Answering questions - Essay Example

I. The first paragraph of Forster’s My Wood shouldn’t be considered without taking into account his previous work A Passage to India. In it he showeda struggle of classes and wealth/poverty relations in a larger scale. But more important is the fact that the author stressed the material benefit from writing the book about India. It means that he gained both from mocking American auditory and from denouncing colonialism in India. And, finally, his decision to buy a wood was prompted by his desire to try the role of property-owner, to become a colonialist and oppressor himself.

I think, this is the main ambivalence of the first paragraph. Also, the author calls this desire a “shame”, but at the same time he is angry that his wood is intercepted by a public foot-path. His feelings of a property owner are interfered with his consciousness. Forster assumes that “creation, property, enjoyment form a sinister trinity in the human mind” (Forster 263). According to the author, a man owning property “ought to do something to it”. Property brings restlessness, which is different from the same restlessness accompanying the act of creation.

Property can substitute the material basis needed for creation and enjoyment (which are both good, as the author writes). He thinks that our world is “material and carnal” and that we should learn how “to manage our materialism and carnality”. I can’t agree with the author on that. Forster, for example, mentions Tolstoy and his negative attitude to property. But, as a matter of fact, Tolstoy was an earl; he owned a large estate with slaves and was definitely a man of property. Property allowed him to obtain a good education and a material basis to create, i.e. he could waste no time on earning his living, but spend it on thinking and writing.

Therefore, possessing property does not always mean “restlessness” about it. However, there are exceptions, but it only means that one should not be so categorical in this issue.II. In her essay Toynbee elaborates on Richard Wilkinson’s idea that inequality is the main peril of society. For her “equality for its own sake” means a better and healthier society. This opinion is based on Wilkinson’s assumptions that “social environment can be more toxic than any pollutant” (cited in Toynbee 365).

In simple words, poor people see the rich and it leads to envy and other negative emotions, which, in their turn, lead to unhealthy life. It can be proved, the author argues, by the experiments with animals. And since humans are also animals, it concerns them too. Therefore, Wilkinson assumes, society needs to provide equality. According to Gini coefficient (the most commonly used measure of inequality), in the US top 10 per cent of income earners account for 49.7 per cent of total U.S. income.

The situation in Canada, according to this coefficient, is better, but generally close to the US: the top 20 per cent of all households have about a half of all the income in Canada and the poorest 20 per cent of households get only 4 per cent. Many Canadians do experience the same kind of stress as Americans. The Occupy movement, which originated in the US, was joined by Canadians as well. After all, the psychology of western civilization is the same for all countries and there is no reason why people here would be different from people there.

I don’t think, of course, that “social status and respect matter beyond anything”. Slavery was abolished only about a century ago, but it did not prevent the world from global progress and form improvement of life status of all people. What I mean is that equality is good, as it may seem, but people are not equal. They are not equal in practically everything. Therefore, complete equality is impossible. It can be enforced, of course, as it was done, for example, in former Soviet Union. But we all know the result, when the largest country in the world turns into a bunch of countries with a huge level of inequality ever.

No laws or social initiatives can change human nature. Besides, in many respects inequality is the motivation force for personal development, not only the stress and other negative effects. Works CitedForster, E.M. “My Wood.” Essay Writing for Canadian Students with Readings, 6/E. Ed. Kay L. Stewart, Roger Davis, Chris J. Bullock, Marian E. Allen. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2008. 313-319. Print.Toynbee, P. “Inequality is the Real Enemy.” Essay Writing for Canadian Students with Readings, 6/E. Ed. Kay L.

Stewart, Roger Davis, Chris J. Bullock, Marian E. Allen. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2008. 313-319. Print.