Fear is something that drives this world. It is a natural emotion that causes damage to the body and mind, affecting our decisions, communication, and productivity. Whether we want to accept it or not, fear has a purpose which is to help us during times of struggle. We take comfort in our fears and let it soothe us. Eula Biss in her essay, “On Immunity: An Inoculation” brings a great point on how people seem to base their paranoia off of other people’s fears, and lack of knowledge. Due to this, we have come to this one-sided mentality, and have started a war between right and wrong. And all because we are afraid of what can happen. Discussed in the essay is the nature of people and how they make decisions based on fears rather than facts. She
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I never had to really deal with the in-between, the gray area, it was either black or white. Depending on the situation, certain aspects of it can be interpreted in multiple ways. However, I was so dependent on what my father said that I never bothered to take into account what was behind the situation, what caused it. My first impression of Eula Biss’s essay was not a very good one. I was extremely confused by what she was trying to say, because the way she was trying to get her point across is not a way that I am familiar with. I am used to the author arguing for a specific side, and I am also used to deciding if something is either bad or good. However, Biss favors neither side. She dislikes the way that the different sides are from a one-sided mindset. At first I blamed Biss herself, because of how her essay was formatted, but I then came to realize that it was my own mindset that was clouded. Fear of being diseased is a constant in the world. Anything that can prevent disease is used in excess, with lack of knowledge being thrown to the side. I am terrified of getting a disease, an illness, that I am quick to run and get a vaccine to prevent it. Even though I do not necessarily know that getting a vaccine can cause some other type of illness, even if it is slim. This might be because I never had all of the facts, or I …show more content…
You have to allow for a gray space or else the argument is rendered useless because there is always something to be gained from both sides. Vaccines can protect, but also harm us;bikes are a great form of transportation but you can still get seriously hurt on them. We have to be more open minded, and start to break the norm of looking at something a specific way or in other words, from other people’s perspective. Biss tried her hardest to just tell the truth of why the human race perceive things a certain way. She did not take sides, but rather showed the arguments for both sides. “Serious side effects from vaccination are rare. But it is difficult to quantify exactly how rare” (Biss 47). One argument tells us that the side effects from vaccinations are rare. However she also shows us that we cannot tell exactly how rare they are and whether we should not or should avoid them altogether depending of the person’s level of fear. Biss displays the way that both sides formulated their argument, ultimately showing us the flaw is these
I never had to really deal with the in-between, the gray area, it was either black or white. Depending on the situation, certain aspects of it can be interpreted in multiple ways. However, I was so dependent on what my father said that I never bothered to take into account what was behind the situation, what caused it. My first impression of Eula Biss’s essay was not a very good one. I was extremely confused by what she was trying to say, because the way she was trying to get her point across is not a way that I am familiar with. I am used to the author arguing for a specific side, and I am also used to deciding if something is either bad or good. However, Biss favors neither side. She dislikes the way that the different sides are from a one-sided mindset. At first I blamed Biss herself, because of how her essay was formatted, but I then came to realize that it was my own mindset that was clouded. Fear of being diseased is a constant in the world. Anything that can prevent disease is used in excess, with lack of knowledge being thrown to the side. I am terrified of getting a disease, an illness, that I am quick to run and get a vaccine to prevent it. Even though I do not necessarily know that getting a vaccine can cause some other type of illness, even if it is slim. This might be because I never had all of the facts, or I …show more content…
You have to allow for a gray space or else the argument is rendered useless because there is always something to be gained from both sides. Vaccines can protect, but also harm us;bikes are a great form of transportation but you can still get seriously hurt on them. We have to be more open minded, and start to break the norm of looking at something a specific way or in other words, from other people’s perspective. Biss tried her hardest to just tell the truth of why the human race perceive things a certain way. She did not take sides, but rather showed the arguments for both sides. “Serious side effects from vaccination are rare. But it is difficult to quantify exactly how rare” (Biss 47). One argument tells us that the side effects from vaccinations are rare. However she also shows us that we cannot tell exactly how rare they are and whether we should not or should avoid them altogether depending of the person’s level of fear. Biss displays the way that both sides formulated their argument, ultimately showing us the flaw is these