New Blog! Loss of Innocence... Huck Finn meets Banksy

Here's your first real blog prompt as it relates to our new unit: "Loss of Innocence" During this unit, we will mainly be looking at the topics of alienation, social defiance, and the transition from childhood to adulthood as we encounter the realities of our world. Sounds heavy, right? But it's not!

Your first task is to check out this page I put together that has pictures, news articles, and videos on the street artist named Banksy: Click this link

After you look at the pictures that I've posted of Banksy's art (feel free to do your own google search on Banksy... his art is amazing!) I'd like you to choose one of the following three questions to write a short blog about (remember to read my previous post on the three key essentials to a good blog post):

Option 1: Do you think it's important for young people to be exposed to the harsh (and even cruel or degrading) aspects of our society, in order for them to have a healthy understanding and appreciation of what they have and an empathy for those who have less than them? OR, do you think parents should have a right and obligation to protect young people from that type of 'social corruption'?? Please make reference to the information you learned about the artist Banksy.

Option 2: Is the rebellion against social norms an important obligation for young people? Do we need to ask questions, break rules, and challenge authority in order to improve society? Or, is it important to respect the norms and rules of a society in order to maintain peace, balance, and security? What benefits come from such behaviour (either rebellion or conformity)? Please refer to Banksy in your response.

Option 3: We watched a short news video on taking the "N" word out of "Huck Finn". Does it make sense to protect our society from depictions of  racism or sexism or discrimination? Or should we let artists like Twain and Banksy challenge societal norms in an effort to get us to question our values and moral compass? Please try to refer to the controversy regarding language in Twain's novel AND the issue of street art and graffiti as it relates to Banksy in your response.

Click here to see original page for this image

             Rivers, similar to men are unpredictable and require a certain amount of patience to control. As a society, we face different challenges everyday based on conflicting worldviews and ideologies. The decisions we make based on these ideologies allow the world to become a more unpredictable and interesting place. Each day, every individual learns from the surprises that they encounter through the entirety of their day. Each day, we are able to collaborate and share new ideas, therefore shaping the leaders of tomorrow. Each day, our leaders should work together to create a better world for tomorrow. In Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, he describes a society that is autocratically ruled, one with limited freedom for free expression or freedom of thought. In most countries today, we take for granted the freedoms we have to think and act as we wish. Aside from a select few, most countries today provide fair and equal treatment to everyone. The governing bodies of most countries today play appositive role in the development of our ever changing world. Although it is possible that Machiavelli had a truthful point of view, his perspective is flawed within the parameters of today’s world. Rivers are also like everyday life. Similar to life, rivers are wild and difficult to control. Today’s leaders need to control the metaphorical river of life and present themselves as true democratic leaders, rather than autocratic monarchy. As a society, it isn’t fair to compare life in the 1500’s to life as we now know it. Technology and ideas have advanced, making room for all humans to grow. We are now heading towards a brighter future. Although Machiavelli did bring up a valid argument within his telling of The Prince, it cannot be considered suitable for this day and age. Similar to technology, literature has too advanced. We no longer have to read other’s ideas in a novel as an indicator of what we are told to believe. We have come so far as a collection of people, no matter what part of the world we come from. As a united whole, we can act together to make anything happen. We no longer rely on blood to make decisions for us, we rely on each other. Autocracy is the past and we must move past it before we can consider ourselves to be “equals”. We have come so far, and we should not let old habits hold us back from the aspirations we have as a unified team.

Bill Gates:A Transformational Leader

Machiavelli Response

As stated by Machiavelli, rivers and men may be controlled, but cannot be trusted.  This is true, in the way that both may acquire great power or force, resulting in the ability to cause catastrophes.  Rivers flow freely, their waters appearing beautiful, but the swift undertow may sweep one's feet out and carry them away.  Men may seem strong and dependable, however from their position of power have the ability to abuse their title and bring people to their knees.  

However, who is to say that this power is always negative? If one lives their life devoid of trust in others, and the great things that may be achieved through their abilities, it may be damaging. While it is true that they can be controlled, they should not always be this way.  The release of control is bravely brought on by trust.  It is not an easy task to trust man, knowing our history in wars, slavery, and the many demons in the past we'd like to forget, however it is an act of courage to do so.  The coward lives in fear, the fear of trust and losing control.

 I believe the statement of Machiavelli's to be much too critical of the human race.  Unlike abiotic flowing rivers, we possess a conscious and morals that drive us through day to day tasks, power and endurance to achieve great things. To keep this under control out of lack of trust is simply ridiculous.  It is all a matter of taking aspects of reality into consideration.  Should we always trust man? No. But one should not always be devoid of trust either.

In today's society, lack of trust is a very common theme in everyday lives.  It may be applied to a sixteen year old girl with her boyfriend, to the president of a country fearing war.  Fear haunts the mind and poisons the heart, leading to many things, including the loss of trust.   Machiavelli's point of control being possible, and trust, not is a relevant point in today's leaders of every level.

In the United States,  currently a controversy has arisen on the grounds of surveillance.  The people do not trust the government to not intrude on their private affairs, and he government wishes to keep an eye on the country in fear of occurrences that are not in their best interests. This lack of trust existing between the government and people is  bringing much uncertainty and anxiety into the matter.

NSA's Eyes
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-nsa-has-too-many-eyes-still-prying/article16396124/

Machiavelli writing prompt

There is an ancient proverb in my country stating that a river can bear a vessel or sink it. The river being the people and the ship being the reign, it is clearly believed by many that a monarch or a political leader should be cautious and considerate when facing the people, for this “river” is able to sink his “ship”. Machiavelli suggested that rivers and men can be controlled, but cannot be trusted, thereby implying that a wise leader should make sure that his people are under his control, rather than believe that his people will always support his reign, no matter how much obedience they present for the time being. Sometimes placid and sometimes wild, the nature of mankind is as unpredictable as that of a river, upon which the vessels cannot always sail without billows and storms. From my point of view, I agree with Machiavelli’s idea. In essence, control enables people to seize as much certainty of success as possible in their own grasp, while trust usually means that people willingly rely on others when working towards a certain goal. What Machiavelli stated is that it is better to have as much certainty as possible than to add more uncertainty by allowing more external factors to be involved. It is probably a part of human nature that since we regard ourselves as individuals, we inevitably separate ourselves from the external world and have a desire to dominate our own affairs with as few external factors involved as possible. All our lives we are trying to make sure of everything; most of our actions are ultimately motivated by this attempt: eating so that we know we will not starve; talking so that we have our requests expressed; studying so that we have a clearer idea of our future; working so that we have enough money to afford other needs, etc. No one would prefer to be silent and wait for others to guess his requests, or not to earn his own life but to rely on financial supports from other people. Theoretically, if a ruler has his subjects completely under control, it is mainly him, not the people, who decide whether he can hold his position; if he have absolute faith with his people, however, the situation is reversed. As a ruler, one certainly prefers the former situation to the latter. In Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Coriolanus, the citizens’ attitude towards Caius Martius Coriolanus, a patrician leader, largely accounts for the tragedy of this unfortunate hero. They furiously condemn Martius for leaving the plebeians starved, but when he returns from Corioles with honor, they willingly offer him the position of consul and celebrate him as a hero, until, convinced by the tribunes, they change their minds once again and expatriate him for his arrogance. Their uncertainty, referred to by Martius as “the beast with many heads (IV.1.1-2)”, somehow corroborates the idea that the attitude of the mass towards a leader is unpredictable and untrustworthy.

You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
And here remain with your uncertainty!
Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts!
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders; till at length
Your ignorance, which finds not till it feels,
Making not reservation of yourselves,
Still your own foes, deliver you as most
Abated captives to some nation
That won you without blows! Despising,
For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a world elsewhere.

--Coriolanus III.3.117-131

In modern society, many examples still prove, if unfortunately, that many of Machiavelli’s ideas are widely applied, especially in politics. In a recent interview on Sochi Olympics, President Vladimir Putin, when asked about the newly-introduced Russian law on homosexual propaganda, told the reporter of BBC that he is “not prejudiced in any way.” Even though it is widely believed that the law, by leaving space for free interpretations, unreasonably repressed the rights of the homosexual people in Russia, and hate attacks on people with minor sexual orientations in Russia are not effectively controlled, Putin still attempts to verbally demonstrate a certain degree of tolerance of himself. Machiavelli proposed in The Moral of the Prince that a wise political leader should make more efforts to “seem to have” all the admirable virtues than to “have them and exercise them all the time.” Based on his theory, the President of Russia may not have another way to respond but declaring that he is not prejudiced, because his words cannot appear to be against good qualities such as tolerance, no matter what position he and his administration actually hold.

Can Rivers and Men be controlled?

In Machiavelli's The Prince, he states "rivers and men can be controlled, but cannot be trusted". I interpret this to mean that men can be controlled, be nice: be polite: don't shout: don't burp ect. But that they cannot be trusted, in either a general sense or meaning they cannot be trusted to stay controlled. I believe that this statement is false, in a general, today’s average Joe descriptive way. I do not believe that men cannot be trusted. 

Although statistics show that men commit more crimes than women, and one may argue that committing a crime is a break in the justice systems trust towards society to do the right thing; I do not necessarily believe that all men especially in the political / leadership field need to be controlled and not trusted. The general idea of a leader especially in democratic terms is to be the voice of the people, a figure head, the 'leader of the pack', as Machiavelli infers throughout his references to lions and foxes. And in being a leader thier needs to be a large amount of trust. I don't think that trust is given, I believe that it must be earned even if its just half halfheartedly. 

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Men, often fall victim to the forces of power, but this does not deem them incapable of being trust worthy. Thus men, though it may be prior to their corruption, may be trusted, and must be trusted in this current day and age when there is so much power and so much room for error.

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.” -http://www.acton.org/research/lord-acton-quote-archive

Blog Rubric + Mr. Hurley's 'teaching blog'

Hi Everyone, here are two things you might find interesting:
1. Click here to see the rubric we will be using for the blog evaluation

2. Click here to read my latest post in my Cohort21 teacher's blog
This Cohort21 is a year-long learning opportunity I've been participating in. This blog post discusses how I plan on approaching assessment and evaluation in the coming months in my class, focusing on improving student learning through choice and improved feedback. Enjoy!

Pink Floyd's "The Wall" provided the inspiration for my most recent blog post

The Prince in Todays View

I think that Machiavelli’s statement about men and rivers is true. In my opinion, he is stating that men can be ruled by others and be controlled but if you give those men too much freedom/independence, the control will be lost along with trust. His position on how a leader should act is far from how the royal family acts today but back then I think it was pretty accurate. A prince shouldn’t care if people call him a miser as long as he acting for the overall good of the people. Everyone does things that they regret but in the long run all of those little mishaps create the big picture of who you are and what you accomplished. Prince Harry has had many things go wrong for him, but do we consider him to be a bad person? No, because the amount of positive impacts he has made greatly outweighs the negatives. Similarly, in “The Prince” Machiavelli states “it’s much wiser to put up with the reputation of being a miser, which brings you shame without hate, than to be forced- just because you want to appear generous.” (Machiavelli 224) He is explaining that you don’t want to be considered a fake by being the nice guy all the time but you should care about the big picture even if there are some negatives.

http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-rulers-today-follow-niccolo-machiavellis-the-prince-is-it-better-for-a-ruler-to-be-feared-or-loved

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1W-GsYpBCY