On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Walden and Thoreau - Book Report/Review Example

? Walden & Thoreau Walden & Thoreau So, what do you make of all this? Thoreau postulate reality on chronological realism imbued inenvironmental, situational/circumstantial and time dynamism rather than on the inherent social-cultural/traditional cognizant of human being. This conclusion is drawn from his phrase “only that day dawns to which we are awake…” which realizes a dynamic and continuous cognizant experiences rather than rigid and inherent experiences from social-cultural/traditional background. Is he on to something? Yes! Thoreau is critic of the rigid and inherent social-cultural rationalization of life experiences, which he attributes to the redundancy of human novelty and innovative advances. According to Thoreau Economic, capitalist or communist social-cultural ideologies/socialized ways of doing things have only mythically promulgated human suffering, problem and societal inequality along historical generational lines. Instead, Thoreau proposes what he refers to as the “wake up!” ideology as the “creative and more radical” ideological solution to the historical socio-economic and political injustices amongst the human race (Thoreau, 2006). The “wake up!” ideological solution proposes a “morning consciousness” approach in solving humanity problem, suffering and inequality as “all memorable events transpire in morning time and in morning atmosphere”. This realizes an amorphous and volatile phenomenology in the issues that underpins human problems thus rendering the structural and predictive socialized solutions inapplicable in solving these problems. Is your mind possibly full of things that cover your life (like "alluvion" -- river muck!) and make it habitual, conditioned, and reactive? Thoreau postulate of a situational/circumstantial and chronologically dynamic approach to life experiences is more of an optimistic/positivism thing exhortation rather than an essentialist postulation of the human cognizant that determines his/her response to life experience. His proposed situational/circumstantial and chronological approach to life experiences thus focuses more on the end to the means rather than the means that dictates the path that is to be taken to realize the end. Such means, which relatively, mutually, dependently or inhibit the transition between ideal and desirable approach/response to life experiences include both the inherent and epistemological cognized instincts of the human being (Taylor, 1998). The inherent instincts are imbued in the Id, ego and super-ego psychic of the human cognizant, whereas the epistemological instincts are social-culturally/environmentally conditioned. I cud thus like to react civilly to a situational/circumstantial experience but despite the synthetic appeal of Thoreau’s circumstantial/situational and chronological responsiveness, my realist responsiveness to the experience is determined by the interaction amongst my Id, ego and super-ego and socialized instincts at the moment. Do you feel in any way separated from others, nature, God? Yes, though, like Thoreau my separation is more interactional rather than physical. There is thus no interactionism between myself and majority of my immediate neighbors due to lack of a temperamental and behavioral compatibility for the realization of a lasting social relationship. On my part, I lack the aggressiveness to assert the socialized boundary between myself and other people. The people I encounter also fail to holds a mutual respect with me for the establishment of a lasting companionship. My inter-specific socialization is thus characterized by a mutual feeling of disrespect in the feeling that the social partners are infringing on to my interactional territory. Nevertheless, nature and God are always with me. Naturist companion is felt in my partnering with nature in fulfilling my mortal responsibility, which is praising the creator. The whisper of that Casuarina equisetifolia as the wind blows and crowing of the cockerel in the morning thus mimics and accompany my prayers in worshiping the creator (Torrance, 2002). On the other hand, the companionship of God is felt in my daily uncertainties such as whether I’m going to secure a job after that interview I’m to attend today and in fact receiving the call to attend that interview was the doing of God Himself for I had just but forgotten that application. In addition, my shuffle across a total of four jobs since my college graduation confirms the presence of God in my life for I was never trained or anticipated taking any of those jobs including my current one during my college training. Do you see any benefit to at least trying to let prejudices fall away for a while and allow the wholeness of life to emerge? Thoreau criticism of socialized approach to life experiences is based on the social-cultural/traditional myths that promulgate societal inequalities such as myths. Despite the plausibility/truthfulness of this assertion, plunging into life blindly without socialized or inherent instincts is a risky endeavor. It’s true that we learn from other peoples’ mistakes and the books are also viewed as shortcut to live by highlighting in advance the mistakes or dangers encountered by people who took a similar path as ours (Taylor, 1998). Can we really afford not in some sense to make a "retreat," i.e., make the time to let our minds and lives slow down so we can see what is really going on? Letting our minds and lives slow down for the adoption of a prompt approach to life experiences translates a proposal for the abolishment of the deterrence and intelligence rationality, which are the pillars of the current human enforced civility. Deterrence and intelligence are critical pillars in the criminal justice system and prejudice is their cornerstone. Prevention is also better than cure. In addition, the Second World War was not a prompt event but a build up event integrating factors such as tyranny and non-interventionist global politics. Question: Can you see how you are in a way a "transcript" of these media, how their way of looking at things becomes "inscribed" in you? It can be intoxicating, just as Mir Camar said. The Biblical book of Ephesians 5: 23 states that” for the Husband is the head of the wife”, which legitimizes the patriarchal and matriarchal power inequality in the society in favor of men. Nevertheless, the power equation in a micro-sociological scenario such as a family is determined by the interactionism between the two partners; the husband and the wife. The power inequality between the two partners is then determined by the relative assertiveness and aggressiveness of the two partners during the interactionism rather than on their absolute gender identity. The resultant power balance in a couple is thus more of their interactionism rather than on the absolutist identity of their gender (Torrance, 2002). Question: So how's your "winged life"? My winged life is expressed more in my professionalism novelty rather than in cognitive thinking or behavior. Contrarily to Thoreau’s winged life postulate, the novelty aspect of my professionalism follows structural and authoritative lines in a replication format rather than the amorphous and probabilistic path proposed by Thoreau. My recent brilliance in completing complex thesis research paper despite my general undergraduate training is thus realized through exploration of the structural and authoritative formats of similar work rather than amorphous academic genius. My winged novelty in life is thus not pursued along amorphous and probabilistic approach as advised by Thoreau but follows scientifically realized structural and authoritative guidelines. Do you set aside any time for contemplation and reflection? Yes, life experiences present me with opportunities to ponder on the dilemma between the contemplation and reflection of my socialized absolutist solution to the challenges poised by the life experiences and the realist solution to the same problem. The absolutist solution is imbued in my socialized instincts from religion, culture and education whereas the realist solution is vivid in the expressional or impressionable circumstances surrounding the challenges. The inherent Id, ego and super-ego triumph in this paradox over any realist or socialized rationality in the motivation to be pursued after the reflective and contemplative phase of rationalization. Nevertheless, the Id, ego and super-ego is subject to the realist or socialized rationality, which means that I pursue the Id, ego and super-ego motivation is to the maximum of its congruity with realist or socialized motivation (Miller, 2006). My effort to pursue an Id, ego or super-ego initiated motivation is thus terminated in case of its irrationality with the socialized and realist rationality surrounding a particular problem. In addition, the realist rationality about the challenge overrides my socialized rationality in deciding whether to continue pursuing my motivation or to throw away the towel. Nevertheless, the socialized rationality weights down on the realist rationality as a pessimistic enthusiasm to pursue the goal. Is Thoreau really simply an impractical dreamer? No, Friere’s social-cultural learning model postulates that realist experiences are reflected on social-cultural experiences before they are integrated or rejected from the human cognizant rationality. According to Friere, Thoreau’s novelty expansion of the human cognizant rationality is thus only possible to the extent that the novelty experience is rational to the cognized social-cultural experiences (Taylor, 1998). Mezrow on his part postulates a learning model exclusively based on novelty/realist rationality rather than on social-cultural absolutism (Wernovsky et al, 2000). This creates the possibility of Thoreau’s winged novelty expansion of the human knowledge (Torrance, 2002). Questions Who's in control? The Vatican of course with their heinous motivation to integrate the state and the church as envisaged in their Catholicism dogma and reincarnate the dark ages murderous global monarchy, this time with its headquarter relocated from Europe to capitol hill in Washington DC. In addition, the Vatican incremental institution of a one world government is also motivated by their quest to reinstitute Catholicism as the unitary global religion subsequently banning and tyrannically annihilating any form of Protestantism. The Vatican thus holds the trigger that shot President Abraham Lincoln to clear his obstacle from their incremental ascension to the Dark Age’s monarchical seat relocated to Capitol Hill. It’s also the Vatican that shot the fatal bullet, which assassinated President Kennedy despite his track record in championing the blacks Americans civil liberties. President George W. Bush and the rest of the American President survived from the Vatican assassins only on their promulgation of the Vatican agenda. This fact is evident in President George W. Bush assurance of cooperation with the Vatican Pope John Paul II and the numerous state honored visits made by the Vicar to the United States during Bush’s tenure as president (Miller, 2006). What may we hope for and what do we need to do to bring it about? We should hope in the infinite protection of God on his saints through all phase’s historical tyranny against Christian from Nero Rome through the Pontifical Catholicism to the Hitler holocaust. And if the Christian dogma with its absolutist rationality extrapolated from the history to the present without a single punctuation mark blotted from its literal content through the various furnaces of persecution so shall it survive the Vatican orchestrated nuclear holocaust. So, how do we love? Christian dogma teaches us to Love our neighbor as we love ourselves. The first initiative loves us, which requires dealing with all intra-specific conflicts. Loving our neighbor will then flows automatically from the intra-specific harmony we have within us (Miller, 2006). How do we get to those conditions where we don't draw the separative distinctions that lead to homicide? The separative distinction behind terrorism is lack of tolerance amongst the predominant Muslim community to embrace differing opinion about faith. In addition, the rigid absolutist rationality imbued in cultural experiences instills the inflexibility to realist experiences. The terrorist groups thus strongly subscribes to Freire’s school of learning whereby their social-cultural rationality is exhorted above realist experiences. Max also postulate of religious inversion whereby the supernatural is elevated above the natural is also cited as the root cause of terrorism (Torrance, 2002). References Miller, W.M. (2006). A Canticle for Leibowitz. New York: HarperCollin. Taylor, E. W. (1998). The Theory and Practice of Transformative Learning: A Critical Review. Columbus, OH: ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education Center on Education and Training for Employment College of Education. Thoreau, H. D. (2006). Walden with Thoreau's Essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience". Rockville: Arc Manor. Torrance, R. M. (2002). The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Religion, and Science.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Ltd. Wernovsky, G et al. (2000). Cognitive development after the Fontan operation. Clinical Investigation and Reports, 102(1); 883-889. Read More