Writing Feedback / GRE Essay:- "Laws should not be rigid or fixed. Instead, they should be flexible [6]

Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views. Please give your valuable feedback on my essay. I would be really thankful to you for your comments and suggestion.

Topic: - "Laws should not be rigid or fixed. Instead, they should be flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places."

Response: -

According to the law of ecology- intraspecies competition is always fiercer than interspecies competition. And, as we human being are fighting for the same resources to use; so definitely, there will be contradiction and clash for using these resources. These fighting and clash should not go to the extent where we should kill each other or harm each-other, there should be some guiding principle by which we should compete against, not only each other, but, also against the other species of this planet. Here comes the word 'law'. Law can be defined as, "specific set of rules made by people for the proper functioning of the society, community, state, country, and as a whole whatever is in interaction of the human being." The question raised by the issue topic that law should be not rigid but flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places seems reasonable on long time scale but not for a short time scale.

What is the purpose of making any law? I think, its purpose is not to punish anybody but to deter others from doing same kind of mistakes again. Keeping the basic purpose of the law in mind the basic assumption made by abovementioned phrases seems to be true that law should be flexible enough to take into account various circumstances, times, and places. But, if we will consider few examples as per say issue of capital punishment in various circumstances, we have to reconsider the assumption made by the abovementioned phrase. Like, there was one case in Kolkata few years back in which watchman of a building has raped and killed a 10year girl. Later he was given death sentence for this crime. In another case a men has killed another person while saving his life. But, he was acquitted. In the light of above mentioned example two questions can be asked-

1. Why there is different punishment for the same type of crime?
2. Is it always possible to prove that man has killed another person while saving his life or just for some other reason and now he is trying to defend himself?

The answer to the second question is clear- No! So, law tries to be flexible and consider all the circumstances under which a crime has been committed but it's not always easy to take these circumstances into account. This is the reason why law can't be flexible on case-to-case basis because by doing so we will be taking more number of wrong decisions than right decisions.

But, now we need to consider flexibility of any law on long time scale. As I have mentioned in the first paragraph that law is nothing but specific set of rules made by human being for the proper functioning of the society. And, as we know that people requirement and need of the society use to change with time, law has to also change with time. We can take a very simple example of hunting the wild animals. In earlier days humans were dependent on these animals for their food. But, as now, our major requirements of food are meet by other sources there is absolutely no need to hunt these animals. So, in this situation definitely rules need to be changed, and as we can see in most of the countries, hunting has been banned. Another example of this kind of change, which is in progress at present, is change in the rule of same sex marriage, which is still not allowed in many countries. Law should also take into account places in which it should be implemented. I would like to present a very simple example to support this point. Sell of liquor is banned in many countries but we have to reconsider our this law in places where temperature use to go very low and you need to take liquor to keep yourself warm and alive.

In conclusion, we can say that law should try to consider various circumstances, times, and places while taking any decision but on the same time it should not vary from person to person. Same law should apply to all for the same type of mistake. It should not be person dependent. On other hand, if any law is becoming outdated with time and place than it should be changed with the consensus of the majority.

Writing Feedback / No matter if it's original, more important is how useful is this idea for the people in a new way? [4]

Please give your comments and ways of improving, after reading. Please!!!! Thanks in advance.

Present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.

originality vs usability

Topic: - "Originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before; it means putting old ideas together in new ways."

Response: -

In most of the countries patents are granted on the basis of novelty. But, the most important question, which arises here, is what does it mean by novel. In most of the countries, patents are granted only if any idea is new and had never appeared anywhere in the past. But, few countries also grant a patent if something already exist and someone is able to modify it or put it in a new way, so that it can be more useful. So, we can see that the statement quoted above is contradictory and there is little bit confusion about the term novelty or originality itself.

Is originality means something that was never thought before or something old put together in a new way? Both of the things can be true in different circumstances. Ideas use to originate inside the human brain like fission reaction, never in isolation. So, most of the time, whatever original ideas that use to come to human brain and that has never been thought by anybody else in the past is inspired by some past action or already existing things. As it may be possible that many a time we use to observe a thing, but never thought about its use; like, everybody use to see the flow of water and wind but it was for sure an original idea to generate electricity from it. Same thing can be said about the deciphering of benzene structure. Structure of benzene was enigma for many decades for the scientists all around the world. But, Kekule has solved the benzene structure by deriving new idea from the movement of the snake, which doesn't mean that his idea was not original.

To understand it more precisely, we should understand the difference between the term invention and discovery: invention is to generate something new with the help of existing materials in the nature, which use to have a new form and new use for the first time; whereas, discovery is to bring to the notice of all the people, something already existing in the nature in the same form. We can cite the example of many discoveries in this category. Like, discovery of American continent by Christopher Columbus. But, sometimes there is wafer thin line between the term discovery and invention, like, discovery of Penicillin. People knew about the use of antibiotics in European folk medicine, but only after the serendipitous discovery by Alexander Fleming, it was popularized and put to widespread medicinal use by Florey and Chain. This kind of situation will lead to a grueling long debate that it was a discovery or an invention.

So, while discussing the originality of any idea, it's better, we should restrict ourselves to only inventions. Now, this invention can be broadly categorized into two groups, one is the things which has never been thought or existed and other is like which has existed and now it has been modified in a way that it has become more useful. Mobile has been invented, but can we categorize it as original idea. In a way, we can say that mobile is nothing but improvement over the existing telephone. Same thing can be said about the motorbike, it's nothing but improvement over bicycle. So, we can say that, it's not that idea has been thought before or not, or putting of old ideas in a new ways should be used to define the originality of an idea, but how the ideas have been put to the use of the people should be the main criteria for defining the originality of the idea.

In conclusion, it can be said that as a measure of the originality of any idea, we should not see that it has been thought before or not, or it's just the modification of the old ideas, but it should be decided on the basis of, "How much useful it's for the people in a new way?" As the old adage goes, "Need is the mother of all invention," We should see how much originality of any idea is able to fulfill this need. So, both, something that was never thought before or putting old ideas together in new ways can qualify for the original ideas.