kind idea. (Well, not really, because to tell someone that they are only a smart monkey is pretty depressing.) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 80[Branch from no. 73] Posted by Kaylyn Adams on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 10:38pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy I think everyone should google the "God Spot" and read into it.. and just shine your light on it. It's really quite interesting, my mother had to do a report on it for one of her nursing classes and it was quite interesting to read/learn about. If it isn't any good for an understanding of why our beliefs and what not differ, than it could be a good journal entry. As for religious beliefs vs. evolution. Evolution is much easier for me to grasp opposed to a God or God's. I've read into the bible, and have listened to a few different religions and I still can't fint myself a believer... There's one story I can't even remember the people in it now.. david & goliath perhaps? Where he kills a giant with a stone or something.. That's crazy. Sounds like a fairy tale honestly. Just kind of makes you wonder that if some mastermind decided to piece together a book that was hard to decipher & that everyone should live by.. and we wiped out majority of the human race and left only a few unexposed young people.. Would they blow it up to be what the bible has become? Just an idea.. Not meaning any harm. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 49[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Jennifer Alger on Thursday, August 24, 2006 5:50pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy As a christian I also believe that we were made "in his image." I still, however, believe in evolution. When I think about God I see him as the greatest scientist. Look at how complex the universe and all of the beings in it are. I don't believe that God just went poof and put humans on Earth. I think that he would have done it in a way that makes more sense. I recommend taking Anthropology with Dr. Weizcowski if you have a hard time seeing evolution as fact. That class really opened my eyes to a lot of things. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 72[Branch from no. 49] Posted by Benjamin Smith on Monday, August 28, 2006 10:24pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy I would be fascinated in hearing how evolution is a fact. I love conversations like these, so I'm going to go ahead and take a side. I believe that God created the earth in six days and that evolution is a large misconception. I have been studying creationism for the past five years or so, and it is much more scientific than one may think. I do want to say this: Often we settle for gray areas in determining what we believe, but I encourage everyone to draw a solid line. If you are proven wrong, you cross the line. The reason for this is that there is only one absolute truth, and that is what we all strive to know. That is what we all live to know. If we don't discover that absolute truth, our life has no purpose. One of the most important things to bring up about God and evolution is whether or not God caused evolution to happen. The only problem with that idea is that it clearly disagrees with what the book of Genesis says about the creation of man, that man was formed from the dust of the earth. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 74[Branch from no. 72] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, August 28, 2006 11:00pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy Hi, folks. Not surprising that we have some strong feelings about things closest to our hearts, and heads, hmm? For now, may I continue to encourage you to try to have a new and psychologically informed conversation? For example, what have you learned so far about the possible contribution of science, and theory, with respect to "fact," and "belief" and "absolute truth" and other knowledge claims? Could you perhaps do some internet or library research on biology and beliefs, maybe using some of the sources I've referenced in the lectures? How would our first psychology story come to our taking of sides around issues like these, anyway? What parts of the brain are involved? What can you say that you could not have said a couple of weeks ago? Maybe this question (of belief in gods or god or what have you) is sufficiently interesting to some of you to want to explore in your journals, or maybe even to write an extra- credit paper about (based on some research, re-cherche, to take a second look at, eh?). Blessings and peace, all over you, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 77[Branch from no. 72] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 11:50am Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy I'd like to beg and plead with everyone to not draw a line as to where your beliefs are; you're creating boundaries, and what good have boundaries ever really done, besides keeping you out of a bad place? Rather, fill your thoughts with varying degrees of grey, that way, you can freely pick and choose what you believe to be correct and what you believe to be doubly so and what you believe to be unreal and what you believe to be interesting and that you should think about and contemplate. Don't limit yourself with a list of predetermined rights and wrongs, this and thats, things that you simply can't question because, well, you just can't! Your whole reality might collapse if you did. This way, it is you who chooses what is right or wrong, rather than predetermined factual information. After all, those who so strongly believed that geocentric was the manner in which the universe revolved, that the parents killed JonBenet, that Elvis did not die, that aliens do exist, that God is not real, that Allah is not real, that Buddha was a hack, that O.J. didn't kill his wife, that Pluto would always be considered a planet, that France would not lose, that Germany would most definitely win, that Michael Jackson was guilty, all of them were right... and wrong. To a degree. In essence, how strongly can one prove anything in this world to a complete and utter degree? Someone isn't evil... there's a reason for this supposed 'evil', and therefore a solution. If you believe in God, that's great, but don't start shooting down all other thoughts and theories that seem to sort of break away from your own beliefs. Otherwise, we'd still be thrusting people's hands into hot coals to see if they were guilty or not. And after all, if you begin to believe in extremities, you end up with absolute good and evil, and with that, witches. Well, he stole something, put him in jail. Wait, wait! Why did he steal something? Well, he's bad... bad people need to be punished. But... aren't there alternatives? Anyway, before I say something... maybe, stupid and dangerous, let's get to sort of proving as evolution as something that can be assumed to be a fact... maybe it's not, maybe it doesn't explain EVERYTHING, but it's something that seems to occur from time to time and one could assume that it seems to exist in a world full of things that may or may not. Ah... but first, you have to understand what evolution is defined as. As defined on dictionary.com, it's a lot of things, which, unless you'd like to refute reality and society, is most irrefutably real. Of course, this is in the sense that language evolves. Then, of course, there is the one from the biological point of view, which is stated as "3. Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift." Now, then, I must ask you: evolution as a fact, what are you trying to prove? Mutation, natural selection, or genetic drift, or something else? Furthermore, are you trying to prove evolution as a thing that happens, period, or as something we have undergone(i.e., from apes(or whateva) to humans). Mutation is a peculiar thing. You can use pairing to make someone blink at a pink card, but is it possible to make their children be born blinking at a pink cards, without any outside stimuli post-conception? Well, sure, we can minutely tune genes in some plants to get peculiar effects: we've even got a field of some sort of plant, a type of flower, I believe, fused with firefly genes. So now, you have a field of plants that light up in the dark. Now, we get a bit of radiation from the sun and most of the harmful stuff is blocked out, but is that enough to change our actual genetic structure from generation to generation? Dunno. Maybe. Perhaps. The next one from the definition is natural selection. This one is the one most easily proven, as can be seen with Darwin's finches in the Galapagos islands(am I running in circles here?). These finches live and die depending on what they are born with. Small, strong beaks thrive off the small, hard-to-break nuts. Some might be more apt to tear into trees and rip out the worms or whatever. http://www.galapagosonline.com/Galapagos_Natural_History/Birds_and_Animals/Birds/Da rwins_Finches.html is a nice site with some info on it. Basically, we humans have observed, over time, that these finches have changed through the generations. For a few years, very hard nuts are produced a lot on an island. So, finches with a small, hard beak survive more easily, but the others don't completely die out. But we have observed, over time, that a certain kind of finch's characteristics change to adapt to its environment. So, it's not small hard nuts that are around anymore, but larger nuts that can't quite fit into their mouths. So, less of the small, hard-beaked finches survive, but they begin to breed with the other finches, with the larger mouths. Natural selection: some traits are getting passed on to help adapt with the current environment, but not all. But, at the same time, the traits aren't completely lost, so if conditions come again, those who still have the small hard beaks breed with the large beaks to make large smaller and smaller and harder and harder beaks. Now, I don't know anything about genetic drift, so I can't argue from that point. Anyway, you're probably itching to know how I know that we evolved such and such years ago from apes(or whatever!) into humans, and that we were most definitely not created by God. Well, I'm not, because I know this: I don't know for a fact that we did, but neither did you. And someone can argue either point for days and days on end, bringing up near- limitless knowledge to back them up, but in the end, you can't prove it to an absolute point, and more importantly, it really, really doesn't matter. There are more productive, humanistic things that you can do with your time rather than proving an unprovable point either way. And anyway, about all that nonsense about truth, the answer is essentially 42. Doesn't make any sense? Of course not, humans give things moral value. Gold is basically worthless outside of our society. So who's to say human life has any point? Who's to say blah blah blah blah blah.... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 78[Branch from no. 77] Posted by Anthony Darden on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 7:50pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy Man, that was a long explaination!!! I got lost for a second. Anyway, you speak the truth when you say that humans can prove if they evolve from apes, or God created us. American society today always wants to prove something regardless of the facts. For some strange reason, they want to gain fame like others before them. This complex society needs to slow down for a moment and think about what they are doing to the youth. Giving them so many different facts about one subject is corruptting them, and causing them to be afraid of their own thoughts/opinions. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 79[Branch from no. 18] Posted by Steven Bennett on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 9:54pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy I've been thinking about the biological side of religion and maybe we as humans like to create things that bring order to our world. Having a creature such as God would make life much simpler because it takes all the complicated events out of our lives. In fact, severly religious people believe that everything happens according to God's plan. Isn't this a way of bring order to our chaotic life. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 81[Branch from no. 79] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:04am Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy The best thing I could suggest doing is to shunt aside all needs to say, I believe this way or that way, and in the end, throw it into a psychological light or whatev': this is my first time going through this amusement park of Psychology, so I don't know much, granted. But, if we tend to do things according to 'what works for us', then it makes an awful lot of sense where religion came from ASSUMING that God or whoever(depends on the religion) came from. Let's assume that you take religion out of the picture completely. It never existed. So, the concept that when you die, you move on to a better place(or worse place) doesn't exist. This causes a lot of problems. Why might most people not steal something? They get caught, they get punished. This only goes so far as life, though. In the end, when they die, they don't get rewarded for doing good things... nor do they get punished. This furthers the problem in that, why would people go out of their way to punish/reward people for 'right'/'wrong'. If you haven't noticed already, some extreme, extreme, supaa extreme Islamists do some crazy things for rewards in their religion. If you take all that out, the whole heaven/hell concept, you do a number of things. One of which is, you would probably make a lot of people morally decrepit. Think of it as maybe, Nihilism, with the whole 'God is Dead' thing in effect. Without the main pillar of morals to support society(God), everything's bound to collapse(Why would taking God out screw up our morals? Well, he's a major extreme; God has always existed, always will, and continues to do so. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, et cetera. So, he's the only being you can, without a doubt, count on to always be right or wrong; he made us, he made the rules for getting into heaven or being sent to hell...etc. As nice as humanism is, we are all only human, and not everyone would listen and agree with everyone else on a nice set of rules). "Well, that person has a lot of money. I think I'll kill him and take it all." I mean... why not?" Most of our laws and such, if you haven't already noticed, tend to be based biblically. I'll post more later, gotta get to class. :/ ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 546[Branch from no. 81] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 3:42am Subject: Re: Evolution makes me unhappy ... But you know, I never really had anything more to add on this. Except, maybe, "The only Christian to ever live died on the cross a long time ago"(not verbatim). The man who said that died of something that I don't think was ever exactly determined, but he spent his last few years of life in insanity. I'm too lazy to look up the details again. Point is, God may or may not be real as a tangible force in our world, but with some people the belief in him is very strong and this belief doesn't have maladaptive effects on them. They have this reassurance and therefore a lack of stress. On the other hand, one can be consumed by grief for their own non-imminent death. That's funny. And it seems that being stressed by all this God not existing stuff helps you die earlier. Or something, I dunno, my sleep pattern's way off 'cause I stayed up all night at Wal- Mart getting a Wii... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 28 Posted by Nyasha Zafir on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 5:59pm Subject: random i love this class too. i was already interested in psychology when i took a little bit of it in high school. eventhough this class is early in the morning. which i hate. but this is my favorite class ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 29 Posted by Willie Pappas on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 6:02pm Subject: Question I wanna know from a psychological standpoint if you all believe that america is still racially driven. What I mean by that is, does race really matter with things like getting jobs, service in stores, the way people look and treat you, and what they expect out of you in general. Please answer this honostly and with some thought... thanks. Willie Pappas ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 33[Branch from no. 29] Posted by Pamela Mikell on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 8:52pm Subject: Re: Question I don't know if this is from a psychological standpoint but... I believe that there is still plenty of "inequality" in the U.S. Whether it be black/white/hispanic, fat/skinny, or gender-male/female or gay! It seems to me, especially being on the college campus, that education is an equalizer. I wish everyone would get educated! I was watching a news talk show the other night, where they were doing a story on two young sisters (twins) akin to the Olsen twins...but with a huge difference! They were being taught to be white supremist (sp). They tried to send help to the WHITE Katrina victims. Apparently the help wasn't very well received by any race. The boxes of STUFF is still sitting somewhere unused and refused. God bless America, for standing up (even when the help needed was overwhelming)! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 34[Branch from no. 33] Posted by Anthony Darden on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 9:05pm Subject: Re: Question i think that is psychology. If they were conditioned to believe that they are the superior race, than thats all they can believe can be truth. like Dr.Kunkel said, we do what works. And thats what works for them. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 37[Branch from no. 34] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 10:29pm Subject: Re: Question An interesting thing, if you'd like to hear an interesting thing, is that the more we stand up for minorites, the less of a democratic nation we become, seeing as Democracy is based on majority rule. Of course, really, we're more of a democratic republic than a straight out democracy, and even then, the democratic part is, in some of the higher up parts of the government, sort of canceled out since the majority of America can't really be trusted to make political decisions. Or any decisions, really. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 52[Branch from no. 37] Posted by Kaylyn Adams on Friday, August 25, 2006 12:13am Subject: Re: Question I don't know if we're necessarily still racially driven, but we're definitely prejudice driven. If it's not race, it's something else. At my place of work, we got a new manager, we're short of nearly 12 people and she won't hire anyone because she wants to 'diversify' the place. Which I understand, but when you're short of people and becoming desperate.. It's time to hire who's there rather than try to go out and recruit. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 57[Branch from no. 52] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Friday, August 25, 2006 11:06am Subject: Re: Question Haha... the gov't trys to require people to hire a wide range of people, in order to take out racism. All that you get from that is sort of... reverse racism. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 62[Branch from no. 57] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, August 27, 2006 1:38am Subject: Re: Question *tries ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 68[Branch from no. 29] Posted by Steven Bennett on Monday, August 28, 2006 9:31am Subject: Re: Question Of course America is racially driven, because the more attention you give to the fact that we are different the more people begin to look at it. Reverse Racism is brought about by this because now we are paying so much attention to race that we have to "diversify" the work place. Isn't that race driven? Think about it. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 70[Branch from no. 68] Posted by Chris Woods on Monday, August 28, 2006 1:30pm Subject: Re: Question I would just like to know why they ask for race on any application you fill out ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 75[Branch from no. 70] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 10:56am Subject: Re: Question Gov't: Ah, you only have white people working here, you must be RACIST! Store: Er, no... look at all the applications we've ever gotten... we have only gotten them from white people OR Gov't: You need to hire in a 'diverse' manner! Store: What? Gov't: Here, you need to make sure and hire a certain number(percentage?) of non- caucasians to prevent bad, bad things from happening. Store: Oh, so, I have a white guy and a black guy applying... equal talent, yadda yadda... gotta be diverse, so uh... I'll call the black guy. Gotta fill the quota. Standardized tests sometimes asks about ethnicity, and I'm pretty sure the SAT does.. are they racist, or just curious, in perhaps a kind and clear way? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 165[Branch from no. 70] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Monday, September 18, 2006 3:45am Subject: Re: Question Well, some say its for statistical purposes, which I'm sure sometimes it actually is used for such, but no one can be completely unbiased. Then they like to add a little side note "your reace, age, ethnicity, etc will not be used in the determining of (insert something here)" Yea right. Once it's been seen, its embedded. But to answer the main question. Yes we are racially driven. We (as people) can't help it. Remember the example Dr. Kunkel used?....about imagining someone broke into your house....... he didn't even have to ask you what your intruder looked like for him to prove his point. I grew up in Decatur, Ga, which is predominantly (80+%) black- black residents, black owned businesses, and culturaly relevent shopping stores. I moved out to Conyers (predominantly white) when I was 17- white owned businesses and white residents. Though I now lived 20 minutes away, I still drove all the way back to Decatur to go to school and to do other things. Because I was taught to support black businesses- so I went to eat at the Wingin It over there, rather than the "Jerry's Wings" that is literally 1 minute from my knew house. I still went to South Dekalb mall to shop, rather than Stone Crest, which is clealy closer. And even if the business wasn't black owned, I continued to support it becaause it is located in "my" community. I still only take my clothes to "snow Cleaners" and only get my nails done at "CA Nails"- they are in my community (or rather the community I grew up in) I buy clothes like Enyce, Girbaud, Ecko, etc because they cater to black consumers. I refuse to by certain things like Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klien, and Fubu. Because of what they "stand for" (Fubu is no longer "For Us, By Us", they sold the "Us" so I don't by it). Does that make sense? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 167[Branch from no. 165] Posted by Meagan Pettus on Monday, September 18, 2006 9:24pm Subject: Re: Question... That kinda of seems like reverse racism. If I had just said the same things you said, but about white people, some kind of legal action would be taken against me. I really wish everyone (blacks, whites, purples, pinks, everyone) would move on. Good grief... so I'm whiter than snow... does that really matter? I really don't understand how on one hand you can segregate yourself by buying only black made things or from black owned businesses but most people fight for affirmative action and equalness... but then someone only buys certain goods to give oomph to being black. I really don't get it. If whites had a "United White College Fund" people of the other races would go nuts... but no one bats an eyelash at the "United Negro College Fund." I understand black people were oppressed for a very long time... but as far as I know, no black american that is still alive today was a slave. For that matter, my family was so dirt poor, we couldn't have afforded slaves had we wanted any. I would really like to see some day in my future where people aren't so racially driven and it doesn't matter if you are black, white, asian, pink, purple or painted green. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 168[Branch from no. 167] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Monday, September 18, 2006 10:19pm Subject: Re: Question... Why use the term reverse racism, isn't racism racism whichever way it goes? But to answer your question no its not racism. That is a concept that is hard for people to understand. Just because someone is for black unity or supporting black companies, doesn't make it Ant-everything else. I don't see whats so hard to understand about that. The concept is that how can we be equal in this country if we don't first know how to support each other. I wont refue to buy something just because its from a white or otherwise owned business. I mentioned Tommie Hilfiger and Calvin Klien because (correct me if I'm wrong) those companies stated that their clothes are not for black consumers. If that's their attitude fine, why do I want to put money in their pockets? I mentioned Fubu because they were a black owned company until they sold it. I don't know if you can understand why that matters but it does. Not just to me but to a lot of people. If you look at Fubu over the past years, their prices have dropped drastically, and some stores that used to care them no longer do. Why? Prices drop when people stop buying it as often. The reason why majority of black consumers stoped buying Fubu is because they sold out. Now, as for the clothes that I do buy, it's because of the way they are made. Enyce, Ecko, Akademiks, Baby Phat, etc....they make their clothes to fit the contours of our bodies. Our body shapes are slightly different and those companies make thier clothes to accomodate for such differences. In the case of a "United White College Fund", it doesn't take a genious to figure out why people would go crazy. EVERYTHING in this country is centered around whites. You can't tell me that you don't know that. Thats why it's necessary for all the organizations to have negro, black, etc in their names because it's aimed at building us up. Bottom line, I wish everyone would get in their heads is that support for one thing does not necessarily mean putting down the other. For example: if you are in a group that is Against abortion, then yes you would be in opposition to those who support it. But if you are apart of an organization aimed at saving the endagered Parrot (for the sake of example), doesn't mean that you are not in favor of saving other endangered birds, but your focus is the Parrot. The same concept applies. I hope that made sense. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 169[Branch from no. 168] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, September 18, 2006 11:20pm Subject: Re: Question... Aye, but reverse racism does exist, one can't deny that. Simply put, that would be when a concept is put into place to stop a racist problem(maybe white vs black) but causes a problem for the original racist person (that cracker). Now, in this case, it isn't exactly reverse racism as it is a sort of strong pessimism. "This country is centered around white people" Yes, but why? Well... it was founded by white people. White people are the majority. It's partially democratic... majority rules... so, yes, the country has tended to focus on white people. Although, black people currently have the pop culture spotlight. Now, the reason a white person might not like a black college fund is that, well, we can't have any of that. For about the same reason, black people might not like stuff centered around whites. Not their thang. I like the blues. This is... primarily a black person music(most white people playing the blues is generic and lacks... soul). The two most notable guitar players in the blues industry, I would say anyway, are B.B. King and Eric Clapton. A long time ago, Eric Clapton complained that Britain was becoming a 'black colony'. Was that a racist comment? Eh, maybe, lots of blacks were going over there at the time, though. Does B.B. King have anything against Eric? Nah. What is racist? Who cares? It takes two to make a baby. And it takes two to be racist. . . one to be racist and one to say, "That is racist!"... so who's more racist? Who's more liable for the baby? Who's more liable for the 'problem' that's come about due to racism? Should the people who were racist say, "We did this, so...! It is our duty to fix it!" Or should the people discriminated against rise up and end it all? Dunno. I'm not really racist, just very bland. People are all people, and they were born one way and choose to be this way. Some white people act black, some blacks act white. And then there are a lot of other races and mixtures. We all have different ways of being, some more similar than others... maybe we should all mix our races together and say fuck it, in an ironic way. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 170[Branch from no. 169] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 4:32am Subject: Re: Question... I think it would be pretty interesting to see all of the races mix until there was no defined race. but then again......where would the word be with classifying people. Someone would come up with some way I'm sure. As for this country. The people who this counry really belongs to are in the minority. Native American's population here is far less than it should be. Why because Europeans just came in and took over, and thats been the pattern of things ever since. America is a bully.....okay that was slightly off topic. But anyway....pessimism? You'll have to elaborate on that statement for me. I'm not being negative, I'm being honest. Everything thing in this country IS about whites. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 171[Branch from no. 170] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 7:06am Subject: Re: Question... Well, I'm not saying your opinions and what-not are pessimistic, but the focus is. As is with mostly everybody, they tend to look at the problems- racism, past slavery, clothing focused on a certain race. Race-specific scholarships, whatever. Instead of arguing with each and saying, "Well, this this and this is wrong and is racist" "Yeah, well, this, that, and THIS is even more racist!", it would be better to look at the positives. For example, you and I are in college. In a class. Together. I'm white. You're black. I think. But see, it doesn't matter about our race, right? We're getting the same education from the same man at the same institution. The only difference I can see is that we use different bathrooms, but that's 'cause of a difference in letting go of that which we no longer need. We've narrowed that down from four to two different bathrooms. Of course, then you can get all negative, and someone could mention that I didn't get any scholarships, and that you got a black person scholarship(not saying you did, but people bring stuff like that up), but I'd just shrug it off. I didn't get hope because I was pretty lazy in high school... so I got what I deserved. You just got lucky, being born black. But I dunno, I've gotta commute for an hour to get to school, so maybe I'll say more later. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 172[Branch from no. 171] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:22am Subject: Re: Question... If you don't want to read all of this rambling and blabbering, just scroll to the last paragraph. :D The ultimate problem, as I tried to indicate on the test, is that we're all born with a tendency towards those of our race, and a wariness towards those of other races. This is a trait we are born with, that may have helped us survive many, many years ago, but now interferes with our new ways of being. If people are born inherently prejudice towards people who are 'different' in whatever way, then there is another trait that breaks away from that, that being the path of eventual self-actualization and other similar ways of being as good of a human as we can be. We tend to strive to be 'better' people and thus break away from our base instincts into thoughtful considerations of past occurences, current situationsm, and future possibilities. This is what seems to make us human above all else. We can break away from just instinct and we can break the habits of behaviorism and we can perhaps direct our unconcious to an extent. While behavior is a function of its consequences, we can sometimes will ourselves to think and act beyond the immediate consequences, to what is truly better for ourselves and others. So while a pigeon drives the missle to blow up a building expecting to eat without a thought to its own mortality beyond extending, a person flies a plane to what is beyond death, whether it be eternal salvation or winning a war for their country, protecting their families in a sense through their self-sacrifice, knowing full-well that there may be nothing afterwards, which I guess the ultimate level of actualization. We are born with our biological tendencies, learn about the world through our behavioristic nature, and form an unconcious that drives us through life, but as we mature and grow older, our true human tendencies come out, and we show abilities that extend beyond all that, so that it is not our needs that drive us, but what we feel is right. So while natural prejudice helps some in the short run, we eventually realize that in the long run, we're all human, and it works better if we all exist together as people, not peoples. However, the problems lies in this: we are all born in this naturally prejudiced nature, but not all of us experience the true potential of humanity. And thus, only part of the human race attempting to reach complete actualization. So, people are born, and they fulfill their physiological needs, maybe their safety needs, maybe even the love stage, but the stage of status I think has the most to do with racism and prejudice. To reach this stage, I think it takes years, so people don't get there at a young age. They may even be middle aged by then, IF they make it there. So, the world is always going to be prejudice, because they are born that way, and it takes a great deal of effort to overcome this. So, you have this age group of maybe 1-35 I'm guessing that will almost always tend to be naturally racist, until, through completion of at least four of the needs in Maslow's hierarchy, they come to respect people just because they are people. And of course, whenever you lack some of the basic physiological needs, you end up right back at square one for a time. I hope that makes sense at least a little. I'm trying to understand all this myself, and it's just what I think as I go on. To summarize, so you don't have to read through all that, we are born racist, but through actualization, we come to respect other people regardless of who they are, physically, mentally, spiritually, etc, and thus shed our natural prejudice tendencies. However, this can take years, so there's always a relative age group that tends to have some prejudice, just because they're not there yet. Of course, you can raise your kids to be not at all prejudice, but then they may be prejudice against people who are prejudice. So unless we genetically engineer people out of their biologically inherent prejudice, we can only somewhat curb the 'problem'. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 174[Branch from no. 171] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 2:49pm Subject: Re: Question... I read all of what you had to say. You make plenty of sense, all in all we can't help it, and we cant get rid of it. Everyone has some degree of prejudice, whether racial or otherwise. As for the fosuc being negative, no, it was positive. I didn't call anyone racist or accuse anyone's ideas of being racist. The person who initially responded to my post called what I said a form of reverse racism. I think this was due to a lack of understnding so I was attempting to shed some light on it so what I said wouldn't be misconstrued any further. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 175[Branch from no. 174] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 5:22pm Subject: Re: Question... I'm saying that, by defending your race and what it does and what you do as a black person is a negative way of looking at it. This's probably just the way I see it, but by looking at the things that do not make us different and not defending the things we do (as a white person or black person) and just generally letting go of our differences, regardless of whether we can help these differences or not, for the white person to defend the white-centered USA or the black person to That's reinforcing the fact that we are different ways that we can't help. We may not be able to eliminate prejudice altogether, helpful or hindering in its form, but we can maybe try to kill it as we get older, as we should... strive to, I guess? And about the long post thing, when I first started posting on here, I had rather long explanations about this and that. I sort of realized that, well, I can make the wordy posts that make lots of sense and say many things, with many witty little tid bits here and there, or I can try to say as much as possible using as few words. I think the latter shows more... eh... wisdom than smarts, and wisdom sounds cooler. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 179[Branch from no. 175] Posted by Meagan Pettus on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 8:02pm Subject: Re: Question... Well, you did shed a peak of light... but I'm still inclined to think that somehow what I said still has some (maybe just a little) validity. When you said the reason black people felt they should put "negro" in the college scholarship because it created unity among blacks some other person must have mistaken what I said. I'm not saying that undeserving people get scholarships just because they are black.... That may happen, but that's not my problem. I mean I have my own scholarship. What I'm saying is that when black people unify themselves, isn't that in a sense shutting out other races, not just whites? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 181[Branch from no. 179] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 9:19pm Subject: Re: Question... Aye, that's what I'd been saying. By having black-only scholarships and black pride and black history months, you're only reinforcing past behaviors because all this does is to make sure to define that there are major differences between whites and blacks, that because you are born black you are entitled to this, you need to have pride because otherwise you will be oppressed by them, we have a black history which is important to separate from the history of the rest of humanity. White people do the same thing, albeit from a more domineering standpoint for the most part. Politics, corporations(who they hire), mascots, so on... we're all guilty, so long as we feel guilty and try to make things better with holidays and required racial quotas(which are good ideas that reinforce bad behavior, I think). ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 183[Branch from no. 181] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:27pm Subject: Re: Question... We have black history months as a time to teach black history. It's separated because what we learn in the standard history classes, although its called American history is nothing but white history. You don't learn about blacks in those text books. Except MLK Jr., Frederick Douglass and maybe Bill Pickett- but they don't teach other important people like Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba, Mariam Makeba, Ossie Davia Booby Seale, Huey Newton, Mumia Abdul Jabar political imprisonment, black activists and things of that nature. What would you really know about the black history soley off of "AMerican history" texts taught in grade school? Not tell me how much you know about whites based off of those same texts? A whole helluva lot more. And maybe people are "reinforcing past behaviors" but thats something not so easy to do away with. It sound like to me (correct me if i'm wrong) that you're basically saying, "get over the racial issues, slavery wa a long time ago, the civil rights movement is over so you need to get past it". While it would be nice to just wake up one morming and there be no racial inbalance and no prejudice or biases that would be great. I don't thing theres a person in the world who wouldnt love that. but its not that simple. DO you think people enoy being angry about the past, enjoy learning about how black were brutally beaten, and belittled for no reason. No. but we learn it because histroy is important. learning "Americn history" is very fine and dandy, i want to learn that, but that tells me very VERY little bout me. black history tells me a lot about me, and better helps me looks at the way things are today. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 185[Branch from no. 183] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 8:59am Subject: Re: Question... Well, that would be because American history texts tend to focus on America, not just white people, not just black people, but America and whatever had the most influence. It doesn't just teach about just famous black or white or whatever people... it teaches about white or black or whatever, anyone who had a big influence on American history gets into an American History Textbook. So since whites suppressed blacks for so long... yeah... it's gonna focus on whiteys a bit more. It's not white history, though, it's just an unhappy side effect of past mistakes. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 187[Branch from no. 185] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 4:21pm Subject: Re: Question... Yea I understand that. I don't place fault on anyone for that, but that is th reason why we have black history month so that we can know about black history because its not in the texts. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 194[Branch from no. 187] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 9:10pm Subject: Re: Question... Ah, but people can learn about black history without having a month dedicated to it. You don't learn about it in high school because high school focuses on the basics- US history and world history. World history tends to focus on influential and powerful parts of the world, which those that could be considered 'black' were not. Black history month isn't so much about an intellectual pursuit as it is about black pride and white penitence. You can take black history classes in college if you're that interested, or read about it in a library. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 182[Branch from no. 179] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:06pm Subject: Re: Question... You know what, that is a very good question. That is probably what other people that I have had this conversation with were getting at but just didn't ask it in the right way. Meaning I didn't understand fully what they were getting at, but I do understand your question. Organizations and things of that nature that are created to unify blacks are not only created to provide a service to blacks but as a step toward a greater goal. And that goal would be racial equality. It may be kind of hard to understand how that would lead to equality but it does/will eventually. When you're in a place where things are not necessarily made for you, you have to make a way. And continue to "make a way" until that is no longer necessary. I don't think it shuts people out because its not like they are removing themselves from society or anything, not trying to live in another world, just make things a little easier in the world we're in. The organizations are created to give blacks as well as other minorities the same opprotunities that whites have in this country. Believe it or not, but with out some of these programs/organizations, some of these opprotunities will not be attainable. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 191[Branch from no. 170] Posted by Jennifer Knight on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 7:46pm Subject: Re: Question... Riaun, I got something to say about your comment on race and prejudice. THIS COUNTRY IS NOT JUST ABOUT THE WHITES!!!!!!!!!!! Let me ask you something. Haven't you ever heard of the NAACP? There are also several scholarships that are for African- Americans ONLY, but not for WHITES only. There are also certain colleges that are for african-americans only, such as Moorehouse College, But do you know of any colleges that are for whites only!? Well....I DON'T! This country should not belong to just one specific race/or group, whether that group be white, native american, african-american, hispanic,etc.. WE ALL OBEY THE SAME LAWS HERE IN AMERICA!? You name one law that one race has to obey that another doesn't! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 192[Branch from no. 191] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 8:26pm Subject: Re: Question... Well... fighting causes fighting, strife causes strife, hatred causes hatred, and so on... you can fight fire with fire, but it only makes a bigger fire. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 197[Branch from no. 192] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 10:37pm Subject: Re: Question... That's very true. But the problem is that people (and this is not aimed at any one specific) that start fires, want the people who are reacting to it to stop reacting before they decide to stop starting the fires. What i mean is. If you punch me repeatedly in the arm, then I'm going to start punching back. Now the problem because that you want me to stop punching you before you stop punching me. That makes no sense. You quit then I'll quit. Did that make sense? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 198[Branch from no. 197] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 10:50pm Subject: Re: Question... Yep, yep, that makes sense. A much better example, too, and it goes to show that neither side is right. The person who punched first is wrong for the reason, but the person who punches back is also wrong. Not from a justice perspective, of course; from a justice perspective, punching back is correct. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, that Jewish stuff. But Jesus, and the path of self-actualization... to become a better person, punching back isn't the best choice. Forgive and forget, turn the other cheek... if someone is trying to be pissy towards you, be nice towards them. Of course, not in an annoying sort of way... but you get the idea. Punching back isn't right even if it is justified. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 200[Branch from no. 198] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 11:03pm Subject: Re: Question... Nah, I can't get with that. Don't get me wrong, I understand that perspective but it's also ineffective. Let's say I stopped punching you. Guess what? You still punching on me! MLK Jr, tried that "make peice with your enemies" did that work? No. It got him killed. White people embraced MLK Jr. because he taught people to walk away from someone who is beatin the crap out of you. Trying to prove who was the bigger person, But those ppl were't trying to here that. Malcolm X's way got him killed too, true enough, but it also showed that he was serious about what he felt. ACTION not WORDS. He could have said "we're not gonna take this inhumane treatment" but white folk wouldn't have been able to hear that if he didn't back it up. People constantly asked him why he told people to arm themselves. He said tht we're armed because you're armed. He said that people are always telling blacks to put their weapons down but nobody told the whites to put there's down. So, you back off of me and I'll back off of you. You stop treating me like shit, and I'll stop reacting. Yes this creates a cycle. But America made things the way they are. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 196[Branch from no. 191] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 10:34pm Subject: Re: Question... Whoa, I can't believe you even want to go there with that. But I'm not mad at ya, you're curious so lets go......If this country hasn't been about whites then why does the NAACP exist? Those colleges/universities are HISTORICALLY black but not exclusive. Hell, Spelman and Morehouse were started by and funded by whites......obviously they deemed it necessary for blacks to have something all their own. No one is stopping you from attending Spelman if you wanted to. Historically black colleges and universities exist because white wouldn't let blacks in THIER, yes THEIR schools. So do I know of any schools that are for whites only? Yes, all of them. There had to be laws made just for blacks to be able to get an education, and you have the nerve to be offended? So it sounds to me like you're feeling left out. Why? Would you like to be the minority? Would you like to have people question your ability before you open your mouth? Would you like to get a job or something of that nature and have wonder if you got it because of your own merrits or because of some damn quota? Don't get me wrong, Affirmative Action was made with good intent but its not perfect. I was going to avoid saying this, but there is no need for there to be a "white only" anything. Why? Because you all have white privilege, pretend it doesn't exist if you want to but it does. All of these programs/organzations were either created by blacks to further black progression in this country, or started by this country to try to compensate for their draggin black over here, treating them like sh, and then refusing them the same rights as white. So again, if this country wasn't all aboout white, why is does the NAACP exist? Why are there Historically black colleges/universities? Why is there Affirmative Action? Why is Brown vs Board of Education so significant? Why was there a Civil Rights Movement? Who was fightning for their rights, BLACKS, not whites. Those rights that were allegedly "inherit" and "inalienable" but for some reason blacks had to FIGHT for them. Fighting for something that blacks supposedly already had. This country doesn't cater to whites? Why is there a Voting Rights Act? And it just got renewed this year. Apparently the memebers of congress found it necessary. And lets not get into law cause we both know how shakey the law is. The law may not discriminate, but those who enforce it sure can. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 199[Branch from no. 196] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 10:56pm Subject: Re: Question... Whites aren't right for punching in the first place... Blacks are justified in punching back, but that's not the best solution... ... ... ... So... ... ... everyone should just stop punching, without regard to who started it, who punched last, and so on. Besides, by the end, white people will be so bruised, it will hardly matter. :D ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 201[Branch from no. 199] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 11:06pm Subject: Re: Question... You're right! Everyone should stop!!! I can agree with that? But... What will hardly matter? It won't hardly matter that whites started punching first? Nah thats a stretch for that to be said. Nothing anyone can do now will ever make up for that. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 89[Branch from no. 29] Posted by Cornell Scales on Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:15pm Subject: Re: Question I believe in a sense that the country is still race driven all across the board. When I say across the board I mean from white people being racist to blacks, blacks being racist to whites and so on. It's just something we as a nation are just going to have to deal with. Racism also deals with how much money you have, education, sex, religion, and many other factors. Racism has grown far more complex than just skin color. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 90[Branch from no. 89] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:31pm Subject: Re: QuestionI agree with you that what we are talking about on this board is generally more broad than racism. I suggest we start calling it bigotry.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 30 Posted by Jessica Gaston on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 7:17pm Subject: extra credit when will we know that we got in in time for the self awareness thing?? will they just call?? Thanks!! Jessica ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 54[Branch from no. 30] Posted by Brett Renfrow on Friday, August 25, 2006 8:47am Subject: Re: extra credit I'd say that if you don't get a call within the next 2-3 weeks, then they wont use you? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 56[Branch from no. 54] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Friday, August 25, 2006 9:02am Subject: Re: extra credit I'll send a group e-mail to those folks we'll be able to work with...there are a limited number of graduate students in the assessment class and that's why we can't help everyone. There will be ample other extra-credit opportunities (every page you visit on the internet, every conversation, every piece of news, every TV program or movie)...anything you can shine psychology light on. More later, let's hope, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 31 Posted by Shikitia Jackson on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 7:39pm Subject: I NEED HELP ASAP. Im so confused! What are we suppose to write in the journals? Is there an assigned topic or do we free write? Please help me!!!!!!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 32[Branch from no. 31] Posted by Pamela Mikell on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 8:36pm Subject: Re: I NEED HELP ASAP. Free write! Anything of interest that strikes your curiosity, that you may be able to look at from a different angle (in a different light) than the obvious! Hope that helps! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 36[Branch from no. 31] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 10:28pm Subject: Re: I NEED HELP ASAP. Your best guide on matters like this will be the materials we have prepared for you (they're to help you, after all). READ the syllabus, read the self-awareness evaluation guide, get with the TAs (that's what they are here for) with some good informed questions...read the class notes. I have said several times, "we don't care WHAT you write about but do care HOW..." If that sentence isn't clear to you, do some work to try to get clear about it, letting the sources above help you. Yes, you'll want to approach your jounral as a somewhat free writing at the level of curiosity, but increasingly (as it says in the materials we've prepared) you'll want to do so in a way that tries to build new and informed bridges between the concepts we talk about in class (see notes, text, etc.) and your experience... hope that helps, ASAP, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 40[Branch from no. 31] Posted by Nyasha Zafir on Thursday, August 24, 2006 11:57am Subject: Re: I NEED HELP ASAP. its kinda like a free response. u write about things we talked about in class as it repsonds to something that happened in ur real life. or how u feel about it. in a way you are analyzing your life with the things we talk about in class ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 41 Posted by Nyasha Zafir on Thursday, August 24, 2006 12:12pm Subject: about the brain does anyone watch law and order? if you do, have you seen the episode last night? it was about this man who killed a girl. he was a very nice person at first but, he got mad and snapped. they said that he had severe blows to the head on the frontal lobe and thats what changed his personality. thats what i started thinking about when. dr. kunkel was talking about. the mad who had the pole go through his brain. and it changed his whole personality. i think maybe i should write about that in my awareness journal ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 42[Branch from no. 41] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Thursday, August 24, 2006 12:23pm Subject: Re: about the brain i don't watch csi reguarly but i think kunkel would like it if you did right that b/c it can relate to a lote of ppl ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 43[Branch from no. 42] Posted by Nyasha Zafir on Thursday, August 24, 2006 12:29pm Subject: Re: about the brain ok thank you kathryn ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 44[Branch from no. 43] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Thursday, August 24, 2006 12:50pm Subject: Re: about the brain please please call me katie lol i never go by kathryn but just like the first day when he was talking about going to 6 flags i wrote in my journal about being more scared for myself b/c i have a fear of falling and tried to figure out where it came from ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 45 Posted by Heather Clark on Thursday, August 24, 2006 2:26pm Subject: brain So today in class we were talking about how the brain changes, like people can't change the brain changes which makes them change, so when someone has a "mood swing" is that the brain changing back and forth or something else causes it? I kind of get a better understanding of when people say "im trying to change my ways i just cant" i guess they really mean it, or are mood swings and personality traits something you can control and some people just dont? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 46[Branch from no. 45] Posted by Nyasha Zafir on Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:05pm Subject: Re: brain i think that u can change it to some extent. like everything cant be changed. lets take mood swings for example, i think that if u really have mood swings that maybe u cant change the actual mood swing, because you are unaware of it. i think that if you are aware of your mood swings then u can stop them from being so severe. i think people really cant change personality traits unless something happens to them that trigers a change. you are who you are. thats why its so hard for people to try to change people. it takes time to change and it might not ever happen ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 53[Branch from no. 46] Posted by Kaylyn Adams on Friday, August 25, 2006 12:19am Subject: Re: brain I think mood swings and what not can be contained to an extent. But what about those days whenever we just feel like crying? Those times when you feel as if you can't control your emotions (And maybe even can't)? I'm sure it could be explained scientifically, as in your hormones are doing this at this time and that at that time.. So crazy. If that's the case, why are we unable to keep those under control? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 55[Branch from no. 53] Posted by Brett Renfrow on Friday, August 25, 2006 8:53am Subject: Re: brain Check this reading out about Biorhythms. Also get your own free report from this site. http://www.perbang.dk/orcapia.cms?aid=68 ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 47 Posted by Michael Burmeister on Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:32pm Subject: Tests Just wondering how on earth we study for our tests and what kind of tests questions could exist. Class is pretty much a free discussion...and our notes and interesting as they are, aren't exactly the usual kinds of notes that are taken in class. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 48[Branch from no. 47] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:50pm Subject: Re: Tests Wonderful question, from someone who's in the game, I bet. You'll find that the class discussions aren't exactly "free"...that is, they have a structure to them. Of course there is also that spontaneity and sense of wonder that characterizes learning communities, when we get it right, hmm? As for the test... take a look at the "sample exam" file I've uploaded. It's part of the first test I gave to the folks this summer and conveys, I think, a sense of what my tests are like. Your tour guide. Note to the overly dutiful: There are questions on this test sample that are written to material we haven't covered yet, so don't worry if they're not clear, quite yet, okay? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 51[Branch from no. 48] Posted by Lindsay Hall on Thursday, August 24, 2006 6:11pm Subject: Re: Tests YES!! Gracias on behalf of those who stress over what to study...myself included. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 58 Posted by Meghan Crofoot on Friday, August 25, 2006 2:27pm Subject: Scantron What type of scantron do we need to get for the Exam? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 59[Branch from no. 58] Posted by Brittany Lee on Friday, August 25, 2006 2:29pm Subject: Re: Scantron You need the large pink one. The number is 229633. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 60[Branch from no. 59] Posted by Chris Woods on Saturday, August 26, 2006 2:33pm Subject: Re: Scantron Do we need one or multiple ones? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 65[Branch from no. 60] Posted by Brittany Lee on Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:01pm Subject: Re: Scantron Yes you need three ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 61[Branch from no. 59] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Saturday, August 26, 2006 6:29pm Subject: Re: Scantron where can you find that you need this? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 66[Branch from no. 61] Posted by Brittany Lee on Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:02pm Subject: Re: Scantron it is in the syllabus...if you go to the bookstore...the number is on the scantron...you need 3 ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 63 Posted by Aaron Miller on Sunday, August 27, 2006 11:24am Subject: Extra credit There is another extra credit opportunity for those of you who are interested. For this you may watch either the movie Gattaca or Trading Places and write a 1-2 page paper on it (see syllabus). It should go without saying we are not looking for a "book report" style paper; but an exploration into the psychological ideas within the movie. Whether you liked the movie, your thoughts on the acting, etc are not relevant to this paper. Here are some questions which might help get the process rolling: What is the main psychological theme in this movie? What position does this movie take on that theory? Are there any future implications to these themes? Are there any moments of good/bad psychology being done in the movie? Also, if you do not want to write a full paper about this for extra credit, it might be a good journal topic at some point. Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 64[Branch from no. 63] Posted by Nyasha Zafir on Sunday, August 27, 2006 12:04pm Subject: Re: Extra credit when is this extra ceredit assignment due ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 141[Branch from no. 64] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Saturday, September 9, 2006 7:26pm Subject: Re: Extra credit By the end of this extra credit term. Check out the syllabus. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 142[Branch from no. 141] Posted by Zoeisha Chinoy on Saturday, September 9, 2006 7:50pm Subject: Re: Extra credit sept 14th, that's thursday. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 69 Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, August 28, 2006 11:18am Subject: "Racial prejudice" and our first theory story... Hi, all. I hope that you have been following the bulletin board discussion on various topics. You'll find over time that it will be informed increasingly by our psychological theory perspectives, and will move in the direction of "what ordinary people can't or won't say." That will be wonderful, indeed. Here's a couple of links to some "psychology talk" on prejudice, consistent with our first theory story (i.e., "it's all about the brain"). You might have to cut and paste each link to a new browser window. Take a look, please? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/17/MNGB633LED1.DTL (this one will be quite interesting to you, I hope) http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/race_fear.pdf (a little more traditionally scientific in its flavor, this article is also worth plowing through) Your tour guide, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 71[Branch from no. 69] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Monday, August 28, 2006 5:08pm Subject: Re: "Racial prejudice" and our first theory story... Thank you professor Kunkel, as a white female myself i am not subjected racial prejudices that often but not fitting in society's view of what a person shouuld look like am i judged almost everyday, i also have friends of all differences so i have always been interested in why do we have prejudices and i hope these help thank you ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 76[Branch from no. 71] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 11:07am Subject: Re: "Racial prejudice" and our first theory story... So basically, you experiences problems, not from racism... but perhaps sexism? Hm hm hm... So do we blame this on being raised to treat women a certain way, or the chemicals excreted in the brain or produced perhaps downstairs? Juice or wiring...? I dunno, I'm a guy, a male, a man. I'm not all that especially attractive. So I suppose that I also get treated differently... but I wonder, do women in general not think I'm attractive, or perhaps is it a race driven thing as well? Caucasian women don't think I'm hot to trot, but african american women do. Or maybe it's more juice... or maybe nurture? I'm not too clear on the differences here yet, but anyway. Maybe(perhaps), an african american woman could think I'm hot to trot, so fresh and so clean, but an african woman could find me repulsive. Does she find me repulsive as a cultural difference, or has there been some change in evolution over the past few hundred years ('comfortable' America to the wild African wilderness)? Or maybe it's the(I suppose one could say conditioning?) of enslavement and prejudice (sort of like... Stockholm's syndrome, I think?). Or perhaps it's the exact opposite, and african american women are disgusted with me, my mannerisms, my appearance, and caucasian women just don't like my scruffy beard that won't grow in all the way. I suppose the only way to find out would be to do a massive poll finding out how attractive I am to other people, and including into that poll men and women of all race and orientation, just to cover every inch of the field, I suppose. But whatev'... thanks for the site, Mr. Professor. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 87[Branch from no. 76] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:50pm Subject: Re: "Racial prejudice" and our first theory story...Corey,
Your two postings are so close together that I suppose I should consider them as one stream of thought. Perhaps a little clarification of what issues you are raising would not only help me better understand what you are expressing; trying to clarify may also help you to articulate a question to which you will discover the answer on your own.
Interestingly, and you may have intentionally worded your posting this way, I cannot discern your race. Also, interestingly, race is not so clear cut as black and white. What I hear is that you do not find much preference for a particular race of women. However, you feel black women find you more attractive than do white women.
It could be that you are relying too heavily on the reactions you receive from the opposite sex to determine your own value. You describe yourself as being not eye candy as if that is reason for your feelings of rejection. Yet, you also describe your facial hair as something you believe may be a factor in that less than attractive appearance.
So why the beard? Perhaps you are caught in a dilemma between trying to express you individualism via the not-so-great beard and feeling rejected by women because you do not appeal to the aesthetic values of the majority of women. Really, somebody out there will love your beard just the way it is. However, your are, it seems to me, limiting your own chances of catching a mate with grooming habits that you recognize are a turn off to most of the herd.
So you have to carefully assess your priorities. If you want to catch more fish you have to use the best bait you can have. If you are determined to use bait that you know is not working then you should anticipate not catching many fish.
Finally, be very careful of falling into the minefield of assessing your own value based upon your perceptions of how others value you. You may be wrong about what people think.
Why do you think it is that you perceive black women finding you relatively more attractive than do white women? Is that their perception or yours? Finally, you may need to clarify further for me what you mean when you say black women find you "hot to trot" as I am inclined to believe you simply mean "hot". "Hot to trot" implies to me that one has sexual prowess and uses that for sexual conquest.
Finally, I suggest you consider whether you are putting road blocks in your own path. Is there some reason you might want to think that a big part of your dilemma is that the race is women who find you attractive are unfortunately not the race of women you find attractive? Is there some benefit to you in this? Does it make a way for you to avoid the root of a more basic issue?
I am interested in hearing your reconstructed questions. As I said already, clarifying things enough to convey them to others sometimes clears things up for yourself.
Take care and don't be too hard on yourself,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 173[Branch from no. 87] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 12:02pm Subject: Re: "Racial prejudice" and our first theory story... Y'know, I need to pay attention to all the posts on this board. The thing gets confusing, what with us having three different race threads and it all being in drop-down lists and such. Anyway, the way I've worded my post... I am me. A human being. Race is race, only if you look at it from a physical perspective. Looking at the purely mental capabilities, we're all pretty similar, though male or female seems to differ a lot. Am I white? Sure am. Should I act in a way that further tells the world, "Hi! I'm white!" Nah. So I just speak in as general and neutral way as possible. Now, I say African American, as Riaun pointed out, as a sort of, "I better be careful" thing. It's like, I'm white, yeah, NOT caucasian, I'm not gonna act that holier than thou, and unless I'm really coo' with you, I'm gonna call all of you who are born very dark brown and perhaps black, African American. Just a safety precaution, in case people get easily riled up about race(Trying not to make assumptions... but white, black, Mexican, Spanish... all people are people, have different, unique ways of being, some of which are easily offended) Furthermore, I mentioned African Americans and Africans, trying to differentiate in culture. Now then, the reaction of other people, the beard, basing my value on other's perception, individualism, attraction to me depending on race... all of these are just examples. I haven't the foggiest clue of which race finds me more attractive, if either of them do, or if the beard works. You can try to make assumptions based on races, but for the most part, these aesthetic preferences are very individualistic and based a lot more on the culture you are raised in. In saying such and such women find me attractive, I was trying to say that it doesn't have to do with us being born black or white that makes people attracted to certain things, but the culture. African American women, generalized as a whole(stereotyping, yes) might find me attractive, but African woman(stereotype) might not. They are both black, but have been raised in two different parts of the world, attaining different tastes not because they are two different shades of black, but because the environment in which you were raised has a lot to do with your preferences. Therefore, if African women and African American women are different, and black and white women are different, and the British have different tastes from Americans, and Americans(black and white) have different tastes from Africans/Afrikaans(black and white), a lot of racial preference has to do with the tastes we acquired growing up, rather than that which we were born with. Or something like that, I dunno. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 203[Branch from no. 173] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Thursday, September 21, 2006 2:01am Subject: Re: "Racial prejudice" and our first theory story... I didn't mean to imply that I disagreed with your use of the word "African American". I only mentioned it because the other guy said that he could not determine your race. not that's not important but I was just pointing out how I on the subconcious level said to myself "He's white" Thus getting back to the question of whether or not we are prejudice. I didn't seek to look for whether or not you were white but while reading your post, I was able to pick up on it. Just as someone may take notice of my diction and conclude that I am black. No biggie at all. But I do understand about your decision to try your best to be "politically correct" race is very touchy, and can get people riled up without intent. And I do agree with you about the preference being a cultural thing, rather than a race thing. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 164[Branch from no. 76] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Monday, September 18, 2006 3:20am Subject: Re: "Racial prejudice" and our first theory story... Interesting and intriguing Corey. John said that he was not able to determine your race. Now allow me to exemplify how important race is to people even on the subconcious level. You are white. How do I know this. You used the term "African American". The only time I hear black people say "African American" is in a formal address of some sort (even then rarely) What your race is doesn't matter but just thought I'd point that out. You stated that black women find you more attractive than white women. But then, there are two types of black women (in this case): those who likes white guys and those who don't. When I say, doesn't like white guys, I don't mean in a racist way, I just mean that they have a preference for non-white, mainly black men. For example, I don't really find white men physically attractive. Why? 1. I enjoy the differences in skin tone 2. white men's voices are (generally) higher pitched than black men's. I can't stand a man with a light voice 3. Hair. Now, there may be other reasons that I am not aware of, but those are the ones that I could notice. There are some white men that I do find attractive, but it takes a lot. For me, the qualities that make a white man attractive, in my eyes, are totally different than the qualities that I find in a black man. And cultural difference do play an important part, as you said. No matter what a persons race, the person is naturally inclined toward thier own. Later on, as a person grows and learn, they allow variations and deviances from wht they were taught to think (conditioning?) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 82 Posted by Porshe Babajide on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 8:10pm Subject: what chapters i was looking on the syllabus for what chapters go with what were doing in class but there are no chapters indicated pls let me know so i can know where the reading stops for the test ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 83[Branch from no. 82] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:52pm Subject: Re: what chapters Hi, Porshe. Thanks for the reminder, and I'm sorry for my tardiness on this point. I meant to post the chapters Tuesday. You may find them under the "syllabus and important class details" tab in the Course Content area (the one with the blue backpack). Good juice and wiring, and happy pairing and consequences, to you, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 84 Posted by Zoeisha Chinoy on Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:09am Subject: Brained It's a bit funny, everytime i hear the word brained, i kinda relate it to everyone, and i mean everyone. In a way, we are all brained to do what others expect us to do, it's all about what other people will think of us if we don't do a particular thing or vice versa. Think about it, every move me make, we ask ourselves, "should i or shouldn't i?" Some of you'll may feel its not true and that you do what ever you want, without bothering about what anyone has to say, but wait, there always is some one or something that makes you ask your self that question of "should i or shouldn't i?" ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 86[Branch from no. 84] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, August 31, 2006 6:10am Subject: Re: Brained Every time I hear "Brained" I automatically picture myself fishing with my dad in the Gulf of Mexico. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 85 Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:17am Subject: Text Book ObservationsAlways question the source...
I've read the various postings from my fellow classmates and Dr. Kunkel; I even had some comments worth making on one or two but the email format is quite casual so when in doubt I hold my tongue. That is not meant to imply that I am about to get on a soap box. I do, however, feel compelled to critique the course text.
Obviously, Dr. Kunkel is our primary source for information here. I believe he is excellent! No kidding, the one message I wrote and then accidentally deleted was all about how impressed I was with the thoughtful and kind manner in which he addressed the questions regarding evolution and prejudice such that he was leading by example where the approach to Psychology is concerned.
The text book/CD augments the lessons. Dr. Kunkel, (yes, I know you are watching) is an excellent professor in my view, and this, "..ain't my first time at the rodeo...", as Faye Dunaway delivered so wonderfully in her portrayal of Joan Crawford in that classic cinema of the bizarre, Mommy Dearest. At any rate, he conveys a genuine interest in turning on some brains rather than treating this 1000 level course as drudgery as is so common in academia where the torture of teaching such a large class of beginners is part of the wages of sin professors exchange for the opportunity to do research.
The text, too, seems fine. I have not compared it to any others so I presume Dr. Kunkel put some thought into what he asked us to purchase and read. However, I saw one red flag several times. That's right: It was the same flag repeatedly. Then, a few days ago, I ran across something else with which I actually disagree. Now that my observations actually cause me to question something the writers and editors of the book/CD put forth as something akin to fact I simply cannot resist this harangue.
First let me call attention to a recurring detail of the History of Psychology that struck me as irrelevant since the authors were not explicit in their reasoning behind including these facts. I almost called them "arbitrary" facts, but they are only arbitrary because the timeline into which they fit is mostly incomplete. I immediately picked-up the text to check my suspicion of the sex of the authors when I saw mention of the first "woman" president of the APA.
The authors are both women. Before any of you jump on what you may think is my wagon let me say that my attitude toward the sex of the authors of the text is neuter. However, the authors, by putting a cameo to click on with each date a woman was elected president of the APA, are exhibiting what I perceive as a bias.
Are they trying to convey how historically progressive the profession of Psychology is? Are they trying to let us know that Psychology was open to everyone well before that was otherwise socially acceptable? Was Psychology a frivolous pursuit back then so nobody actually cared if women were elected president? At some point they even mention a percentage regarding women members and/or presidents, but they do not contrast that figure with any other professions such as the AMA or the IBEW, or UPS, or anything else. All I am left to wonder is why did they decide these facts regarding the governance of the professional association were important dates in Psychology History?
That little nuanced history was not worth much more than the verification I made regarding the sex of the writers. Maybe I fail to see the importance of the facts on the timeline, but at least they prompted me to question something. However, this put me on notice.
This leads us to something actually important I saw with which I strongly disagree. Did anybody take note of the drawings of a horse as done by an infant and then by people at increasing ages all the way into adulthood? Anybody in here ever study art?
The authors hypothesized that a person's attention to detail increases with the maturing brain. I believe they got it very wrong. They could have chosen lots of other examples to show how the brain develops; but, in choosing drawing they actually took a classic little experiment and drew a disturbing conclusion.
Actually, I keep waiting for the punch line where they say, "See, you took us at our word on that horse drawing bit when you should have questioned it.".
What the drawings actually demonstrate is how right a child "gets it" right up until about the time they, say, start going to school. Children's drawings typically capture something real about whatever they are drawing until they start being told to "stay within the lines", and other rules of conformity. In drawing we can see the effect of this conformity conditioning, yet it covers all aspects of life. Then, those who have a spark of originality, or truth in vision, or ingenuity, integrity toward themselves, or whatever other innate gifts a person is born with struggle with the conflicting pressure to conform and their desire to be free in a world that talks a lot about freedom and works overtime at squashing it.
This could turn into quite a long dissertation. I think those among you who understand what I am getting at already understand, and the others who are befuddled will remain that way. Let me give one additional quick example regarding drawing. Think back, way back to when you first started your education among other children. If you ever have the opportunity to see what a child draws for a tree and a house before they are exposed to "The System" take note and save that drawing for reference. Now picture in your mind what trees drawn by first grade students look like. They are all lollipop looking trees with round red dots for apples.
There are examples that are different, of course. A child from a war zone might draw Daddy being executed, for example, or a five year old victim of molestation might draw something less idealic than a lollipop tree.
Naturally, I still allow that the text book, when conveying facts, is more right than wrong, but, as always, consider the source. That includes myself.
By the way, when is the last time you heard someone you believed to actually be free-minded use the cliche', "Think out of the box."?
Psychologically speaking, I leave you with this:
Observation - the authors sometimes include information or draw conclusions that are incongruous with my independent perceptions, and therefore I question the particulars as well as the whole.
Description - Women being noted as presidents of the APA. For all we know there were no presidents of the APA in the years in which women were not president. Also, childish drawings of horses used as evidence of increasing complexity of the human brain without any credentials as art critics cited by the authors. The example drawn by an adult may be saved and used as needed to induce vomiting.
Explaining - Basically, I already bitched enough. Real explanation - a lack of editorial supervision.
Prediction - Editors of text books who are not experts in the particular field are likely to let just about anything pass as a fact worth teaching. Prediction as it affects the end user - I don't know. Misinformation becomes accepted as fact? Crack Babies?
Intervention - Will air on A&E this Sunday evening.
Also,caveat issued to fellow students to never forget to think for themselves, ergo, to fight hard to remember to think critically as this is not the natural state of being pushed into our brains by Society. Also, if you are really bent on just reading a text and nodding "uh-huh" all the way through it then come to class stoned - it will be more fun that way - for all of us. Then, in five to twenty years you, too, can appear on television as your family and friends intervene and try to convince you to stop throwing your life away. Dr. Phil may even "arrange for your treatment" (you can really tell he just cares - and that wife of his - always walking so fast in those three inch heels - ain't she just a pistol ball?) if your particular tale makes enough people in the audience cry and shake their heads.
Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it for you.
Thanks for listening,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 88 Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, August 31, 2006 2:34pm Subject: Re: Evolution makes me un...I was thinking the other day about human potential and what people generally do with theirs. This is not a novel concept to ponder nor is my assessment unique. I guess that's part of what makes it so unfortunate.
Most folks live in fear of some sort or another as far as their human potential goes, and they manage to funnel their human potential into something socially acceptable. What is socially acceptable in our culture? Religion, specifically Christianity, and spectator sports.
Spectator sports. You don't even have to play or be athletic. In fact, from what I observe, it helps if you are obese, short of breath, and look ten years older than you are. You don't even have to be affiliated with the team in any way other than deciding you are a fan. Someone said to me a few weeks ago when I told him where I was going to school, "What West Georgia needs is their own stadium." This acquaintance of mine doesn't aspire to go to any school or do anything in particular except to "get some" when he can but he knows West Georgia needs its own stadium.
Religion. People tend to be reactionary like a pendulum; Therefore, some people will get a glimpse of something more than they wanted to see and retreat into religion more deeply than they ever knew they could. They retreat into religion because it is already there for them. The Church is a great and entrenched institution. Frankly, given the choice between that and spectator sports I would swing the religious way, too.
I knew a man, now deceased, who told me with great reverence and piety that he promised God he would never go back to New York City. He explained that he had a heart attack while in New York one time many years before, and he promised God that if He would let him live he would never go back to New York. I did not want to be the cause of his last heart attack so I did not ask what I was dying to know, "What the hell were you DOING in New York that was so sinful that God would equate your promise never to return there as something pious enough to let you spend more time in this life?" Really! What was he DOING? All right, who and what was he doing that made him feel so guilty as to think that he was striking a reasonable bargain with The Lord, who holds all the cards in the first place, for a longer life?
In perfect honesty, I would not have minded asking that question except that I was bound by my own fears... Frankly, had I a guarantee, such as he had thanks to his special relationship with The Lord, that he would have killed-over if I questioned his immoral behavior in New York, I like to pretend that I would have gone ahead and done so.
You know, there is lots to a place like New York. You could spend an entire very exciting and long life there and never be any more sinful than you can be in Carrollton. I understand that if you are against drinking alcohol, for example, you will be better-off if you stay away from places where people congregate and drink. Otherwise, your curiosity might get the better of you. Curiosity and boredom from watching drunk people while sober. Hey, I dislike pornography and because I feel the industry is degrading I refuse to go along with guys headed to strip clubs. I am not afraid of being lead down some path of doom; I had simply rather use my imagination than watch some coked-up dancer strut on a bar. This I know for a fact because once I acquiesced and decided I should at least see what I was missing and I hated it.
What does all this have to do with "Re: Evolution makes me un..."? Whether it is evolution or some other ideas, you will be confronted with alternative views to what you are acclimated to in this Psychology class, and hopefully throughout life. By even coming to further your education you have expanded your realms of existence. Nobody is asking you to refute anything. We're not putting a beer in your hand and chanting "Chug, chug, chug..." when we know you made a prior choice to never chug a beer.
All anybody is asking is that you take a look at the greater world. Glimpse it. Go to New York and see what wonders God's creation has made. If you happen to walk through Times Square before the Walt Disney Company and the Tourism Board get it sparkling clean (that is not a joke) and happen to see a street walker don't be shocked to the point of begging God to forgive you for ever going to The City.
Perhaps this class could make you a better Christian, in fact, by toning down the message of some of the rhetoric you may be subjected to in church. Instead, the thought in your mind while strolling through Times Square could be, "How did that person go from birth as a pure and innocent being (except for Original Sin - Sorry, I can't quite wrap my mind around that concept, so I don't claim to be Mr. Completely Open-minded) to working the streets trading sex for money?"; "What is that existence like?". "Who do I know who is on a similar path with whom I may be able to intervene if I gain some insight into the dynamics involved?"
Try not to get hung-up on the Evolution thing. If you don't buy it then you don't buy it; but, try not to go hide your head in the sand and ride the pendulum into the far corner where you never see a glimpse of anything outside a comfort zone that, in all fairness, was for most people more akin to an inheritance than something earned. (Ouch!) If, after really opening your eyes, you ultimately decide to cast evolution and everything else you see as un-Godly aside at least you will have done so using the brain God gave you instead of following the herd through the very limited portals of self-fulfillment our culture provides to those who choose not to make their own. In case you forgot where I began... the church and spectator sports, if for no other reason than geographic location, are for so many people the only ready-made outlets available in the pursuit of a meaningful life. Resist the temptation to the easy route via limiting your awareness.
Go TEAM!
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 91 Posted by Jeffrica Hunter on Thursday, August 31, 2006 4:29pm Subject: Sample Test How do I access the sample test that is on webct? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 92[Branch from no. 91] Posted by Chelsie Ingersoll on Friday, September 1, 2006 3:13pm Subject: Re: Sample Test its #5 on the course content :) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 93 Posted by Chelsie Ingersoll on Friday, September 1, 2006 3:14pm Subject: poems Did anyone figure out the differences in the poems that Dr. Kunkel showed us last Thursday? If so, what did you find?! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 96[Branch from no. 93] Posted by Katherine Walker on Friday, September 1, 2006 9:34pm Subject: Re: poems I couldn't figure it out either! I looked forever but didn't notice anything. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 101[Branch from no. 96] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Saturday, September 2, 2006 7:19pm Subject: Re: poems Maybe there is no real difference. And maybe, that's what he wanted to show us. :D Psychologists do what they do for the greater good of humanity, right? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 94 Posted by Jessica Dingler on Friday, September 1, 2006 5:12pm Subject: on addictions I was thinking about what Dr. Kunkel was saying in Thursday's lecture about his friend who had an addiction to heroine and how he associated the clinging of the spoons in his drawer to the time when he was doing heroine. Yes, people can get over their addiction through BIOLOGY and no longer using a particular drug, but when you look at the stimuli and responses, I think that's when it gets harder for people to get over it. Because they are still in their old environment where all of these things took place, and they're still exposing themselves to things that could possibly make them relapse. So, I came to the conclusion that overcoming an addiction isn't always about the biology stuff. It's about recognizing the triggers and stimuli. I think it's here that recovery should recognize that quitting the drug as well as noticing what it is that causes you to go back to thinking as if still addicted are both important. It's not one over the other. You'd need both to fully overcome the addiction. Wow, I don't know if that made sense to anyone besides myself, but I do hope someone gets what I'm trying to say. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 95[Branch from no. 94] Posted by Willie Pappas on Friday, September 1, 2006 5:17pm Subject: Re: on addictions ya you got the point thru just fine... if u think about things like that on a regular u should really speak ur mind more and let people kno wut you think ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 102[Branch from no. 95] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Saturday, September 2, 2006 7:27pm Subject: Re: on addictions Yep, I agree. The strongest addictions are those associated with the mind. I don't think that marijuana is physically addictive at all, for example, or alcohol for that matter. However, there are people who drink alcohol and smoke pot all the time. Is it so much for the feeling and effect on your body, or the state of mind it brings about? It certainly can't be the taste of alcohol they're after or the over-exaggeration of your senses to the point of mind boggling hunger from the use of marijuana they're looking for. Although, there was this one episode of that show with Matt Dillon in it, and this guy had drink alcohol for so many years that when this other guy forced him to quit, his heart quit because it was so used to being slack thanks to the alcohol. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 108[Branch from no. 102] Posted by Kati Graiser on Monday, September 4, 2006 4:35pm Subject: Re: on addictions i agree with all of yall. i think a lot of times people are addicted to certain "drugs" or what not, because they almost want to be. they use the addiciton as more of an easy excuse. yes im sure sometimes the body gets so used to having something it goes into shock of some sort when it's not getting it, however, i dont think that is always the case. i have a friend who smokes and she says she cant stop bc shes addicted. i think she just doesnt want to quit. also, about alcoholics, i have heard different oppinions about people really being addicted to alcohol or not. i have heard it is herediraty and also that some people bring it on themselves. i personally think that someone who is an alcoholic is addicted bc they want to be. so, for the most part, i think addictions are mental, and people bring them on themselves. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 109[Branch from no. 108] Posted by Zoeisha Chinoy on Monday, September 4, 2006 6:04pm Subject: Re: on addictions i totally agree with u kati. one can get over addictions if they really want to and put in the effort. my friend's a heavy smoker, and everytime i accuse her of being addicted to smokin , she reply's saying that she's not ans she can stop when she wants to, but its just that she doesn't want to. on the other hand another firends feels that he can breath properly if he doesn't have a smoke. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 114[Branch from no. 102] Posted by Meagan Pettus on Tuesday, September 5, 2006 11:31am Subject: Re: on addictions I completely disagree with you. The brain naturally makes certain amounts of "feel good" chemicals. When someone becomes addicted to a substance, it is because they took that substance and "overrode" their brain's function of producing the chemical... therefore the brain stops making the chemical (that we all make in small quantities) and the person must consume not only the normal amount, but the amount they had been consuming... therefore they have a physical dependence on the substance. Otherwise, why do alcoholics get the shakes and headaches if they are deprived alcohol... and why can't some of them quit even when they are trying really hard? Read a brochure about alcohol and other substance related dependencies and educate yourself... it may be, no strike that... it is deeper than you think. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 119[Branch from no. 114] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 3:01am Subject: Re: on addictionsI am a little confused here, too.
When you say that a person takes a drug that overrides a naturally present chemical in the brain then am I understanding you correctly that the person is introducing a foreign substance that is more powerful than the naturally occurring ones?
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 137[Branch from no. 119] Posted by Meagan Pettus on Thursday, September 7, 2006 7:21am Subject: Re: on addictions In smoking cigarettes, for example, your brain naturally produces small amounts of nicotine. When you smoke, you take in nicotine... usually more than a sufficient amount... therefore your brain says "hault nicotine production...we've got plenty." Then eventually it stops alltogether... and you still need a little to go on. Here's another point- think of it this way. When a smoker does not smoke... what happens? They get irritable, sometimes shakey. Why? It's not just because they want a cigarette, but at that point they actually need it. This is why, chemically, the patch works to quit smoking... Psychologically speaking, yes, smoking and drinking are paired. For example, I had a very good friend who battled alcohol addiction her entire life. She always drank a grapefruit juice concoction with ice and swirled the ice around the glass to mix the ingredients. When she stopped drinking, she still swirled the ice and it reminded her of drinking. So for a while, she had to stop using ice. (Stupid, but it was effective for a while.) So addiction is way more than substance dependence or psychology alone. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 138[Branch from no. 137] Posted by Anthony Darden on Thursday, September 7, 2006 10:51am Subject: Re: on addictions I have to disagree anout the patch. Just because "people" say the patch works, doesn't mean it really works. I knew a person who smoked with the PATCH ON!! Yes, chemically it needs that extra nicotine, but urges play an important part in it. It maybe one of that smoking is a theraputic (sorry of spelling) method for them. Any that the only was to relieve stress, emotional pain, and others things is by smoking or drinking regardless of what solution they use to try to solve their problems. It is true what you say, addiction is more than dependence and psychology alone, it may symbolize some kind of "comfort" for them. Okay, I babbling so I will stop now!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 140[Branch from no. 137] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:45pm Subject: Re: on addictionsHi,
In a brief web search I found a very interesting article about research on nicotine addiction by a group of scientists at The University of Michigan. I found lots of articles but this was the best one I found and it is from a source I feel comfortable with as research rather than marketing on behalf some hidden entity. The address for the article is below. By the way, there is probably a way for me to paste such info onto this page such that it is a link, but it is not readily apparent to me. If anyone can tell me what I am overlooking, or verify that it cannot be done, I will appreciate the input.
www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2004/smoking.htm
Now, as far as I am aware, nicotine is a naturally occurring chemical found in certain plants of which the tobacco branch of the Nightshade family is an excellent source. Nightshade, as the name suggests if you think about it a little, is a source of poison. The poison could be extracted and slipped into someone's beverage to kill them if you were knowledgeable about these things and lived in some pirate-filled Caribbean port in days of lore. In other words, some are extremely poisonous. A few are quite ornamental, but may also be dangerous to have around children and pets. The tomato is also in the Nightshade family, as are potatoes if I remember correctly, which just goes to show you how beautifully complex even something as simple as a family of plants can be. Wouldn't you like to see them on The Jerry Springer Show?
However, as far as nicotine being a naturally occurring chemical produced in our bodies, or any animal's body or brain, I believe that is an incorrect, although certainly imaginable, assertion. It makes a certain amount of intuitive sense although it is not the case. If you read the article that I mention you will see that the remainder of your intuition about the addiction is at least headed in the right direction.
Regarding your friend with the nicotine and alcohol problem: it sounds like she is deceased? If that is so I am sorry about that. Perhaps you could delve into that a little and maybe gain some useful insight for yourself. The free association technique we talked about today is a great way to get started. I'll bet you probably associate grapefruit with your friend. I would not suggest delving into that personal a matter in this format.
Her association with ice makes perfect sense, and removing ice from her repertoire of ingredients was just one more degree of separation. Ice can be a particularly important aspect to the ritual of making alcoholic beverages. It is very seductive the way it sounds and feels and you watch it melt and try to make your consumption of the drink mesh with the rate of ice melt. It is enchanting. Sadly, breaking an addiction is much more difficult than removing triggering mechanisms (that is not Psychology talk as far as I know, but it seems like it what I am describing needs a more specific name than "chaining" which is the best way I can see the ice routine fitting into our existing Psych. vocabulary), and for those of you who are still underage and in the experimental stage, I will suggest that you observe the potential psychological consequences of alcohol consumption, especially the format of consumption that is popular among college students, and maybe purposefully avoid certain practices such as binge drinking. Through applying what we are studying now you may be able to simply avoid some of the unfortunate consequences of certain behaviors.
For examples other than alcohol related ones, take the unwanted sexual activity Dr. Kunkel mentioned today. Basically, if we apply what we are learning to our lives we can ignore the preachy crap that actually makes us want to go out and do what the Nancy Regan's of the world (All right, I actually respect Nancy for certain things, but her "Just Say No" bit was stupid - and rude - whatever happened to "No, thank you."?) expect us to deny ourselves and simply try and anticipate the consequences of our actions and weigh them thoughtfully and knowledgeably when making decisions.
Well, that was my second tangent and I apologize if these are annoying. Sorry about your friend. Check out the article about nicotine addiction.
John
PS Dr. Kunkel, I guess you have noticed what Spell Check wants to do with your name? I want you to know, right now, here today, that if I ever slip and call you Dr. Skunked it is not, in any way, as Jehosaphine is my witness, a Freudian slip indicating anything negative in my mind about you. It was an idea placed there by the evil technology of Spell Check
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 110[Branch from no. 94] Posted by Steven Bennett on Monday, September 4, 2006 10:43pm Subject: Re: on addictions Addictions themselves aren't all that strong, but most people pair their habits with other things. My Dad is a musician and he paired smoking with playing music. If you pair drugs with another habit that you do all the time, you find it harder to get rid of. I also used to think that a person who really wanted to quit could, but since this class started I've changed alot of my views on things. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 113[Branch from no. 110] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, September 5, 2006 11:03am Subject: Re: on addictions Yeah, which is how you get social drinkers and smokers; they've paired socializing, which is a very complicated thing, not one of the four F's, but kinda related, human experience, so on and so forth with their habit. But, like the professor said, saying things like they just bring it upon themselves is harsh. There's a reason behind what they're doing, albeit a psychological one. Of course, instead of looking at this on a broad scale of everyone who has an addiction, to get specific answers and all that jazz, y'gotta look at it from a person to person perspective. Metal spoons clinking make's Dr. Kunkel's friend jittery, eating makes my friend smoke, and I bet a lot of us are used to drinking soda while we're driving. Used to... or maybe addicted? To drinking soda while we're driving? Or driving while we drink soda? Because our (grand?)parents/guardians always bought us drinks when we stopped for a break? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 115[Branch from no. 113] Posted by Meagan Pettus on Tuesday, September 5, 2006 11:40am Subject: Re: on addictions Oh yes, and just so I make myself clear, I also agree that there are some factors of behaviors that play a role in addiction as well (they compliment each other- behaviors and physical dependence that is). I just forgot to mention that in my last post (since someone else had already posted it). Sorry ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 116[Branch from no. 115] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, September 5, 2006 12:14pm Subject: Re: on addictions Yep, yep. And while you've got all these subroutines built into your concious(sp?) or subconcious that we're for the most part unaware of, all these things are brained into us, or it's through pairing, reinforcement, etc., it would seem to me impossible(or I would like to believe it to be impossible) that we would be unable to exhibit at least a degree of our own personal control over our addictions and daily actions, whether it be through medicine, meditation, therapy, whatever. It's just, sometimes maybe we dunno how to fix things, or what the problem REALLY is- so maybe we can't always help ourselves without help and/or insight from others. The man got rid silverware by himself, but my friend who smokes after eating can't stop eating. So, he probably needs a little psychological light shined on things, perhaps by someone who knows a little about these lights and the batteries and refraction and a little beyond troxacycline or whatev'. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 120[Branch from no. 116] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 3:11am Subject: Re: on addictionsOnce again, I am confused. This time I am confused on two things.
First, exerting control over taking a substance that a person would rather not ingest seems impossible to you, or you would like to believe it is impossible. For the sake of clarification which is it?
Second, forgive me for not sifting through the postings record for your first description of your friend who smokes after eating. Smoking after eating falls under Pairing for sure. It's a nice little ritual just like some people like to finish dinner with a cup of coffee. What I want to know more about regarding your friend is whether smoking for that person in limited to only smoking after eating?
Is it ONLY after a meal? How many smokes after a meal? How many meals per day?
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 122[Branch from no. 120] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 9:57am Subject: Re: on addictions First thing. I would like to think that we are not (brained, subconciously driven, etc, insert whichever one) to be addicted to something, to be apt to do some action, or whatever, to the point where our concious selves can't do something about it. Ala, even if we are born to be alchoholics, even if something in our subconcious drives us to smoke pot(hating our father?), while these things seem to be absolutes, I would LIKE to think that we as individuals can still exert some control over these things, i.e., break our addictions, bad habits, whatever, through our own power rather than completely relying on other people, medication, and so on. Second. My friend smokes from time to time through out the day. There is no absolute schedule to this; for example, he may or may not smoke while we're driving around. However, every time we eat a meal(not a snack, but something large enough to be considered a meal, socializing and all), he goes to take a smoke. Simple as that. And social drinking, smoking, so on, I dunno. There are many things I suppose might cause this, like peer pressure, the whole, we like to fit into a group thing, and then there are commercials wherein you see people have happy and socializing while drinking beer, smoking, whatever. As to why people smoke, drink, do whatever socially, maybe it's more fun, but moreover, it depends on the person. Smoking a cigarette all by yourself is alright, but wouldn't you rather talk to someone while doing it? Just as you don't eat alone, do sports alone, play video games alone, etc. Yes, I know some people do those things alone, some people more often than others, but what works for US seems to be doing things in a group. From an un-psychological point of view, it seems like a helluva lot more fun than doing things alone. Psychologically, survival, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 132[Branch from no. 122] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 10:06pm Subject: Re: on addictionsHello,
This reply bridges both of your replies although it is specifically tied to one. By your reply to message number 112 where I express my concern over an absence of Psychology Talk it appears to me that you listened, and perhaps took it as a personal assault, thus the message may not have quite sunken in.
Let's be clear here, my message #112 was directed to several postings on the bulletin board.
In your reply where I asked for clarification about your friend's smoking I immediately spot the perfect example of what I was getting at in my prior posting. The interesting thing, and this is really interesting, is that you noticed it yourself!
Your reply began with the phrase, "I would like to think..." Remarkably, a few sentences later you put "LIKE" in all-caps in reference to what you wish to think.
Sometimes I perceive that people may be writing in a particularly casual mode on these bulletin boards and in e-mail in general, therefore I am willing to let some word choices, for example, pass without reading too much into them. Yet, you purposefully emphasize the importance of what you prefer to believe in a way that indicates to me an intention on your part to disregard evidence that does not support your viewpoint.
Ironically, you demonstrated precisely the stance I was addressing. Speaking the Psychology Talk, as a Native American might be portrayed to say in a popular movie, and Psychology, is not necessarily going to validate what we want to be the case.
During my middle of the night bulletin board cruise last night I purposefully left an entire arena of ADDICTION out of any suppositions, or hypotheses, since the general flavor the conversation to that point was substance abuse.
What if addiction does effect the wiring of the brain or was otherwise linked to the wiring? If it could be shown that it did, then a new realm of possibilities for understanding and treating addictions would open. Somewhere else, someone within a different realm of science asked, "What if we could take pictures of the brain and brain activity of living people?"
Fortunately for us, we live in a time when the ability to see the brain at some level of its function exists. Thus, we can expand the field of addiction understanding to include addictions that do not involve the ingestion of mind altering substances.
Then, with research in hand, we can make some credible assertions. For example, is someone who cannot seem to control his libido addicted to sex or seeking to fulfill some need at a Freudian level? Perhaps by looking at what areas of the brain experience arousal we could then make a better determination about whether someone is addicted or simply has a habit of fornication. Then new possibilities may emerge for helping people.
Or, conversely, we might determine that the self-proclaimed "shop-aholic", for example, who wants sympathy for having an addiction really is just spending her husband's money faster than he can make it because she is eternally pissed at him for sleeping with someone else while they were first dating when he was not taking the relationship very seriously, but she was already picking-out china patterns; And, she's going to carry his male reproductive organs in her purse until the day he dies...which won't be very long because he is over-worked and over-stressed thanks to the debt she accumulates... and every time she snaps that little purse of hers shut - the kind with the two little prongs that are somewhat spherical at the end - she gets as much pleasure as if those really were his thingies in a vice.
Any way, I am moving on to Aaron's posting regarding asexuality. I hope the link to the website for the folks from that television news magazine will be an enlightening experience that will foster my meeting his challenge to discuss what I see in Psychology talk relevant to what we are studying in this class.
My postings are never intended as absolute judgement although I admit trying to nudge the minds behind the discussions into more closely examining their viewpoints in the light of Psychology as this class presents it. In other words, this is a class where checking preconceived notions, likes and dislikes, moral judgement and personal values at the door is a good idea. Feel free to shine the light on me if you perceive that I am looking at things through my habitual lens rather than in a manner in keeping with the purpose for this site.
Just call me nudgemental,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 133[Branch from no. 132] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 11:11pm Subject: Re: on addictions By capitalizing the like, I'm saying that, whether I be right or wrong, which I might be wrong, but I would LIKE to be correct about this(though anyone can be wrong about anything because of whatever reason), it would be comforting to know that I have some control over my own actions; I'm not born wired to do a certain thing(even if I am, there are things I can do about it, I would HOPE), my subconcious isn't completely out of my own reach, I can't make my own pairings and undo my own pairings. I'm saying that, sure, there are these facts I'm learning in class, about how are brain works, what we adapt to do, and our subconcious does this and that, but there are things I still don't know about(like the amount of influence we can actually have on ourselves) that I can't say for sure. I would like to think that I can change myself. I dunno if we can, really. The professor mentioned meditation and stuff such as that. I'd like to think, okay, so there are ways in which I can better myself psychologically by myself. There are ways in which people can overcome mental illnesses and subconcious desires all through their own personal power. I guess that's humanism, and I guess that's why I came to this college: humans overcoming their problems as humans, not as thinking it through in a purely scientific, yes yes, square has to fit in square sense. I say think, I say maybe, I say perhaps I am wrong, repeatedly, because I might be wrong. These are my thoughts. I don't say everything in psychology talk, simply because I don't feel comfortable doing that with my peers just yet. It's something I'm still working at. I tried it a bit bluntly in the asexual thing, simply because it seemed like a pretty good place to try it. And on #112, if that's the one where you get onto people about not using psychology talk, I was just saying, hey, a lot of us are fresh out of high school. Maybe for some of us this our first psychology class. I'm still trying to find the Scream Machine in this theme park; I feel more comfortable in the mine ride. I'm trying to just take things one thing at a time, letting everything sink it, take a whack at psychology talk from time to time, test it out, play with it a bit. I'm nowhere near a psychologist yet, and I'm barely a student majoring in psychology. By the end of this class, I might feel able to talk casually with psychology talk, but for now, I can only guess at it and hope I get things right and don't puke after the ride. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 118[Branch from no. 113] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 2:58am Subject: Re: on addictionsSo what exactly is a "social" drinker or smoker? Could someone be social pot smoker or cocaine user, ecstasy taker, nitrous oxide inhaler? Or, do "drugs" that society makes legal to certain parts of the population the only social ones?
I am confused.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 124[Branch from no. 118] Posted by Anthony Darden on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 12:26pm Subject: Re: on addictions I believe that a "social" smoker or drinker is a person who does it because of their surroundings. For example, if some one was out with their friends, and they were asked to smoke because everyone else did, then they would smoke. Basically, a "social" smoker or drinker is someone who does it because they think it would not be acceptable it they didn't, but doesn't do it normally? Does this help? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 97 Posted by Anthony Darden on Saturday, September 2, 2006 2:13am Subject: The Poems I think I figured out the differences in the poem. I don't know if I'm right, but here it goes. In the poem written by the Christain, line 4 he uses the word "stiffer" instead of "suffer". By switching this word, my opinion not fact, he makes an ironic statement. If a martyr is one who renounces religion, why would he "stiffer" instead of "suffer" like the person in the other. If a person is going to "stiffer" then they will not conform, and stick to thier beliefs. Like I said, this is just my opinion. If anyone reads the poems again, could you check and see if my statement has any validity. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 98 Posted by Jessica Dingler on Saturday, September 2, 2006 1:59pm Subject: women's brain wiring In the Day 4 notes, there's this link: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-08-21-female-brain_x.htm. The article discusses how a new book argues that the female brain is wired to nurture. Now, my thought is this: I thought we already knew this. I was under the impression that it had been understood for quite some time that women's brains were constructed differently and in the different construction, women are more likely to nurture and be more emotional and involved. That's why we look at women as more of the nurture side than nature. For example, when parents are raising their child, the mom will be more of the one to say, "No! Don't let him do that!" While the father is the one who will maybe say something like, "Let him try it! It will teach him not to do it again!" And in that, the father is more of the nature side. So I was a bit surprised when Dr. Kunkel brought up the article. Because, like I said, I was under the impression that yes, this idea of women's brains being wired to do more nurturing was already found to be true and understood. Did anyone else already have this impression as well? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 99[Branch from no. 98] Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, September 2, 2006 3:25pm Subject: Re: women's brain wiringHi there,
I have to admit that I have not read that article...yet. However, I may be able to shed some light on why Dr. Kunkel posted that link.
It has to do with Psychology as a science. Because Psychology is scientific, studies are conducted that attempt to shine the best light possible on humans. Therefore, someone might select what is considered "common knowledge" or is an otherwise widely held belief, and put that belief to the test... scientifically.
Sometimes the study may reinforce what we already believe; but, sometimes the evidence is counter intuitive. Sometimes it is inconclusive. If one study indicates something is a scientifically valid hypothesis then other studies have to be done by other scientists whereby eventually a whole body of evidence suggests a particular thing is true and it becomes scientifically accepted. Accepted until someone else disproves it...
From there we could go on and see if what we know is true can be even better understood and all sorts of possibilities can grow from the accumulated knowledge. One might eventually figure-out, for example, how to make a man more nurturing if for some reason he needs better adaptation to the nurturing requirements of his children. Or, maybe violent criminals who are incarcerated could be forcibly given massive doses of a nurture enhancing drug to make prisons a better place to call home.
The concise answer to your question is that the article helps illustrate the difference between what is Psychology - a science , and what it is not - things we take for granted.
Hope that helps,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 100[Branch from no. 98] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Saturday, September 2, 2006 7:18pm Subject: Re: women's brain wiring Well, I've always been under the impression that women naturally tend to nurture children and all that. Whether it was just juice or wiring didn't cross my mind; I figured we were wired the same for the most part(male and female), but juiced to be different (once we reach the point where we become most definitely male or female anyway). Of course, there are those in between complications with hermaphrodites, people who believe they were female but born in a male body(and vice versa), and so on. And there are some homosexuals where a male will be very effeminate(and perhaps nurturing?) or where a female will be very masculine, domineering, blah blah blah. Or, very manly homosexual men and very girly homosexual women. I dunno. I think there may be one or two differences in the wiring on average that make men or women the way there are, but for the most part I think that we're juiced to be a certain way. So, the man is juiced to want to have sex with a woman, and the woman is juiced to want to nurture a kid; that would work for us, so I suppose that's why it is the way it is. Of course, if you want to bring up why a man would be homosexual or a woman the same way, well, it's not what works for the individual, but for people as a whole... right? Or something like that. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 103 Posted by Willie Pappas on Saturday, September 2, 2006 11:23pm Subject: Another Question Ok I'm back with yet another question. This one may seem kinda easy but please try to give it some thought... Why is it that if we "live" psychology everyday, it is so hard for some people to grasp its concepts? Willie Pappas ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 106[Branch from no. 103] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, September 3, 2006 4:53pm Subject: Re: Another Question As a concept, it probably isn't that hard to grasp. Perhaps, though, it is much more harder for people to accept it as fact, especially if they had preexisting biases, thoughts, and beliefs pertaining to whatever is 'truth'. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 104 Posted by Willie Pappas on Saturday, September 2, 2006 11:24pm Subject: Again One more for the thoughts... What is it about nick- names that can make people feel so loved or so hated? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 105[Branch from no. 104] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, September 3, 2006 4:50pm Subject: Re: Again My name's Corey. I got a nickname back in high school. Coricus. It's like... Corey(white name) + Andricus(black name) = Coricus(white man with soul?) Basically, I made lots of jokes, and from time to time drifted into the whole making fun of wannabes territory. But, basically, Coricus is like a badge of honor, 'cause black people gave me the nickname. So it means something like, you coo' man. So, that nickname doesn't offend me, because in the end, all it means is that I made some funny jokes. So, if someone is fond about what their nickname means, then they might love it. But, if it brings about a negative feeling, like, say, you have a crappy job or car or a unique lifestyle and the nickname pertains to that, then they might not like their nickname. Even so, some people may have pride in their nicknames, even if they're meant to harm, or they might hate them, even if they're meant as a compliment. It all depends on the nickname's meaning and how the person takes their nickname. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 143[Branch from no. 105] Posted by Leslie Mack on Sunday, September 10, 2006 4:59pm Subject: Re: Again Nicknames carry a certain weight because they pertain to how a person is accepted in some ways. My name is Leslie and growing up my family would call me "les". Well, with me having 2 sisters, one older and one younger, I always felt that I was overlooked or somewhat not good enough ( I wasnt first and growing up, neither was I young enough or cute enough to be last). I took "Les" to sometimes mean "Less" and... I wanst sure why but I didnt like it. I expressed this to my dad and then they started calling me "Lesalina" ( Like thumbalina cuz i was smaller than my sisters) and I felt more accepted because my difference in some way made me important. Les dosent bother me at all now, but back then it made a huge difference. One more. My boyfriend calls me "Kid". Kinda corny I know, but it's when he calls me this that I feel most significant. It shows how he accepts me- as someone he wants to take care of and provide for. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 112 Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, September 5, 2006 6:57am Subject: Addiction, etc.Hi,
The level of enthusiasm and enjoyment that a number of you express about this class is nice. However, I see quite a lot of evidence that some of you are not actually "getting" much in the way of new perspectives on matters that you discuss on this Bulletin Board. You feel somehow enlightened; yet, what you are learning is mostly confirming what you already held as true.
The stream of thoughts relating to addictions I find particularly disturbing and feel it necessary to say so. The necessity is because the pattern of finding self-confirmation in this class among some students is likely going to extend to more topics than addiction.
My only suggestion is to not sell yourselves short and exit this class unchanged in your perceptions of some things about which you had a pre-existing attitude.
John Barrett
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 130[Branch from no. 112] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 5:39pm Subject: Re: Addiction, etc. Well... it seems to me that we're all in a Psychology Class. Which, entails learning over a period of time... and while some of us are trying to learn hydroxiline, some of us are enriching ourselves in existential ways. Like me, I taught my friend to blink when I present him with a pink card. Furthermore, this is an Intro Psychology class... it covers a wide variety of topics to varying degrees. And furthermore, each person is his own being, learning at varying degrees of intensities, some able to crunch numbers better than they can comprehend a philosophical text. Diff'rnt strokes for diff'rnt folks, you catch my jive? People are learning these things at their own pace, they're applying these things in their own ways. Now, many of these people may be capable of psychology talk, but are they comfortable applying it to their own personal lives just yet? I doubt it. It's hard to forsake a lifetime of beliefs and just go over everything you believe with a fine-tooth comb to see if there's anything wrong with how you've been looking at things. Nobody likes to be wrong, after all, and especially not if someone else proves them so. So just give 'em time, let it all settle. And while I'm at it, blah blah blah blah blah. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 117 Posted by Anthony Darden on Tuesday, September 5, 2006 6:31pm Subject: Re: on addictions From a psychology point of view, I believe that addictions have a relation with feelings. If a person drinks for the first time, and feels free, then they are most likely to drink when they are stressed or want to break away from reality. The unconditioned stimulus is drinking, and the unconditioned response is the feeling of "euphoria." The neutal stimulus is the factor that causes them to drink such as stress and worry. When a person feels either stressed or worried, then the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimilus, and drinking becomes the conditoned response. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me. I'm still trying to grasp this concept. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 121[Branch from no. 117] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 4:38am Subject: Re: on addictionsHi,
Let's try to grasp this together, and I am not going to research addiction in our text to try and jump ahead of our point of view.
The ingested drug has an effect upon the brain's juice and the desired effect is some altered state of consciousness. Caffeine is a commonly used drug that alter's a person's state of arousal.
Addiction is another threshold whereupon the brain becomes dependant upon that supplement. Addiction is more complex than the initial process of ingesting the drug for the desired effect. When a person becomes addicted the person suffers withdrawals when the supply of the drug is interrupted. For example, the "caffeine headache" is a pretty common and not too difficult to overcome type of withdrawal. Caffeine use is tolerated by most people in society thus it is easy to come by and not expensive. Therefore, if a person realizes that their headache is their addiction at work they can either feed the addiction and make the headache go away; or, they can decide not to let caffeine rule their lives and stop using.
Fortunately, for most people the withdrawal symptoms associated with caffeine are relatively mild and short lived so they can decide one way or the other about continuing the drug or quitting. Speaking for myself, I recently began using caffeine in the forms of teas, coffees, soft drinks, and chocolate after an eight year abstinence.
I quit doing the junk years ago because my reaction to it was unpredictable except to say that caffeine has never given me that burst of energy that others describe and I observe. What was predictable was that I could count on a more than fifty percent chance that my body would interact with it in a way that I found unpleasant. First among these unpleasantries were heart palpitations which are a bit un-nerving in feeling. Second, the stimulant that didn't seem to raise my mental arousal did often stimulate my digestive system to a degree that was inconvenient at best. Finally, it would keep me awake without giving me the sharp mental energy that might make sleep deprivation a reasonable trade-off.
Some time after getting off the junk I was finally diagnosed with Hypothyroidism of which I anticipate we will learn more in the class over the next few weeks. Later still, upon switching Endocrinologist because I did not necessarily equate my feeling of well being with the levels of thyroid hormone measured in my blood, it was discovered that my pituitary gland was also in some state of failure.
Before the deficiencies in the Thyroid and Pituitary were diagnosed and treated I began experimenting with eliminating various drugs from my body in order to try and limit the number of variables that might be making me feel so bad. The only drug whose absence from my system produced any improvement of well being was caffeine. Therefore, it was very easy for me to quit that junk because it made me feel better not to take it; and, of course, the withdrawal symptoms were negligible.
Now I am back on caffeine and I still do not experience any heightened sense of arousal, but the undesirable symptoms are gone. When I say I experience no arousal I merely mean that my level of arousal does not seem to fit with how other people describe caffeine's effect upon them. If I am sleepy, for example, caffeine does not make me feel any more alert when it comes to tasks such as driving an automobile. However, it does not make me shake, or over stimulate the digestive system any more, either.
This all relates to your correlation between substance ingestion and how the substance makes a person feel. Regarding caffeine, for example, I can take it or leave it except that, oops, a few days ago I had a caffeine headache, and I hated myself for it! I felt so dirty and unworthy being a junkie.
Your hypothesis of how a substance makes one feel the first time they experience it certainly has some validity, but it depends to some degree on how addictive a substance is. That is to say that it depends upon how quickly the juice decides it likes the substance enough to do what it has to do in order for the user to get more of it. The classic example is the "Bad Trip" on LSD.
If a person has a bad trip he is much less inclined to go on that trip again.
Probably the most problematic substances are the ones where the first trip is relatively benign. These are problematic because they are sneaky and for most people the consequences of using them are so many years away that they seem somehow "beyond".
Drinking alcohol at a party, for example, may make the person feel less inhibited or self-conscious. Or, smoking a cigarette gives a person something to do with their hands. Both cigarettes and alcohol help a person set-up "outs" to help them cope with their stresses in the social setting. If you are tired of trying to carry a conversation with someone for example, it seems polite enough to excuse yourself to go freshen your drink or smoke a cigarette. Now that cigarette smoking is pretty much relegated to the out of doors they are an even better "out" because you are required, of course, to go ignite and burn the delivery mechanism outside. Once outside, you can get out of a situation by saying you want to go back inside because it is too hot or too cold outside, and the person you are making your exit from, unless that is yourself, is able to save face as are you.
The sneaky part of the alcohol and cigarette conspiracy is that they are legal for most adults, readily available, and alcohol especially becomes a drug of choice for people who try and self-medicate rather than face their issues honestly.
Over time, certain drugs not only affect the juice but they effect the wiring, too. That is my understanding. Thanks to modern brain imaging differences in the evolution of the brain can be seen ante mortum. Is that part of the addiction, or a side effect of ingesting so much poison? Maybe a little of both but easily attributable to the poison of alcohol and the various impurities it contains. Once the brain wiring is affected then "normal" function is going to be unattainable even if a person is able to stop ingesting alcohol. Remember, juice we can change: wiring is fixed.
Some very common pairings: coffee and cigarettes, alcohol and cigarettes. Therefore, if a person wants to quit smoking, and nicotine is a powerful addiction, then first quitting coffee, a less powerful singular addiction, would hypothetically help in the effort to quit smoking. Alcohol and cigarettes are both powerful addictors, so a more through search for one's pairings to be eliminated is required. First question, however, is does the user want to quit?
If the drinker wants to quit the most powerful and common pairing I observe is actually people. Drinkers eventually migrate toward each other. Thus, some addictions are so pervasive in one's life that simply eliminating the pairings constitutes a major shift in how one lives. Dr. Kunkel's friend who replaced his flatware with some that does not make that little noise that says, "Ah, you're back!?! How delicious. Cook the junk. Cook the junk. I'm ready when you are.", was very clever to recognize that little reminder we call a pairing.
As far as your description of vcarious stimuli I find them confusing to the point that I need to revisit my notes and text, and that is simply a good thing to do. If I am easily confused by the terminology I need to get clarification from a source I trust.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 123 Posted by Michael Burmeister on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 11:27am Subject: Day 7 Unfortunately I was forced to miss day 7, and I was wondering if anyone could give me a sum up of what happened. Anything would be appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 125[Branch from no. 123] Posted by Anthony Darden on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 12:29pm Subject: Re: Day 7 Well in class, we talked about reiforcement, and how can be either positive or negative. No matter which reinforcement one uses (postive of negative) it will increase behavior. postive reinforcement is when something is given, and negative reinforcement is when something is taking away from the environment. also, we talked a bout schedules. Interval scheduals, and ratio schedules. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 127[Branch from no. 125] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 3:54pm Subject: Re: Day 7 And people respond better to random 'gifts' than knowing that they'll get something for every maybe ten jars of whatever they sale. So people who work by commissions don't do as good work even though the more work they do, the more money they make. So that's why so many people buy lottery tickets. And we learned a bit about Freud and how Bush cusses in private, but holds back in public, but when he says something he might say a lot in his private life publically, his subconcious messes it up, because the saying symbolizes something he's trying to hold back(the exact quote was trick me once, shame on me... apparently he couldn't say shame on me in public due to it symbolizing something in his subconcious) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 131[Branch from no. 123] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 8:41pm Subject: Re: Day 7 The posted notes are your best bet. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 126 Posted by Aaron Miller on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 2:31pm Subject: Asexual behavior Last night on Dateline, one of the main topics of the show was asexuality. I thought this was a great topic for the class to take up in a psychological light. Now that we have spent time on both the biology story and the behavioral story you should have some ammo to come at this topic. For those who are interested www.asexuality.org is a website formed by those that classify themselves as such. To these people, this many of these people it is not a moral, religious, forced way of being in the world. I'm would like to hear what you all think (as supported by the class/book, not in the right/wrong sense). Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 128[Branch from no. 126] Posted by Anthony Darden on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 4:05pm Subject: Re: Asexual behavior Asexual behavior may be due to biology. Asexual's may have a low sex drive because of brain juice that is insufficient. Or maybe, they have paired something bad with sex, and don't want to try it because the pairing in which they paired it with may have scarred them serverly. I seen a bit of this on dateline also (last ten min). Or, they may have missed a step in Freud's psychoanalytic stages. Who know's? Any other suggestions. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 129[Branch from no. 126] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 4:58pm Subject: Re: Asexual behavior Now, as per usual, I'm thinkin' it depends a lot on the person and their personal experiences; whereas we've been focusing on what works for us, this seems to be abnormal behavior, I'm assuming. It goes against one of the four F's and essentially what life is primarily about: giving life. Keeping the species going. All of that. So, there are three stories I guess I could tell you about this: biologically, something might be wrong with their wiring; something might have gotten damaged. Or, maybe their juices are a little switched up, a little too much going one place and a shortage showing up somewhere else, or none of something happening somewhere. In the book, a lack of sex drive is the most common sexual disorder. The site makes note of the difference between no sex drive and a minimal sex drive, and that no sex drive is a disorder, and a minimal one is... alright for them. Since for us, a sex drive works and for them, the smaller portion of the species, it's different... this seems to mean something's not quite right. Another story is one about behavior. Early on in life, someone may have been taught, time and time again, that sex is wrong. So they get scolding talks(multiple times, thus repetition) about what they shouldn't do; scolding starts pairing with sex, and this pairing gets chained with kissing, erections, masturbating, sexual thoughts... in essence, sex is something that's not desirable. And while you may still have a sex drive, something in you had learned that sexual stuff is bad, so your body is holding back. Just like, while a chocolate cake may look and be more delicious than not eating, plenty of religious people fast, going against a natural desire whether their body likes it or not. So that's the pairing story from my thoughts... if you were a little kid and you got molested or raped, this is... a bad thing. Very traumatic, and we learn things through repetition and trauma, right? It's most likely a traumatic experience in many ways; you're incredibly anxious, scared, experiencing things you don't know about, maybe with a person you trusted or a complete stranger. All these bad emotions and thoughts and observations become traumatically paired with sex, so later on, who knows? If you were raped by a man, you may have paired sex with men, and prefer men later on because of this. Or maybe, because it was such a traumatic event, you come to be disgusted by sex altogether. Also, these traumatic events can happen later on in life as well, obviously, and lead to you 'learning' that sex is bad. Also, if you ever read 1984 and remember stuff from it, most women have been completely turned off from sex by raising them(scolding stuff) to not enjoy it and that it is simply their duty to society to reproduce. The reason why their society works so well is that it suppresses sexual energy and use the pent-up energy for the war effort. Then there's the Freud stuff, which goes back to the subconcious and all, which I think could answer anything about asexuality a bit better than the other two stories and they might go hand and hand with the 'stuff happening to you as a child' quite a bit, too(You hate your father, so you hate sex...? Got touched innappropriately as a baby, can't remember it, but you have lingering feelings of being uncomfortable about being touched in that place later on). I think the Freudian method of looking at things would be the best way of explaining asexuality, but I can't even claim to understand it completely yet, so, there you go. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 134 Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 11:13pm Subject: The Flying Spaghetti Monster Dr. Kunkel has mentioned this from time to time, so I felt that... maybe I should just show it off to you all. http://www.venganza.org/ It's an interesting thing. Don't uh, get offended. It has good intentions. It keeps us from being required to take Christian classes in school. Or Muslim. Or Jewish. Or Mormon. Or Flying Spaghetti Monster classes. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 298[Branch from no. 134] Posted by Tyson Boyette on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 7:52pm Subject: Re: The Flying Spaghetti Monster aarrr matey!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 300[Branch from no. 298] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 11:03pm Subject: Re: The Flying Spaghetti Monster Ra-men, brother. Ra-men. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 135 Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 7, 2006 12:43am Subject: Asexuality.org includes attachmentPlease see the attachment below.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 139 Posted by Mark Kunkel on Thursday, September 7, 2006 11:10am Subject: First test date... Hi, all. Sorry for the confusion about the new date for our first test. This is what happens when we don't use PowerPoint. We wind up needing only one extra day, so our first test is going to be on TUESDAY, September 19th rather than on the previous Thursday (9-14) as scheduled originally. I've posted an "important dates" file on the Content page FYI. MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 219[Branch from no. 139] Posted by Cornell Scales on Friday, September 22, 2006 5:20pm Subject: Test Results When will the test results be release? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 221[Branch from no. 219] Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, September 23, 2006 10:06am Subject: Re: Test Results Were you there on Tuesday? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 144 Posted by Louise Hviid on Sunday, September 10, 2006 5:31pm Subject: Office Hours (Louise) Hi everyone... Every Tuesday and Thursday at 12.30-2pm, I will have office hours in Melson Hall (room 107). I would love to talk to you guys about anything and everything psychology related. It might be a good idea to send me an email before you stop by, then I know you are coming and can be prepared for your questions and you know that I am available and not helping a fellow student. Thanks, Your TA- Louise ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 145 Posted by Kati Graiser on Monday, September 11, 2006 9:34pm Subject: EXTRA CREDIT???? HELP im kind of confused about the extra credit. i know dr. kunkel said we could write about anything psychology, but does anyone know what they are going to write about or where to even start with this. also, that extra credit thing on wed in the townsend center...do we get any credit from just going or do we write a paper on that too? and if we do go to that and write a paper on it, does that count as our extra credit for this exta credit period??? if anyone knows, please help bc i really want to do extra credit, but just am a little confused!!! thanks!! :) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 147[Branch from no. 145] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 5:36am Subject: Re: EXTRA CREDIT???? HELPHi,
I share your confusion. However, put your mind at ease and write a little bit - two pages double-spaced they always say - about the programme afterwards and you are probably covered. That's probably about all the time you have left to devote to the extra credit at this point. However, I anticipate some clarification on this issue in class today as yesterday I noted something of importance.
Something very important to note here, EVERYONE:
When I went by the Townsend Center yesterday for my ticket to "Let's Talk About Sex" I noticed both on the September schedule in the lobby, and then on the ticket, of course, that the presentation is Tuesday evening, 12 September, 2006 (at 7:30).
I thought to myself, "that's interesting, I recall the syllabus said it was on the thirteenth", but I did not even bother to check the Townsend Center Date against the syllabus date as, obviously, I held in my hand the more authoritative and current, i.e., the ticket information. I looked about for any reference to another presentation Wednesday night and did not see one. Before I had much time to contemplate, a small group of students came for their tickets and in conversing with them and listening to them I understand they, too, were attending for extra credit...
The information in the syllabus or wherever it is presented to us via Dr. Kunkel, you may have noticed, originated in the office of another official on campus; and, I simply speculate that the date was changed sometime after creating that memo.
Now, there are several Psychological questions that come to mind; but, since they all have their underlying motivation in deceit, which I have no reason to believe would be the case with Dr. Kunkel, especially since he seems sincere in wanting to raise people's awareness, I chose to spend my day exploring other things.
Again, for those of you who skipped over what I wrote there:
Evidently, the "Let's Talk About Sex" event is TONIGHT, Tuesday 09/12/2006.
As to whether a paper is required as part of the extra credit, I am operating on the premise that it could not hurt to write a paper of the type (not too long - keep it to two double-spaced pages) described for such papers. Frankly, simply attending, while encouraged by The University, strikes me as lame for extra credit. For instance, I received a very strong impression that at least one of the small group of students with me at the ticket window had only a passing interest in attending. Thus, is it really effective to reward students extra credit simply for showing-up if they have no incentive to actually pay attention/participate whereby they are a potential distraction for other students who desire to gain something meaningful from the experience?
At any rate, the memo from whomever that is in our syllabus that Dr. Kunkel forwarded to us indicates a system for tracking student attendance for extra credit purposes. However, we don't know if Dr. Kunkel let the organization know about his extra credit opportunity; and, he would have less of an incentive to do so if he were also looking for a short writing regarding the "Let's Talk About Sex" programme.
An alternative to writing a short piece on the Townsend Center Experience on the evening of Tuesday, September 12, 2006 is to write a paper per Aaron Miller's offer that you can access as posting number sixty-three on this bulletin board.
Funny thing there, for me, is that upon review I see the movie selection is not what I had in my head from what he said in class, and from what I read on his posting. All along I thought one of the movies he mentioned was "Trans America".
I do not pay too much attention to what comes out of Hollywood - that is not elitism, it is simply that the price of seeing something at a theater is pretty steep compared to the experience in its entirety; And, I do not have a DVD player and the DVD is more and more the medium that is available for newer releases even for rental, consequently, if the Fulton County Library does not have it on VHS, I probably do not see it
I recall over this year's Academy Awards/Oscars hoopla, a movie "Trans America" was nominated for something(s) and it looked like it had potential as far as subject matter goes. It looked like something of a more seriously oriented work in the genre of "Pricialla, Queen of the Desert" most likely without the fantastic soundtrack. Apparently, it involved a trans gender person travelling across the continent for some reason and her, formerly "his", son, or vice versa, is along for the trip. I thought that set up an interesting dynamic... the trans gender person deals with complicated issues for years before making this change... the adolescent or young adult child is confronted with this change without benefit of all the years struggle and the framework that provides... I don't know the reason for the journey, but that, too, is a metaphor I presume... then I think maybe it reminds me of the television show "Alice" where Linda Lavin ( I only reveal that I know the actress' name because, privately, I think it is hilarious that I remember her name when typically I have great difficulty in remembering the names of works of art/intellect or artists/intellectuals who are important to my being. Furthermore, when I make-up a movie idea for Lifetime, Linda Lavin often is cast as one of the characters ), plays the widowed mother of a boy (whose real-life sister, Nancy McKennan (?) appears in plenty of Lifetime movies), Tommy, who just pick-up and move to Arizona after the death of the husband/father to restart their lives. "Flo", another character, and a very amusing one, became quite well known in our pop culture and her catch phrase, "kiss my grits", became part of the popular vocabulary in a time before most of you were born. Therefore, if you have ever heard anyone say, "Kiss my grits!", which is hardly fathomable now as the coarseness of our culture has attained something akin to plain grits with no added fat, cheese, or even salt, you now know the origin of that phrase. Interestingly, I recall people being very hesitant to use the phrase "kiss my grits" because, since it was invented for the television show, or at least that is where it gained its exposure, there was a real sense of not wanting to be too vulgar because, in reality, nobody knew precisely what she meant by that. I mean, today, "Flo" would probably just scream, "Eat me!", but you see how that is already said to the point of losing its shock value.
That little bit was for your entertainment purposes only, except to say that, upon seeing the movies Aaron Miller mentioned for an extra credit paper, and seeing that "Trans America" was not among them, I am now left a bit perplexed as to why I made that Freudian slip sort of intuitive jump? Why am I assuming that Aaron Miller's questions are going to be about sexuality? Now, that is interesting.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 146 Posted by Aaron Miller on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 12:27am Subject: Office Hours (Aaron) My office hours will be from 9:30am-11am on MW. I will be in either room 107 Melson Hall or the lobby of Melson Hall (depending on the availability of the grad office). If you have any questions, email them directly to me. Thanks, Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 148 Posted by Aaron Miller on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 9:48am Subject: Extra Credit Just a friendly reminder that the first extra credit period ends tomorrow. Any papers turned in after class tomorrow will count towards the second period. Thanks, Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 149 Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 11:42am Subject: Humanism/Existentialism is coo'. Or at least, I think so. Humanism seems to be about being a human as best as a human can be one. And the existential seems to be all about coping with the fact that, hey, us humans are all alone on this planet; there's no greater being here, so no one can tell me what to do! I can do anything I want to! But, at the same time, humans are responsible for their actions. They've got to be able to say, hey, that's enough, I need to quit. Or not. After all, it's their own way of being, and the only one around to set up any morals or anything is them. I'm an agnostic humanistic existentialist that constantly regresses into a nihilistic state of mind, btw. D: Or so I think. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 150 Posted by Katelyn Mooney on Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:00pm Subject: inspiration Kunkel is a genious. He deliberately sang songs and played the guitar to inspire us students to write in our awareness journals. Ha ha! I love this! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 152[Branch from no. 150] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:09pm Subject: Re: inspiration The one day I stay outta class, and I miss it. Everyone I talked to who'd had his class kept telling me he'd do it, I sleep in for the first time this semester, and bam, miss it. Great timing I have. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 151 Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:06pm Subject: angerHi everyone,
Once again, Dr. Kunkel gives us a meaningful and personal experience this morning.
Without turning this bulletin board into a discussion focusing on myself, I want to offer clarification or elaboration on the subject of anger as an emotion extinguished if any of you are confused by the concept. I am the guy in class who spoke about my lack of anger.
Like so many things about which I wish to offer enlightenment to others that they may potentially spare themselves the consequences, or go ahead and gain self-awareness, of what they are doing, or not doing, I am actually quite passionate, perhaps even evangelical, although in the unusual combination of having a personal conversation with Dr. Kunkel while simultaneously addressing my classmates I realize my voice was difficult to hear and one could easily misinterpret this as reluctance on my part.
Again, here I am if you are perplexed.
One small but important clarification I do want to make regards my word choice. I mentioned "reclaiming" my anger; however, that makes it sound as if one can simply go out and get it back. In my experience thus far, this is not quite the case. Think of people who suffer a brain injury such that their wiring is damaged and they have to learn again how to swallow, or walk, or whatever seemingly basic human task it is they have to learn again if they are intact enough to do so.
I doubt I will ever experience a fully healthy sense of anger as nature, or God, intended. I do not lose my temper; I simply have a very limited use of that emotion, and have to try and remember that it is an option. I am aware of the atrophy of Anger in me; therefore, I sometimes run circumstances through some mental process whereby I evaluate whether anger is the most appropriate response. Sometimes it is. Even then, however, my use of it is shaky just as a recovering stroke victim might regain use of a limb to a degree, but movement is never as fluid as it was before the incident. Thus, "reclaiming" my anger is too strong a word for the reality.
Thanks for listening, and feel free to inquire,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 158[Branch from no. 151] Posted by Jessica Plybon on Friday, September 15, 2006 2:16pm Subject: Re: anger You can have mine. Sometimes i find myself getting angry for no reason, especially in the car. i have serious road rage. I always kept my feelings inside and then one day when i was sixteen i couldn't do it anymore and the one emotion that came out was anger and i can't stand it. i feel like i'm living two lifes in public i'm this quiet nice young lady and at home wow there's a big difference. I will get angry for no reason and i have little if any control over it. I dont' know what to do anymore. I need some help with this. I don't want to hide anymore somwone please help! Like dr kunkel said i want to get off the on ramp and onto the four lane highway with everyone else. If anyone can shed somelight on my situation please help me. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 163[Branch from no. 151] Posted by Anthony Darden on Sunday, September 17, 2006 5:15pm Subject: Re: anger I fully understand what you were trying to say. You can't reclaim something that is always there. What you were trying to say, in my opinion, is that now your angry emotiond are overflowing, and you have learned how to control them, or displace them. Cool!!! That what i do also, anger is not always neccessary, I use humor instead. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 166[Branch from no. 151] Posted by Bridget Childers on Monday, September 18, 2006 9:12am Subject: Re: anger Sometimes even when you think your in control your not. I can get pretty ticked off but when I have had enough i feel like a hurricane has ripe me a part. I have tried several things to try to control this but I have not found the easement yet. I know walking away is the best thing but sometimes you cant. Thanks ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 153 Posted by Jennifer Miser on Thursday, September 14, 2006 1:00pm Subject: lost Does anyone else feel totally and completely lost when Dr. Kunkel talks? I listen and take notes but nothing is clicking. "The light is on but no one is home." And I can't seem to shed any light on these stories or how to apply what we talk about in the class to my life. Please someone help! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 154[Branch from no. 153] Posted by Lindsay Hall on Thursday, September 14, 2006 2:29pm Subject: Re: lost I know how you feel. I've been to every class and when I look back at my notes...I can't make a bit of sense of them. I find myself trying to hard to figure out the stories, and then I end up missing something else that's part of my "dime" Nothing is really clicking for me...and I'm pretty much a nervous wreck over what the test will be like. I try reading my textbook to help..but I haven't really found a chapter that specifically lays out anything we talk about in class. I don't know about anyone else but it's actually hard for me to sit down and think of what to say in my journal....is it supposed to come easy? So I may not be of any help, but other than the fact of just letting you know that I feel your pain, and that I need help as well! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 155[Branch from no. 154] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 14, 2006 3:39pm Subject: Re: lostHi,
I feel your pain, too. However, if you relax into it, pay attention in class and absorb the general sense of things, then read the chapters in the text, then review the class notes including visiting the web links he puts in the notes, then use that CD that comes with the text book, then go back through the notes - both his notes as well as your own notations, and look for the major recurring themes this will probably be sufficient to incorporate (synthesize) the material into your mind such that you will do well on the test.
Try writing an outline for yourself from the notes. This will help you organize the information in your own way while simultaneously reinforcing the information because you have to give it some thought, a lot of thought, to organize it into an outline. Making your own outline is sometimes very helpful; it is like having someone else tell you a story in another way that hopefully makes better sense to you. The beauty of it is that the other person is yourself.
The journal entries are admittedly more ambiguous which is why the first of the three rounds is not graded but will be reviewed in order to provide feedback (shaping). If ideas for entries are not coming naturally, and sometimes they do not for me, either, I literally look back at the day's posted notes and examine them and try to explore how they apply to something seemingly unrelated from my day.
This method reinforces the class, thus it equates to studying, and just about anything contains innate psychological inferences. For example, a couple of weeks ago I decided to try approaching the journal in precisely this manner. I read some online news articles in the morning . One of them actually struck me as interesting. That was all; it just struck me as interesting. It had absolutely no overt psychology to it; but, I did find it interesting.
That turned-out really well for me. Once I started looking at it for any psychological implications I found them, and they were quite relevant as I saw them. Thus, by definition I was doing the journal entry exactly as prescribed; and, how can that be wrong?
Also, look for the form, posted with the coursework along with the notes, that will be used as a guide when shaping your journal entries. Compare what they might say about your entries and see what you can do to make it so they say what you want to hear.
When it comes right down to how we will do on the test, whether it will freak us out when we see it, that is something we will discover Tuesday morning. If it does freak you out, just do some controlled breathing and try to relax, assure yourself that you prepared for this test, and do not let yourself lose confidence in yourself. Anxiety is self-perpetuating and learning to control test related anxiety is invaluable even during the studying phase.
Doing these things is the best I can think to do which is much more concrete than simply "do your best" which is a very frustrating thing to hear when you feel like you have no traction.
Hope that helps,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 159[Branch from no. 153] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Friday, September 15, 2006 5:08pm Subject: Re: lost For the test, being able to recall stuff from the notes and the book should work out fine. As for the class itself, I think it goes like this: Life presents us with something. You can't sleep at night. So, from this class, we can tell four things about it: Biological-You're brained to do it, wiring and juices. Behavior-Behavior is a function of our consequences, we do it because it works for us, positive and negative reinforcement. PSA-Unconcious, hail stones, can't be fully satisfied so you compromise. Humanistic- I wasn't here, so I don't know the specifics. D: Basically, when somebody does something, you can tell a story about it: Bio-You can't sleep because you don't get droxiline juice in the droxaline receptor. Beh-You've paired a bed with arousal so you can't relax and sleep. PSA-The bed-ness has something in it that keeps you from being satisfied, you refuse to compromise, and so you can't sleep in it. And for the humanistic part, I have no idea. Like I said, wasn't here. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 161[Branch from no. 159] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, September 17, 2006 6:33am Subject: Re: lost I thought about it some more, and really, the way he teaches it is pretty cool. So, in addition to that above, you have the Bio, Beh, PSA, and Hum/Exist... so... O,D,E,P,I, I think it is? Looks like Oedipus, irony, blah blah... Observe- Someone has a sleeping problem... bio? Beh? PSA? Hum? Describe- Person can't sleep, watches television, uses the computer instead. Explain- Apparently isn't bio, PSA, or Hum... must be beh! So, tell the story about behavior... said person is pairing the bed with the wrong things... Predict- ... So if we, day after day, pair the bed with a number of other things, we should break the old pairing, and bring about a healthier way of being. Intervene- Do so! Hopefully with good results. If not, start from scratch. Try a different story(Beh,Bio, etc) or a different technique from within the story(pairing, reinforcement, maybe even chaining somehow) If you can take any problem and use the four 'stories' and O,D,E,P,I, I think you're basically getting the class. Now you just have to pour over the notes and the book a bit. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 156 Posted by Sharita Clark on Thursday, September 14, 2006 10:38pm Subject: help Can someone help me understand PSA. What exactly does it mean? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 157[Branch from no. 156] Posted by Anthony Darden on Friday, September 15, 2006 12:00pm Subject: Re: help Hmm, I'll try. PSA or psychoanalytic, is dealing with the stages of development. In my opinion, I think it's about how we as humans cope with different events in our lives. The five defence mechanisms (repression, sublimation, reaction formation, porjection, and acting-out) are examples are how we deal with internal conflicts. Basically, PSA has to do with the internal pain/comflict that is expressed externally. This external expressions, are in fact, psychoanalytic because they symbolize something inside. I hope this explains a bit, but if it doesn't, at least I tired. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 162[Branch from no. 156] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, September 17, 2006 6:42am Subject: Re: help As a really general thing, I think it's about getting to the center of car-ness and about pleasing yourself unconciously. If we can't realistically get whatever it is, we settle for what we can get. Of course, you don't really know what you want. As an infant you do, so it's easily satisfied, because you don't even have an unconcious yet. If you go crazy, I guess you get delusional, and thus, satisfied, and your dreams, anything goes. So, since going crazy is bad and we can't be infants, we use various psychoanalytic techniques to try to figure out what we unconciously want- analyze dreams, free associate, etc. Then, there's all the unconcious things we do to cope with this stuff we want, but can't really have- like what Anthony talked about in his post. Sometimes we settle, sometimes we let people know what we unconciously really want but don't conciously think about ("Don't pick your boogers!" "Why?" "..."), so on. So I guess it's all about unrealistic, infantile desires that live deep down inside of us, but we refuse to fulfill in order to fit into society. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 160 Posted by Louise Hviid on Friday, September 15, 2006 7:24pm Subject: "Are you in the Game" - questions... Hi Guys, As I said in class, Aaron and I are learning how to write exam questions for this test of yours. We talked with Dr. Kunkel about sharing some of our questions with you as a way for you to see if “you are in the game…” Remember, these will not be on your actual test, Dr. Kunkel will write your test. But they might still be helpful for you...thanks, Louise Psychoanalysis would say that “Stacy’s Mom” is an example of what relationship to an unconscious wish? A. Settling B. Direct Gratification C. Existential D. Wired In class, we watched a beer commercial of a woman opening a bottle with her naval. This commercial was used as an illustration of shaping? T/F ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 176 Posted by Krystle Smith on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 5:53pm Subject: journals Hi everyone, I thought that Dr. Kunkle said today in class that the awareness journals were going to be due next tuesday the 26th. But on our important days to remember page it says that they will be collected as scheduled on the 21st that is this thursday. Someone please clear this up for me. Thanks Krystle ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 177[Branch from no. 176] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 6:06pm Subject: Re: journals Follow the dates on this site (I thought that I had this morning). We'll collect journals for their first review THIS THURSDAY, 9/21...yet another reason to come to class. Be well, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 178[Branch from no. 176] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 7:03pm Subject: Re: journals Yea, I thought I heard that too. Apparently we're both hearing things. lol ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 180 Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 8:34pm Subject: Revisiting Racism includes attachmentThis is just a word document - no danger of a virus - simply more user friendly for me.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 209[Branch from no. 180] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, September 21, 2006 12:02pm Subject: Re: Revisiting Racism The point I've been trying to make is that race isn't something that determines who you are, rather, the culture around you makes a very big influence. African Women vs African American Women vs White American Women. Maybe being American has more to do with who you are than being White, Black, and so on is what I was trying to say. I have problems with women, but they have very little to do with race and my beard, I do believe. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 210[Branch from no. 209] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 21, 2006 2:14pm Subject: Re: Revisiting Racism Corey, Did you read my thoughts about your problem with women? Actually, I am tempted to put that in quotation marks. "Problems with women" I am actually joking a bit when I reference your "problems with women" although it may not be a joking matter to you. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 184 Posted by Jennifer Miser on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 8:55am Subject: test Did anyone else beside me think that the test was a little to good to be true? I mean I spent the whole time freaking out, so i did the sample test and even not having been in that specific class I could answer every question because we had discussed the content in our class. Every question I felt was almost word for word what we discussed in class. I really don't know if it was just that easy or if there was a "catch" of some sort. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 186[Branch from no. 184] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 9:50am Subject: Re: test Hello, Jennifer. I tried to write precisely the sort of test that I had prepared you all for, and toward which I had shaped your thinking in our class conversations and in the sample test questions that I posted. No catch. It would please me immensely were you all to make 100s (alas, not the case). As for "word for word what we discussed in class," I hope that wasn't the case. Rather, I am trying to help you shine these lights in some creative and dynamic and new ways, and tried to write test questions for the most part in the thin air of Bloom's upper stratum (if that doesn't make sense, consult your notes). Tomorrow, let's hope.... MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 188 Posted by Jessica Gaston on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 6:48pm Subject: help can anyone tell me how to get to the psychology building? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 189[Branch from no. 188] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 7:05pm Subject: Re: help Are you refering to Melson hall? It's on Front Campus Drive. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 190[Branch from no. 188] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 7:22pm Subject: Re: help Hi, It is on Front Campus Drive, just past the midpoint of this one way drive. Front Campus Drive is the one with all the older halls overlooking the beautiful trees along the main road to Carrollton. The name almost grossly descriptive. The tricky part to your question is: how do you get there from where you park your car? For that, I suggest going to the University of West Georgia web site Home Page, in the Search window (upper right hand corner) type "map", and there you go. I have a copy of that in my car - by now it has class notes on the back of it - that, although nerdy, I realize, twice this semester saved me from a long walk to nowhere in my quests to go from Points A to B. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 193 Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 8:53pm Subject: Race Back WhenHi everybody,
Now that I read the links I said I would in my last post I am going to take a slight leap and join you all in not-so-psychologically related talk that perhaps will still lead me to Psychology talk.
When I was a boy, many years ago, living in the rural south of the United States of America, going to a nice Methodist Church, years after integration of the schools I attended...
Of all things, I used to get into trouble at church because when the Youth Minister said that the Bible - God - did not want the races to mix - remember the Tower of Babel - I asked him exactly where he would draw the line to differentiate race. Similar questions to what I ask on this bulletin board about, say, are the English and the Scottish two different races?
Well, it depends quite a bit, I believe, on one's world view, which I believe is quite different for most of us now than it was for our ancestors even 100 years ago. We take our mobility for granted; however, for most of human history the majority of people lived their entire lives within probably twenty miles of where they were born. Thus, over a long period of time, cultural differences across boundaries that we hardly recognize cause differences in race perception. Let's just say that my "attitude" was not well received and the preacher was called in... again, and again, and again.
Same thing happened regarding the definition of adultery...
Whether a woman has the right to secretly terminate a pregnancy if nobody else knows about it yet...
Why is it okay for Christians to eat pork...
Did you see that skit on Saturday Night Live??? (that really happened, too, but the skit was not a reference to any issues - it was simply funny...)
Well, I was a real trouble maker for Jesus. I prefer to think of it as "on His behalf", but that is not how it was presented to me.
Ironically, and this is merely an aside - take from it what you will - the youth minister later left his wife for a teenage girl at a different church that hired the wonderfully gifted Youth Minister away.
Things have changed so much since then. It was unimaginable only a few years ago that social changes not unlike those that happened before my life in their scope would happen in my lifetime. If this is a trend that continues, not unlike the theory of advances in technology, our culture is going to be quite different for your children than it is for you. Perhaps, through psychology and sociology, we can enjoy the ride. Alternatively, we may lose control and run into a ditch.
Way back then, when I was just a boy, I was privy to a rumor in high school that a certain white girl had a secret boyfriend from a nearby town who was black. This is what I was leading up to in the previous discussion of how things change. This scenario is quite common now, even in that small town from whence I came, but not that long ago it was so hard for my peers to comprehend that the rumor hardly made it around because it was beyond the ability of my peers to conceive.
Before I knew it I faced an ethical dilemma I still contemplate from time to time. Remember to read this in a mind set where interracial dating is almost beyond belief.
My brother worked from time to time at the bank in town during breaks from college. This white girl's mother worked there, too, and all the employees were friendly together. The white girl's mother convinced my brother to ask her daughter on a date. The girl was quite pretty, rather shy, a very nice girl. Seems like a nice match, right?
He asked the girl on a date, and to his immense surprise she turned him down. The first I knew of any of this date set-up was when my dad told me that my brother was upset by this rejection. It was probably the only time in either my brother's experience or my own that my dad took any initiatiting interest in something from our personal lives. Therefore, I had reason to believe that my brother was indeed very upset. And, confused, I knew, because I knew the girl's mother was pressing for a sale in setting up this date - was pressing her daughter, too - and this "sure thing" blew-up in my brother's face and shattered him.
Evidently, the girl's answer to my brother was evasive and she said something about him being "too smart" for her. That response, "too smart", clearly makes no sense. It's a stupid answer that makes no sense. She did not tell him the truth, neither had her mother told my brother the truth, etc.
Well, there I was. Do I tell the rumor that I believe to be true in order to explain? That would not necessarily make my brother feel good about himself due to the mother's motivation; but, at least he would, if he believed me, better understand the girl's turning him down. None of it ever had anything to do with him.
If I tell the rumor, then I am spreading it, and how can I contribute to the spread of this rumor that the girl evidently is not interested in spreading when I, myself, do not believe her dating a black guy is in any way wrong.
There are lots of questions here; but, my main concern were the two questions of loyalty. Am I loyal to my brother and try to make him feel better at the girl's expense? Am I protective of what I perceive as the girl's personal right to privacy and withhold what I know leaving my brother completely confused by her lame response? In other words, regarding the girl, am I loyal to my ideal?
Well, bottom line... that girl's mother, both her parents, were very selfish for not only how they treated their daughter; but, the mother was exceedingly selfish for drawing my brother into their little soap opera. I saw the girl and the boyfriend, who was indeed black, in a grocery store in a city years later. She was still so shy she could hardly talk. The boyfriend was nice. I assume the girl had some personality underneath all that shyness in order to keep a nice boyfriend.
Speaking psychologically... What do any of you see at work here? What do you think I did? Why do you think I still wonder about this today?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 195[Branch from no. 193] Posted by Anthony Darden on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 9:21pm Subject: Re: Race Back When Hummm. Interesting story. What I think you did is tell your brother that she had a black boyfriend. If you are going to stay true to anyone, it will be yourself. You couldn't lie to your brother, or did you. I change my mind, you didn't tell your brother, and that's why you think about it so much. You couldn't bring yourself to tell him that she was dating a black person, which may have been a taboo inyour day. Your "guilty conscious" is forcing you remember what you didn't tell your brother. By lieing to yourself, and your brother, you trapped a worm in a box that occausionally likes to look around. Am I right? Did you tell your brother? I want to know. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 204[Branch from no. 195] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 21, 2006 4:14am Subject: Re: Race Back When I will let you know, but first I want to wait for a few more (hopefully) responses. I appreciate your reply. I am glad you find it an interesting situation. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 202[Branch from no. 193] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 11:13pm Subject: Re: Race Back When Why didn't you just tell him that you heard she has a boyfriend? You wouldn't have been lying to him, but you also would not have infringed upon her privacy of needing her black boyfriend to be a secret. I want to know too. WHat did you do? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 205[Branch from no. 202] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 21, 2006 4:18am Subject: Re: Race Back When Yours is a wise choice. However, as in my reply to Anthony Darden, I want to wait for any more responses before revealing what I chose to do. Glad to see that you find it an interesting enough situation to reply and to want to know what I did. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 218[Branch from no. 205] Posted by Nicholas Frazier on Friday, September 22, 2006 5:10pm Subject: Re: Race Back When I am interested on what effect this had on your brother later in his life. Did he start doing worse in school, because he thought girls wanted a man with less inteligence, did he sulk for a while longer? I think you are regretting not saying anything, because this situation effected him later on as well. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 206 Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 21, 2006 4:29am Subject: the thread on questions of raceHi everybody,
I have something else I need to work on at the moment so I am not going to read all the new posts just yet. I have some questions, however, that some of you may be able to answer seeing as how the issue is addressed quite a bit.
Of all the scholarship money available, across the country or at a particular institution such as UWG, how much of that is earmarked for a person of a particular race? How much is separately earmarked with stipulations that the student be from a particular location, descendant of a particular person, or child of someone who worked for a particular company, etc?
Overall, what percentage of scholarship money is available for anybody, what percentage is for those who meet non-racial special stipulations, and how much is specifically for various races (break that down to races, nationalities, American Indians, homosexuals, etc.)? I really need to see these numbers, which someone out there must have handy otherwise the issue is somewhat moot, before I can offer an informed opinion.
Please save me the duplicative research and send me those figures.
Thank you,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 207 Posted by Riaun Floyd on Thursday, September 21, 2006 11:10am Subject: The wrong direction Dr. Kunkel was right about this conversation- It did get out of hand, that is more than likely the reason why everyone else stopped responding to it. Though I stand by everything I said, we were supposed to be taking a psychological standpoint, Corey and John maintained that but some others, including myself failed to do so. My appologies to the rest of the active class and to Dr. Kunkel. And also thanks to Dr. Kunkel for putting things back in perspective. I do want to say that even though the conversation went astray, I do appreciate all the veiws that were brought to the table. I always enjoy knowing how things are perceived through other people's eyes. I think thats why this matter is always in constant debate, its not so much about absolute truth as it is perspective. An "absolute truth" can't be found when it is virtually impossible for one person to fully comprehend how the other one feels, and vice versa. With that said, I would be very interested in continuing this discussion as it was intended. Therefore, at the advice of Corey, I will "cease fire" lol (you'll have to read his and I conversation about that). Thanks for listening! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 211[Branch from no. 207] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, September 21, 2006 2:51pm Subject: Re: The wrong direction Hi Riaun, That is very thoughtful, humble, of you. Thanks for being nice. I was thinking during my lunch today about Northern Ireland. There is a perfect example of prejudice that is out of control and the only difference is Catholic vs. Protestant. Of all the well documented cases of prejudicial issues this one probably takes the cake. Based on complete inhumanity, I would award Rwanda the grand prize for the 500,000 plus people killed in about a month. And, that was using hand tools. The only reason I cannot give Rwanda the prize is that the Tutsi (sp.) tribe and the other tribe (sorry, won't pretend to remember the name, Hutu?) probably notice differences in each other that are readily apparant to them, but are probably too subtle for us foreigners to notice. I understand and accept that I am EuroCentric. If somebody has an example that is more comprehensive than the Ireland situation please share. Northern Ireland... "The Holy Father...", says one Irishman. "Our Father, who art holy...", says another Irishman. KABOOM! A bus explodes in London. No, really, I just made that up! It's a gift. It is just a gift. I don't know where it comes from. It is often quite helpful to take a step back and look at things just a little differently. What if we all, regardless of the facts, try to imagine ourselves as being from Northern Ireland? Let's just eliminate anything resembling what we as Americans are likely to conceptualize as a prejudicial issue and pretend we all live in Belfast, and our inherited issue is "Protestant?", or "Catholic?" We are all ethnic Irish. Some of us may be mixed a bit with the English; but, we can still pass. Now, discuss prejudice. Did I ever mention that about a year and a half ago I had to go over my manager's head regarding my being ignored for a promotion - twice - because of my national origin? John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 208 Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, September 21, 2006 11:59am Subject: Encompassing the race 'problem' Let's use our psychological stories in this a bit, shall we? For simplicity, I guess I'll try to stick with the white vs black thing. First, there is the apparent problem... racism. Now, what causes the problem is the main problem. We know that the ULTIMATE problem is really that of money and power. But why is it the way it is now? Biology- Born with a preference of our own race... other colors are 'different', maybe not even human, maybe even below us. We grow out of these things fairly easily, though they are always there. So, this kind of works for us... but we can get more out of the human race than we can the human races(we all have the same potential... so we should work as one rather than each race having its own unique, natural advantages. This causes feelings of inferiority which are, to an extent, validated if we try to give races different natural advantages. "Blacks are born runners, criminals" "Whites are born privileged"... us saying these things give these things a lot more power, kind of like, I guess, mass hysteria or something. Behaviorism- We act the way we do because of our parents, grandparents, so on. NOT because of a genetic inheritance or anything, but the passing along of our ways that are not natural and maybe adaptive for the parents at that time, but when passed along to the children, they THINK these ways are adaptive, but really, they were only adaptive for that time period. SO! When we went to Africa, we(white people) were fairly more advanced as a culture, technologically, all that. We acted together as large countries, rather than individual tribes(in fact, I think a lot of warring tribes each their prisoners from other tribes). Therefore, at that time, we were in fact superior in a lot of ways. If you take a black and white baby and raise them in the exact manner, however, for the most part they should end up about equal in capability and all that, assuming genetics, diseases, blah blah blah are also about equal. So, it's more that, at one time, whites were at one time superior to blacks, but they weren't BORN superior. We are not born biologically superior to any other race. Rather, we progress, invent, and so on. It just so happened that one part of the world did it more quickly than others for whatever reasons. We now see the Japanese as a very technologically advanced people with a very, VERY powerful economy, yet a century or so ago, they were very inferior to a lot of the advanced cultures and countries around the world. Not because they were BORN inferior, because their culture and the way they progressed(not letting outsider ideas in and so on). In some middle eastern countries, women are very inferior and have no rights... are they born so...? In a Muslim country, die Jew, Jewish country, die Muslim. Born inferior? No. Made inferior? Nah. Just different ways of being which are judged. So all humans are born as, dun duh dun, humans! White, black, red, these are all just different colors in the same coloring book, and maybe you prefer different genres of coloring books, rap, country, Christian, Sikh, so on. So, whites take this 'inferior' race and they enslave them. They pass down to their children the idea that blacks are inferior, the blacks, of course, pass down the idea that whites are superior. HOWEVER, white people attempted to keep that which made blacks inferior and whites superior from the blacks; basically, basically, an education, which takes away what little superiority whites would have over blacks. As we all know, the slaves were freed, eventually blacks got the right to vote(stopped it by making it a requirement to own land and be literate to vote, sharecroppers can't, mostly blacks, but fixed that...), we all got equal rights now, so on and so forth. So why is there such a stark difference in whites and blacks today? One could assume that white people are generally more well-off than blacks. That blacks tend to be more criminalistic people than whites. So it's money. So why don't black people make as much money? White people are still passing down the inferiority of blacks and vice versa... now, instead of straight-out inferior, one white person could say, "Well, most of the black race are criminals." Well, that's because they're born to poor families... which is our fault. And blacks would say, "Well, it's a white country. White people are more privileged. It's easier for them to get a job and make money." Most black people grow up to be criminals, most white people grow up to work in small offices and make good money because they have privilege. Behavioristically, black people grow up to be criminals and bad, poor people because their parents, grandparents, and so on, were forced into this lower standard of living by whites and this behavior was reinforced by their parents and grandparents. There are also white people who end up the same way. You grow up rich, so that's your standard: get a high paying job and keep on living. If you were born into a poor family and had to steal from time to time and live off the government, that's the standard that, as an adult, you have to live by. Do you want to exceed the standard that was set by your parents, live by it, or do even less? It's a lot easier to just keep on doing what you've been doing your whole life. So, in countries where a religion is looked down upon and has been for centuries, people born into that religion have to cope with that. Being born as a women in some countries makes your upbringing inferior to men's. So the major problem is that most white people are born on a pedastal that most black people aren't. To alleviate this problem, black people make a taller pedastal(NAACP, black scholarships) to counter the white person's pedastal(white privileges like being born into an educated family, relatively well-off). The problem is, then, that rather than building pedastals, we need to put people on even ground- not sirloin steaks for one group of dogs and t-bone steaks for another(white scholarships black scholarships, different bathrooms and resteraunts and music, specialized living, different sections of history, months to make pride more apparent, so on), but rather, make one big pedastal and put everyone on it. Everyone is born entitled to this, this, and this. Poor people get help with this, not just poor black people because they were oppressed in the past and poor white people who shouldn't get help because they are supposed to have another pedastal to stand on, but something for people with actual problems like needing money, education, a better house, a better environment to grow up in so they can become better people, so on. But no, not communism or anything. You can't eliminate racism all in one felt blow, then, because there's no easy way to do it. It will take years and years and years. If we all have the same capabilities, then it's most important to make sure we're all born with the same resources. In this country, money denotes power. So if you're born with more money... the human experience is a terribly, terribly complicated thing. But I gotta go to class, so I can't look over all this crap and make sure it's perfect, see what I should take out, so on, but feel free to attack me if you want. D: I'm very vulnerable as it were. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 212[Branch from no. 208] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Thursday, September 21, 2006 6:28pm Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem' Before I comment on the topic I just want to say that I (if you were refering to me) was not attacking you. I'm sorry if you felt that way, but I guess thats the problem with having to type things, it's hard to properly convey your tone. I was not at all upset through any of tha conversation. At a different time of my life I might have been, but I don't get mad anymore b/c I know that these disagreement come from lack of understanding by one side or even both. Biology- yes, we are born with a natural preferance for our own race. Other races are different, not better, just different. I appreciate and respect the differences among races, although these difference are really more culturaly based now. It may just so happen that a particular cultur may be predominately one way or the other, but it definately cannot be defined off race alone. Behavoir- Unfortunately there are those who think that they're race is superior to others, which is, as you said, a way of thinking that has been passed down. Some choose to question certain "values" that are taught by parents, religious figures, and other influential people in a childs life. In a way, behavoir can follow suit to natural selection. Racial superiority worked (forsome more than others) at that particular time. However, it is a new day, and we must also change accordingly. Change is not an easy process. I can not agree that the creation of a race specific program and scholarships are necessarily putting a race on a "pedastal". They were created to level the playing field, as you said, we need to be equal. Gaining equality would have been a much lower process without such programs. Now, I will understand in one questioning whether or not such programs are still necessary. That would definately be a valid question. I would lean toward yes, but of course taking under consideration of my personal bias. But, I say yes, because I speack while thinking of all the othe minorities of this country. They are still striving for a level playing feild as well. America is supposed to be the land of opprotunity, but for everyone, that opprotunity is not attainable. And thas not so much a race factor as it is a classist/economic issue. As you said, Blacks tend to be more criminalistic because they have lower levels of income. Some of that can be attributed to the four Fs. Feed and fight in particular. People, all people must have food. If someone is deprived of this need, then quite logically a person will do whatever they need to in order to get it. "The will to survive is the predominate force". That would be nature- natural human instinct. No one would say "well, I can't afford to obtain food legally so I guess I'll just let myself starve." It would be stupid for anyone to think that way. But does satisfying that need to survive, by whichever means, make that person a criminal? Well I guess thats an issue of ethics, in which case I say, to each's own. Fight- if a person feels that their safety/well-being is in jeopardy then it would again be natural instinct to act accordingly. If it my life or your life, who's is it going to be? Will to survive.... Unfortunately, the way we (everyone in America) operates as a whole is not working. The way things go now, the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer. This is why so many people aspire to do things to get "quick money" such as trapping and/or rapping- those things work. Their outlook on things may be grim, so things such as self- employment, investing, 9-5s aren't viable options. Then, there are "rich" people who "fall" off due to drugs (cause they work), irresponsibility (because it works), or being surrounded by people with ill motives (which works-until you relize they aren't real friends). We are all subjected to society's ails, one way or another. So I guess its how you chose to combat them that matters. I may have veered off a lil bit. :) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 215[Branch from no. 208] Posted by Jessica Gaston on Thursday, September 21, 2006 9:47pm Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem' umm how about we quit talkin about... this and have a life ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 216[Branch from no. 215] Posted by John Barrett on Friday, September 22, 2006 4:11am Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem'Jessica,
Clear? Well, if one does not participate then one has not taken the initiative to attempt to bring the conversation to a higher level; and, in my review of the postings I may be wrong, but I only saw you enter the fray once, and that was when you asked about the location of the Psych. Building.
What is a topic you would like to discuss? Remember, open-ended questions invite more elaborate responses than "yes" and "no" questions.
Simple statements, such as "get a life", are not all that inviting; and, they do not lend themselves to elaboration by others.
I would be interested in hearing from someone who uses that phrase, in Psychology Talk, what exactly it means. It is a phrase I always find perplexing although, I have to admit, I do not hear it often enough to understand the context.
Psychologically speaking... Is this something you have wanted to say for a long time, but your behavior was checked by your ego until today when Dr. Kunkel's quest to introduce more Psychology Talk gave you the boost you needed to express yourself? How would you describe your post in a Psychological Light?
I really am curious to know. I realize I was a little sarcastic at first; and, that is one of my defensive weapons (defensive weapon - jumbo shrimp - oxy moron). You know, little skinny kid on the playground has to save himself through his wit... Then he's all grown up and reverts to using his sarcastic wit because that's what he knows best...
But, that's enough about me...
I think it is interesting that you say nothing for all this time (1), then seem "fed-up" with no warning (2), say something inappropriate when you finally speak (3), take a stance of superiority that is unsubstantiated by the evidence (4), seem frustrated by the game the others are playing and refuse to participate (5), offer no alternative games (6), and all this bubbles over only after, and I find coincidence hard to believe, an authority figure says something to the others about their game (7), spout a phrase that implies others are worthless (8), then run away and hide (9).
Wow. Now I feel really bad. No kidding, I see some maladaptive behavior coming from the child... Hopefully, you will look at this and consider what is going on to motivate your outburst. It is an outburst.
Honestly, I hope you do not actually feel consciously the sort of unhappiness that the outburst projects. And, I hope you do not just rely on the reflex reaction, whatever that my be, to maintain this veil over your feelings that are buried inside. Clearly, this is not a platform for therapy, and I am not a therapist, but if you can work at unearthing that little girl at a pace that is comfortable for you, with some assistance from someone you can trust, she would probably very much like to breathe again.
Where does the pent-up rage live in between spewings?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 238[Branch from no. 215] Posted by Jessica Gaston on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 6:59pm Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem' umm i dont have any rage.. and thats kind of weird that u know everytime someone writes something.. i mean its perfectly fine if your life involves watching this thing everyday but mines not this is here for people to get info not make a life obsession over.. but its whatever ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 239[Branch from no. 238] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 8:11pm Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem'Hi,
I am glad you approve.
I was just sitting down to submit a topic for an exchange of ideas when I noticed your reply. It is true that I find myself enjoying the bulletin board, and it appears that we are in a bit of a dry spell when it comes to new material.
Actually, the bulletin board is more than a way to retrieve information or ask matter-of-fact questions. It is a forum to exchange ideas during which we can explore ideas using our newly acquired psychological vocabulary. I think everyone agrees the thread regarding racism failed to live-up to that goal. I merely chose to express my observation that the timing and content of your critique were, like the racism thread itself, not exemplary of the bulletin board ideal.
Evidently, the expression you chose to apply, an expression that I heretofore failed to fully grasp, roughly equates to, "whatever", which is an expression with which I possess more familiarity. In particular, I like the flamboyant gesture that is synonymous with the phrase. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Now, I still invite you, which is presumptuous of me since it implies I am a quasi host, to bring to the bulletin board a topic for open discussion.
I am still going to post a topic for conversation after this reply. There is no reason why we, as a class, cannot have multiple conversations at once. Hopefully, somebody will find something interesting enough to get the bulletin board going again. Otherwise, I am going to feel like a bulletin board hog because, as of this post, my name appears on the board 13.34% of the time; and, that my be a bit excessive. Or, is it obsessive?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 245[Branch from no. 239] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Thursday, September 28, 2006 5:00pm Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem' It is okay. I (slightly) understand her reaction. i acted the same way when....I cant remember her name...... accused me of being a racist in an earlier post. it upset me very much. Not the case at all, she just misunderstood me. But life must go on. From our learning experiences in class, I guess it would be safe to say that this young lady chooses to insult your wish to further your learning experience by being as attentative as possible to the bulletin board because she wishes not to further hers. Nothing wrong with that but insults are unnecessary. Defense mechanism maybe? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 241[Branch from no. 215] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, September 28, 2006 2:24am Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem' Well, yeah... Jessica's right. So, I guess I better go get a life. Start dating some chick. She'll probably be below par in the looks department... probably had a bad childhood... and I'll go get a job. Dunno where. Probably some fast food joint. Minimum wage... maybe below, what with competition from illegal labor. And I better learn how to use an accent. I guess a British one. That might pick up some chicks, or something. Buy a cool car... some rims... get some medicinal marijuana from grandma... I mean, posting on this board isn't gonna get me anything. Or get me anywhere. Or anyone. D: So, I best go get to living life. I'll go play the harmonica, I suppose. There's a couple of benches just outside the UCC... guess I'll go there. But not until after Astronomy, 'cause that's 15 minutes after Psyche. Throw my hat on the ground, and hope to God that someone throws some money in. Hey, then I won't have to go work. I'd be my own man, livin' my own life, playing my own harmonica, getting my own money. No income tax on that. But wait... then I'd have to go through all those other independent income taxes anyway and filing them and all that business. If I mess up, I might end up in Alcatraz, like old Al. And Clint Eastwood. It'd be cool to meet Clint, though. Maybe he'd let me wear his poncho. That'd be pretty tight right there. Wearing Clint Eastwood's poncho in a relic of a high security prison. Maybe we'd run into Sean Connery and uh... the other guy. Forget about him, Sean Connery's more important. He could teach me how to do that accent of his. Then, I could continue my college education, get on Jeopardy, and mock ole Alex. That'd be pretty cool. It'd be just like that skit that's on... SNL, I think. I'd be all like, "The day is mine, Trebeck!", and the day would be mine. Then, maybe I'd get noticed by the SNL people and they'd pay for me some plane tickets, and I'd get to go on down there, y'know, become an official cast member, or just a hip young guest, get some money that way. I could maybe have a better chance of picking up hot chicks, then. Of course, they might not really like me that much... just my fame and slight fortune. But of course, the only person for me would be Jessica Gaston, because it was she who brought me here, to this level being, helping me to become a self-actualized human being, helping to fulfill the needs that I have as a person. Thank you. Thank you so much. I thank you from the bottom of my broken, shallow, human heart. Thank you. I appreciate it. And... and just remember, you're a beautiful person and a breathtakingly beautiful woman, I'm sure. A shining embodiment of the true potential of a human being, exemplified to the point of sheer radiance, a wonderful example of true cunning and intelligence, a mistress of... well, I give up, I suppose. It's impossible to put your perfection into words and that's why the word was made, I would assume. But thanks! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 447[Branch from no. 241] Posted by Kaylyn Adams on Monday, November 13, 2006 10:14am Subject: Re: Encompassing the race 'problem' Corey.. you have one hell of an imagination. I only wish I had the same creativity! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 213 Posted by Amanda Williams on Thursday, September 21, 2006 7:11pm Subject: note cards I am hearing different things from various people concerning the notecards that we turned in tooday. It was extremely loud and chaotic in class today, and I wanted to make sure that I heard Dr. Kunkel correctly. If someone would clerify what was addressed about the note cards today, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Amanda Williams ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 214[Branch from no. 213] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Thursday, September 21, 2006 7:45pm Subject: Re: note cards He said that they were counting notecards today. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 217 Posted by Shannon Scoggins on Friday, September 22, 2006 4:51pm Subject: WebCT Vista Is anyone having trouble with this thing. I can't login. I've tried everything i know. Such as: the same thing i use to login on to webCT which worked at first now no longer works and i wrote an email to my teacher no response. I tried to get help through webCT Vista and guess what?... it brought me to another website which wanted me to make a profile in which to enter the website so i could then get help.... no thanks. there must be another way. and even if i did in fact go through all that then could they even help?.... Shannon P.S. I know this is totally unrelated to class but since we have ~200 people in class i figured hey maybe someone might be able to help me. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 220[Branch from no. 217] Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, September 23, 2006 10:05am Subject: Re: WebCT VistaAt first, I thought Dr. Kunkel probably pulled the plug on this thing out of disgust. I thought perhaps I was the only one locked-out.
Alas, I found I could not get into any of the UWG sites, Homepage or anything, even when I approached it from a Google search. Thus, I put my guilt and paranoia aside, and am glad to see it is working again.
I suppose the IT Department had a bad couple of days.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 222 Posted by Aaron Miller on Saturday, September 23, 2006 10:14am Subject: test pick up For those students who did not get their tests you may pick them up in Louise and my office hours next week. Next week will be your only opportunity to get your test back. Thanks, Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 223 Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, September 23, 2006 11:35am Subject: Answer to Race Back WhenHello,
I am pleased to see some interest in the situation; and, I like that some speculative thought was given to it.
I was true to myself; my actions were congruent with my core values.
My core values, however, may surprise some of you. I did not divulge the rumor. Upon hearing about the girl's mother's attempt to set up a date, I felt fairly confident that the rumor was true. Therefore, let's just take it as a fact from here.
The suggestion that I tell part of the truth, that the girl had a boyfriend, is a good one. However, another core value of mine is that I tell the truth in its entirety. Also, had I told the partial truth that would beg the question as to the mother's motivation for asking my brother to ask her daughter for a date. I could not see where that would be very beneficial to my brother's feelings as it would imply, at the very least, that she was trying to use him in some way that was beneficial to her wishes rather than purely trying to fix-them-up because she thought my brother and her daughter were a good fit.
It would be easy for me to say I did not tell the partial truth because I am not a good liar. I am not a good liar. However, this tact does not relieve me of the sense of guilt about lying because, by not telling what I knew, I was withholding information which is itself a type of lie.
I do not believe my brother suffered any long term, or short term any more than the typical turn-down for a date, damage from the incident. Neither did I. I suppose what never left me about it was the paradoxical quality.
My actions were congruent which should, in theory, leave me feeling resolved...or absolved. However, I think the reason I recall this incident is that it illustrates for me that an unyielding congruency, perhaps an excessive rigidity, is potentially as confusing as living incongruently.
The other thing that I have to ask myself regards my own prejudices. I believed, and still do, that "mixing of the races" (I hate the concept that phrase projects) is perfectly acceptable. For myself, I have to say I see things pretty much as someone else said earlier, that I find myself attracted to people that look in a way that is familiar to my appearance. I would like to think if I met someone and found myself loving that person and wanting to express that love physically then any racial differences would disappear because I would be loving the person rather than the body. I am not dead yet so there is still time for something like that to happen.
Still, I have to ask myself: if I truly believed her relationship was appropriate for the girl then why did I feel an obligation to protect her from more people knowing the truth? This makes me think of my reply on this bulletin board to the person who wanted the folks talking about racial prejudice to "get a life". I did not feel in any way that she was talking to me; but, I felt some unreasonable obligation to take a stance in defense of those to whom I perceived she was being rude. Did my peers need my defense? No.
Returning to my potential prejudices as revealed by my choice to protect the girl from social ridicule, I have to examine my views more closely. Although I believe people are free to date whomever they wish, as long as the people are consenting adults (or both are consenting almost adults), I sometimes wonder what the motivation is for people to date the people they do. This, I find, is especially problematic for me when I cannot readily see the reason for the attraction.
As I mentioned, I met the boyfriend a few years later in a grocery store. Frankly, after meeting him, I wondered what he saw in her. I think I described her in part as "painfully shy". That pain was a two way street. I don't know the extent of her pain; but, she was so withdrawn that to be in her presence was to only know she was there because of oxygen depletion in the room. That had made me wonder about her home life well before I knew about the boyfriend. I was glad to hear she had a boyfriend as that implied there was more to her than closed walls.
Thus, her choice to date a black guy struck me as likely rebellion against her parents. I hate it, however, when parents play the "Why are you doing this to me?" card when they do not care for whomever their child is dating. It is a real easy explanation. It is too convenient; alternatively, sometimes it is at least partly true.
At the time, and now looking back, I believe my parents would have wondered why the girl was doing this to her parents. I can hear it now, "Is she on drugs?" Unfortunately, I do not think they would have asked the next question, and the one on my mind, which is, "What are her parents doing to her?"
Interestingly, I can support my belief that such would be my parent's response based on a conversation over Easter dinner this past spring. My parents are divorced now, so this is really my mother talking... A man in the church she goes to was a high school teacher and coach who plead guilty to having sexual relations with one of his female students. In a small town you generally know a lot about people's extended families if you know them at all. My mother was leading this conversation which she initiated. Like her, I not only know the man who plead guilty, I know his wife, his mother-in-law, the mother-in-law's husband and his entire family, the siblings-in law, where they all live and work, and way too much census bureau type information.
Evidently, based on the fact that this guilty man and all the family attend the same church as my mother does, and because she has known some of these people all her life, she found it extremely sad that the man, just because of these allegations, lost his job. Not only has he lost his job... he lost his whole career because he cannot teach anymore! Isn't that terrible? The conversation was making its way around the table with all this sympathy for the man.
I had to interject that I was hearing a lot of sympathy for him, but presumably a pretty thorough investigation had taken place seeing as how it took over a year for this incident to go from public knowledge to guilty plea, and I wondered if any of them had any sympathy for the student who was the victim?
My brother, who told me about the situation when it made the television news and the local newspaper several months earlier, then spoke up in agreement with me. He and I then proceeded to divulge more information about the coach based upon what we observed when we were in high school. I have to say, therefore, he is a free thinker, also, and does not conform easily. Therefore, I see evidence that in the situation regarding this girl and the non-date from years ago, he would probably not find fault with my response.
At any rate, I do not feel guilt or any particular sentiment; but, I find it interesting and revealing. I am simply not sure of what it reveals.
One thing is certain. The girl's mother was a real bitch, I am pretty sure "bitch" is the Psychological term for it, for instigating the whole thing in the first place. It demonstrates an overtly manipulative predisposition which is probably relevant to her white daughter dating a black guy in the first place.
Long answer, huh?
Thanks for listening,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 224 Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, September 23, 2006 5:55pm Subject: Psychological DissonanceHi,
Presently watching a program on the Discovery Times Channel, "Why Intelligence Fails". It is referencing Military Intelligence. What keeps cropping up historically, is that preconceived notions which intelligence analysts hold about what is rational or not, what is logical or not, what a nationality is capable or not, etc., supercedes their objectivity in the face of incremental data suggesting realities that do not conform to these prejudices.
It is amazing, and I've only been watching for ten minutes, how this hubris keeps playing the crucial roll in every "surprise" attack and many more than I've ever heard of.
Turns out they were not surprises at all. People who are analyzing intelligence time and again behave like ostriches.
Hubris is one of my (many) favorite words. Seems to be a very human trait in that the concept is explored in, at least, Western Culture, from antiquity. Take Oedipus Rex, for example, from which Freud named the "Oedipus Complex". So how is it that something so detrimental to human survival is so characteristic of human behavior?
Just interesting...
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 225 Posted by Jacob Skelton on Monday, September 25, 2006 2:42am Subject: chapters for next test I was just wondering what chapters the lectures will be loosley based off of for the next test. I think following the text along with the lectures will help me to better comprehend what it is that Kunkel is trying to teach us.... Am I the only One? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 226[Branch from no. 225] Posted by Anthony Darden on Monday, September 25, 2006 11:25am Subject: Re: chapters for next test No. I actually read the text before the test. Strangely enough, I understand what Dr. Kunkel is saying. I would like to know the chapters we need for our next test as well. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 227[Branch from no. 225] Posted by John Barrett on Monday, September 25, 2006 12:05pm Subject: Re: chapters for next testCheck out the syllabus for the topics. The new material starts with "perception", it goes on to things such as learning. So, read the syllabus and correlate the subjects with the chapters in the book.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 228[Branch from no. 227] Posted by Anthony Darden on Monday, September 25, 2006 12:55pm Subject: Re: chapters for next test Thanks ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 229[Branch from no. 225] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, September 25, 2006 1:22pm Subject: Re: chapters for next test Thanks for the reminder to post a schedule with text chapters. It's on the "course content" tab... From now on the chapters have high face validity (that is, they have to do precisely with what their titles might imply) and it should be easy for you to identify which chapter in the book corresponds to our evolving and dynamic class conversation. And yes, the text will be another helpful companion for you in the amusement park. Best regards, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 230 Posted by Louise Hviid on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 1:06pm Subject: Study Groups At this point, several students have shown interest in starting study groups to digest the material for the class and “Stay in the Game together…” We are very encouraging of this and are willing to meet with the study groups. If you would be interested in this, either as an individual, or a group of friends, we can try and match people and possible schedules. I know that a group of girls wanted to start meeting on Thursdays for a one hour study group, but if several people are attracted to this idea, I am sure that we can set-up groups at other times too. I guess we can start a discussion about it online, or you guys can send me emails, if you are interested…Also, if you have any questions about the learning-stuff from class, feel free to email/post/meet me…I hope this is helpful, thanks Louise ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 231[Branch from no. 230] Posted by Brooke Mckinney on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:58pm Subject: Re: Study Groups I would like to be apart of the study group on Thursdays. Who are the girl? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 232[Branch from no. 231] Posted by Brooke Mckinney on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 5:04pm Subject: Re: Study Groups I would like to be apart of the study group on Thursdays! Who are the girls that want to start the group? Louise, will you be attending the study sessions as well? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 233[Branch from no. 232] Posted by Louise Hviid on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 7:10pm Subject: Re: Study Groups yes, I talked to Dr. Kunkel about it today and he said that if you guys want assistance that I can move my office hours around and spend some time with the study group...Louise ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 234[Branch from no. 232] Posted by Leigh Sewell on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 7:59pm Subject: Re: Study Groups What time on Thursdays are the meetings going to be? I would like to try and attend depending on what time and all. ~~Leigh Anne ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 235[Branch from no. 234] Posted by Jessica Plybon on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 10:59pm Subject: Re: Study Groups i would like to join a study group as well let me know of times on thursday please. Jessica ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 236[Branch from no. 230] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:34am Subject: Re: Study Groups I would also be interested in a study group depending on the times. Tues, Thurs, and Fridays are great for me ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 243[Branch from no. 236] Posted by Peter Nkonge on Thursday, September 28, 2006 12:49pm Subject: Re: Study Groups Am intreasted too. Thur's hopefully after 2 o'clock would be great.2-3,3-4,4-5pm.What y'll think? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 237[Branch from no. 230] Posted by Julia Gray on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:12pm Subject: Re: Study Groups i would be interested in a study group! what time would it meet on tuesdays or what are the other times if any yet? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 247[Branch from no. 230] Posted by Kati Graiser on Friday, September 29, 2006 4:52pm Subject: Re: Study Groups what time are the study groups meeting? i want to join!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 250[Branch from no. 247] Posted by Lindsay Hall on Sunday, October 1, 2006 3:30pm Subject: Re: Study Groups I'd like to join on Thursdays too. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 258[Branch from no. 230] Posted by Brooke Mckinney on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 3:08pm Subject: Re: Study Groups Lets meet this Thursday right after class. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 259[Branch from no. 230] Posted by Frederque Jackson on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 8:15pm Subject: Re: Study Groups I think 4pm is a good time on thursdays, and tuesdays maybe at 5pm ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 283[Branch from no. 259] Posted by Brooke Mckinney on Friday, October 6, 2006 9:44am Subject: Re: Study Groups That sounds great...If you are interested in studying at 4pm on Thursdays and 5pm on Tuesdays please reply to this message with your name so we know how many people will be there. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 288[Branch from no. 283] Posted by Kristi McMullen on Sunday, October 8, 2006 6:25pm Subject: Re: Study Groups Hello, I am very interested in the study group. Just let me know when they start! Kristi McMullen ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 341[Branch from no. 288] Posted by Rakolya Morrison on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 12:20pm Subject: Re: Study Groups when are the study groups? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 240 Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 8:54pm Subject: Color of light theoryHey everybody,
A few days ago I was giving some consideration to the lighting in a particular project I am working on that has nothing to do with this class. For a particular feature, where the light but not the light source will be visible, I wondered whether using filters over the lights like they do in theaters would make for any particular noticeable and agreeable effect. In our text book, in chapter three on sense and perception, I thought I found an answer when it began describing the "trichromatic theory of color vision". (page 117)
It did not get into the question I have. Are any of you drama majors or otherwise knowledgeable as to why theaters use color filters over their lights? If you focus red, green, and blue light in one place the result is white light. Is it in some way richer than simply throwing a white light on the subject? Does the triangulation create a more three dimensional, less "washed-out", look due to the blending of the light varying slightly as the lights come together? Do they manipulate the mood with warmer or cooler hues? Apart from the obvious manipulations such as when they want to "bring the room down a little", or for some reason make it clearly a color rather than white light, the stage generally looks lighted. However, during the times that I stare at the ceiling I always notice the different color lights. While I can explain this to myself intellectually (they combine to make white light) I have never heard any more suitable explanation although I have asked.
Is there something about a wall (painted a relatively bright white) that I want to shine light on for ambient reflective illumination that will be more interesting in some way if the white light, or at least some of it, is produced by focusing red, green, and blue lights on the wall rather than simply shining white lights on it? Keep in mind that the light sources, unlike those in a theater, will not be visible to the viewer.
Pointless? Tacky? Stupid? Distracting? Busy? Of added interest to the experience of the space without people quite noticing why? Impossible to do without it being obvious? Theaters just do that to give people like me something to contemplate for my money as they throw their heads back in agony? The light in the theater is never really white... it is always more one color than another and the audience merely compensates for this and assumes the light is white? What are the advantages?
In a class of nearly three hundred in a liberal arts school somebody must have some hands-on understanding that you can share...
Thanks,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 242 Posted by Willie Pappas on Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:16am Subject: Suicide The sad thing is so many people feel that they are in a constraint (spelling) with nothing left or no where left to go... it really breaks my heart to hear when things like this happen... but atleast now thanks to Dr. Kunkle (spelling again) I have a way to explain this and it really gives me a sense of comfort ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 244[Branch from no. 242] Posted by Helen Gardner on Thursday, September 28, 2006 1:27pm Subject: Re: Suicide & Depression Dr. Kunkel is really helping us see past what we originally thought about suicide. I also appreciate how he talked a little about depression seeing as how the 2 are sometimes related. We need to expel our original thinking about people who are depressed and stop believing that these people can just stop being depressed or stop the feeling of wanting to kill themselves. Of course we feel badly when we know that a person committed suicide because they felt there was no other option. However, we need to try to understand WHY they felt there was no other way. I agree that the discussion today will help me better explain depression and suicide to other people who may not be able to look past what's on stage. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 246 Posted by John Barrett on Friday, September 29, 2006 6:43am Subject: this is hipHey everybody,
Yesterday in class when Dr. Kunkel spoke about depression and new ways to understand depression and one of its more distressing complications, I thought he was about to talk about "hip". Some time ago I heard a bit on NPR that included the origin of the word. Below is pasted the portion of that program regarding "hip".
Clarence Major, in his study Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang, traces the origins of hip to the Wolof verb hepi ("to see") or hipi ("to open one's eyes"), and dates its usage in America to the 1700s. So from the linguistic start, hip is a term of enlightenment, cultivated by slaves from the West African nations of Senegal and coastal Gambia. The slaves also brought the Wolof dega ("to understand"), source of the colloquial dig, and jev ("to disparage or talk falsely"), the root of jive. Hip begins, then, as a subversive intelligence that outsiders developed under the eye of insiders. It was one of the tools Africans developed to negotiate an alien landscape, and one of the legacies they contributed to it. The feedback loop of white imitation, co-optation and homage began immediately.
You can see then that psychology has the power to make us hip.
Another thought I had regards a phrase I dislike. I googled the phrase one time to find out more about it. I was thinking of writing something, article, essay, poem, etc., describing what it means to me. The phrase is, "There but for the grace of God go I."
Anyone can perform a search on the phrase to find out more. I was surprised, pleasantly but a little disappointed finding that my take on the phrase is not unique. Really, I had nothing more to add. I was at least reassured that I am clearly not alone in finding "There but for the grace of God go I" a loathsome cliche'.
I thought of this regarding our classmate who was in a coma and is now with us learning psychology. That is fantastic. I suspect she feels thankful and justifiably so; but, I have never taken the opportunity to ask anyone about whom I can imagine others saying, "There but for the grace of God go I" their take on the phrase. I imagine people were saying it during the critical and uncertain period.
My mother says it. She knows by now that if she says it I am going to have something to say about it. Usually, I say something simple along the lines of, "Well, maybe, there you go!"
Using our new and hip outlook and ways of seeing the world, I wonder if any of you, even those of you who use that phrase with the best of intentions, have any comment about it? What do you mean by it? If you dislike the phrase as I do, then what do you think it implies? What do you hear in the person saying it?
If our classmate who is out of her coma feels like sharing and perhaps owns some deep sentiment about the phrase, I will be especially interested in hearing her perspective. Or, perhaps whether her perspective is different now than it was in the past.
Do not misunderstand me. I am thankful to have you in our class, and I appreciate that unfortunate things happen where I can put myself in that person's plight as much as I think anyone can without actually being there. I know it can happen to me, too. I simply don't think I have some immunity given to me by God. And, hey, maybe there I am and I just don't know it.
You dig?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 248 Posted by John Barrett on Friday, September 29, 2006 8:06pm Subject: making me do researchHi everybody,
Am I to believe that of nearly three hundred students in a liberal arts college that nobody has any input regarding my question about the primary colors of light?
Must I conduct the experiment in the blind?
I may go to the Internet, but this question I have reminds me so much of whipped cream.
I like to cook... sometimes I want whipped cream... so I make it.
The first time I wanted whipped cream I tried to find how to do it from books. Turns out that some things are considered so basic and simple that people who write about cooking simply assume the knowledge is genetic.
Such is the case with whipped cream. This is probably the case with the lighting, too. So even if you think your knowledge is too banal to bother with please offer it.
It really is a psychological question, too, trying to make a space more interesting perhaps by making the brain work just enough to realize it can ignore the subtlety. However, whether the interest is a figment of my imagination or a real possibility, if someone will enlighten me I will appreciate it.
In the end, you will be doing me a favor because if I spend time and money trying to do something that yields no beauty then the people whose money I am spending will be less likely to give me so much latitude in the future. That is reinforcement. Positive if the experiment brings funds for additional experiments in the future: Negative if the experiment takes away funds in the future.
The lighting puns (experimenting in the blind, please enlighten me) are my gift to you.
It's my future; you decide.
John
PS Feel free to ask a friend or a roommate if you know someone who works with lighting.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 448[Branch from no. 248] Posted by Kaylyn Adams on Monday, November 13, 2006 11:22am Subject: Re: making me do research Out of pure curiousity... How DO you make whipped cream? lol ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 249 Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, September 30, 2006 9:06am Subject: Figured it out in my sleepHi everyone,
I just woke-up and what I think is the answer to my lighting question was right there in my mind first in line to come out.
The reason theaters use filters to project primary colors of light is because if they used white light, as in a spotlight, the beams of white light would be clearly visible and distracting going from the light source to the stage. Sometimes the spotlight effect is desirable, but it is reserved for special effect.
The red, blue, and green lights of the trichromatic theory of color vision are there as beams of light but are "invisible" to us as they travel through space to the stage. For several reasons we do not notice them. First, it is otherwise low light up where the light makes its way to the stage, and our cones are not effective in darkness. We see color when the light reflects rather than as it travels through space. The floating particulate matter (dust) in the air reflects the light, but for the previous reasons we do not see this very well.
Finally, because we are focused on the stage, and cones are concentrated more to the center of the retina, we are even less likely to observe the colored beams of light through the space above.
Also, our brain at the SCREEN level probably compensates to the degree required so it does not pass that light information along. It is making an executive decision that the information is extraneous because we are watching the action on the stage.
The rods play a part in this, too. Because we see light so well in our peripheral vision due to the distribution of the rods, we tend to notice these lights (the actual devices from which the light emits) above our heads even though we and the theater people would rather we not notice them. It's the little slivers and dots of white light coming out of the fixtures before the light passes through the color filters that actually catch my attention. Then, it is simply my wondering "why" that continues to distract me such that I look at the lights whenever I think they are more interesting than the action on the stage or watching the audience.
I think this is pretty much the why. There may be more to it, any number of interactions regarding perception, but I have the answer as to why. Now, I think this reality is something I am interested in for the wall lighting I mentioned. This way, I can illuminate the wall ( I will experiment with the placement, but that is fun) without having visible cones (the geometric shape rather than the neurons in our retina) of light coming up that would, in my mind, detract from the scenario by making the dramatic effort obvious to the casual observer.
Sleep is a wonderful time to think clearly,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 251[Branch from no. 249] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, October 1, 2006 9:18pm Subject: Re: Figured it out in my sleep Cool colors and warm colors. Cool colors make us think of depression and so on, warm colors of anger, such and such. Yin and Yan, Active and Inactive, etc. I say it's all brained, essentially. You see blood, you need to get all riled up for obvious reasons, you see... I dunno, the night sky, you know it's time to settle down and relax. With theatre, warm colors in a crazy dream or a fight, cool colors when someone is dying or someone just broke up with someone, so on... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 252[Branch from no. 251] Posted by John Barrett on Monday, October 2, 2006 4:39am Subject: Re: Figured it out in my sleepHi,
My initial thought as I began reading your post was of a fad from the mid 1980's when people began thinking of themselves, and this especially pertained to choices in clothes and make-up, where people equated colors with seasons. Roughly, if I remember correctly, people who were winter's and summers looked best in cool colors; springs and autumns were warm colors.
However, there were about as many exceptions to the rules as there are in the English language. The concept is useful in some respects; what made it a fad was the naming of the seasons and the books and the talk shows. Basically, it was pretty successful in getting people to think about whether they look good in certain colors, better in others, and consistently bad in some colors.
It's the consistently bad colors where I think this concept provided the best public service. Ever known someone who looks horrible in a color, but because it is a fashionable color, or one that looks good on people they admire, they will keep buying clothes in that color? Well, people used to do that a lot more than they do now.
Any way, yes, there is biology involved (not that I see a connection between this and my initial question, mind you), but there is also behavior. That behavior is culturally influenced, traditionally influenced by environmental factors affecting what color dyes were available at what price; but, in our affluent (or is that effluent?) society the culturally based behavior is founded on Consumerism and this relies on people changing their behavior, color preferences in this example, quickly and even radically.
With this I am simply speaking to my different take on what colors convey to different people. I don't know that I can agree that a color is biologically hardwired in its meaning. A "happy color", for my mother, for example, can become an "annoying color" for me after a relatively short period of time if I hear her describe it too many times as a "happy color". On a more universal scale, cultures evolving independently of each other can attach very different meaning to the same colors.
I really just wanted to mention the Color Season thing, and I am not sure why.
"Hi. My name is John. I am an Autumn; but I am Trans Seasonal ( making that term up as I go). What's your season? You look like a Winter to me. Oh, you are? Beautiful. I'll bet you could use some warming up tonight? Uhm hum. How 'bout we get together and see what kind of weather we can make? You might? I have a new cassette player in my car. Wanna go listen to some Billy Ocean? Let some tropical John breeze envelope you all over? What's that? Oh, listen, like I said, I am Trans Seasonal; we can work on that together. How 'bout I come over to your place and you can undress-me-up in the season of your choice? I thought you might. It may be winter up here, but remember it is summer down under! I thought you would. All right, then."
Just having a little fun...
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 253 Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, October 2, 2006 1:29pm Subject: "Another little H/E/T piece" and ten educational aspirations... I noticed that not very many of you had taken a look at this post, and would encourage you to do so. I'm particularly curious about your response to the ten processes toward which we ought to be aspiring...how are we (Aaron, Louise, and I) doing in our teaching toward these processes? How are you doing toward them in your learning? MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 254[Branch from no. 253] Posted by LaShondra Seastrunk on Monday, October 2, 2006 6:14pm Subject: Re: "Another little H/E/T piece" and ten educational aspirations... You, (Kunkel) are a really good teacher. I have learned to look at life a different way now. This course is very helpful in many ways. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 267[Branch from no. 253] Posted by Feyi Alabi on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 11:09pm Subject: Re: "Another little H/E/T piece" and ten educational aspirations... I think each and everyone of you are doing a o.k job. I guess it is just me, but you ( Dr Kunkel) go really fast and sometimes I think you teach everything together instead of breaking it down. I also think that you should do more activities that gets the class more involved, then we can recall it more. I loved the class session when you sang on your guitar, it was beautiful by the way. I also think that Aaron, and Louise should do more in the class, like probably teach one day why you watch and guide them, and at the end of the class, you can ask us if we understood it better or if it was really helpful. Thank you Feyi ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 270[Branch from no. 267] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 11:43pm Subject: Re: "Another little H/E/T piece" and ten educational aspirations... Okay... what might be helpful for you is to take a look at the post, and measure the course and (more importantly, really) YOUR experience of it against those ten aspirations and goals. How could Maslow help you have a new and different conversation about what we are up to together, and what you are up to in your necessarily individual journey through psychology? That would be an interesting conversation, I bet.... Tomorrow, perhaps. MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 255 Posted by Jamie Scribner on Monday, October 2, 2006 10:33pm Subject: journals Can we still pick up our journals from Ms. Hviid's/Mr. Miller's office? I wasn't in class the day everyone else got them back and I keep forgetting to pick them up. If we can what are their office hours? If not thanks anyways. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 260[Branch from no. 255] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 11:49pm Subject: Re: journalsA sense of humor with immaculate timing
Remarkable diligence in every endeavor
A vision to emulate and treasure forever
One absence from class? Laughing till crying!
John
PS You're kidding, right?
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 257 Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 10:36am Subject: Can't see legs... so they're not there. So, I can't see the Professor's legs, so they're definitely not there. I don't see them, so they can't be there. I can pretend that they are there, but as far as I'm concerned, they're not there. Then when I can see them, they can't possibly be there, because things can't just pop out of nowhere and into existence, right? And then, of course, without proper instrumentation, airplane pilots crash. So, we can't trust our senses. So, then, the Professor is not there, the words that he says are all just an extension of my own imaginary existence, the table that I sit at and the beautiful bridal model I sit by exist only in my mostly incorrect perceptual experience(and she is only beautiful because I want her to be), and Ms. Louise obviously can't exist because I've never been to Denmark, and so, Denmark doesn't exist, and so, she can't be from Denmark, and so, her, her thesis on a meal being more than just food, and her accent, are all nonexistant. The colors Aaron can't see aren't there to begin with and the Aaron that doesn't see these colors isn't there to see them. When Mario starts busting some blocks, there are no blocks, only small colored blocks that make up what we think to be little blocks, and so, our imagination builds a bridge between what is there and what we are and what we would like the there to be in relation to the are that we like to represent. So if I shut off all my senses, the only thing that seems to be left is my own limited thought processes in all its lackluster glory, and without a bridge you all don't exist and so, these bridges that I build are incorrect bridges that are supposed to lead me and my being to you and your being, but instead lead me to what I think should be there which isn't really there. So a certain race of people are a stereotype not because we want to be better than them or because we want them to be worse than us, but because we want to make sense of a meaningless and senseless world and do so by forcing things to be naturally classifiable. We want someone to hold us and say, "Yes, that is right, and that is wrong." We want someone greater to guide us so we don't have to take the responsibility. If we do the greater one's good, then everyone else follows suit, because that is THE absolute and irrefutable truth of all existence and we have managed to comprehend the incomprehensibe. But, no, then again, we haven't, because all we've done is displaced it. Instead of the kicking your roomate example, we're embracing this truth because we can't find the actual truth. The existential dilemma occurs, I guess, because we have no absolute truth guiding us, to it's all up to us to do what is right, but also, to decide what right is. We all try to make sense of the absurd but the driving force of our actions is in and of itself a representation of the absurd, a struggle against that which is meaningless to find meaning in an absurd existence that is devoid of meaning to begin with and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 265[Branch from no. 257] Posted by Louise Hviid on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 9:24pm Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there.Corey, interesting posting…I find myself needing to refresh my philosophical mind…maybe more than my psychological one…but okay – its all human experience…I guess...let me try to take a little dance with your ideas... Corey: So if I shut off all my senses, the only thing that seems to be left is my own limited thought processes in all its lackluster glory, and without a bridge you all don't exist and so, these bridges that I build are incorrect bridges that are supposed to lead me and my being to you and your being, but instead lead me to what I think should be there which isn't really there. Louise:This thought seems to be 'Descartes' to me. “I think therefore I exist” as the basic axiom and the only kind of knowledge to be trusted. But you are forgetting something…language. In the mist of all your writing, you forget that you are still processing through language and where does language come from? Would any of this make sense to you, if you could not state it in language? Is it possible that you think up your own language to describe your own experience? Or are you really founding your conclusion; ‘that nothing exists’ based on the fact that you can state this ‘nothingness’ through our shared language? A social language existing before you, as a part of the social context that you might exclude through your senses, but really can’t exclude when you start to ‘talk/write’ about how you have excluded the social context by closing your senses. This is Wittgenstein talking through my words. We socially negotiate what is there through our language, I would think, and in that sense, I believe that some things do get excluded, but we know that Aaron is color-blind because we have negotiated this based on comparison to other individuals(who are not color-blind), as a way to conceptualize the phenomenon color-blind – maybe we have to O,D,E,P,I to even have language …if we did not have previously constructed word through negotiated language, you would not be able to question the phenomenon colorblindness through language, because there would not be a word for color-blind, right? Corey: But, no, then again, we haven't, because all we've done is displaced it. Instead of the kicking your roomate example, we're embracing this truth because we can't find the actual truth. The existential dilemma occurs, I guess, because we have no absolute truth guiding us, to it's all up to us to do what is right, but also, to decide what right is. Louise: I think we have a social truth. I think we have a social obligation/social truth, since we are born into a social framework, which we can choose to relate to individually. One of my choosings has been to be pretty efficient in 5 languages because I choose to understand the cultures of my neighboring countries – as to try and put myself in an ‘educated’ position to understand where they are historically/culturally/socially/psychologically coming from when negotiating EU-politics. This helps me to not make any conceptual short-cuts (stereotypes, prejudgment) when trying to understand the decision patterns/behavior of my social context. In a sense this is your journal work as well…your language is Psych Talk...but same concept... Is the social truth one that dictates your doings? It could be or it could not be, it depends on your awareness of the social structures you are a part of, which you negotiate every day through your choices in your meetings with them. (You could tell four stories about this too…I believe) Do I want to buy organic produce or do I buy non-organic produce? Your choices shape your surroundings (I am talking theory here too…). The shelves in the supermarket reflect your choices… (This is a cross-cultural observation on my part). Corey: We all try to make sense of the absurd but the driving force of our actions is in and of itself a representation of the absurd, a struggle against that which is meaningless to find meaning in an absurd existence that is devoid of meaning to begin with…… Louise: Yes, I think this is right. But we do it in different ways and maybe this is the key here. I know Aaron has a totally different take on this, but now you get mine. When I am in the dark or meaninglessness, I either have ‘faith’ that something will push me from behind out of the dark or I have ‘fear’ that something is going to hit me in the face from in front. This is a spiritual take on this absurdity, you are referring too. In general, I don’t see the world so absurd because I trust/have faith that we will get what we need, if we “LOVE and WORK HARD” (Freud quote). I guess love and hard work for me resembles existential authenticity. I fight for the things I love, even when they hurt me deeply, and I work hard to stay open to the world and all the gifts it brings me, even when this is a struggle too. Maybe this is absurd…hmmm or good karma… hmm or maybe… H/E/T psych…its complicated… Part of my faith comes from awareness, I would think. I am not trusting blindly, but with my eyes wide open. I try to make 'aware' choices and help shape the social truth towards TRUST and LOVE and HIGEST LIFE QUALITY for everyone (water, earth, plants, animals, people, air…etc), who shares this life with me and for the generations to come. I guess I see this as my responsibility. My take on this is in short “the energy that goes around comes around”…if you are authentically happy, I will be too, and all the Danes in Denmark will be too – and you don’t even have to meet them... Louise
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 266[Branch from no. 265] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 10:42pm Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there. Louise:Corey, interesting posting…I find myself needing to refresh my philosophical mind…maybe more than my psychological one…but okay – its all human experience…I guess...let me try to take a little dance with your ideas... Corey: Well, psychology did start as a branch of philosophy, I think, so, y'know, you should play off both of them every once in awhile. Louise:This thought seems to be 'Descartes' to me. “I think therefore I exist” as the basic axiom and the only kind of knowledge to be trusted. But you are forgetting something… language. In the mist of all your writing, you forget that you are still processing through language and where does language come from? Would any of this make sense to you, if you could not state it in language? Is it possible that you think up your own language to describe your own experience? Or are you really founding your conclusion; ‘that nothing exists’ based on the fact that you can state this ‘nothingness’ through our shared language? A social language existing before you, as a part of the social context that you might exclude through your senses, but really can’t exclude when you start to ‘talk/write’ about how you have excluded the social context by closing your senses. This is Wittgenstein talking through my words. We socially negotiate what is there through our language, I would think, and in that sense, I believe that some things do get excluded, but we know that Aaron is color-blind because we have negotiated this based on comparison to other individuals(who are not color-blind), as a way to conceptualize the phenomenon color-blind – maybe we have to O,D,E,P,I to even have language …if we did not have previously constructed word through negotiated language, you would not be able to question the phenomenon colorblindness through language, because there would not be a word for color-blind, right? Corey: The Descartes quote goes under scrutiny a lot as to whether it means exactly that, and some people go and take the "I think therefore I am" to actually be "I think I am therefore I am, AND vice versa; if I think that I am not, then I am not". So it's a double-edged sword in a sense, and would say a lot about a human's existence and capabilities. Not only can we very strongly profess our own being, but we can also go right back and deny that we ever existed or that we do exist, which in itself is a paradox. The problem is that there is no completely undeniable and ultimate proof either way. The entire universe could have been created exactly three seconds ago. We may have been created with all these memories of past experiences just three seconds ago. We can't tell because we exist in the now, obviously, and so, our memories may just be random thoughts. Maybe every morning you wake up with a new set of memories and lacking yesterday's set of memories, and so, lacking any real or personal proof that yesterday was truly our yesterday. Er, anyway. About the language thing, it's something I've often wondered about. What goes on in people's and animal's heads when they don't have a language to communicate with? You could always get a newborn child and never teach it any sort of linguistic communication, but then, they can't explain what it's like inside of their head for that very reason. So, then, the best hypothetical question I could think to ask is, if you could clone a brain, just a brain, and sustain its life, what would it think about? What would its universe be like? Nothing. So then, it's alive, but does it exist? We could see that it exists, physically, according to our sense, but more importantly, does it think that it exists? Dunno, can't know. You've got the biology story there, but we're not like insects. We're not born knowing how to do everything we ever will do. So, then, we get a few basic instincts based on reactions to our senses(pain and all) and we learn from that. So that is Behaviorism. Our subconcious is formed through all this trial and error growing up and the changing our bodies do, and then higher thinking begins later on with the H/E/T parts. So if you take away our senses, we have nothing to learn with and so can never become anything beyond an essentially empty brain which is designedon adapting to the world, and so, in the end, we start as nothing and only become something(human) when we experience the world through our (limited) senses. Louise: I think we have a social truth. I think we have a social obligation/social truth, since we are born into a social framework, which we can choose to relate to individually. One of my choosings has been to be pretty efficient in 5 languages because I choose to understand the cultures of my neighboring countries – as to try and put myself in an ‘educated’ position to understand where they are historically/culturally/socially/psychologically coming from when negotiating EU-politics. This helps me to not make any conceptual short-cuts (stereotypes, prejudgment) when trying to understand the decision patterns/behavior of my social context. In a sense this is your journal work as well…your language is Psych Talk...but same concept... Is the social truth one that dictates your doings? It could be or it could not be, it depends on your awareness of the social structures you are a part of, which you negotiate every day through your choices in your meetings with them. (You could tell four stories about this too…I believe) Do I want to buy organic produce or do I buy non-organic produce? Your choices shape your surroundings (I am talking theory here too…). The shelves in the supermarket reflect your choices… (This is a cross-cultural observation on my part). Corey: Should you go with the flow or swim against it? By following society, you are, of course, following society. It can be assumed that society is what shapes you(family, gov't, whateva'), which can in turn lead you to accept it(beneficial society) or divert from it(oppressive society). So if your family is oppressive and your gov't beneficial, you will leave the family with distaste but stay in the country you love(in theory, I guess). If you live in an oppressive country with a beneficial family, you will leave the country with those you love. Again, in theory. So society can influence you to go with it... if it has benefitted you time and time again. But if it oppresses you, then you tend to rebel. A social truth sort of exists and it sort of works, sometimes. If you buy the groceries, they will sell them. You give them money, they get money. If you don't buy a certain grocery, they won't sell it, because it doesn't benefit them to sell it. However, if a certain person never buys non-organic, but 99 percent of the world buys organic, it doesn't benefit them to cater to that person because they don't get any money. So the person has to go to another store, another society, in a sense. Since 99 percent of the world buys non- organic, though, then the person isn't buying organic as a survival technique; they're buying as a result of a H/E/T concept, because they applied some form of higher meaning to buying organic(or maybe not, you never know, it may just be abnormal behavior). It's sort of behavioristic in the end, because people do things for the end- consequence. They don't get what they want by shopping there, so, they don't go there. Humanistically, though, people might buy one or the other because of their beliefs and morals they've placed upon the behavioristic game. They don't buy one thing because it benefits their survival... they don't buy it because it infringes on their own belief on how human existence should be("I don't want genetically enhanced food because that's playing God"). Or, some people might not buy food at all, because, "I'm the only thing that exists, obviously, so why should I eat imaginary food I thought up because I want food to be there...?" Louise: Yes, I think this is right. But we do it in different ways and maybe this is the key here. I know Aaron has a totally different take on this, but now you get mine. When I am in the dark or meaninglessness, I either have ‘faith’ that something will push me from behind out of the dark or I have ‘fear’ that something is going to hit me in the face from in front. This is a spiritual take on this absurdity, you are referring too. In general, I don’t see the world so absurd because I trust/have faith that we will get what we need, if we “LOVE and WORK HARD” (Freud quote). I guess love and hard work for me resembles existential authenticity. I fight for the things I love, even when they hurt me deeply, and I work hard to stay open to the world and all the gifts it brings me, even when this is a struggle too. Maybe this is absurd…hmmm or good karma… hmm or maybe… H/E/T psych…its complicated… Part of my faith comes from awareness, I would think. I am not trusting blindly, but with my eyes wide open. I try to make 'aware' choices and help shape the social truth towards TRUST and LOVE and HIGEST LIFE QUALITY for everyone (water, earth, plants, animals, people, air…etc), who shares this life with me and for the generations to come. I guess I see this as my responsibility. My take on this is in short “the energy that goes around comes around”…if you are authentically happy, I will be too, and all the Danes in Denmark will be too – and you don’t even have to meet them... Louise Corey: In my darkness, see, there's a whole lot of stuff in front of me. Some of it might be painful, some of it might be wonderful. I can't see it, though, so I can't say for sure. There's no one beside me to help me through it all, and there's no one behind me telling me which way to go. As far as I can tell, no one's been through this darkness before and come back to tell what happens, and yet, I am here: I didn't ask to be here, but here I stand. There's nothing but a wall behind me, so I can't go back(because there is no back to go to), so all I can do is go forward. I haven't got a choice. So, you get dropped into this big darkness where the ultimate outcome is never known to you. But, you're allowed to stumble around. The thing is, though, you get used to things, and so, you can play a little game with things: the rules are fairly simple. You're given something to play with (your mind, body, and the world you experience), and basic freedom of choice. You can do what you like and change the world. However, here's the real clincher: eventually, this little world you're in isn't going to be around anymore, and you're going to be someplace else. Now, then, your actions in that world may or may not affect how things are in the 'someplace else'. Or, it might all be a trick; there is no some place else, just an even less place than the place before. Or maybe there is no you, and blah blah blah. Basically, you're given life without a say so in the matter, and you can do what you like: you just don't know what the ultimate outcome is. So, you've just got to play the game of life as best you can. The problem is, there's no rule book, no instruction manual. There's no gamemaster telling you what's right and what's wrong. So it's all up to you. It's like playing chess without knowing the rules. There's a very small chance you'll play right, so there's a very small chance that you'll win right. But, since you don't know the rules... who says there's such a thing as a winner? But, maybe there're no losers, either. THe only comfort, then, that you could possibly have is that maybe there's hope in the things you don't know. And isn't that just an awful thing for a human being to have to place all of their hopes in, when they constantly drive to understand the universe, how it works, and how it all relates back to them? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 268[Branch from no. 257] Posted by Aaron Miller on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 11:29pm Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there. I feel like now is my time to weigh in on this little thread that is going on here. It seems to me many of the ideas from the existential story are starting to take on a personal light. There is some irony with ‘shrooms joke, because a lot of these existential thinkers can ramble on in strange ways in their own right (see Dostoevsky and Kafka). There is something easy about seeing some of Corey’s post and saying, wow HE must be strange (PSA would have something to say about that). The post by Louise brought up an interesting aspect of your thoughts. She mentions that her dealings with the absurd take a different approach than mine. In my opinion that is true in that everyone’s reaction to this dilemma is unique and personal. I like Corey’s analogy of a game with no rules, certain thinkers would refer to that as “thrownness” (psychology/philosophy talk). This gives us total and utter freedom. Typically we frame freedom in a very positive light, but I think there is a darker side to it. We fear in many ways our freedom. Think about all of the mindless habits you do in one day, a very real way to experience absurdity. Tomorrow you will sit in psychology class which is another class, with another professor, talking about another topic, and this process will repeat hundreds more times before you graduate. Personally I feel this very intensely when I am stuck in traffic (I-75/85 is absurdity personified). This has shown me the value of embracing it. Now I am now advocating dressing in all black and getting full body tattoos (although that could be your own meaning making process). What I am referring to with no rules, no manual, I have a white canvas in front of me. It is up to you, and me, and Louise, and Dr. Kunkel, and the rest of the world to decide what goes on our paintings. To tie things up I will refer back to John’s post. In the movie Trainspotting there is a point in which one of the characters goes through a list of a number of possible choices one can make. The phrase he ends that with is “Choose life.” Good luck, Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 271[Branch from no. 268] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 5, 2006 7:11am Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there. Hi everyone (esp. Aaron, Louise, and Corey), So as not to be misunderstood, as is an easy thing to happen with email, I want to clarify that I do not think Corey is "strange"; rather, I think he is grappling with some interesting ideas, and is on the verge of becoming very interesting in intellectual conversation. At the very least, he participates on this bulletin board, and I look forward to his posts. I miss him when he is away. The "shrooms" reference was tied into more than Corey's post. It was initially a response to what I called the "non sequitur" thread about that Metallica song. Then, when that was followed by Corey's string of thought I felt a little, uhm... nostalgic? Any how, speaking directly to Corey, but here so everyone can see: I think sometimes that if you re-read your posts, perhaps breaking your ideas down into paragraphs, the train of thought would, for me, make it more comprehensible. Also, perhaps a first paragraph introducing whatever concepts you are about to convey, gives the reader a more clear understanding. Also, and I know this is annoying because it feels like an English lesson, when the reader scans down to the end looking for a conclusion that puts your ideas into context and sees, "bla, bla, bla", which I sometimes do myself, the very phrase "bla, bla, bla" convey's a sense of rambling, of unimportance, that you asign to your own writing. So, if I see that you end with an invalidating phrase I am less inclined to plow through the one page paragraph. I did return to your post the following morning when I was mentally fresh, and read your post carefully. I considered replying to you privately and suggesting that we meet in person so I could hear in person what you are exploring. I thought, and still do, that hearing you in person wil give us an opportunity for a more meaningful conversation where I see you are seeking a meaningful conversation, for which exchanges of emails are no substitute. This morning I see Louise gave a thoughtful reply, but your response is already there, too, so the whole thread is too much for me to absorb this morning. Aaron's mention of Dostoyevsky is interesting in that I considered addressing you, Corey, as Raskolnikov, but I did not want to imply that I thought you were considering trying to demonstrate your extraordinary thoughts with an axe murder. So, Corey, I invite you to meet with me at a cafe or some similar place at a time that fits your schedule so we can dive into an interesting existential conversation. What do you say? John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 272[Branch from no. 271] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, October 5, 2006 11:37am Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there. Well, yes, I wrote all that in a rambling sort of way, because that was in fact what I was doing: rambling and ambling across peculiar and random bits of thought, strown together in an essentially random process. The post and myself, in all my inadaquacy, can be summed up pretty well in a simple statement, I think. That being, the point is, there is no point. There is no point in anything. There is no good reason to try to survive, outside of surviving. There is no point in thinking about things, except in thinking. You can put purpose into life but purpose is then lost in death. Your concious is absent, and without the ability to sense the world, your life, your accomplishments, your personal, internal musings, all of that, are pointless, because to you, the catalyst of all those things, cease to exist. There is nothing. In essence, you are yourself, and nothing more, and that realization scares the fuck and shit out of people, to use sort of... Freudian terms(makes people abstain from certain things, like being an 'ass' or a 'prick' or whateva in exchange for benefits... living a better overall life since that's all you have, or for something more...). In religion and certain beliefs, you suppress a lot of natural urges, like sex. It's COMPLICATED, but maybe it's kind of like how people deal with having five months to live. They go through those stages of dealing with it, and I'm pretty sure one of them is bargaining: Hey, if I abstain for this, I get to live, right? Or, if you come to the realization that, while you may live thirty more years, you gotta die eventually... "Hey, Mr. Flying Spaghetti Monster, if I follow these rules... can I... er... keep living? Forever?" Not that that's bad... maybe that's a lot of people's spincter(sp...) that keeps them from shitting all over the place... or maybe killing... stealing... being good people... it may or may not be a lie, it's not my place to say, that's His, but, we do what works, right? Anyway, we as humans come to realize there is no point in life. So there's these things we can do... like above, we can bargain for something after the end. This gives life a final point: you acted this way, so here's what you get. You reap what you sow. Heaven or Hell or Purgatory or Virgins or Eternal Damnation or a free Bruce Springsteen concert. So there is a point in making certain decisions in life, in acting a certain way, it gives us a direction in life, which is very, very comforting, I believe. It's complicated, of course. Of course, not all people do this. Some people want to pick at it and think about it and worry about it and let it consume them. Then, there are many ways we can go about life. Do we nihilistically give up? There is no point, there never was a point, so why fight it? Why lie about it? Why give life meaning when the meaning we give is baseless? We can take the existential route, maybe, possibly, and say, well, we exist. We are alive, so far as we can tell. Here's the game I have, I don't know the rules, but, life is all I have, so I may as well do what I can. You can have religious and humanist undertones to all this, too, of course. Life's a game, here are some rules I think might be right, let's play it safe and follow them. Or, other people are playing this game too, so let's all make this as enjoyable of a game while it lasts. Even if I die, there'll be more players after me. I'll put meaning into life, and so long as this game goes on, that meaning exists, that's all I got, and that's all I need. Biologically we are born without meaning but with a body to experience the world. As we go through life, we realize there is something besides the pain and pleasure of life: we all die. And so, we learn what makes us happiest, we realize what makes others happiest, Beh. PSA, if a lot of people die when we are young, we have a lot associated with death-ness. If we lack a father, our father-ness becomes this sort of distant and unrealistic thing... and so, our Father and our father become these distant, unrealistic things(it's complicated, but I'm pretty sure these are connected... it's Symbolized in our language a lot, at least(Father,father)). H/E/T... we search for meaning in life. In things that are beyond ourselves and our own personal existence. We want comfort in all this, whether it be in leaving our mark upon this world(killing people, curing disease, solving great problems, destroying huge, meaningful things, maybe cutting ourselves, also goes into PSA, I think), having something greater nudge us around, or just letting us get lost in our own thoughts so that we never have to actually come to terms with the world(or maybe get lost in substances...). It's complicated. We strive for meaning that we know isn't there, we want guidance from our parents, and when we lose that, create a greater Mother, we want a concrete right and wrong, we want ideals, we want so many things, but we want, ultimately, the unnattainable. Maybe. We'll never know until we die. I have the problem, personally, of waking up in the morning an regular human being, getting to college and being existential, hanging with my friends and taking an agnostic stand, then going to bed at night and toss and turn in nihilistic agony of the unknown. Life ain't so grand when you gotta die. Anyway, cafe= cafe-ness, cafe=coffee, intelligent conversation, books, beatniks, Starbucks, Albert Camus, meaning-making, blah blah blah... which is a great way to end anything, if your point is that there is no point. We don't end with a bang as we might like, we just end. Finally, I really never have time because I'm always lacking cash, so I'm either working for money or for the apparent betterment of my education or resting from the constant monotony of a meaningless yet constant existence which I can't possibly cope with because of the unneccesary complexities of being. Plus, I don't like bringing this internal process out through speaking, just writing. Talking is always awkward to me when it involves a back and forth conversation. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 274[Branch from no. 272] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 5, 2006 3:10pm Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there.Hi Corey,
Without re-reading your post I will simply stay with the points that stand out the most...
First, I was reminded of one of my favorite observations that I actually created, and I think you will appreciate this. Is it not a complete shame that the best piece of furniture most people ever buy is the box they are buried in?
Hey, if you like writing, and you evidently do, I have to let you know that the box you are buried in thing is already copyrighted.
Next thing, and this has to do with your description of what some people call, "pie in the sky". Few people using that phrase know where it came from. The Russians were not the only people itching for change in the industrial age. France had its anarchists. The United States had a pretty strong Communist Party. In view of what happened with the revolution in Russia circa 1918, even the downtrodden working class in America ultimately gave the Communist Party the cold shoulder. Too bad I cannot remember the candidate's name, it would be easy enough to locate (USA presidential candidates circa 1920) but it is not all that important to the point... He was telling people, the workers, to quit trading in their lives for the legacy of the Puritans,"pie in the sky" which meant their alleged reward after life in exchange for being subservient during life on earth as humans. "Pie in the sky" has since been watered down to the point that it essentially means a "big dream" that may or may not be attainable. Such is the problem with cliche's.
I don't think it is reasonable for me to respond to every point you make. There is not enough ink in my screen for that. With the above information, however, I would like to begin a Humanistic/Existential discussion.
Your discouragement, or disenchantment, with meaning after death, and even before death since death is inevitable, is quite in line with humanity. You are correct: we know this will happen and that is why man has always and will always ponder his reality. Let's forget about the transpersonal for the moment as we disregard pondering death temporarily, and focus on the time we perceive ourselves spending orbits about a star (a life) on earth in human form. That does not mean that we are, in fact, humans, but for the sake of conversation let's take that as a given for now. Okay?
What makes life meaningful for some will prove inadequate for others. Somewhere recently, on this bulletin board or in my journal, and definitely I tested this on a close friend I had not seen in fifteen years who is very active in his Baptist Church, I expressed my observation that for a large number of people the only viable outlets our culture provide for personal growth and expression are the Christian Church and spectator sports. My friend, to my surprise, agreed without hesitation yet I had just insulted something evidently important to him, his church, as being equivocal to a country club or a sports arena, or whatever other thing it is that people belong to or participate in that brings meaning to their lives.
For some people, the church works in fulfilling their human needs to be more than animals going through the motions of the four f's. For some people, this is the only way they know to do this. It is their only option. Some of these people may, like you, find it less than satisfactory, but they settle for it. Still, for some, they evidently find the sort of complete fulfillment in their church that for others, like yourself, apparently, and like myself, the church does not fulfill. In fact, as far as a relationship with spirituality goes, the church looks to me akin to a color by numbers kit as opposed to something created with real passion.
Then there is this dilemma. What are those of us for whom the conventional methods we see to finding meaning in life are insufficient to make meaning of this reality as we relate to it; and as it relates to us? One a continuum, are we arrogant or just smarter than everybody else? If we really are smarter than everyone else, are not falling for that "pie in the sky" bit that keeps the masses controllable as a resource for exploitation, then we are not really arrogant for being honest about that recipe for meaningfulness not working for us. Yet, is that not the epitome of arrogance?
Maybe we are just what the education system would now call, "special". Maybe we just don't "get it", and we need to be treated with a little more care and given a little more latitude when it comes to coping with the realities around us. But, maybe we are just more honest than others. I say, "I cannot buy into the concept of Original Sin." I cannot do that. I do not buy that. If I cannot believe even a portion of the doctrine then I cannot accept the whole thing. Isn't it all or nothing? Maybe not?
You look around and see people who regularly attend church and then see on TV these horrible things they do. Yet, listen to the gossip and somebody is sooner or later going to mention what a good Christian so and so is. Meanwhile, they turn and ask why I haven't been to church lately? I say, "Because I do not believe in original sin."; and, they really don't care. Most of these people really do not care because they know its a facade to some degree for everyone there. Maybe they just like you and want you to join their club. And maybe you go sometimes or maybe you don't. Perhaps you feel at times like you really need to take a stand. At other times, this desire to take a stand may diminish, it ebbs and flows, although your essential beliefs may remain intact.
Clearly, I am going in circles and not really addressing your dilemma except to try and indicate that you are perfectly reasonable to wonder all these things; and, you are free to allow yourself to evolve in your positions.
This is where the existential model comes in handy. You are your experiences, and these are cumulative, not always pleasant, and you may change your views on them at any time. You also have free choice, but this puts the onus on you rather than on some doctrine or spiritual guide. You may have a spiritual guide, but that is your choice. It is far more difficult to make choices, including the choice to find meaning in your experiences, and to exercise this freedom than it is to join the herd. Likewise, it is a lot easier to order food from a place where you order by number than a restaurant where you consider your choices and put selections from different courses together in a way that makes sense to you.
Clearly, I don't know much. I can tell you that I think Existentialism comes easier over time. That concept spoke to me when I first encountered it with a power that spiritualism as it was fed to me (I didn't want to say it spoke to me in a way Jesus never did because I thought it might be offensive to some people) never had. I recognized it in a similar way in which one sometimes recognizes something in another person that seems familiar and good although you have never met; in experiences Transpersonal Psychology might describe as encountering someone from your same tribe from many lives ago or something like that.
However, although I felt an affinity toward Existentialism I had great difficulty in defining it. I read books that fell under the heading of Existentialism and they tended to speak to me, too. I think that at some point in one's life experience, at some point when you are probably not trying too hard to understand, one is likely to finally be able to conceive oneself as meaningful not to the measure of others, but first to oneself. It is as though one has to reach critical mass in life before becoming able to experience life in the moment and for the moment. That critical mass is different for different people. Yours may come sooner than mine. Or, maybe life is really a long series of epiphanal moments where you think, "Ah! Now I get it! Now I really get it!"
For others, the epiphanies of life have a cumulative effect building upon one another rather than replacing one another. Whatever your experience it is valid because it is yours.
So why go through life if we're just going to die? You tell me why.
Coming close to the end now...
I realized soon after sending the post earlier that when asking you to join me for coffeeness I should have mentioned that it is my treatness.
However, you are telling me you have no time? Yet you toss and turn all night? Listen, there is time you simply have to make it. That's correct. People have the ability to make time, and the more they make the more they have. I am not buying that you do not have the time. Try another excuse.
You feel more comfortable conversing in writing rather than conversing in person? I am not buying that, either. This is PSA, and I am not calling you no pussy shit-ass, neither!
This is Psychoanalytic Psychology. Talking is awkward for you when it involves a back and forth conversation? Then we will meet and you can give a monologue. If I happen to ask a question to clarify my understanding of what you are saying then the conversation aspect will kick in if only while you clear things up for me. If that offer does not work for you then I am going to have to ask you to take a deep breath, maybe do some Louise inspired meditation, and try to reach within yourself to find reasons closer to the truth as to why you don't want to meet in person to discuss your thoughts.
Listeningness. It can be a meal if you like. Your education and work schedules, together with sleepless nights may have you malnourished and over-tired. This may also help explain some of your feelings. BIOLOGY THEORY
I have an extremely flexible schedule so I can accommodate yours.
You can do all the talking.
How is this Saturday? Or, Friday night? Or, tonight? I keep backing-up the time frame in the event that you decide you are going out of town for the long weekend.
How about we meet on the Square in Carrollton at 7:00 PM tonight either inside or in front of the coffee place, Gallery Row? Tell you what... I will be there tonight at 7:00 so you don't even have to confirm and then worry about it afterwards. Just show up. If you don't show then we'll schedule another time. There is some good and healthful food within walking distance of Gallery Row.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 289[Branch from no. 274] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, October 9, 2006 2:13am Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there. Okay, so basically, here's the epitome of my belief system as of right now in my life: there is no point in life. There is, however, meaning in living(as long as you put it there). Don't live in the past, it's useless, don't live for the future, it's meaningless, live in today, it's all you have. From the Freudian perspective, I think God and other such things is just an extension of the guidance of your mother and father(Our Holy Father, Mother Nature). I live 45 minutes away from Carrolton. I go to Carrolton to go to college, and I go to college to take classes. Everything else I do occurs not in Carrolton. So, I'm never in Carrolton. I take my classes, then I run off to the parking lot to get followed by people in their vehicles, hawking me for my commuter parking place. When I get home, I like to spend mostly all my time in the transpersonal trying to relax and meditate and find my selfless self. I'm just a kid. I'm just a lost cause. All I can do is play the harmonica and Super Mario Brothers. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 290[Branch from no. 289] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 6:35am Subject: Re: Can't see legs... so they're not there. Hey, That all makes good sense. Not completely, all of it, because it appears you have rationalized your way out of talking in person; but, that is perfectly okay, too. One area of interest for me is gereatric psychology. I don't know if that is an appropriate term, and if it is a terminology I may be misusing it. I am interested in the the psychoolgical expereince of older people. I thought the other day, in reference to what I perceived as your angst, that maybe end of life issues are not all that different from beginning of life issues. The news flash is that your questioning and awe experiencing qualities are not, as you slightly imply, the product of youthfulness. Once you experience the questioning it opens Pandora's box. I will go ahead and follow-up as I think Aaron would if I were to leave this unsaid... The only thing left in Pandora's box is Hope. I appreciate your making a special version of your thought processes for me. The more free spirited version is interesting; but, the ultimate direction, the essence of your point, was ambiguous to me, and in trying to project where you were headed with it, or where you were coming from, I found more options than I could compute. Time for a new subject heading... Same topic if you life but a new heading. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 262 Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 12:39am Subject: Got Gear? Are shrooms in season or something? I think it's that time of year, again. I just finished reading a third post from a student and I am feeling a little out of the loop. At least Correy seems to be having fun. Sorry, Correy, I did not finish reading your post. I was wondering where you were going with it, and then I saw at the end you wrote "bla, bla, bla". If that means you can edit it down a bit, distill your ideas, doing so will help convey your thoughts. Speaking of shrooms... I looked that Metallica song (referencing a recent as well as a not very recent post here) about puppets on a string up on the Internet. I thought they were a bit early for crack. Looks like that song came out in 1986. Was crack already out then? Lines on a mirror says cocaine to me; but, in the song they talk about needles so I guess they were shooting-up? Is crack (referencing that recent post, again) not a cheap form of coke, or is that ice? If they were cutting lines on a mirror and using needles, too, then I am confused. Why would you cut lines and then transfer that to a syringe with the intermediate cooking in a spoon to shoot-up? Obviously, I am confused. If Congressman Foley sings against homosexuality does that make him straight? Anyone ever seen the movie Trainspotting? I like that movie. I checked it out a few months ago. I remembered some controversy about it when it was released. After seeing it I am not so sure about my memory of controversy. The movie is not for everyone, but I watched it several times. I had to watch it a few times just to understand what they were saying. Learned a whole new way to say "shit" and get away with it. It rhymes with "kite". Freaking awesome. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 269[Branch from no. 262] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 11:37pm Subject: Re: Got Gear? Well... 'shrooms have been in season for about two months now, as a matter of fact. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 263 Posted by Aaron Miller on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 7:06pm Subject: "In the game quetion" This is an example of a question you could see on your next test. Which of the following is the term referring to body positioning and place in space? A) Olfaction B) Gustation C) Proprioception D) Audition ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 264 Posted by Aaron Miller on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 7:08pm Subject: Extra credit/journal idea For those of you who are having a hard time with extra credit journal topics (or if you just want some variety) a great movie to write about is Vanilla Sky. Specifically, it has a lot to say about the H/E/T story as well as consciousness. "Every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around." Take care, Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 273 Posted by Riaun Floyd on Thursday, October 5, 2006 2:48pm Subject: Question for Luise or Aaron I missed the office hours available for today and was wondering if you all had any availability for a short while on Friday. If not, I will try again next week. Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 275[Branch from no. 273] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 5, 2006 3:24pm Subject: Re: Question for Luise or Aaron I see you wanted to keep a low profile and speak with Louise and Aaron? Am I supposed to let that go? Where have you been? Jump back in! John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 281[Branch from no. 275] Posted by Riaun Floyd on Friday, October 6, 2006 12:06am Subject: Re: Question for Luise or Aaron Lol John. Yea I've been ghost for a while. Not by choice though. Just a lot going on right now. I'm going to be active again soon. Hopefully I'll hve everything straightend out after this weekend so I can be back in full effect! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 282[Branch from no. 281] Posted by John Barrett on Friday, October 6, 2006 12:32am Subject: Re: Question for Luise or Aaron good deal! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 286[Branch from no. 273] Posted by Louise Hviid on Sunday, October 8, 2006 9:18am Subject: Re: Question for Luise or Aaron Hi Riaun, Wednesday morning with Aaron or Thursday afternoon with me. I have a couple of people coming Thursday, so let me know if/when/perhaps you are coming, thanks, Louise ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 276 Posted by Mark Kunkel on Thursday, October 5, 2006 6:00pm Subject: "Out of body" experiences... the biology story One of you asked today about “out of body” experiences, and we didn’t have time to get to this (among many many such things that time won’t permit us to get to). Anyway, here’s an article from the biological perspective that you might find intriguing: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/psychology/03shad.html? ex=1160712000&en=0873d24746362abb&ei=5070&emc=eta1 Pretty interesting stuff, if you ask me. MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 280[Branch from no. 276] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 5, 2006 8:12pm Subject: Re: "Out of body" experiences... the biology story Does the school have one of those sensory deprivation boxes I can try? I'm joking, but I am serious, too. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 284[Branch from no. 276] Posted by Anthony Darden on Friday, October 6, 2006 11:39am Subject: Re: "Out of body" experiences... the biology story That was an interesting article. Although this article favors the biological theory, it can sort of be related to the psychoanalytic theory. Yes theses sensations are from the blending of different of senses, but can they also be a way for the brain to release some type of truth. For instance, the women felt like the shadow was interfering or trying to interfere with her. From the PSA view point, we could say that this sensation is a symbol of the events of her life that she fells unconsciously control her life. I not saying that this is true, I just looking at it in a new "light." Any other opinions? I want to know what you all think. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 285[Branch from no. 284] Posted by John Barrett on Friday, October 6, 2006 5:47pm Subject: Re: "Out of body" experiences... the biology storyHi Anthony,
I think you are right. The article had a pretty solid case for the BIO explanation. However, you notice something interesting to me. If a person has a sensation, evidently caused by BIO theory, whereby she senses the presence of another body 'spooning' her body (my paraphrase, there, for those who have not read the article), or she senses something off to her right, then the sensation is explained by the BIO story. Yet, the meaning she assigns to that sensation, how she interprets it, is revealing in a PSA way.
I suppose, too, then the H/E/T theory applies if PSA is about the unconscious, while life experiences that are not buried in the unconscious could explain other things. Had the woman experienced the presence of her deceased grandmother, for example, or thought she felt the presence of God, or thought she was descending into Hell then these could via PSA be grandmotherness, Godness, Hellness, or via H/E/T be about her life experiences and expectations.
If they could stimulate other parts of her brain to activate memory or other sensations in conjunction with this they could really put someone on a trip from which they might never recover. Think about it...
They cause a blending of senses that makes the woman perceive that she is looking down at her body, then her grandmother who is long dead walks up with a big bowl of cole slaw just like she used to do. The woman then smells not only the cole slaw but the smoked ribs with sauce. She looks down and sees the operating table is covered in a brilliant white table cloth and God is the doctor who is saying a blessing that she hears from her childhood Rabbi. Then she sees her body has turned into a big platter of ribs and everyone begins digging in when she feels the cutting into her side, and hears her mother scream, "Stop it, right NOW! Ribs are not Kosher, young lady!" Then the doctor/Rabbi turns into her Irish Setter, Phoebe, who looks up to her at the ceiling and says, "Goyem, oy! I ordered a 'rib eye', not 'Rabbi'! Jeesh!" Just then, the doctors ask, "What do you see now?", and she begins to giggle. "Looks like we hit the Laughter Center, mark it down!", says one neurologist to the other.
Thank you so much for your input! Frankly, I spent a good part of the morning disappointed that the uniqueness of such experiences had suffered the reduction to mere electric stimulus. I am thankful to see mystery remains and our experience of living is more than replicatable reactions of energies and chemicals that could occur in a petri dish.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 277 Posted by Kristi McMullen on Thursday, October 5, 2006 7:43pm Subject: study groups when is the study group starting? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 278 Posted by Kristi McMullen on Thursday, October 5, 2006 7:50pm Subject: lost i might sound crazy, but what does H E T stand for? i'm kind of behind and i'm trying to catch up! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 279[Branch from no. 278] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 5, 2006 8:05pm Subject: Re: lost Hi, It is usually written H/E/T, which is helpful in remembering that it stands for three different schools of thought that combinie to make our fourth Psychological story. H=Humanistic E=Existential T=Transpersonal They are grouped together because collectively they influence each other and often overlap as part of the story. Humanistic and Existential are particularly hand-in-hand, while Transpersonal often stands on its own with the H/E part opening the window to the T. I am sure most readers on the board anticipated a sarcastic response from me; but, I can empathize with you in that when sometimes we don't catch the moment when something like H/E/T is defined, say we are in a ten second microsleep, then we are forever trying to translate the symbol into what it stands for and wasting energy/focus trasnslating instead of comprehending new things that incorporate the symbol. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 287 Posted by Jessica Gaston on Sunday, October 8, 2006 3:11pm Subject: study groups have we made a definite on the study groups yet? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 291 Posted by Rodolfo Vasquez Argenal on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 3:49pm Subject: response paper citations Hi, for the response paper, do we need to cite information we find on the internet and if so, how should i do it? should i place the source right after the information or should i make a separate bibliography page at the end? if someone could clarify this for me that would be great, thanks ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 292[Branch from no. 291] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 9:44pm Subject: Re: response paper citations Hi, Rodolfo. Thanks for asking. If you quote directly from a source in your paper (ordinarily not a good idea in a paper like this) put a reference to the source right after. If you are using sources to inform your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs as we've suggested, merely list them at the end, please. We don't care about the format for the citations. Hope that helps, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 296[Branch from no. 292] Posted by Rodolfo Vasquez Argenal on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 4:13pm Subject: Re: response paper citations ok, i see, thankyou for the clarification Dr.Kunkel ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 293 Posted by Shatonjala Byrd on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 1:02pm Subject: Paper format Alright. I understand the content of the paper.. but I was just wondering.. is there a certain format we have to write the paper in.. like MLA (double spaced.. all that stuff) or is it just a normal typed paper, no special formats?! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 294[Branch from no. 293] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 2:39pm Subject: Re: Paper format Double-spaced will be fine. We're mostly interested in the quality of your thought... MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 297[Branch from no. 294] Posted by Rodolfo Vasquez Argenal on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 4:15pm Subject: Re: Paper format ooh, actually i did mine single spaced, is that alright too? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 295 Posted by Lauren Bullington on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 3:28pm Subject: paper What is our paper over? i missed thursdays class ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 299[Branch from no. 295] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 10:47pm Subject: Re: paper It's number nine in the course content stuff. It won't let me paste a direct link on here. Sorry. You could tell four stories as to why I give you this information when I know it is reinforcing bad not coming to class behaviors. <3 ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 301[Branch from no. 299] Posted by Lauren Bullington on Thursday, October 12, 2006 12:45am Subject: Re: paper thanks! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 302 Posted by Kanjulla Johnson on Thursday, October 12, 2006 11:57am Subject: Importany Info needed I just wanted to know if anyone knew the date of our next test? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 304[Branch from no. 302] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Thursday, October 12, 2006 12:47pm Subject: Re: Importany Info needed Yes. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 306[Branch from no. 304] Posted by Kanjulla Johnson on Sunday, October 15, 2006 4:40pm Subject: Re: Importany Info needed Would you mind telling me when? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 307[Branch from no. 306] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Sunday, October 15, 2006 4:49pm Subject: Re: Importany Info needed Of course not... I announced it in class last Thursday, and all dates (some tentative, of course, given the somewhat dynamic nature of our journey together) are also posted on this WebCT page. You can get to it, if you haven't already, by going to Course Content (blue packpack), and then clicking on #8 "Revised Tentative Schedule, with text chapters" Not merely being a wise acre, but also trying to help folks be "good choosers" (see 25.1), MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 303 Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Thursday, October 12, 2006 12:11pm Subject: Eating Disorders As y'all know we talk about the brain and how we are wired to do somethings because we are brained to do them. Well what about eating disorders such as anorexia and bulemia? are we brained to have an eating disorder or do our brain's snap and break at some point? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 305[Branch from no. 303] Posted by Aaron Miller on Thursday, October 12, 2006 4:49pm Subject: Re: Eating Disorders I bet with a little bit of research you could answer that question pretty well yourself. Don't forget, the other three stories would have some interesting things to say about this. Behaviorism could talk about what is reinforced in that behavior. Psychoanalysis could talk about the symbolic power of food and one's relationship to it. H/E/T could talk about one's self image and relationship to their body existentially. With that said, I do think biological psychology offers up some interesting theories on the topic. I have been a little general because I would encourage you (as well as the rest of the class) to not be afriad to do a little digging around if you find something interesting. Good thoughts, Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 308 Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, October 16, 2006 12:01am Subject: Warning to all Freudians. If you try to tell anyone anything about what you've learned in Psychology, don't mention Freud. :/ They go insane and start ranting about how he was a quack. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 310[Branch from no. 308] Posted by John Barrett on Monday, October 16, 2006 12:47pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.I thought you were an Existentialist?
For those of whom you speak, and their ilk, perhaps the following passage will bring comfort to you... I find this is very helpful sometimes...
Blessed are the ill informed, for they shall inhabit the earth. They shall squat upon the earth as tenants with righteousness, and live in fear of the truth and the light. Unless, of course, they live in France where squatters have rights.
Going forth, and forthing abundantly, shall they populate the earth! Blessed are those who spread their seed, as well as those who spread their legs, as they beget the generations of the informed not, who live in the shadows of their lords.
Blessed are the benign, for they shall grow mightily without deliberation. Blessed, too, are the benign who morph into malignancy, for they shall go forth and lead their brethren in forthing the creation with righteousness!
Woe to The who wills to enlighten the Righteous who already know all they need to know! What they know not shall the Righteous invent with joyfulness in knowledge of their blessedness thus bestowed.
Woe to The who stirs the cauldron of blissfulness! The forthing ill informed shall invoke the power of their collective void. Blessed is the vacuum of space! Blessed are those who acquiesce and join the squatters of life for theirs shall be the sacrifice that perpetuates the bliss.
I find this so helpful. It is often ascribed as coming from The Bible, but I have never seen it there.
Avecum un granulum e sodium chloridius minimus,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 311[Branch from no. 310] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, October 16, 2006 7:45pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. I have a couple of papers to finish up for tomorrow, so this post is gonna be cut short for now. In philosophy, I guess I'm a humanistic(do it for the betterment of humanity) agnostic(maybe, maybe not, not my decision for God to exist, it's God's decision if he wants to exist) sollipsistic(is all this real, or not?) existentialist(I exist, so... all this is MY responsibility) with nihilistic tendency(If this world is truly rooted in the absurd... then I'll just have to destroy it all to give myself meaning.). In Psychology, however, I would think to completely stick to a single school of thought would be a bit of a damnation on your own part. I think that, from what I've learned thus far, it's a simple four-step process in finding 'problems' in the human psyche. Either you're born with a problem(bio), learn something 'incorrectly'(beh), have an imbalance in the aggressive and loving energy(PSA) or 'bad' unconcious desires you regress etc, or you can't find meaning in life. With the first three stories, you have problems that occur in what you learned, what your unconcious shaped into, and the physical entity of your brain. If all this other stuff is in order, then the human starts to actualize and all that jazz. The human doesn't have any other problems, so they ask why. And this in itself can cause problems if the human is unable to cope with the why. While humanity has a great deal of potential, this potential can also be self-destructive. It's all about balance, I guess. Besides, I'm just a kid. To say that I've chosen what I'm going to be and believe in for the rest of my life would be a bit of a leap. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 318[Branch from no. 311] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 6:18am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.Hello,
I had to get out of bed to write something in my journal. I thought it could wait, but it will not wait. As long as I am here I cannot resist talking with you.
Earlier during today I recalled what a "friend" told me once when I was, speaking humanistically, acknowledging the truth that lay underneath what he did that affected me. He said I was "reading too much into things", but, of course, I was only seeing what was there and acknowledging its presence. Interestingly, people often find some value in another's ability, or penchant, for "reading into things" until you read into their things.
I only thought of that, with a little smile, as I considered how you read into things. That is a compliment.
When I began my reply with "I thought you were an Existentialist" I was, in fact, throwing something out there for your consideration, but I disguised it with what I (at least, I) found an amusing piece that, for most readers, would have led them completely away from the initial question regarding your alignment.
Seeing as how you took the time to give a thoughtful reply despite your two papers to complete, I think you deserve not to be ignored.
This time I will get to the point and then expatiate. You are absolutely correct, in my view, that you should not claim for yourself any particular school of thought. Moreover, one should not reach a certain age whereupon he settles on one school of thought. The people who invent these schools of thought tailor them to their perceptions, etc. To anticipate that anyone else will ever completely buy into their ideas is to be on the look-out for a cult or some religion.
Essentially, we chose to expose ourselves to ideas; and, some ideas speak to us more than others. What we eventually develop are our personal views that blend concepts that exist in the realm of public knowledge such that others can reference what we are talking about, and depending upon our audience we may elaborate and speak of our unique understanding. It is necessary, however, to have a common language upon which to build understanding. I could make-up a name and put all my ideas in it and say, "This is what I am.". However, just saying it does not always make something an entity.
I thought later in the day about Christianity. This is a great and culturally relevant example of a concept with a name; but, from what I see it means different things to different people. I think that may get at what people often mean when we will not come right out and say I am not a Christian, or Jew, or Druid, or whatever; or, conversely they might say something about organized religion being "not for me".
Likewise, I think of a friend just now who goes to church and to Temple just to make sure he is covered. He thinks of it as an additive process; but, it strikes me as counteractive. It is his farce of an attempt to deal with an incongruency in his life. Ironically, it takes the basic incongruence and exacerbates it through creating an incongruence in his spiritual life. At least that one he can see externally.
You probably get the idea: presenting yourself as something rather than somebody creates barriers to communication when people have different concepts of what that something is.
Here is friendly advice on how to discuss ideas without causing the audience to shut their ears or go off on their misunderstandings... Borrow Dr. Kunkel's strategy and preface your statement with your version of "It's complicated..." Then you can reference schools of thought and the ideas of others without setting yourself up for an inquisition where the focus is on the school of thought, or on you, rather than on ideas. Perhaps that is what you did with the Freudian event, and the audience was too dense to simply take an abstraction to contemplate and let the conversation evolve into something interesting. Instead, they had rather stone the heretic. In that event then look for new people to hang with.
Now on to the part where I pick at your reply... Seeing as how you notice nuance in things I have to believe you are aware of what you are saying. Therefore, you should not mind if I want to discuss a bit.
Sometimes I find your posts perplexing. It's nothing for me to agree with or disagree with, but it makes me think. I believe I recall seeing your self-description of "nihilistic tendency" in previous posts. In Dostoyeveski's Crime and Punishment, the main character, Raskilnikov, sought to prove his extraordinariness by committing a murder and getting away with it. It didn't work. I think the case was made clear enough that such existential angst is not ever going to work.
Still, people feel this Existential angst, they talk about it quite a bit; but, it seems to me that having an existential-like view on life is better a process that comes to resemble existentialism rather than trying to push experience into a pre-existing existential form. In short, I find comfort in the precepts of existentialism. I don't know whether I am on temporary hiatus from the angst, or if I have crossed some threshold whereupon my life is congruent enough with Existentialism that using that word/concept helps define my attitude, or if I am really so far beyond the bounds of depression that I am no longer even aware that I feel nothing.
I don't know. What perplexes me, however, is if a line of thought is not helpful then why make the choice to stick with it? This makes me think of some self-described followers of Jesus who believe they are going to Hell. Lots of followers of Jesus are pretty clear that lots of other people are going to Hell; but, some of them believe they are themselves going to Hell. What the Hell is that about? Either do something about it or make a choice to believe something else. I am no expert, but I think Jesus had making people feel better in his heart and mind.
Christianity as we know it, in its thirty thousand or so forms, did not appear in one day. It continues evolving to this day. Perhaps Existentialism is yet to undergo the degree of digestion that people require for it to achieve something other than angst.
I have to ask, therefore, where does your existentialism with nihilistic tendencies originate? What do you mean by it? Tell me more, please.
Moving along... I see that in reference to Psychology you are using the word "problem" in relation to the BIO, BEH, and PSA theories and use the word "bad" regarding part of the PSA story. For the H/E/T part you say that once the other problems are out of the way then a potential problem is discovered and that is the Why.
Clearly, humanities in limited geographic areas during certain eras enjoy resolution to certain of the lower needs on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and this allows for an opportunity, and ultimately the responsibility, for addressing the higher needs. It's an interesting paradox, repeated in cultures throughout history, that a decrease in the suffering of man at the physiological and safety needs levels, eventually leads to a degeneration of society. So we attempt to look for the continued growth of the human potential that we know is there. Because these periods of relative comfort and securty are limited, the aspiration, not to mention the knowledge of how, to grow to self-actualization and beyond is not as widely understood as simply getting more of the four Fs is.
You, however, see there is more to life than gluttony. You know there must be more to life than what you see in most other people.
There are places in the world where you can still exist as a subsistence farmer. I saw an article in the paper Sunday about children in Mali picking cotton for two dollars a day. So how is it, and some free association with the word here might help, that Optimism is seemingly overshadowed by its opposite in some of your perspective? This connection is a bit vague I believe: even your word choice of "problems" and "bad" reveal a pessimistic bias, and you are using them despite your evident interest in the class where such attitudes as "problems" and "bad" are constantly being replaced with non-judging language. What do you think your word choices reveal about you; and, how is that compare in congruency with yourself?
What influences you to think of your response to an absurd world as limited to destroying it? How would this give you meaning? Presumably, if you destroy the world then nobody is there to experience your meaning with you. And, if nobody is there to verify your existence then how do you measure the extent to which you exist? If you were not around to illuminate the absurd then who might fail to see it?
Talk to me about what you mean by nihilistic tendency. What is the "tendency" part? That word makes me think of the way people used to describe homosexuality. "He is a latent homosexual... he has homosexual tendencies."
How do you envision your nihilistic tendencies? Are these living in your unconscious, or are they just above the surface hiding something else?
You are making more of an effort to be here than some students because you are not a HOPE scholarship recipient because you did not apply yourself in High School. I suspect that you were simply bored to death in High School. What does this tell you about your perspective on life? How does this fit with your philosophy? What incongruencies can you find?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 319[Branch from no. 318] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 12:48pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. About the schools of thought. If you only look at a T.V. from the back, you're constantly watching T.V. from the back, but... that's not quite right. You have to look at it from the front to see anything. So then, the person who realizes this takes looking at the front of the T.V. as the best place to look at a T.V. However, if you never look behind a T.V., you can't get it hooked up(or in the old days you couldn't, anyway...). Then, someone has to know what goes on on the inside of the T.V., just so you can have the TV working. One school of thought may seem immediately better than another, but... they all have worth. To me, existentialism represents the billions of decisions that a human can make and the realization that you are responsible for the outcomes of these decisions. Nihilism is realizing there is no point in these decisions, and that, when you die, there was no point in thinking about them or in making them. Nihilistic tendency is like when, at the end of the day, you start thinking about the ultimate pointlessness of your actions, so you seize up for an hour or two and lay around being scared of The End and so, since you are so wound up about that, can't do anything else. Guess it's kind of like... suppresion? Maybe repression. I need to sift through the notes and figure out which one is which. The sitting on the box thing. Also, to say you are an existentialist or a protestant or a Catholic or a Baptist or a Morman is to save a lot of time explaining things. And, about the Christians believing they're going to Hell, that's fine, really. They're Christians, and so long as they act Christ-like, they're Christians. The point, then, is not to live a good life and go to Heaven, but to live a good life, as any normal human being should. It's not about living for what's after life, but living for what's in life, I suppose. And about the first three stories being about negative stuff... If you have biological depression or don't eat enough, if you can't sleep because you paired the bed with something other than sleep, if you continue to hate your father and dote on your mother(I think that'd be the Oedipis complex), I think it would be very hard to move onto the H/E/T 'problems'. If you're preoccupied with all the 'lower' levels of problems, how can you move on to the 'higher' problems? It's hard to worry about the meaning of life and all the postitives of humanity when you're bogged down sitting on top of that box or and I have to go. My car's broken down, so I have to hitch a ride. More later, I suppose. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 322[Branch from no. 319] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 19, 2006 4:12am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.Hi Corey,
Yes, more later. Sorry about your car. How do you hitch a forty mile, or is it forty minute, commute?
Continue with your reply when you can.
Briefly (probably not briefly) I may need to clarify that lower level problems reference Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This is one of those universal truths that I discovered on my own. Nothing is quite as reinforcing as when you share an idea, a concept, with someone and you think it is perhaps too abstract for anyone else to understand. Then, voila! You discover that lots of people know exactly what you are talking about. I was working on a design project several years ago, and I had a client meeting where I was delivering my work and expecting to be paid. The client did not show which was quite rude, I did not get paid, and I spent the next week until the rescheduled meeting wondering how it was that I was supposed to produce anything creative when I could not relax into the task because I needed that money to pay my utility bills. It is difficult to flourish as a person when your basic needs are not being met.
As for the difficulties people experience, the stories that we neatly differentiate to organize our thoughts are not necesnecessarily neat in the reality of one's psyche. One could have simultaneous and interacting complexities arising in each of the four theories. Moreover, Maslow addresses the concept, that I find valid, that the "problems" are sometimes an attempt toward self-actualization.
Several times recently I have felt the impulse to describe a situation to be anticipated and avoided with a really crude saying that I cannot quite get right. I say something like, "We don't want to complete that prematurely otherwise we'll be doing whatever it is people say about ass holes and elbows." Then I twist my arms around and pull them over my head. I find the phrase, "painting yourself into a corner" to make more sense as I can understand the situation from which the cliche derives. However you want to think of it, sometimes these psychological issues are all interconnected; and, sometimes this is a result of incongruencies that the real you, the one you buried a long time ago, realizes must change because the alternative is... one of your favorite words - nihilism.
The alternatives do not change, but the choice as to which "you" suffers nihilism is still yours at that point although the fact of the choice may not be apparent to the suffering person. Painfully but fortunately, the real you, the ultra suppressed authentic you, asserts itself just enough to make you realize that perhaps being painted into the corner is a serious problem, and you may have to endure a little messiness to rescue yourself. Of course, sometimes the suffering person will just stand there stoically until the paint dries, and then move on with the project at hand in wonderment at his own silly stupidity. Those are the unfortunate ones.
Just to clarify then, the H/E/T theory, primarily the H/E portion, is there to help people understand. It is more friendly to allowing the other three theories to contribute their help than the other three theories are to outsiders. Taking the wholeness of the person into consideration is the beauty of Humanistic Psychology. I want to say, however, that the order in which we encounter these theories should not imply a hierarchy.
One thing I wondered last night but opted to omit regards the adherence to theories that I think is a folly except for the creators of the theories. Take B.F. Skinner, for a perfect example since he was evidently emphatically Behaviorist: he must have had some reasonable way of at least acknowledging that BEH is not the answer to every last thing. Because he was advancing his own theory, perhaps some PSA would help us understand why, he chose not to divulge any cracks in the theory. That is fine for the creator or real innovator, however, in that it is congruent with the objective. What did Skinner choose not to publish?
The unfortunate thing that happens too often, however, is that people try to immolate the thoughts of a thinker, or model themselves after a parent, and lose some of the nuance in the translation. To clear this up, let me say that I take Skinner at his word although I suspect he simply withheld any of his own ideas that did not conform to his theory. Alternatively, George Bush I cannot take at his word because I do not believe his theories (policy) are his own enough such that he can understand them when contexts change. It's like reaching a call center in India and asking a question that goes off script. Everything, including the English, is fine until you ask a question that is not on the flow chart. Then the whole charade falls apart.
Skinner was not playing charades, but I wonder what he did when confronted with pieces of the puzzle that did not fit? What was he like to be around in person? President Bush is playing charades, but I do not wonder what it is like to be around him in private because I think by this point he probably does not know how to get from his elbow to his ass hole. (if anyone can clear that saying up for me I will appreciate it)
Now I think of Leona Helmsley. She was a generation before most of you in this class. She had this series of ads for her hotels that became part of pop culture. In one of them she says, "I wouldn't drink from a plastic glass. Why should you?" That one I remember vividly because it reminded me of myself.
It was an entire campaign about "Why should you?" The government finally convicted her of being a royal bitch - I mean for tax evasion - and she spent a few years in prison. Her charade fell apart because it was, in fact a charade. She could have run an ad saying, "I wouldn't pay income taxes. Why should you?" But you see, she did not mind your paying income taxes. Once in prison she was probably willing to drink from a stainless toilet bowl.
I enjoyed that tangent. I hope you did, too. The point? When you have time continue your response I am simply nudging you very gently toward revisiting the four theories as well as your own philosophy; and, starting a new response rather than picking-up where you left off. Review and revise. Look deeply. I saw a glimmer in your response, and I would like to see how it appears in a second development of your thoughts.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 327[Branch from no. 322] Posted by Aaron Miller on Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:54pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. Some very nice points. I agree with you that being too domatic about a theory can cause some practical issues. In a graduate course Dr. Kunkel suggested that we "hold each of the theories freely in the palms of our hands." I think there is something to that; if grasped too tight it can transform and even break, if too loosely, it will fall out. As far as the individual theorist I can see conflicting points. I think being closed off to other influnces (and falsification) takes away from one's understanding. On the other hand, it has been said that a theorist/philosopher's theory is only credible to the point in which they live it themselves. Some of our stories fit certain psychological phenomenon better than others. It is interesting to me however how a theory can explain something that would be seemingly foreign to it. A great example is actually with Skinner. Towards the end of Walden Two he makes some interesting comments about love. So here is something that I have come to; integration. It is quite possible to be a humanistic neuropsychologist, a psychoanalytic transpersonal psychologist, or even an existential behaviorist. I am sure many of you, as a got a sense of in your post, have come to realize that the more knowledge you gain about these theories the more you can make them your own. This is not based on bias, custom, etc. but on a search for understanding. In my opinion one of the wonderful things about Dr. Kunkel is that you can't pin him down (I gave up a long time ago). I believe that is because learning these theories can allow you to then synthesize them. There are certain wonderful gifts in each of these stories and I would agree that it can be ignorant to turn your back on certain gifts. Anyways, I am enjoying this thread and keep up the good work. P.S. While you can catch grief from certain people about PSA, H/E/T, Bio, and Beh... it can be fun to take up the other side. Violating certain heuristics/schemas maybe? Sadistic? hmm thats funny Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 329[Branch from no. 327] Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, October 21, 2006 8:48am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.Hi everyone,
Absolutely. And, speaking of Absolute, I will go ahead and make the analogy with blends of alcohol. For those of you who are too young to drink, too bingeful to notice, or are otherwise thus far spared the depth of knowledge of various types and brands of alcohol I congratulate you and believe this will still make sense.
Although a single malt or vintage is a nice thing to enjoy, the "pure" essences in an unblended alcohol can be extremely strong, and suited quite specifically to a particular thing such as before dinner, or after a meal in front of a roaring fire. Most alcohols are therefore blends, even if they are blends from casks of the same maker, in order to produce something more well-rounded. Beyond that, the blends analogy completely falls apart into being all about branding and marketing, and trying to get people to consume the product.
I agree with Aaron's point of integration. Personally, if I ask someone what schools of thought they come from regarding psychology, and I have done this, I look for an explanation that reaches into more than one realm. If the answer hits upon some concepts or thinkers I know of and have an affinity for, then I feel comfortable that the other person and I can communicate.
"Behaviorist with influences by Carl Rogers", would be an example that I could comprehend and feel comfortable with until made to believe otherwise. "Practitioner of (then name all four theories and more)" would work, too, as long as the person emphasizes that they find all four theories helpful, rather than simply conveying that they know the theories without conveying a sense that they are sensitive to when the theories are applicable.
If someone said, "I am a Behaviorist heavily influenced by B.F. Skinner.", I would not turn and run the other way; but, I would probably feel skeptical despite my desire to remain open minded. The same goes for a PSA Freudian; but, a PSA Jungarian would appeal to me. I think it has something to do with what the framers of the United States Constitution had in mind with the separation of powers. Too much power in one area without balance makes for trouble whether it is in psychology, or government, religion, cooking, or what have you.
It is your turn, Corey! Aaron is enjoying this thread, as am I, and the ball is in your court. If anyone else wants to play just throw your hands in the air and either toss a ball or catch one.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 350[Branch from no. 329] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 3:25pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. If this is a game, I'd be casually in the audience and if the ball ends up in my hands, then that's rather problematic. Well, from a psychological perspective and rexamination of my self: Bio: I do it to survive. Well, that's weird. Why would I force myself back into depression and nihilistic thought? That's detrimental to my health. I think I'm wired, as a human being, to explore and understand the world as a survival technique, but then I take it too far. If wolves get too good at working in packs, they eat all the food and then starve to death. Beh: Blah. Maybe I've paired thinking and talking like this to gaining esteem with my peers and teacher. Positive consequences. Maybe it's got to do with experiencing death of close friends and family at a young age and having this paired with simply being: as a day to day thing, you have to contemplate everything for answers. Why? Because! That's what you had to do all the time as a kid. Dunno. PSA: Death, deathness, stepfatherness, fatherness, Fatherness, Godness, Heavenness, too-good-to-be-trueness, absoluteness, imperfect worldness, chaosness, video gameness, existentialismness, sollipsimness, nihilismness, Christianness, Hellness, unfairness, Chinaness, Vaticanness, Popeness, Rosaryness, motherness, lack of fatherness, substitutes for fatherness, father dies, God dies, absolutes die. No need for absolute thinking. Must be illogical. Die, die, die, what's the point of living? None. Point of dying? None. Point of dying for living? None. Point of living for dying? None. Jesusness, Buddhaness, rapperness. Brotherness, loveness, hateness, confessionalness, Mormoness, Freudianness, foodness. Needness. Agnosticness, Pacifistness, artness, inventionness, machineness, killness, mushroomness, drugness, exagerrated beingness, there's something wrong between me and everything that exists outside of me. What is it? Can't figure it out. So why take drugs? It only distorts the view further. So I abstain from drug-taking behavior. H/E/T: I lie to myself to get out of the existential dilemna and responsibility. I lie by saying, well, I am this. I am this agnostic Christian existential sollipsitic nihilist who follow pacifist beliefs, wants to be the next Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Timothy Leary, wears a blazer and a rosary, loafers and khakis, and an army cap. Believes in Jesus but throws away the concept of God, I want to play all these instruments and be seen as great and intellectual and caring and equal and Holier-than-thou. Maybe it's all to cover up so that I don't have to actually face death. Back to the PSA, I'm sitting on a box which represents everything I'd rather not be or see or know or feel. Suppress everything. Why? I don't want to be susceptible, wrong, or disliked. I won't talk down about your religion or race and I won't oppress you with my beliefs or being. I am me on the inside, you see what I want on the outside, and it's just a mask in a Greek play. Or maybe, this is who I truly am. Maybe I am just agnostic, for a number of reasons, but it's not a lie. This is how I respond to the dilemna: I say, fuck death, I'm scared as hell of it, but I'll run right into it, so help me Flying Spaghetti Monster, because anything less is to embody the absurdity of life even further. To tremble in fear of Satan is to tremble in fear of death is to tremble in fear of progression is to tremble in fear of change is to tremble in fear of life itself. Life is change, life is death, my beliefs are ever-changing, ever-dying, ever being. I am me, because this is the best way to proceed along life's path. Why? It's how I want to be human in this world in which I exist. It IS my choice to be this way. Not guided by funneled genes or consequences or hailstones, I am guided by me, a representation of all those things, but exemplified by higher levels of thought. God doesn't direct me, I am not God, God is not dead but I am not a pawn. I am me, because my existence is as I choose it, and this the way I choose, conciously, to be with the world, maybe in response to the consequences I may or may not receive and maybe in response to hailstones of complicated desires. And that's all I got for now. Workshop! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 351[Branch from no. 350] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 5:01pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.Perhaps a sense of the unfair? Betrayal or cheating? Is that an accurate understanding on my part of some of how you feel?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 352[Branch from no. 351] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 7:24pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. On the Freudian perspect, that's sort just really, really free associating on my part. One word leading to another the they just unconciously do. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 353[Branch from no. 352] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:05pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. That's cool. Some powerful stuff in there, though. Right? I guess we both need to study for tomorrow's test. Looking forward to talking with you again whenever you have time - or, motivation. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 354[Branch from no. 350] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 26, 2006 2:07am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.Hey Corey,
It is about bed time for me. I was taking a few minutes sending some calming energy to a friend from high school who is having surgery tomorrow. Once done with that I thought about another friend of mine who died several years ago. It was neither a happy nor sad thought, just a thought relevant to the spirit of meditation. Then, with my mind in free association mode, I decided to look at your post again.
Your opening sentence did not register with me earlier. Now I see what you are saying, and it is pretty funny. Then I put myself in the situation of watching a game and the ball coming my way. The ball would not make it into my hands. Baseball was always so traumatic for me. The probability is that I would catch the ball with my head.
P.E. was not my best subject. It was fun in college, however, because the coaches actually coached as if there were something to actually learn. Too bad I did not know that until my last year.
But, I digress... If this were a game it would be some card game or board game without time limits, where the game is really just a facilitator of socializing. You can sit there with the ball in your hands for days, as you already do, and it will not bother me. I apologize for putting too much hyped-up enthusiasm on it being "your turn".
Any how, I really wanted to let you know that I am listening rather than just superficially pushing buttons for the hell of it.
Sincerely,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 355[Branch from no. 354] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, October 26, 2006 9:09am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. If this were a game, there wouldn't be lives at stake. But there are. It's more of an epic battle with irregular proportions. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 358[Branch from no. 355] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:57am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.What if it were the strategic maneuvers in preparation for an epic battle that effectively counters the opposing forces such that the battle is won without direct engagement? What if the engagement happens at the level of contemplation using knowledge, and wisdom, and insight of yourself and the perceived enemies in order to arrive at a better outcome than a battle? What if you make peace with the opposing forces, perhaps converting some of them into trustworthy allies whereby the integration of all these forces contributes to your ultimate betterment, sense of well being, and purposefulness?
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 360[Branch from no. 358] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, October 26, 2006 11:11am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. On a daily basis, changing one's opinions and feelings and thoughts and so on about any particular notion is to kill your previous way of being and give birth to a new way of being, albeit very similar to the previous but albeit notably different. We are the dying just as we are the living. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 361[Branch from no. 360] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 26, 2006 5:39pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.True enough. More specifically, we are all just the amount of oxygen dissolved in the blood getting to our brains away from death. Throughout a life, the continuum ranging between alive and dead is in flux. Sometimes one is aware of this, and sometimes one is not.
This is separate, however related, from our evolution as beings over time... day to day, changes throughout the day based upon the parts we play in life. Alternating in my experience as I write this to you. Lost in the moment; Aware of the time and my goal to watch the News Hour on PBS at six o'clock.
What you describe makes me think of how a tree grows. It adds new layers. Part of the new layer dies on the exterior becoming the protective bark; part of the new layer dies and becomes the new wood on the interior. On the inside layer, even this dead wood changes over time as more and more layers cover it. Eventually, the oldest of the dead wood is compressed and somewhat saturated by minerals and becomes the heart wood of the tree. You get the picture... even the most wonderful of trees consists mostly of dead wood.
I know... we are not trees... We can relocate ourselves.
Yes, we are dying as we are living; and, the only way to continue living is to continue dying.
Where do you see yourself on the continuum? Where would you like to be?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 362[Branch from no. 361] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, October 26, 2006 7:59pm Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians. It's a process. If your current self doesn't die off to give way to a newer version of self, you're never going to get anywhere. It's a process that happens every second of every minute of every hour of every day. We are ever-changing, whether we like it or not. The self of two seconds ago is not quite the self that we are now and the one two seconds from now is quite unlike the previous two. It's how humans survive, I think? Constantly building on experience. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 363[Branch from no. 362] Posted by John Barrett on Friday, October 27, 2006 11:27am Subject: Re: Warning to all Freudians.Hi,
That sounds right.
To drive the metaphor of the tree into the ground, too, failure to grow and experience the process therein leads to a stunted existence and eventual death from constriction.
The difficulty is incorporating experiences that we find less than ideal, or blatantly horrible experience we would rather had never happened, into our being such that they are no longer detrimental, and some potentially become valuable experiences.
The whole concept of life only possible through death is part of our collective cultural mythology. Snakes are a good example of what once was viewed with reverence, not to say people necessarily liked snakes as pets, because they embody some of the things we value. They shed their skin in a kind of re-birth, and they can theoretically put their tails in their mouths to make a circle. That particular detail I saw (not in person) in a base relief carving from a civilization predating Greece on what is now Crete.
When Christianity came along, of course, they had to assign new meaning to pagan symbols, incorporate their festivals, and in general succeeded pretty well in creating a rip in the fabric of our cultural heritage that makes understanding without the church as intermediary more difficult than maybe it was for people who could see life meaning in the snake. Obviously, too, Jesus had to die in order to achieve his purpose. Why is it that dying was necessarily part of the plan?
Maybe that is the starting point of some of what we think of as our modern dilemma. Maybe Christianity degraded some of the experience of the meaning of life in Western culture where we might see meaning symbolized in the world around us. Then, when for whatever reasons the religion fails to satisfy our quests for reason, we struggle to rediscover that which was common knowledge to our ancestors.
That takes us back to something you said a while back to which I responded with the bit about "pie in the sky". How does your relationship with the religion of your immediate family influence your self-concept?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 309 Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, October 16, 2006 3:09am Subject: Getting advised... Where do pre-psyche majors go to? I knew where to go until it turned out that the pre-majors have to go someplace else. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 312[Branch from no. 309] Posted by Louise Hviid on Monday, October 16, 2006 11:41pm Subject: Re: Getting advised... I am not sure but maybe the Excel Center at the UCC? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 325[Branch from no. 309] Posted by Jennifer Straker on Thursday, October 19, 2006 4:49pm Subject: Re: Getting advised... I got a card in the mail about the pre-psyche advisment. It's being held in the UCC Wednesday Oct. 25th, at 4:00 room 207. It also said to call the Excel Center to reserve a place for the advisement workshop. When I called, they said since I've already taken over 12 hours, that I can go ahead and be advised with the department like usual. She said it is focused more for freshman, so if you're a freshman pre-psyche major you REALLY need to attend this. If you are a sophomore or up, call the Psyche department to be advised. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 326[Branch from no. 325] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, October 19, 2006 6:14pm Subject: Re: Getting advised... I appreciate it. I haven't gotten anything, albeit because they're still sending stuff to my old address, and there's a bit of lag time between it getting their and the parents calling. Thanks, though. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 313 Posted by Mark Kunkel on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:22am Subject: Pre-psychology major workshop There have been a few questions about advising for those of you just getting started. If you are a beginning (first- or second-semester) who is planning on declaring your major in psychology at some point in the future, the Excel Center is putting on the following workshop (as described in this e-mail excerpt): The Pre-Psychology Advising Workshop is next Wednesday, the 25th @ 4:00 p.m. in 207 UCC. Our flyers had the wrong room number. If you could correct the flyer that is posted in your department, I would appreciate it. The room is UCC 207 instead of 312. **** Peace and four stories to you, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 314[Branch from no. 313] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:24am Subject: Re: Pre-psychology major workshop I am tired. What I meant to say was, There have been a few questions about advising for those of you just getting started. If you are a beginning (first- or second-semester) student who is planning on declaring your major in psychology at some point in the future, you may want to attend a workshop presented by the Excel Center (as described in this e-mail excerpt): The Pre-Psychology Advising Workshop is next Wednesday, the 25th @ 4:00 p.m. in 207 UCC. Our flyers had the wrong room number. If you could correct the flyer that is posted in your department, I would appreciate it. The room is UCC 207 instead of 312. **** Peace and four stories and meaningful language not including dangling modifiers to you, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 343[Branch from no. 313] Posted by Selina Tovar on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 4:44pm Subject: Re: Pre-psychology major workshop My flyer said 207 and when I made a reservation the person I spoke to said it is in room 312. So it is in room 207 ? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 344[Branch from no. 343] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 5:35pm Subject: Re: Pre-psychology major workshop Hi, Selina. I'm just out of my last class of the day and can't reach the Excel folks. All I know about the workshop is what I passed along...sorry, and I hope you find it. MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 315 Posted by Steven Shannon on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 12:30pm Subject: Upcoming test (26th) Im not sure if anyone agrees with me but if I were to guess I would say that most people do. As of right now being " in the game" I continue to be interested in everything we do in class involving all of the conversations and discussions we have. But even though we all now know what the tests your give are going to be like, would it be too much to ask if there was any way that we could get a study guide or review sheet showing what we need to know or study in order to be prepared for this test? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 316[Branch from no. 315] Posted by Lauren Bullington on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 12:46pm Subject: Re: Upcoming test (26th) I agree, that would help alot. I go to class and pay attention but my notes are kind of confusing. :) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 317[Branch from no. 316] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 3:46pm Subject: Re: Upcoming test (26th) Hi, folks. Thanks for your question, and I too sense the commitment and engagement behind it. As for study guides and review sheets, I don't know how else to help you here. How about this: 1. My tests are reliable (which is to say, consistent across time). So you may get a great feel for the flavor and form of the second test by reviewing the first. I'll ask the same sort of questions using similar blends of formats (short-answer, multiple choice, true/false, matching). 2. Stick with those notes, and with the "that would be a great test question, wouldn't it?" junctures in our conversation. I know, this sort of dialogue is new for many of you, weaned as you were on instructors who summarized your texts and read powerpoint slides aloud to you as if teaching and learning were occurring. What might seem meandering and "random" in my presentation is, I assure you, quite intentional and careful and yes, spontaneous. I get the sense that some of you are not spending too much time with your notes, both those you keep and those on WebCT, reviewing and rehearsing and wooing them. If you do that, if you try to catch and expand on and apply our class conversation, you'll see a great deal of structure in it and it will be less confusing for you. For example, I have a review session as I answer your questions at the beginning of every class. If you pay attention to the process and content of that part of our class you'll benefit a great deal. Study guides. Review sheets. 3. Practice "talking psychology talk" in your journals. Ask yourself every day if what you are saying about, if what light you are shining on, your experience is informed by psychology. If you're saying the same thing that you could have said years ago, if you're merely echoing the jargon from the class as if that's where light lived, you're not quite there yet. It has been my experience that people who write good (which is to say, lighted) journals and who come to class and who allow psychology to touch their lives do fine on the tests (of course, there are exceptions, hmm, and that's why we have points elsewhere). 4. The text is your friend. Although I don't teach from it per se, my presentation is organized around some of its presentation, and reading the text can help you a great deal with structure and organization and all that. 5. Please don't assume that psychology is the sort of discipline to surrender its meaning and shed its light in response to casual flirtation. You have to spend some time with it, to work with its ideas, to make them yours. Have you ever taken a friend to hear a favorite musical group and been a bit sad and perhaps frustrated when she responded, "I don't get it!" Have you ever wanted to say, "No, you don't...but you could...it will cost you, though, a bit of time and energy and investment." If you aren't spending an hour or so a day on your notes and the text you're probably not giving psychology its due. Have you noticed that I have yet to refer to a written note, and that we are over halfway through our journey? Can you tell that I take this seriously? Can you borrow some of that passion and commitment, and regardless of your own chosen discipline walk with me for a while in this light? Can you persuade yourself not to settle for a pasturized "cliff notes" version of stuff that deserves to be read fully? Maybe this is where I'm going: Psychology is not merely to be read, but to be read by. Spend some time with that sentence and see if you can be read by our discussion these days. All the best, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 320[Branch from no. 315] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 12:53pm Subject: Re: Upcoming test (26th) An actual problem I've been having is that there's a bit missing here and there... PSA, there's symbols, and then there's... something. Can't remember. A nice little 'map' of the four stories so far would be nice, I guess. Sometimes I try to go back through the notes, but the problem is that the notes are done by day... so, I have to go through all the notes to find what I want, because I'm not sure which days are about what. If not a summary of all that we've learned, maybe something to identify the notes a bit more easily... then again, that'd probably end up being little summaries beside the note links. Oh well. I dunno. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 321[Branch from no. 320] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 1:47pm Subject: Re: Upcoming test (26th) Okay....why don't I spend some time tomorrow responding to a class participation question with a thorough O, D, and E (and maybe some P and I) from the perspective of all four stories. Let's see if that helps. In the game with you, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 323 Posted by Whitney Lawrence on Thursday, October 19, 2006 2:04pm Subject: journals from what day on do we turn in our journals ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 324[Branch from no. 323] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Thursday, October 19, 2006 2:15pm Subject: Re: journals Hi, Whitney. The answer to this and all "dates" questions is to be found on WebCT. Follow the "course content" (blue backpack) tab to "Syllabus and Important Class Details," and you'll notice that #8 there is "Revised Tentative Schedule with Text Chapters." You may also have been asking about how much of your journal to turn in for review, and the answer to that question is all of it. That is, we'll be reviewing your entire journal each time (providing a context and sense of emergent engagement to contribute to our feedback and evaluation). MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 328 Posted by Aaron Miller on Thursday, October 19, 2006 11:08pm Subject: Review Session I was also looking for some feedback about thoughts on a "review session" for the test. Now, I would not be lecturing, or telling you what was on the test. What this would consist of is an opportunity for those interested to come with questions or concepts they would like clarified before the test. I know that Dr. Kunkel does this in class everyday so I wanted to post and ask if it would be helpful? It is nothing that Louise and myself don't already invite you to take up in office hours, but this might be another entry point for some of us to get in/back in the game. What are your thoughts? Thanks, Aaron ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 330[Branch from no. 328] Posted by Julia Gray on Monday, October 23, 2006 3:23pm Subject: Re: Review Session that sounds like it would be benifitial to me as well as probably some other student. Just let me know a time and ive got questions if you've got answers! thanks, Julia ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 331[Branch from no. 330] Posted by Kristi McMullen on Monday, October 23, 2006 4:28pm Subject: Re: Review Session I like the idea of a review session. All I need is a time and a place and I'll be there! Kristi McMullen ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 339[Branch from no. 328] Posted by Robert Kelly on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 9:42am Subject: Re: Review Session I would greatly benefit from a reveiw session. Time/Place and I will be there. Thanx ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 332 Posted by Brittany Bembry on Monday, October 23, 2006 7:07pm Subject: Why are the notes confusing Does anybody understand unkels notes, I try too go back and refer to them but they are more confusing then they are help. It would probably help if he typed in complete sentences. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 333[Branch from no. 332] Posted by Willie Pappas on Monday, October 23, 2006 8:42pm Subject: Re: Why are the notes confusing i used to think they were confusing also but i begin to break it down word by word and really think about what it was trying to tell me... then once that was done i tried applying them to my life by thinking of times i've done what they say or tried to create events in my head where they could happen... try that n see what you come up with ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 335[Branch from no. 332] Posted by John Barrett on Monday, October 23, 2006 9:43pm Subject: Re: Why are the notes confusing Hi, Complete sentences, complete thoughts, complete words, complete names... It's all relative. Like Willie says, if you review and think through what was being said, what may appear as missing parts or fragments are clues to link you to your memory. If you find yourself having trouble recalling later what was being said then you will have to review the notes earlier. Or, take notes yourself to augment Dr. Kunkel's work. That's what I do. There is really no effective alternative to paying attention to the details as you go along. John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 337[Branch from no. 335] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, October 23, 2006 11:27pm Subject: Re: Why are the notes confusing Hi there. I hope that the notes are not confusing, but one never knows about gifts. I attempt to write the sort of notes that might be a friendly but not overwhelming framework around which those attending class can arrange their own understandings. I write too much, and there's too much framework around which to build. Too little, and... Anyway, I'm reminded of a story (a good H/E/T story and a favorite of young Mark Kunkel's mother and of the old Mark Kunkel): The Parable of the Old Man, The Boy, and The Donkey There was an old man, a boy and a donkey. They were going to town and the boy was riding the donkey, with the old man walking alongside. As they rambled along, they passed some old women sitting in the shade. One of the women called out, ''Shame on you, a great lump of a boy, riding while your old father is walking." The man and boy decided that maybe the critics were right so they changed positions. Later they ambled by a group of mothers watching their young children play by the river. One cried out in protest, "How could you make your little boy walk in the hot sun while you ride!" The two travellers decided that maybe they both should walk. Next they met some young men out for a stroll. "How stupid you are to walk when you have a perfectly good donkey to ride!" one yelled derisively. So both father and son clambered onto the donkey, deciding they both should ride. They were soon settled and underway again. They next encountered some children who were on their way home from school. One girl shouted, "How mean to put such a load on a poor little animal." The old man and the boy saw no alternative. Maybe the critics were right. They now struggled to carry the donkey. As they crossed a bridge, they lost their grip on the confused animal and he fell to his death in the river. And the moral, of course, is that if you try to please everyone you will never know what to do, it will be hard to get anywhere, you will please no-one, not even yourself, and you will probably lose everything. ****** Good walking, riding, and carrying to you. MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 338[Branch from no. 337] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, October 23, 2006 11:31pm Subject: Re: Why are the notes confusing Oh, and by the way, a bit of university etiquette. You will find that almost all of us who teach at UWGa possess the Ph.D. or doctorate degree. This typically takes 5-7 years of additional toil beyond the bachelors and is a bit of an accomplishment for those who have earned it. Almost all of us will appreciate being addressed with courtesy, perhaps by our first names by those who know us well, but "Dr." is always appreciated. "Mr." and last names only are a bit trivializing, you know. "Dr." MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 334 Posted by William Hess on Monday, October 23, 2006 9:25pm Subject: Extra credit When is our extra credit paper due? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 336[Branch from no. 334] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, October 23, 2006 11:19pm Subject: Re: Extra credit Hi, William. Extra credit papers are an optional class component, so you may turn them in (or not) at any time. You may find details about how many you may turn in, and when, by consulting the syllabus and the "revised tentative class schedule" on the course content page. MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 340 Posted by Rakolya Morrison on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 12:13pm Subject: JOURNALS!!!!!!! Does anyone know about the contents in the journals? I need to know if I'm doing them correctly! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 346[Branch from no. 340] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 9:04pm Subject: Re: JOURNALS!!!!!!! its in the course content in the journal part they give you a checklist ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 342 Posted by Selina Tovar on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 4:35pm Subject: Extra Credit Do we need to quote, and cite where we got our research from for the extra credit ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 345[Branch from no. 342] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 5:37pm Subject: Re: Extra Credit Hi again, Selina. You need to include quotes in your paper only if you are importing directly (in a sentence or two or a block quotation) from another source. This is ordinarily not needed in a short extra-credit paper. Please do, however, include a reference to the homework you did to shine some psychology light. Best regards, MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 347 Posted by Sean Gallagher on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 11:22am Subject: Awarness Journals Does any one know when the journals are due? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 348[Branch from no. 347] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 12:03pm Subject: Re: Awarness Journals Go to Course Content(it's in the list of links on the left) then look at the tentative schedule. That's got a list of all due dates. Mahalo. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 349[Branch from no. 347] Posted by Selina Tovar on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 1:30pm Subject: Re: Awarness Journals They are due Nov 2 I believe ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 356 Posted by LaShondra Seastrunk on Thursday, October 26, 2006 9:36am Subject: Journals... Does anyone know if we have to turn in the journals from earlier in the semester with the ones that we are doing now?? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 357[Branch from no. 356] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:33am Subject: Re: Journals... Huh. Well, I always assumed that our journals were one big notebook kind of thing. I dunno if they wanna compare your past stuff to see how you're improving or if they just wanna grade the new stuff. No sense in grading stuff twice, right? I mean, they might like to see if you're improving... but I don't think it's required that you turn them both in. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 359[Branch from no. 356] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:59am Subject: Re: Journals...Yes. The journal includes the portion from the shaping review.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 364 Posted by John Barrett on Friday, October 27, 2006 11:46am Subject: Congressman FoleyThinking of the myriad of things that through time lead people to question the validity and reliability of the organized Church...
Did anyone else hear the telephone interview with the priest who Mark Foley said molested/raped him?
Apart from the unfortunate reaction of the Congressman suddenly discovering or revealing that he is homosexual, an alcoholic, and whatever else he is going to use in an attempt to deflect taking responsibility for his actions - and apart from the unfortunate correlation he makes between same-sex-attraction and some rather pathological behavior - this interview stands alone as an example of some very screwed-up thinking.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 365[Branch from no. 364] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Friday, October 27, 2006 2:28pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley Screwed up thinking? Nah... it's just complicated. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 366[Branch from no. 365] Posted by John Barrett on Friday, October 27, 2006 8:19pm Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyYes, you are right.
As soon as I clicked on send I thought of how judgmental I was being. I am remorseful, indeed.
That is more than could be said of the priest. He essentially hoped Mark Foley could put whatever it was that was bothering him in the past, and enjoy the memory of their happy times together. Of course, I wonder why the media has not seized this opportunity for expansion of the story. I guess the other kids the priest had good times with are not presently looking for a scapegoat for their own behavior, or the media would surely have found them by now. Or, it is possible that the priest is considered to be mentally unfit as a witness.
Or, maybe the media sees it the way the priest seems to: No penetration - no fascination. No lube - nothing on the tube. If only spit - you must acquit. Of naked back rubs - who gives a flying flub? Of swims in the skinny - doesn't mean you're getting' any. No lunch in the box - put on your socks.
It could be that the priest has hit upon something so practical that it is disarming. Just tell it like it was. Make no excuses. Admit no wrong doing. Make it sound just as ordinary, and yet as memorable, as something from a Country Time Lemonade commercial.
Thanks for keeping me in line,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 367[Branch from no. 366] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Friday, October 27, 2006 9:31pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley Yes... the priest acted as he did and acts as he did as a result of his past experiences, whether he be acting out an internal process or pairings or whatever. Foley, similarly, is just acting on his past experiences, albeit unconcious desires created at a young age or maybe pairing sex and love and all those things with grown men and so on. Maybe those experiences he had at a young age jump started his sexual growth, thus making him sexually attracted to those readily around him- kids. Furthermore, male kids, but anywho. You just can't blame a (wo)man for his/her actions, and you can't blame the person who caused them to be in such a way... it's all rooted, maybe, in mental illness or something. 'Normal' people wouldn't molest children, but due to mental illness, this and this happens, then that happens, and eventually someone molests a kid, and a cycle starts. Kinda like that influx of divorces after THE WAR that started a major trend. Parents get a divorce, kids are more likely to get a divorce. Man gets molested, more likely to molest, where did the molesting behavior come from? Complicated, maybe mental illness or snowball effect in passing down behaviors(nature/nurture). ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 368[Branch from no. 367] Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, October 28, 2006 8:17am Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyHi,
I see I have some research to do. Some to support your suggestions; some to question them.
The one item I believe I can easily find some data on pertains to the range of degrees a person who was molested is more likely than someone who was not molested to perpetuate molestation. An obvious problem with accuracy in any such study is going to be the likely lack of honesty of persons asked about their experiences.
Another question comes to mind, especially in the Mark Foley case, and that is the definition of molestation. It may very well be that Mark Foley is gay, as he now says he is; but, also, that he has always been gay and was, in fact, sexually attracted to the priest who was at the time of their encounters only 29 years old. Evidently, Foley was 13 at the time. I looked for an audio or a transcript of the telephone interview, did not find one, but of the handful of sources I read only one gave Foley's estimated age at the time, and that was 13.
Well, hum? I recall being attracted to a late twenty-something when I was about 13. However, in our culture we are even beginning to define "underage" sexual encounters involving young boys and adult women as criminal. That is opposed to the "Right on!" sort of attitude that used to accompany boys and sex.
I am not separating myself from my culture on this point, although a generic line such as an eighteenth birthday is not a best answer, it at least offers some reinforcement to older people to not engage in sex with people who probably should not be sexually active with "adults".
In Foley's case, from the connections he made upon his resignation, I gather he is trying to have others make some sympathetic connection between his experience as a boy and his attraction to boys. Something closer to the truth is to simply say that he likes young boys. It really strikes me as deliberate, if unconscious, behavior of self-destruction.
In our culture we do not make the same comparisons between heterosexual and homosexual encounters; however, it would seem that if he simply liked hot young guys there are plenty of them of legal age who would have been quite happy to be his, whatever. Even among this "adult" range of men, some look older and some look younger than others. I could not pass for twenty-one until I was about twenty-six. On a trip to Washington, D.C. when I was about 16, one of the other guys on the trip looked about 26. Even looking back with all my life experience I cannot think of ever seeing a man that young look so physically mature. Point is that there is plenty of candy in the store of legal age. And, from what has been disclosed it looks to me like he was trying to entice rather than using overt power. I suspect his self-hatred finally prevailed; but, where did these feelings originate? I guess that's why he is in therapy now.
It could be that in circa 1969 Foley had no real definition for what the relationship was. Maybe, too, as you suggest, the priest was only behaving in a way that was perfectly natural to him, too. It could be that nobody else has come forward as having a similar experience with the priest because he was not, in fact, behaving as a predator so much as he was a doorway into the gay experience for others who have no complaints. Or, maybe Foley was a special case. It is very difficult to turn back the clock to 1969 and look at this without inserting our bias of 2006.
Regardless of all the details of the Priest/Foley relationship, the way Foley tried to conceal his real self behind the facade of some of the things he worked toward as a Congressman, speaking here of official business, and then having this sudden urge to disclose, as opposed to disrobe, really shows an unfortunate reality of incongruence.
Unfortunately, any Mark Foley experienced a different time and place than what most of us in this class experience. Sadly, his lack of courage seems to still accompany him.
One more comment is that I am suspect a few, at least one or two, of kids working for Congress did have sex with Foley. You don't go work in Washington at 16 because you lack ambition. Foley probably had a few successful liaisons, perhaps a few lesions by now, and he got careless. Or, perhaps he simply became more self-destructive. Then he got caught, then after a considerable amount of time he got in trouble. Then he immediately started looking for scapegoats.
It is interesting to note, however, how this illustrates that sexuality is in the mind rather than the other parts people often link to sexuality. Otherwise, how could somebody without any balls be gay?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 369[Branch from no. 368] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Saturday, October 28, 2006 12:54pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley Well, the overall jist of what I'm saying, homosexual activity isn't something we're born with(apparently, some of us have a tendency towards it depending on ear shape, finger length... haven't looked that up, but yeah), but I don't think we're born from day one with a homosexual agenda. Similarly, I think that we are born with a very very strong tendency towards the opposite sex, as a basic survival tactic. However, these things aren't set in stone, obviously, just as we are able to grow older and do things detrimental to our survival: suicide, antisocial behavior, so on. However, just like we aren't born with a homosexual agenda, we're not born towards a heterosexual lifestyle. Keeping in tune, then, with the human race's overall ability to quickly and constantly adapt to their environments and life, it's what we do. I think that sexuality, aside from a survival tactic, would be best explained with the PSA story and the Existential story. It probably has something to do with unconcious desires and a meaning making experience. You know? Molestation occurred early on in life, hailstones with love and sex and so on have men and young boys in them. Or as an Existential experience, this is MY body, MY life, MY sexuality, I CHOOSE to be attracted to WHATEVER sex I WANT to. With Foley, however, I think it more has to do with the PSA story than anything, since he apparently had a good bit of that happening to him as a child. As for the priest, I'm making an assumption that he's a Catholic priest. If this holds true, well, then the reason for him molesting young boys has the most to do with the drive thing we talked about. Since Catholics are required to hold off sex forever, their sex drive builds and builds. Just as having no food for long enough can lead to cannibalism, a lack of sexual pleasure can probably lead to other stuff: rape, child molestation, so on. I think. I dunno, exactly, it's all rather complicated, and I don't really do research like you do. :/ Dial-up and all makes it unrelentingly frustrating. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 370[Branch from no. 369] Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, October 28, 2006 2:18pm Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyHey,
One thing I can absolutely agree with you about is that dial-up makes Internet research difficult.
Some of the items you mention I can look for some psychologically relevant information about. First, however, is something for you to think on that I find very interesting, very telling, and for which I do not anticipate finding pro or con evidence...
What is meant by the homosexual "lifestyle"? This is some research on my own.
What does lifestyle mean?
What about lifestyle modifies homosexual?
Where did this reference originate and why?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 371[Branch from no. 369] Posted by John Barrett on Saturday, October 28, 2006 4:10pm Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyHi,
I did some research. What I am left with is a sense of feeling deeply disturbed for a number or reasons. First, thanks to things such as PET scans it is much easier to convince policy makers of biological bases for certain "disorders". The double edge to this is the resulting tendency to disregard the individual's life experience. This double edge then has at least two major aspects. One, policy makers, such as insurance providers, justify using drugs alone to treat the biological disorder despite the continually arising fact that a demonstrable biological correlation also leaves a large portion of those with the disorder out of the mix. For example, consider if a PET scan, perhaps along with genetic research, could show fifty percent of people with a disorder have a biological aspect causing the disorder. That leaves the other half of the people unexplained. Furthermore, the correlations between PET scans and genetics are typically far less than 50% judging from the various sources I just read on Scholar Google.
The second disadvantage the second edge of the sword offers is that it devalues something you and I evidently share and that is the concept of personal choice as critical to being human. Likewise, leading people to an understanding that their problems are biological, can be classified as a disease or something akin to a disease, contributes to some problems we already see in society of people not taking responsibility for their actions. The "I can't help it" syndrome, which is part of Mark Foley's take on his actions, is annoying at best. Moreover, the feeling that something cannot be helped will only contribute to the sense of Learned Helplessness that can turn a potentially graspable dilemma into a very deep chasm of depression thus exacerbating the original problem.
The second part of my feeling of disturbance comes from the essential problems that grow from the very human tendency to ride a pendulum from one extreme to another. Think of all the unfortunate consequences a general acceptance of a problem being of genetic origin creates. It clearly takes Choice off the table, too.
The third disturbing thing that I found in my perusal of the research is how things such as alcoholism, violence, and homosexuality popped-up over and again in the same sentence. In other words, even the researchers who are sympathetic to the issues I take with biology as the underlying reason for everything exhibit an attitude, whether they meant to do so or not, that equates homosexuality with concepts that I believe are rightly kept separate. How can someone equate homosexuality with violence? Alcoholism?
In response to your concept that biology would almost necessarily dictate that heterosexuality is the, and I do not want to over state what you imply, biologically most correct way of being I offer another possibility. It is possible that homosexuality plays an important role in evolution. Just as heterosexual people who are infertile can contribute to the tribe by augmenting the ability to provide nurturing for the young, a certain number of adults who are not reproducing because they are not putting things in the right places contribute to the production/nurturing capacity of the tribe. I feel quite comfortable asserting the possibility that homosexuality, in fact, does offer a biological advantage.
Because I did not see a reference in my research putting forth my theory, I will lay it out here. It is not a theory so much as a way of understanding. It goes back to the continuum concept I mentioned yesterday. I do not think it is anything new or groundbreaking; but my analogy is different that anything I have seen elsewhere.
We are all on a continuum of relative homosexuality or heterosexuality. Obviously, most people are much closer to the heterosexual extreme. That is the biological part. Then, at some point admittedly something causes a certain twist, I even dare to say "perversion" in the physics sense of the word, causing a person to experience sexual attraction to their same sex. If you give it a little thought, this is really not difficult to picture. It is not that different from the root of prejudice and subsequent racism that we discussed in class. Close your eyes and imagine an intruder in your home. Does that person look like you? Imagine what the person you are most attracted to looks like. Does that person share some of you more easily described non-sexual physical features? Taking that exercise a bit further, then is it really that difficult that one might find sexual attraction in someone who shares the same indicators of sexuality?
Here is my analogy of the sexual orientation continuum, or any continuum for that matter...
I do not see myself this way, but people describe me as being fair skinned. An oral surgeon made that observation when I was a teenager and he was going to remove my wisdom teeth. He said I could anticipate swelling in a big way because fair skinned people swelled more. I don't know about the truth of that, but my brother had swelled very badly with the removal of just one or two wisdom teeth, so even if he simply did not have the same level of observation of darker skinned people it seemed likely that I, too would look like a big chipmunk after the surgery.
Here is a good aside on meditation... I meditated on this quite a bit, hardly swelled at all, and only took one pain pill out of the twenty or so prescribed, thus astonishing the doctor.
Well, I had also told him that I was not all that fair skinned. It was the end of summer and I had a great tan, so I thought, but he assured me I had a fair complexion.
Here, at last, is the analogy... I tan very easily and rarely burn. Those pigmentation cells just kick right in with little provocation, so I can look sickly white by the spring, and be nicely protected from the sun in no time at all. Genetics gave me genes I appreciate that make this fair skinned white boy tan easily, and therefore I rarely sunburn. Other people as white as I am do not tan, and when they do their skin screams "sun damage".
On the continuum, some people are more likely than others, even in the exact same circumstances (which is, of course, impossible) to develop in a given way. For some people, the most sexually abusive of childhoods, which is of course what many like to think causes homosexuality since it allows us to feel for the person without divulging the possibility to ourselves or others that we understand a little better that we like to admit, do not cause a person to become homosexual. Some people cannot think of anything to attribute their homosexuality to relevant to their upbringing. Some people, of all orientations, feel overt sexuality at an earlier age than others. Some people are aware of homosexuality as a concept at an earlier age than others and have a sort of epiphany that they found a word that explains their sense of something different about themselves. Some people make it into adulthood just going along with the masses before they have the "ah ha" revelation.
The fortunate thing for our current time and place, is that people have enough freedom to make it a reasonable expectation that if they want to "come out" they can. Marriages of convenience are no longer necessary.
When I take that concept a little further and discuss the responsibility of freedom of choice with either homosexual or heterosexual people I make enemies easily when I assert that homosexuality is, and read this carefully, more of a choice that people like to admit.
Representative Foley made the choice to remain closeted, elusive, and to portray a facade in opposition to his true self. He probably did not feel much freedom to be gay and still be able to live the rest of his life as he wanted when he came of age at a time when gay bars were routinely raided by police. The unfortunate thing is that as a Congressman, as a "leader", he, like so many elected "leaders", is not really a leader but merely adept at winning elections. He chose to dig his grave deeper and deeper until the wall caved and he fell in. In our time and place, it is quite conceivable that he could have worked this out with himself, made a public announcement because he has a public constituency, and said, in effect, "take it or leave it". Instead he chose to continue the charade, and that is unfortunate because his doing so ultimately comes to no purpose for himself or anybody else. His immediate response of trying to link his behavior to his experience as a child, and his alcoholism to that, simply serves to further reduce his chances for redemption in the eyes of anyone, and especially himself.
Perhaps when he gets a little better he can go shoplifting with some folks from Hollywood who share his need for self defeat, but in a way more self focused and less harmful to others.
There you go... Nature/Nurture... Do we really want to know?
Homosexuality and pedophilia... two different things.
Homosexuality... Calling it a disorder, even indirectly, is dangerous. Just ask the homosexual survivors of Nazi Germany. Oh, wait a minute, they killed them all before they even got started on Jews. Kind of makes you wonder about that little part Jew, short, unattractive, dark haired Hitler guy, doesn't it?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 372[Branch from no. 371] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Saturday, October 28, 2006 10:40pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley Well, a PET scan, in the sense that concerns all this, shows brain activity or a lack thereof, right? So, there's this example in the book, I can't remember where exactly it is, but they did PET scans or something of that nature of cab drivers and they found that this and that part of the brain was more active compared to most other people, or something like that. Here's a link to the story, not in the same words and all, but eh, it's the same story. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/677048.stm Basically, our environment apparently affects our brain growth. So, sexual stimulation, romantic stimulation, so on, at an early age where our windows for language and stuff is very large, maybe this leads to, from the biological wiring, a change in brain structure. Again, though, if we so choose it, as the cab drivers sort of do, it is possible to stimulate our brain growth in different directions- our environment affects our growth but so do we, if we choose to. "I can't help it" is more like, "This is very, very difficult for me to change" and of course, it is. Which, this is where I stand by my notion that we as humans can not do everything on our own, no matter how smart or strong we as individuals may be. They really may not be able to help it, so it takes some nudging and nurturing and caring and helping from the outside world to change things. Of course, they may have just given in and said, "Well, this is how I am! I can't change it! There's no point in changing it! This is my natural way of being!" Ah, but maybe not... maybe they're just avoiding their existential responsibility. How can someone equate homosexuality and violence and alcoholism? Well, it's pretty simple to equate violence and alcoholism... but are people inherently and biologically violent and alcoholic? Maybe not. Maybe alcohol is a good way to close oneself from a world who hates who you are... a homosexual. Or maybe, being a violent homosexual would be a good way to strike at these things which aren't what you want to strike at, but they're the closest. Or maybe, the scientists all suffer deeply from being unable to control confirmational bias. Or maybe the scientists are right. Who knows? It's very complicated and hard to prove one way or another... and hey! It's not about being right, it's about being curious about the nature of being or something. Now, in terms of heterosexuality working biologically... I'm not looking at what works for an individual or a family or tribe, you see, I'm putting it on par with the human race. Are most humans homosexual? Obviously not, we would have a notably smaller population. So, biologically, homosexuality doesn't work for us. It's complicated, but from that side of the story, that's that, I think. Maybe. I dunno. But yes, I would say that heterosexuality is the 'proper' state of being, unless a few hailstones are mixed in with other things or you start a meaning making with life, the universe, and everything that involves saying, "Oh, so most everyone does this? Yeah, well I, Me, MYSELF, I do THIS." Homosexuality, then, isn't an 'incorrect' way of being, it's just another way of being. Biologically it may not make any sense, but there are other stories that explain it, and maybe homosexuality is just problem-solving or meaning- making. And all your analogyness and stuff... yeah, to sum it up, it sounds like homosexual tendency. Or heterosexual tendency. Some of us have a tendency towards certain things. And then our environment affects us a bit, the way we were born affects us a bit, and what we ourselves think affects us a bit. So it's all a combination of what we're born with, our experiences as a human being and the environment these occur in, and what we end up with is what we think of all this: and so, the choice. Go with the flow, be yourself, or go against the river. Be straight because society says so, be straight/gay/lesbian because you are, be homosexual because you want to go against the world. I have a brother who is mentally immature and heavily addicted to cocaine, though currently in jail. My father's an alcoholic who binge drinks. My mother's a very violent woman who cusses a bit too much and doesn't give her kids the love they might need when they need it. My stepfather's a violent black-hating, homosexual-hating hater. Both my genes and my environment aren't apparently ideal for a person to end up as... I am. Yet I am as I am. They ended up the way they are, not directly because of genetics or experiences or what they thought of it all... but an unfortunate combination of it all. So there you have it. Of course, again, this world is hardly the epitome of sense-making. After all, it's just a shoddy representation of my own mental capacities exemplified into a pseudo-physical mock-up of what I'd like reality to be. Or so my solliptsims tell me. So of course I'd end up this way against all odds. It'll make a great story to tell on VH1 when I'm a rich and famous musician. Foley didn't dig himself a deeper and deeper grave or cave or any such thing, really. He is just a human doing as a human does. He's never lived life before, so far as we can tell, so he couldn't possibly know any better. He hasn't made any mistakes, just... lived life and learned from it and still learning from it. He's like a hurt animal that's just doing what he's learned to do, and can't figure out my everyone's hating him for it. So much for self- actualization. We have a natural direction and then we have a direction nurtured into us. Homosexuality and pedophilia... different concepts, same roots, maybe. It's complicated. There are no disorders. Only different ways of being human with other humans, who may decide your actions are out of order. We all want to bring order to a chaotic existance, but my idea of order is not your idea of order is not Foley's idea of order is not Dr. Kunkel's idea of order is not Melissa N.'s idea of order is not Foley's priest's idea of order is not the Pope's idea of order. Hitler tried to do what the French tried to do and what the Russians tried to do and what some Greek philosophers wanted to do and what America tries to do. We all try. It's really, really complicated, though. Maybe in the end, all we're doing is trying to promote the survival of our own individual genes, whether they be superior or not. Dunno, way too complicated. People are really, really complicated. Albeit, too complicated for any human to understand, completely, any other human, and the why behind their actions and behavior. If it's a science, it's an incomprehensible science. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 377[Branch from no. 372] Posted by John Barrett on Sunday, October 29, 2006 9:11pm Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyHi,
The very positive thing to come from this exchange is that you have divulged a little of your life experience which I appreciate your sharing.
Your direct response itself would probably benefit from a little more research; but now that I understand the Internet world is a lengthy download away from you much of the time I will give you some slack on that. Some other aspects I am not going to belay as it is perfectly fine with me if we agree to disagree on some perspectives. I suspect you did not quite catch my drift in a couple of places, and I may not be catching yours. Thus, the advantage of talking in person at some point is still desirable.
Items I do feel compelled to address include equating homosexuality with pedophilia, and linking homosexuality too closely to alcoholism and violence by putting the three words together in a single title of a paper are actions that carry implicit judgements that say "homosexuality: bad" which is inherently non-curious. Do you see what I mean? Alcoholism and violence toward others are maladaptive behaviors that are injurious. Including the word "homosexual" in line with these maladaptive behaviors makes a statement implying homosexuality in general is maladaptive. That is not my take on the subject.
More interestingly, the articles I referenced were not actually speaking in terms of homosexuality as maladaptive. My observation was more about a blind carelessness on the part of the writer whereby this link was made even though it is not overtly part of that person's concept. It is a careless use of language, is really what I am getting at, and what comes out when the writer is not watching is revealing at the very least of societal norms and possibly of biases on the part of the writer. What I saw looked more like societal norms, some linkages that people are so used to hearing that they don't really notice precisely what is being said. It is akin to what Dr. Kunkel said in class about women whose boyfriends refer to them as "girls". It is language to which we are jaded, and we easily overlook what is really being said although when we stop and take a careful look, if we are willing to look the truth in the eye, we have to question the motive for the word choice. If you want to know more about what the word choice conveys just ask... this is getting a bit too long.
There is one more post from me preceding this one that asked about the "homosexual lifestyle". I would like to hear more about that, especially since you used another loaded term that seems about as polite as one can be when a person says it, but it, too, carries an implicit judgmental quality. "Homosexual tendency" is like something one hears in rumor mongering on a sophisticated playground or a typical office. It's just a nicer way of saying someone is acting faggy.
The truth of the persons sexual preference, in my experiences of hearing this and similar terms such as "latent homosexual", is of no real consequence to the persons talking about the faggy one. "Latent homosexual" is a more sophisticated and psychological talkish-sounding phrase that is outmoded, doesn't appear to mean very much, but still sounds better in more elevated conversations that "faggy". It also leaves open less the window whereby one might ask how the other knows so much about homosexual tendency. Sounding more "clinical" is a defense to interrogation.
Each of the aforementioned phrases convey just a bit of meanness that has to do with acknowledging differences that cause a sense of jealousy or envy. In high school, for example, the boy who is bonding more easily with girls for reasons that some other boys do not want to acknowledge become jealous and envious so the explanation most friendly to their self-perception, the one that does not call their own appealingness to the girls they like into question, is that the boy is a fag. Then, you can move up the scale from the hateful sounding "faggot" to "fag" and on up to what the more gifted students who feel too threatened by disagreeing with the assessment will say, "homosexual tendencies", and the one's who are really literate say, "latent homosexual".
On the pedophilia part, I will again look, and more diligently this time, for some reliable data on the perpetrators and their histories. I have to say that your assessment that the different concepts may have the same root almost knocked me out of my chair. Would you like to revisit that one?
I suppose it says a lot about me that what I tend to dissect so carefully is word choice. Of all the topics in your response the only ones I want to continue for now have to do with language. Seeing as how language is what we use to communicate, however, I contend that our language is, by necessity and by default, of supreme importance.
Let me hear, if you will, please, about "homosexual lifestyle" when you get a chance. I suppose it is obvious that I find great fault with that phrase. Also, I want to hear more about how it is that you emerged from your childhood as a man of advanced humanity, and where you are at present. Feel free, too, to introduce any topic you wish.
It's been a busy weekend for me. I'm feeling about fagged-out, and I don't know what time it is supposed to be. I wish I could remember whether I should get up earlier or later than usual tomorrow. Whew! Too fagged-out to think.
Having a little fun,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 378[Branch from no. 377] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, October 29, 2006 10:08pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley Homosexual tendency is heterosexual tendency is violent tendencies is pacifist tendencies. Nature versus nurture. Naturally, we may have a tendency towards a certain way of being... lifestyle... so on. We may be nurtured towards a certain way of being, lifestyle, so on. We may naturally be gay, but nurtured elsewhere. We may be naturally straight, but something 'nurtures' us in a different direction. We are born with this body and mind, we experience the world, then we think about it. These three things make who we are. We are influenced partially by our experience, make sense of it through what we're born with, and then, we're human, and we put all that together. A person may tend towards homosexual activity... or not. It's very complicated and you can't look at it on a human race kind of scale, I don't think, because from the biological story it would say, "Oh no, they've got to be straight, it's what works for them." You have to look at it person to person, because people are insanely complicated, see? We each build off of experiences but are born with a, maybe, neutral way of being. We nurture being heterosexual because it promotes survival. However, there are peculiar experiences that changes us in this department. There are other experiences that we can go through that society doesn't expect that changes us for better or for worse. It's not a natural way of being, just as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Existentialist, Atheist, Agnostic, Nihilist are all not natural ways of being. They're ways of being after experience. They are not necessarily 'right' or 'wrong', because those are moral judgements, and in the grand scheme of things, all survival techniques fail in the end, because life and existence do not continue on indefinitely. The world has to end sometime, as does the solar system, universe, galaxy, atom, so on. Now, latent homosexual just seems like a completely different phrase than what I'm trying to use. it sounds like, basically, someone's in the closet, which isn't what I'm talking about at all. The best way to picture what I'm trying to comprehend is a number line, with the negatives on the left and positives on the right. Homosexual on the left, heterosexual on the right. We have a certain tendency to either one. Maybe, naturally, we are born with this tendency- maybe some people are born with a tendency towards homo- or heterosexual behavior. Maybe. I dunno. It's complicated. However, society, individual people, overall, our experiences, the nurture side of it all, nudges it towards one side or the other. So let's say nature is a -7 homosexual, nurture is 10 heterosexual. Balance that out, you've got a person who's not so sure of himself, who's right in the middle. I'd say he's 17-20 something years old, so then, the choice making comes into play: what does he want to do? So then, the choice is his, since his body's not going through crazy changes and he is his own man. Then, you throw into play other things: molestation, things of that nature. I've noticed that people who are molested at a young age, go into traumatic experiences at a young age, tend to act... similarly, per se. Talk to a young lady, a woman even, and if she has a 'little girl' voice, you can probably infer something very traumatic happened to her at a young age, albeit molestation or something, especially if she likes to tag on bi or curious or even full-blown lesbian onto her sexual orientation. What I'm saying is not that homosexuality = molestation or rape or hypersexual activity, but that molestation = homosexuality or hypersexual activity, hate begets hate, love creates love, so on, so forth. I wouldn't say that homosexuals are very sexual, but I would say that a male couple would be more sexual over the years than a female couple. It's all relative in the end, I'd say. Nothing's more important than anything else, but everything does affect everything else. And about homosexual lifestyle... did I say that? Nah... I had said homosexual agenda... and heterosexual lifestyle. See? Using different words to try to culminate what the overall meaning was, since it was hard to convey without using tendency, which you seem to have damned into some other sort of usage. Overall meaning: tendency, but my usage, not yours. And about me, I have ended up this way, which is certainly not advanced humanity, by having a miserable life and going into internet chat rooms and 'dating' older women via the internet all through middle school and trying to help this poor girl who'd been molested at a young age come to terms with her sexuality and trying to stop my peers from killing themselves and bringing myself up from the least popular kid to the most popular kid without losing any friends and becoming the best crash cymbal player any marching band has seen while trying to woo the hearts of many women while only finding love in one but due to a number of laws in place against old versus young relationships finding myself at odds with the government. That's the short story, I suppose. The even shorter story is, I found I hated life, hated being, hated people, yet found that I could love living beings, understand why people hate, and ultimately found that, even if there isn't more to life, if you don't live life lying about it, you go through life basically dying. Also, the hustle was a major component in my making it through life. And philosophy. And wrecking an SUV. And a love-making experience with video games. Lots of suicidal thoughts. Fishing. Learning about ramen, religion, hypocrites and 2pac. I could write an even shorter story, but all in all, it's a long and complicated story that has a lot to do with nothing, really. Nothing, nothing, nothing. With Jesus Christ not being my savior, but rather, Nietzche, Zarathustra, Heindeigger, Albert Camus, and Monsieur Antichrist helping me the most. If there aren't other people kinda like you, you've no reason to live, because you've no one to live with, even if it's just in your head. Also, harmonica. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 380[Branch from no. 378] Posted by John Barrett on Sunday, October 29, 2006 11:54pm Subject: Re: Congressman FoleySo, you have a tendency, some essence, that motivates you to find ways of understanding your life, of making meaning of it, and expressing yourself in ways that bring you.....?
Free associate. Give me your words.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 382[Branch from no. 380] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, October 30, 2006 8:57pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley It's not about understanding life anymore. It's about coming to terms with the fact that there is no apparent way to understand the why. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 383[Branch from no. 382] Posted by John Barrett on Monday, October 30, 2006 9:58pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley The WHY of WHAT? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 384[Branch from no. 383] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, October 30, 2006 10:52pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley The why of life, the universe, and everything, of course. Which, any human can find to be 42, but soon find the answer to be completely absurd. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 385[Branch from no. 384] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 4:09am Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyRefresh my memory... was it a human that came up with 42?
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 386[Branch from no. 385] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 10:06am Subject: Re: Congressman Foley A human wrote the book, made the people, the people made the computer, and the computer supplied the answer. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 388[Branch from no. 386] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 5:30pm Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyTo what degree would you say the characters waiting on the answer were aware of their reality as products of the author's imagination and the reader's suspension of disbelief?
John
PS I was pleased to hear from Dr. Kunkel in class this morning that you scored highly on the test. This was not surprising, of course. I realize you are not in this to earn my compliments. I appreciate, however, that time management and prioritizing are difficult considering that you are taking other classes, and working, too. Tests results are not always reflective of one's devotion, motivation, et cetera, and that explains why your passage toward the great reward (of a good grade in this class) makes the whole world like the intro to David Lynch's Blue Velvet.
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 389[Branch from no. 388] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 8:19pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley About as aware as we are of God's true intentions and master plan. P to the S Thanks. Or maybe I do all this to gain the recognition and respect and prestige of which I am constantly in need thanks to being stuck in that level of actualization in the pyramid... or maybe I'm... orally fixated, I think it is...? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 390[Branch from no. 389] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 9:27pm Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyWhere/How would you place yourself regarding the following statements?
I write the book.
I read the book.
I am a character in the book.
I am a book seller.
I am a book critic.
I do not read.
I think this line of questions is pointless.
I hate metaphors.
I like metaphors and find them useful.
And so forth...
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 391[Branch from no. 390] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 10:09pm Subject: Re: Congressman Foley Right between I Am and I Am Not, preceding Is Here There? and proceeding after Where To If There Is No Why Not? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 392[Branch from no. 391] Posted by John Barrett on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 10:48am Subject: Re: Congressman FoleyFancy footwork. How does it engage?
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 542[Branch from no. 392] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 3:12am Subject: Re: Congressman Foley From the front, like all proper assault missions. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 373 Posted by Julia Gray on Sunday, October 29, 2006 9:54am Subject: journals could anyone tell me how many journals we are supposed to have because i have 20 and im wondering if that is enough or sufficient. Thanks ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 374[Branch from no. 373] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, October 29, 2006 10:44am Subject: Re: journals I dunno, personally, but I only had about five or six last time around and I don't think that's one of the things they liked about it. I'd say if your entries are about two pages each, sure, but if each one is a one page entry, I'd knock it on up and add ten more, at least. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 375[Branch from no. 374] Posted by Julia Gray on Sunday, October 29, 2006 1:31pm Subject: Re: journals yeah thats what i thought but someone told me that we were supposed to have like 20 is that true or what ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 376[Branch from no. 375] Posted by Leigh Sewell on Sunday, October 29, 2006 5:39pm Subject: Re: journals I think we are at least supposed to have one entry per class meeting. So whatever that makes it should be right. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 379[Branch from no. 375] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Sunday, October 29, 2006 11:28pm Subject: Re: journals I think that they want you to show that you understand the four stories and can apply them to your everyday life more than they want a whole lot of entries. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 381[Branch from no. 379] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, October 30, 2006 6:57am Subject: Re: journals Good morning, everyone. The syllabus "map" is your best guide here. Here's an excerpt regarding the self- awareness journal: You will want to begin, following our first class meeting, to keep an “awareness journal.” This class component is intended to help you build bridges between the class material (readings, classroom conversation) and your personal experience. We will try every day to identify possible ways in which the class material might help you see your experience in a new way, and we’ll also give you some assigned topics for your journal.... This class component is intended to reflect your long-term and increasingly informed involvement in applying psychological understanding to what you would otherwise not. We will give full journal credit to people whose journals reflect long-term (that is, "following our first class meeting" and continuing to the present) and psychologically informed ("...build[ing] bridges") work. So, lots of entries, and lots of psychology talk, hmm? MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 387 Posted by James Pritchett on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 10:24am Subject: keep up the good work!!!! I just wanted Mr. Kunkel to know that my girlfriend is a senior in high school and she knows more about general psychology than I do....keep it up!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 393[Branch from no. 387] Posted by Vivian Miller on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 6:38pm Subject: Re: keep up the good work!!!! ...??? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 394[Branch from no. 393] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 8:28pm Subject: Re: keep up the good work!!!! Yeah... I don't get it either. Ah well. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 395[Branch from no. 394] Posted by Eric Mooney on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 8:59pm Subject: Re: keep up the good work!!!! wow...thats all i have to say wow.... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 397[Branch from no. 387] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:37am Subject: Re: keep up the good work!!!! little harsh don't you think... critizing our professor on the class bulletin ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 400[Branch from no. 397] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, November 2, 2006 1:29am Subject: Re: keep up the good work!!!! Well, I wouldn't call it harsh. Maybe a very bad move on his part in respect to his grade. Maybe he just worded that wrong. There's a reason for his actions... it's just kinda complicated. First, we could give him the benefit of the doubt, and it was the wording... he just said it wrong. Second, we could be crazy and apply psychology to the situation. Maybe it has to do with drives and motivation and all... maybe the test was just the last straw that made him pick up the loudest crying baby... responding to his grades in this class. So, then, he says this. And that drive goes back to normal. Perfectly understandable. I mean, there are worse ways he could have satisfied his drive thing. Like running over 'cats'.... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 396 Posted by Eric Mooney on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 9:01pm Subject: Blue shirt Why do yall think Mr. Kunkel wears a blue shirt everday?...i think he does it because he wore it one day and something good happened so he paired the blue shirt with something good happening. He learned a new pairing. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 398[Branch from no. 396] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:43am Subject: Re: Blue shirt Well, I think that it's because we're pairing the blue shirt with psychology so when we take tests it helps us remember or something. So maybe, it's cognitive behaviorism, because he's telling himself a story(the psychology story) and this affects his behavior. From the biological story, I would infer that with his blue shirt and khakis, he's blending into the wall behind him which is blue and white. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 399 Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, November 2, 2006 1:15am Subject: fungi Are shrooms in season or something? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 401[Branch from no. 399] Posted by Kathryn McCullough on Thursday, November 2, 2006 2:35am Subject: Re: fungi i don't really knwo the answer to this... why do you ask? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 404[Branch from no. 399] Posted by Pamela Mikell on Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:08pm Subject: Re: fungi I don't know the answer to this either, but I definately see why you asked! I read the last few posts (several times) and am completely lost!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 402 Posted by Jeffrica Hunter on Thursday, November 2, 2006 10:28am Subject: Tobin Hart's Paper Where is Tobin Hart's paper. I mean I know it's on Webct, but I'm unable to locate it. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 403[Branch from no. 402] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Thursday, November 2, 2006 10:47am Subject: Re: Tobin Hart's Paper In course content, it's 27.1. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 405 Posted by Pamela Mikell on Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:38pm Subject: Re: Exam 2 "Questions with [...] struggled With regard to #20... I'm shocked that Dr. Kunkel would refer to 62% of the class as 'cretins and slackers', although I understand some of his frustration. For those of you who won't bother to notice or too busy to realize you're being insulted, look it up if you don't know what it means. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 406[Branch from no. 405] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Thursday, November 2, 2006 1:47pm Subject: Re: Exam 2 "Questions with [...] struggled Hi, Pamela. "Subliminal" stimuli are those that are intended to sneak under the perceptual radar and not be perceived, and at least as in the class examples (of the "Subliminal Man" skits from SNL) frequently have a humorous component. The "add points" and "give them points" and "read the book" subliminal companions were intended to be humorous as well. Alas, humour and electronics... Yes, sometimes the work of a teacher is frustrating, but I would not insult you (or any of your classmates) for the world...it's not my style. I apologize for any unintended slight. MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 407[Branch from no. 405] Posted by John Barrett on Thursday, November 2, 2006 6:54pm Subject: Re: Exam 2 "Questions with [...] struggled includes attachmentHi Pamela,
My initial response impulse to your observation did not include a reply. It did not cross that threshold. Additionally, Dr. Kunkel's reply seemed sufficient. Then I remembered my last journal entry for what we turned-in today. I attached it only to substantiate that the basis of this reply lies in its relevancy to something I recently gave some thought. It is not an especially good journal entry so don't get your hopes up. It's not especially personal in nature or I would not post it.
The difficulty with humor in written form is the absence of contexts where subtleties of voice and body language actively modify the words. In the class context, Dr. Kunkel's review of the test question clearly conveyed good humor; and recalling this when reading the posted notes informs the interpretation of the notes.
Taken alone, the posted notes could convey your interpretation, although a careful look at the sequence of "subliminal messages" clearly progresses in generosity of spirit. The good nature of adjusting points upward informs the interpretation. I could continue dissecting, but doing so only underscores the fact that the written notes were clearly not intended to stand alone as funny.
At any rate, I can see that you possess a sense of humor/irony because you comprehended the basic point of my post, "fungi". To more fully understand that sentence, you should read the journal entry. My "fungi" post, too, references a previous post thus creating a shift in time perception... as if we were in a time warp. Again, however, explaining why something is funny...
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 408 Posted by John Barrett on Monday, November 6, 2006 4:10pm Subject: Testing 1,2,3 Is Web CT working? I can't believe nobody has anything, ANYTHING, to say for so long? Just testing... ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 409 Posted by Heather Spraggins on Monday, November 6, 2006 4:21pm Subject: Attendance Policies I still sometimes get confused between positive and negative reinforcement and punishment! Sometimes I feel that if you look at it from different views it could be in some way, all of the above. What are your thoughts on Attendance Policies and behavior? In my understanding of the concepts....I feel that my behavior is being reinforced. As to which reinforcement applies... I am again confused. I will admit I often skip class. Not just this psychology class....but in many of my classes throughout all of my college days. I skip because I feel that this behavior is being reinforced because I still earn the grade I wanted or even better. I also find that I often do better than the average grade of the class and those that attend every class. So which reinforcement is it?? Or is it not one at all?? There are also consequences to my behavior (a low participation grade). So what reinforcement would this be that the teacher is trying to encourage? I really just think Attendance Policies are punishment. Why do I need to go to classes if I can make the grades without it? And if you're an accounting major, than you may know that attending class is sometimes a waste of time because you come out knowing just as little as you did going in. And in these instances you have to teach yourself anyway....so what good is class???!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 410[Branch from no. 409] Posted by Mark Kunkel on Monday, November 6, 2006 6:22pm Subject: Re: Attendance Policies Hi, Heather. What a nice example of a question that could be taken up from the perspective of one or more of our psychology theory stories! Heather, you begin to do so here a bit around behaviorism, although you need to note that "I feel" is irrelevant to this explanation (that is, our stances or opinions or beliefs or feelings about the consequences that dictate our behavior have no bearing on those consequences). And you're right, it's easy to be confused about reinforcement. Anybody want to weigh in with some psychology talk? This is a wonderful place to get in the game, if you're so inclined... could you D. and E. this notion of class attendance from the perspective of behaviorism, in which (for example) you were clear about the differences among positive and negative reinforcement and punishment, all operating in a lawful B=f(C) way? Could you come to Heather's experience from the perspective of PSA and class-ness and attendance-ness and why we say "skip" class, for example? Why the comparison to accounting? And "just as little"? Anybody on the H/E/T front and how this is about choice and will and ways of negotiating, moment to moment, a way of Being with time and others and body? I mean, even to call participation points an "attendance policy" is something to be curious about, hmm? Party on! MK ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 411[Branch from no. 409] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, November 6, 2006 8:37pm Subject: Re: Attendance Policies H/E/T-wise, I hate going to a lot of classes because I feel they're an enormous waste of what little time I have for living. Why do I go, then? Well... society ain't perfect, obviously, but I have to jump through their hoops or else I'm never going to make it out with a piece of paper that says I know something about Psychology and later on maybe some document that says it's okay to put Doctor in front of my name, maybe. Why waste time striving for these things? So I can get into an influential enough position to change the world for my better(not the better)... and maybe get rid of all these irritating attendence policies... As for attendance policies themselves, I think that they're about as psychologically sound as speeding tickets, war on terror, and so on. Dr. Kunkel kind of tries to reinforce attendance behavior with random notecard checks, which sounds like it'd work on paper (we prefer random rewards and are getting something, which is positive reinforcement), but... really, I don't think it does. For me anyway, it reinforces B.S. question behavior, because I'll turn in a card almost every day with some random question, usually to do with marijuana, and turn it in, but the notecards aren't the reason I come. It's a genuine interest in Psychology that brings me in here, but I skip classes like Astronomy and Math. Problem is, this class hasn't got much of an attendance policy, but in those others, I lose points. But as punishment, that doesn't work, because you don't feel the effects immediately, blame it more on a Professor's viciousness than your own actions, so on... Now, your problem is that maybe you don't like the classes... so, not attending the classes, then, is negatively reinforcing. It takes you out of a 'bad' situation, which for you is class. The attendance policy is punishment, but it's less reinforcing than the negative reinforcement. If you got three points added to your final grade for attending class every day, I think that attendance might go up a bit... of course, that's not something you can help. It's just something you'll have to grin and bear, I guess... it's what I try to do. :( ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 413[Branch from no. 411] Posted by Heather Spraggins on Monday, November 6, 2006 9:21pm Subject: Re: Attendance Policies Aha!! I understand what you are saying about negative reinforcement. Maybe I don't enjoy some of these classes that I skip and therefor take myself out of a "bad" situation. But what if I do enjoy these classes?? Then I see it is about choices! I choose to be "be a better animal" by sleeping in. I choose to stay home instead of driving all the way to school. I choose to watch TV. or I choose to learn in a way that I know works for me. It's interesting that we do use the word "skip". So I looked up the definition and here is what I found.... to pass from point to point disregarding what is in between: to pass over without notice or mention When we skip classes....are we passing over without notice?? Do we say "skip" because we are trying to pass from point to point without having to worry about the in between? The use of "skip" may cover hidden desires. (I hope you can understand what I am trying to say here!) Maybe there is a PSA story behind the use of the word skip.??? In my experience...it's always about getting to the next test or assignment! If there is not a test or assignment to prepare for....then what's the point of school? Teachers are often asked the question "Will this be on the test?" I find this rather sad! School is no longer about the enjoyment of learning and knowledge....but is now about the grade and the test you will have to take to get that grade so that you can get a degree and get a job. Hopefully, after the hassle of tests and certifications etc...(all the hoops society demands you to jump through), you will still find yourself enjoying the topic that started you on this journey of hoop jumping to begin with!! (I just keep visualizing my classmates jumping through hoops. LOL!!) Why would I mention accounting?? Well, I guess it was my own frustration with a particular teacher. And anyone who is an accounting major...knows who I'm talking about. (Particularly I'm talking to two students who I know are accounting majors in this class...and maybe it's an inside joke) But I'm sure there are students in every major who have had the same experience. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 414[Branch from no. 411] Posted by John Barrett on Monday, November 6, 2006 9:33pm Subject: Re: Attendance PoliciesHi everyone,
I see my reply took so long that Corey already addressed Heather's question.
One item I note immediately in Corey's reply is that some of his classes do, in fact, have attendance policies. How interesting. I almost wrote about these policies, too, but decided I did not have enough time to devote to this subject in only one night. What interests me is that instructors (are they actually Professors) at the university level bother checking attendance except in smaller classes early in the semester when they might have a chance to learn the students by name.
I thought teaching at this level meant one no longer had to act as an arm of The State in baby-sitting and trying to dissuade pseudo criminal behavior like truancy. I say "pseudo criminal" primarily because minors are theoretically not responsible for their behavior (until they kill somebody), and enforcement is probably a selective thing used unevenly against people who are already having a difficult time getting through life.
Dr. Kunkel's approach is perfect because it puts in practice some of what he teaches. He does that quite a bit. The positive reinforcement reinforces our learning what positive reinforcement is. How about that sentence?
Admittedly, the point value is not enough to motivate someone who is not otherwise motivated unless that person is on the cusp of a letter grade. The neat thing about it is that by the time a student knows whether the points make a difference on the grade it is too late to earn the points. Ideally, the points motivate a few more students than would otherwise show for classes during the first few weeks of the semester. After a few weeks of coming to every class for the points, some of these same students may unintentionally become hooked on the class and come for more altruistic reasons.
The most elegant aspect of the whole concept is that is cuts down rather dramatically the bull shit factor at the end of the semester when students resort to visiting their professors to "talk" about how they can improve their grade. Through attendance, every student has the opportunity for more leniency than would otherwise be fair to anoint on the head of whomever is willing to grovel when the grades are calculated.
Also, if attendance is evident, and for some reason the final test is the anomaly that ruined a student's grade, then it is conceivable that an Incomplete could be given for a grade until something happened to resolve an apparent problem. This is an example where the ubiquitous dead grandmother might have some merit.
Any how, I thought they said a month ago they were going to start taking away points instead of giving them when people asked about bad drugs.
Hey, I was wondering today... I read where cannabis used to be an abundant seed source for birds. That was off a bag of hemp seed meal from a health food store. The package said it was non psychoactive hemp (from Canada), and that seemed true based upon my experience of eating it. Well, if birds eat seeds of marijuana, and some plants are more potent than others, how does that work? Are birds unaffected by THC?
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 415[Branch from no. 414] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, November 6, 2006 9:54pm Subject: Re: Attendance Policies I've been out from the class myself, so if they did say that, I missed it... and I guess I've been losing points. But, when preparing a marijuana joint, as stated in the song "Roll My Joint" by Afroman, a key point in it is to 'pick out the seeds and stems'. The leaves are where it's at, I'd suppose. Similarly, when simply eating marijuana, you don't get a high. You have to cook it a bit to get the hashish out. This is where the whole brownie deal comes from, in that marijuana has a relatively low combustion level, so that works. Similarly, you can throw it into a humidifier if you hate smoking and eating. Low combustion rate and all. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 412[Branch from no. 409] Posted by John Barrett on Monday, November 6, 2006 8:58pm Subject: Re: Attendance PoliciesHi Heather,
I read Dr. Kunkel's reply, and I agree yours is a fascinating question. How about that? Even without meaning to do so, perhaps, you contributed something interesting to this bulletin board.
First, I noted your description of how you "feel", but Dr. Kunkel already spoke to how our feelings and opinions are not part of understanding when it comes to psychology talk. Of course, your feelings are important. In applying our four theories, however, we avoid that language and talk using terminology appropriate to our knowledge base.
It is interesting that you mention your accounting pursuit. In that field I would probably have some difficulties parallel to this one in Psychology. I am still haunted by my memories of Calculus. My high school did not offer much in higher mathematics and topped-out with trigonometry. Consequently, in Calculus, and I am sure this applies to accounting courses, too, I spent a great deal of my efforts during the lectures translating the very interesting and sometimes lovely (serious here) symbols into my own language.
From time to time I notice the language the original theorists in Psychology applied to their ideas is what I like to call counter-intuitive. Fortunately for me, I am adept at translating words to words such that the agreed upon phrase "reads" correctly in my mind without having to translate once I understand the concept. This ability stands in contrast to those Calculus symbols I mentioned.
Positive and Negative Reinforcement are ultimate examples of this language confusion. We typically think of positive and negative as synonymous with good and bad. Thus, "negative" equates with "bad" which sounds a lot like something we associate with punishment. The initial way to exorcise this association from the mind is to always remember that phrases like "I feel", or "I would like to think/believe" are put aside in these discussions; and they go into the same lot with "good" and "bad".
If "positive" and "negative" no longer mean the same to us as "good" and "bad", then we can think of positive and negative in non judging terms. I imagine this makes sense to you because in accounting we have positive and negative amounts, but the numbers are not inherently good or bad. The balance at the end may cause someone to feel good or feel bad, but the numbers are straightforward facts. The numbers don't lie nor do the words we use to describe things psychologically.
Actually, this use of positive and negative is exactly like an accounting situation. If something is positive then something is added. If something is negative then something is taken away.
Positive Reinforcement is something added after a behavior. Effectiveness for positive reinforcement requires that the recipient finds the reinforcer valuable in some way. For example, if you are in a restaurant and someone brings you water, a polite expression of "Thank you." is a positive reinforcer. While this is also simply good manners, if the person bringing you water likes being treated humanely the person is more likely to keep an eye on your water needs, and presumably that is something you want to happen.
If you want to train your pet to do something, positive reinforcement, typically in the form of a food treat, makes the pet associate whatever they just did with the reward of a treat. From this point we could proceed to Reinforcement Schedules and how to consistently get the behavior you desire without your pet acquiring an annoying habit of always expecting a treat for every little thing. The same idea works with people, too, but Reinforcement Schedules is getting beyond your immediate quest for understanding the basics of "positive" and "negative" reinforcement.
Negative Reinforcement means something goes away. It is not punishment. Punishment is very complicated in that the reinforcement is difficult to implement effectively. It requires a great deal of effort on your part. Punishment might include actually taking something away from your pet, or child, or whomever, but what is taken away is not a primary motivator for the one being punished. For example, if your dog barks incessantly at visitors, your taking away its favorite chew toy when the barking begins will fail to connect in the dog's mind. In this example, if your dog barks and the company goes away then negative reinforcement occurs. This is not a good example because I am thinking of my dog (actually, he died in February at sixteen years old) who really enjoyed people coming over. His barking behavior was about excitement and joy. Consequently, if he barked and the company went away he would hopefully learn to associate his barking with the disappearance of the visitors. Therefore, he would learn to take away the barking behavior. One thing that makes this a bad example is that you may very well like your dog to bark at people coming into your home. In that event, you are still wondering about the value of negative reinforcement.
This takes us precisely to why Dr. Kunkel's attendance policy is not reinforcing to your coming to class behavior. When your experience is that you make grades you are happy with without attending all classes all the time you are not going to perceive any additional points to your grade based upon you attendance as reinforcement of any type. It is like giving someone a wage increase that for whatever reason the worker finds neither motivating nor insulting.
Perhaps another quality you may find beneficial in remembering what is what... There exists a hierarchy of what is most effective. Psychology empirically indicates Positive Reinforcement is very effective; Negative Reinforcement is less effective; and Punishment is the least effective of these three means of modifying behavior. When I speak of what is more or less effective you must keep in mind that implementation is a large part of this equation. Positive Reinforcement is relatively easy to implement. Punishment is very difficult to implement effectively despite its being our society's default setting.
This brings us all the way back to why we do not use terms akin to "I feel", etc. Thanks to the science of Psychology, we KNOW certain things. Therefore, we avoid the casual language that accompanies what people say when they merely espouse beliefs that are frequently quite flawed. For instance, we, as a society, maintain a relatively large percentage of our population in prisons, most people would love to see many more people in prison, and we see lots of policy makers trying to see who can scream the loudest in favor of this PUNISHMENT. However, the punishment is ineffective, and the evidence indicating this is abundant. Our societal reflex, however, is to impose punishment and one hears plenty of talk about locking people up forever. You will notice in the future, however, that such ideas always come with an "I think", "believe", etc.
Please pardon that harangue. I drove past the Carroll County Correctional Facility today, and it always irks me.
I hope that helps as far as the BEHAVIOR "theory" goes.
Your post is loaded with potential for further discussion. Very interesting. If nobody picks it up from here I will continue tomorrow.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 416[Branch from no. 412] Posted by Heather Spraggins on Monday, November 6, 2006 10:05pm Subject: Re: Attendance Policies Aha!! Again... I am beginning to better understand positive and negative reinforcement. I see what you are saying about how we typically think of positive and negative as synonymous with good and bad. Thanks for mentioning accounting. It made me realize why we need to dissassociate our previous conceived notions of the terms positive and negaitive. And I now can relate the same issue with accounting. Most people that struggle in beginning accounting classes...struggle because of the same useage of positive and negative in terms of good and bad. Its the whole debit and credit thing. Just because something is a debit or credit does not mean it is being added or subtracted or that it is good or bad. You have to train yourself to not associate the terms.... so that you can learn the actual rules of debits and credits. Just because you are debiting something does not mean you are adding or subtracting.....its different for each account. Sometimes debit means add and sometimes it means subtract. Checking accounts and banks often confuse the students in an accounting class because when they say credit they mean add. I understand your frustration with our prison system. And I agree that punishment is not the best policy. However, people don't want to have to deal with the real issues at hand....and changing someone's behavior through reinforcement is probably more expensive. So instead we use the scapegoat (prisons) which actually only teaches the criminals new and improved skills or ideas and they just end up right back in the system. So I am still having a hard time with why "I feel" and "believe" are not psychology talk. Because it imposes judgment? There are things we KNOW for certain?? Because it is not clear and kind?? Because it is not objective?? Dr. Kunkel said, "our stances or opinions or beliefs or feelings about the consequences that dictate our behavior have no bearing on those consequences." So my opinions about the consequences of attendacne policies that dictate my behavior have no bearing on those consequences??? Does this mean although I have opinions... I can't change the consequences of a behavior? or that my opinion will not change the consequences? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 417[Branch from no. 416] Posted by Corey Dommisse on Monday, November 6, 2006 10:29pm Subject: Re: Attendance Policies It depends, really... You know, I might be crazy to think this, but I think and believe that things like I think, I believe, I guess are all very important in psychology... in cognitive behaviorism, at least, it explains a lot. After all, that's the story people are telling themselves works to explain getting A to C... people tell themselves punishment works, attendance policy works, prison time works... so on. In cognitive behaviorism, your thoughts on the matter don't impact the consequences... but, it affects on how you may act and feel in the future in similar situations. Also, in H/E/T it tends to matter as well, since 'this is MY mind and body, and I do what I WANT and THINK I should do.' and then the Transpersonal part.. you can maybe choose how you feel in response to whatever is in the between and beyond, I would suppose, and perhaps follow or deviate from advice or knowledge gained from the beyond and between. It's kinda complicated. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 418[Branch from no. 417] Posted by Heather Spraggins on Monday, November 6, 2006 11:26pm Subject: Re: Attendance Policies Reasoning behind calling participation points an attendance policy.... Participation points are meant to reinforce a desired behavior (class attendance & participation). However, to those who don't attend class it becomes punishment. They are not earning those points because they decided to not partake in your desired behavior. Here's where I can't help but use words like "I think, I feel..." Who decided that class attendance was a good thing?? Maybe in your opinion. And I'm just being theoretical here. But this can be applied to any behavior. Someone reinforces a behavior because it is how they wantd the other person or thing to act. But what if I don't want to behave that way??? Then your idea of reinforcement becomes my punishment. Attendance policies are another way of grading someone, or keeping them in line (tricky...maybe I'm getting too emotional or opinionated??) I understand that there may be good intentions behind an attendance policy.... because maybe you do know from experience that attending class helps in ones understanding of the subject. But to those who find understanding through other means it becomes exactly what it's called, a policy or rule. We all hate living by rules...yet we continue to make them because they are in fact helpful. Now that I've gone off on a tangent....let's get back to participation points. (And I just can't help but use those words again....maybe its a lack of an extensive vocabulary) I feel....participation points become an attendance policy when it becomes....shall I say expected...or when attendance is the only means through acquiring such points. I think they can be considered reinforcement when it is awarded randomly and is not considered part of a grade. But rather it should be bonus points. I am being graded on attendance. So many points out of 50. These participation points become another grade just like an exam. And yet I'm sure that there is reinforcement behind exams to... like studying is reinforced with good grades. I understand reinforcement. I know that these participation points are meant to reinforce my class attendance. But where's my reinforcement for participating in this little chat or reading my book?? Is this not participation? Am I not "in the game"?? I can't help but feel punished!! (There I go again!! I obviously need help talking pyschology talk! But I'm having fun anyway!!!) ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 419 Posted by Heather Spraggins on Monday, November 6, 2006 11:43pm Subject: Opinions So we are supposed to avoid using phrases like "I feel" or "I believe". But isn't it all just opinions in the end??? And some of us are just better at supporting our opinion than others!!!! ???? It is in my opinion that you are suppressing some sort of sexual desire or fantasy. (Freud's words, not mine. And maybe he was just better able to support this finding better than some other guy. Until some other guy came along with a new discovery....and so on) How do I talk psychology talk? And am I right in thinking we are supposed to avoid expressing opinions in psychology?? Or am I getting mixed up! When is something no longer just someone's opinion? And when does it become fact? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 420[Branch from no. 419] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 7:25am Subject: Re: OpinionsGood morning,
Your opinions, beliefs, feelings, and such ARE important to you. You should never allow someone to invalidate how you feel. However, in putting on the hat of psychologically speaking, it is best to speak in terms that reflect your broader and deeper understanding and open mindedness. It is a way of articulating what you want to say that is different than the usual manner of simply spouting what one feels as if because one feels a certain way that makes it true. Changing the language lays the foundation for more informed communication.
With the exception of the BEHAVIORISTS, where the ideas are, by definition, substantiated by empirical evidence, the other theories we are studying are, in fact, theories. However, even these theories are approached with a certain flexibility combined with some supporting evidence that is inherently more credible than a statement about one's feelings. Consider the difference in how this sounds. "I think class attendance policies that give me points are great. It's like free money.", in contrast to, "A class attendance policy providing for random checks of attendance with points added for attendance provides for positive reinforcement of class attendance. A random schedule of reinforcement effectively reinforces this behavior while simultaneously minimizing the effort required by the professor to validate a student's attendance. Thus, it tends to increase class attendance within a structure that Behavioral Psychology informs us, through valid and reliable research, is a function of the behavior of all animals."
Had the person talking in favor of class attendance because they think it is great continued, the underlying theme of "I think" would almost certainly continue supporting that position with examples of a personal nature rather than the easily obtainable empirical evidence. Thus, it would carry absolutely no credibility to a skeptic, or even to a critically minded person who also likes rewards for attendance.
Yes, one's person's reward may look to another like punishment. However, with class attendance specifically, nobody ever said students have to take the tests or turn in assignments, either. One could suggest that tests unfairly reward people who take them and punish the people who skip class that day.
More later, I have to get ready for class, ironically enough, but I look forward to continuing this conversation later.
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 421[Branch from no. 419] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 10:39am Subject: Re: OpinionsHi,
By the way...thank you so much for your initial question AND for your thoughtful responses. You are making this bulletin board more interesting. Hope you are glad you jumped in. Perhaps you will inspire some of our peers who heretofore hesitated to venture into the forum.
You obviously have an appreciation for the H/E/T slant on being as evidenced by your talk of exercising your right of choice. One thing you might want to explore is what motivates you to make the choices you make. I am wondering about what elements in your life do you find motivating to the point that external rewards, such as grades, are inconsequential. In your college experience, for example, has any class or subject ever excited you so much that your grade or reason for taking the class, perhaps as a prerequisite for something else or just to improve your GPA, would, in retrospect, be of no consequence to you? If your approach to college is particularly pragmatic, which is sometimes the case, is there some other aspect of your life that you find meaningful enough that the innate value of whatever this other element of your life is your primary reinforcer?
This I ask only because it sounds as if you are gifted with enough intelligence to move along through this education experience without too much investment of your person as a whole. I wonder whether your approach is akin to a punch list whereby you fulfill certain requirements, punch them off the list, and move on to a predetermined conclusion. Do you have in your life other interests, desires, or passions that overlay these lesser pragmatic requirements of life such as completing enough courses to achieve a degree in order to apply that to a career... Is there an overlaying sort of translucent web that connects everything together in some way? Is there something that is not a means to an end?
That is simply something to consider. If you find your life experience is heavily influenced by pragmatism then perhaps that is something else we can discuss. The H/E/T theory, which I mentioned noticing as something for which you have an affinity, might prove useful to you as a lens through which you view things in order to achieve and maintain balance.
I am not suggesting that I do not think you "have a life". I simply note you seem to have such ease of control over your academic life that I wonder where you find the truly meaningful experiences.
Interested rather than judgmental,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 426[Branch from no. 421] Posted by Heather Spraggins on Wednesday, November 8, 2006 12:11am Subject: Re: Opinions Wow! Tough questions! I will have to think about it and get back to ya! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 422 Posted by Shannon Scoggins on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 2:03pm Subject: ??? Since day one of this class i read what people had to say on webct (more like a select few). Each serious entry seems so very complicated to me. I'm i not in the game? I go to class, i write in my journal, and actually reading webct bulletin inspires me to read my book so maybe i can have a better understanding with what you all are talking about. I usually get the jest but it becomes conviluted in my brain. I have a problem with focusing in how... maybe thats my problem... maybe i need a drug (caffine) to help me focus. I wanted to also say something about, heather i believe it is, and her hard time understanding the "i feel" and such. Don't these words apply to psychology talk espeacially in the H/E/T story. If i am familiar enough with this story isnt is all about choice... inparticular your choice as a human.... and being your choice would bring in "i","me", "my feelings"... and so on and so forth. Nikki ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 424[Branch from no. 422] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 7:27pm Subject: Re: ???Hi,
You are correct that the H/E/T theory, especially the Existential part, places much focus on personal choice. The choice has to do with the notion that you have an innate freedom and responsibility to make choices in your life. There is more to it than that. It is an empowering revelation when one fully appreciates both the gravity of the H/E/T story, and the meaningfulness it brings to one's life.
For a very nice, clear yet extensive, application of the four theories, Dr. Kunkel's "Blue Shirt" story is very informative. Look at that, and where you are unclear then review those parts of the four theories. If after a review you are still confused write back to this bulletin board.
The emphasis on not talking about what we think and feel is an emphasis on applying the theories we are learning, allowing what we know to inform our understanding, and consequently our expressions, regarding any number of issues or ideas. Let that sink in a bit...
First, apply what we learn to our clear and kind understanding of a topic. Override the temptation to rely on our thoughts and feelings that we brought with us into the class on the first day. Then, with the application of these psychological theories, our approach to various themes is informed in a way that is clear and kind, and based on our best guesses that we derive from psychological theories that are our best guesses explaining the psyche.
You might say to your friend who has to pause yet again to light a cigarette while you are both on your way to a class for which you are already late, "You know, that is such a nasty habit. I think you should quit." See how neat and simple that makes it sound? "I think you should quit." With very good reasons and sound science in mind, this statement is easy to make, unquestionable, and fails to take into account the reasons the person began smoking, and why the smoking continues. With our four theories in mind before bringing up the smoking of your friend, you would tend to rethink your opening statement.
You might ask a question. Instead of asking, "Do you know how disgusting that is?", as anyone could ask, you might ask with clarity and kindness, "What do cigarettes mean to you?" The difference seems subtle, but it is huge. Statements about how one feels or believes are often judgmental in nature. They do not invite open communication. Rather, they are pronouncements. With psychological theories, our questions tend toward a quest for understanding and loosely held ideas.
"I think smoking is disgusting!", in contrast to, "What do cigarettes mean to you?"
Pronouncement of judgment contrasted with quest for understanding.
Tossing a boiled egg back and forth in your hands as opposed to transferring a raw egg out of the shell back and forth in your hands without breaking the yolk.
Your intention may still be that your friend quit smoking. First, however, you want to gain some understanding about how their concept of smoking fits with your four theories. You gain insight, and you may be able to reveal something to them that is infinitely more likely to bring about smoking cessation. Does this help at all?
Predict which of the following statements is more likely to engage someone in a meaningful conversation:
"Your cigarettes are nasty." "What do cigarettes mean to you?"
This approach also helps us be critical thinkers which is a good thing. Now, when we hear people expressing their opinions and beliefs on issues we will hopefully apply the four theories and come to an understanding that is founded upon being clear and kind rather than merely opinionated, judgmental, dismissive, or even hateful. Take smoking for example. Some people die of lung cancer without ever smoking or being around second hand smoke. I believe it was last year that Dana Reeve died. She was the widow of Christopher Reeve (Superman). It was sad, as death often is. She was young and her dying left her children orphans.
Evidently, she was one of the minority of people who die from lung cancer where smoking had nothing to do with it. Yet, news of her disease and subsequent death consistently exposed some rather unfortunate attitudes that are widely held. Her death was almost always qualified with the clarification that she did not smoke. The implication was that her death from lung cancer was unfair. The implication of that idea is that death from smoking is fair in that people are getting what they deserve. Of course, some people are at higher risk for certain diseases, but people for some reason tend to look upon certain causes of death with disdain. This is true across history.
Circa 1900, people associated Tuberculosis with poverty, and poverty with various sins, thus death from Tuberculosis often invoked a turned-up nose as if something smelled bad. This attitude, because we are unaccustomed to people having Tuberculosis and carry no strong associations with the disease, seems silly to us. However, the stigma of Tuberculosis was quite tangible.
The stigma was perpetuated by people voicing their opinions and beliefs that were based on prejudice against poor people rather than the real causes, preventative measures, and treatments for the disease. Imagine: "I think those people just need to bathe more often. It's no wonder they get sick. They are slovenly to begin with..." Such was the attitude regarding a contagious disease.
A clear and kind attitude for the time may have addressed the issue in a different way. Imagine: "It is true that the majority of our citizens who have Tuberculosis are poor. They live in crowded conditions that are impossible to keep sanitary because facilities for keeping clean, or even clean water, are unavailable. When poor people get sick they cannot afford to seek treatment or even to isolate themselves from their families. Thus they remain in their crowded homes and potentially transmit the disease to others they contact. Once a parent becomes sick, the disease drains them of the energy required to work and earn money for housing or food. Thus treatment is not a viable option. Thus, Tuberculosis becomes a player in a cycle of poverty. Those of you who blame Tuberculosis on poverty are in part correct. However, the disease is not a marker of poor character..."
That really is somewhat the way the whole modern medical movement began. It is unfortunate. Is it not ridiculous, too? Yet people were quite outspoken against the poor, and were not clear and kind in perpetuating their perceptions. There was indeed a connection between poverty and Tuberculosis, but it was not the connection that most people made as they spouted-off about their beliefs.
Does this example help at all in conveying how the way we address issues, down to the subtleties of language regarding how we phrase our statements, influences not only how others receive out thoughts, but also how we think them? A few people said regarding Tuberculosis that they believed there was, in fact, a connection between poverty and the disease, but they thought about it in a clear and kind way, and tried to reach an understanding founded upon empirical evidence rather than merely adopting the popular attitude. Eventually, forcing slum lords to make a few minimal improvements led to improvements in public health, that gained enough momentum to dispel those prejudicial attitude about Tuberculosis.
Of course, too many people still equate poverty with poor character. Some diseases are still considered practically justifiable. Most of you are too young to remember how AIDS was vilified nightly on the news. Some people who contracted the virus without benefit of all the hot sex were pretty openly bitter about this fact in the media reports of the time. It just seemed so "unfair" they would say with indignation. The interesting aspect was that others, the interviewer and the audience, generally expressed agreement. This, of course, implies that people who caught the disease through sex somehow received a benefit in exchange for a miserable death. This played right into the hands of the people who said the disease was God's vengeance on homosexuals. Of course, eventually enough other people started dying that this argument no longer held water for anyone except the extremely twisted.
That was not a tangent. It simply illustrates how people repeat the same errors over and over. The Tuberculosis thing seems so ridiculous because we are so removed from that reality. When we examine our world, however, one does not have to look too hard to find parallel examples. It becomes very easy, an automatic response, a standard move, to perpetuate misinformation unwittingly though our opinions, beliefs, and what we think when in too many cases we never really thought about it at all.
That is why we deliberately examine what we are saying whenever are about to preface ourselves with "I believe", "think", "feel", and so forth. One's feelings have to do with oneself whereas one's understanding, with the benefit of this class, and a knowledge base in general as a college educated person, grows from something more than ourselves.
I hope that helps,
John
------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 431[Branch from no. 422] Posted by Shannon Scoggins on Wednesday, November 8, 2006 11:48am Subject: Re: ??? Thank you so very much! Your examples helped a lot. I will revisit the blue shirt and try and give a better example of the H/E/T story in a more clear and kind way. Thank you again, Nikki ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 423 Posted by Heather Spraggins on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 5:47pm Subject: Crying Why do I find it so easy to cry to movies and TV shows?? But in real life find it hard to cry and let my emotions out? Maybe I'm talking about grieving here and the process Dr. Kunkel talked about in class. Can anyone explain this around the 4 stories? ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 425[Branch from no. 423] Posted by John Barrett on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 7:29pm Subject: Re: Crying How about you give it a shot? If you feel cmfortable with sharing whatever you unveil, you can post it and we can look at it together? John ------------------------------------------------------------ Message no. 427[Branch from no. 425] Posted by Heather Spraggins on Wednesday, November 8, 2006 12:24am Subject: Re: Crying Well I'm not sure I can talk around the 4 stories...but I think I have some thoughts on why this may be. And I'll try around the 4 stories although I may not be sure of which theory applies. It could be a defense mechanism. (Defense mechanism?? That would go under BIO right?) Sort of like fight or flight. In real life I may bottle up emotions in order to protect myself from whatever I trully feel instead of facing it head on. This could be the first stage of grief, denial. But I allow myself to connect or relate to characters on TV and this is where my emotions run out. And maybe when this happens I am in some way facing my own feelings that I have kept bottled up. You hear pe