Evidence Griffin Analysis

While Griffin begins her book Chorus of Stones by describing the beginning stages of cell growth, by the end of her chapter entitled, “Our Secrets”, the cells have developed into a fetus, which represents the beginning of human life. Griffin contrasts the idea of a new human by describing the launching of a deadly missile, which illustrates how we attempt to disconnect ourselves from death. In the midst of discussing these opposing ideas, Griffin explores the life of Heinrich Himmler as an example of how the human spirit can be crushed by the social constructions of one’s environment. Griffin provides many juxtaposing examples to show how repression can lead to self destruction. She describes the cry of a baby that breaks its silence and exclaims …show more content…
The most apparent bias throughout Griffin’s essay is her portrayal of Himmler. Writing a biography about Himmler, Griffin creates her own characterization of Himmer without knowing if her interpretation is true or not. According to Schult, Griffin is committing “confirmation bias”(72) which “gives more weight to evidence that confirms our beliefs than to evidence that challenges them”(72). Griffin’s understanding of Himmler allows her to create a world where connects between Himmler and others are easy to locate if we investigate. However, Schultz states, “there are an infinite number of logically valid, theoretically possible answers to all these questions”(66). I believe Griffin’s argument that we are all connected is true to an extent. Under the right circumstances, some people do share some form of connection. However, what about the millions of people we never come in contact with. How can we know someone who lives in a different country or in a different time zone can impact our lives. Griffin might argue that an unknown stranger will have some degree of connection to our lives. But if the degree of separation is extremely distant, does a stranger’s life really affect our lives. Furthermore, as Schultz explains how we can never know if our ideas are true because they are based on a limited experience; we can never know the backgrounds and history of strangers, in order to find out how connected we are. As Griffin shows through her analysis of Himmler, secrets prevent us from connecting with others. Those who carry secrets can not experience the web of connection until they expose the pain they hold within themselves. Because we all deal with pain in different ways, each individual deals with this process in their own unique way. As Griffin shows with Himmler,