Beyond Freedom and Dignity

Noboa Polanco and the anecdote “ The Mermaid” by Robert Fulghum reveals the conflict/tension individuals experience when stuck in the border of conformity and individuality. Although we may feel compelled to conform, people can achieve true happiness/freedom by accepting differences, by embracing their unique identity. Throughout the five stanzas of the poem “Identity” by Julio Noboa Polanco, the author strongly suggest the importance of individuality through the use of extended metaphor. He…

Let us briefly summarize the terrain we have traveled. Whereas the Western notion of utopian striving provides a sense of hope and the will to act, the impossibility of actualizing the utopian ideal also invites fanatical devotion to delusional pursuit. We can see this pattern playing out vividly in our contemporary culture, where an unbridled commitment to consumerism promises a happiness that it cannot deliver, and in a cognitive neuroscience program that illogically assumes that continuing to…

deepen our understanding of freedom not only by situating slavery as freedom’s opposite condition, but also by investigating the significance of equally important liminal and transitional social space between slavery and freedom” (Robert 21). Understanding the motive of this book, Robert studies the use of maroon communities mainly groups of slaves who vanished from plantations in the Americas to audit the idea of freedom and to break down the original ways of how freedom was educated. In…

of child labor occurs in Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to the unethical side of child labor, it threatens the children’s mental and physical health, deprives them of their childhood and potentials, and removes the dignity and freedom of children. Therefore, we should not buy from countries that endorse child labor.…

no value for the non-believers. First, non-religious people would say that there is no God, no creator, therefore life is not a gift given by a kind of divinity. Second of all, even if there was a good God, why would he want his creatures to suffer beyond words? Euthanasia is indeed a controversial issue, with the heart of the debate lying at active voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Active euthanasia should be permitted just as passive euthanasia is allowed. Being realistic…

Today’s world is one where borders are porous, people are connected via television and the Internet, and nations are increasingly held accountable for the way they treat their citizens. State sovereignty no longer reigns supreme over the rights and dignity of the individual. Universal human rights by its very definition imply rights that are applicable to everyone everywhere, hence the term ‘universal.’ As the authors point out in International Human Rights in Context, “[s]imply put, the…

The post-Civil War marked a new revolution. Despite the abolishment of slavery and the freedom of African Americans during this era, segregation, political marginality, degraded educational opportunities and religion shaped their lives. (p. 184). Freedom was their new promise and it meant no more chains, lashes, or exploitation; unfortunately, blacks were met with new requisitions. In the African-American Odyssey stated that most white Americans did not suddenly abandon 250 years of deeply…

In Beloved, Toni Morrison creates a profound comparison between a pathetic rooster, Mister, and a slave, Paul D Garner. The traditional roles between chicken and human are reversed as Paul D envies Mister’s freedom. Initially, this paradox suggests that slaves are worse off than humans, but upon a closer look, it is really a comparison of a naturally domestic animal and an animal that needs to be domesticated. While chickens have evolved to exhibit less aggressive and more domestic behaviors,…

the view that we are free, and believe in the idea of freewill suggests that there is an important relationship between freedom and moral responsibility. Freewill means that we should be held morally responsible for the actions that we freely preform. Libertarians hold the view that moral responsibility require freedom, they suggest we have a sense of self-determination and freedom in order to act. Libertarians are also described to be in-compatibilists, as they argue that freewill cannot be…

How do boys learn the rules for what it means to be masculine? What are the differences in what those lessons are based on a person’s social economic status (SES)? What happens when a boy does not have the resources available to meet what society defines as being a man? The answers to these questions influence how boys grow into adulthood. The process of how boys mold their perception of what manhood is determines how they interact with society and contributes to their values and life goals.…