craver
Apr 7, 2010
Writing Feedback / Obedience and Disobedience in their extremes! [2]
The teacher wanted us to write about obedience and disobedience in their extremes(whether they exist or not ..) and does our society apply moderation as a whole when talking about obedience. We need to write an essay and we should include 3 body paragraphs , two supportive to my thesis statement and my argument and one representing the counter argument and I should show that my argument is more effective. I cant group all my points in just 3 paragraphs but if there is a way then ill be thankful . I also need to make sure of my errors. Is the essay well organized and how can i make it better.
thanks a lot
...
Obedience is a characteristic of human beings in all societies. We obey god, our parents, teacher, manager and any person having an authority over us. But sometimes obedience can go to the extremes, which can lead a man to only obey or to only disobey. Obedience and disobedience have always been two opposites that have shaped our society and our relationships whether in moderation or extremes . When laws , orders and authority are diminished , people tend to be obedient or disobedient according to their circumstances but when the 3 exist together , then people would moderate.
When a society lacks the laws and authority to control its people, chaos happens. People start to obey for survival or for being convinced while others disobey for being under no one's control. This is not a recent issue , it was and will always be part of our society as long as we are stay in chaos. As a matter of fact , throughout history, the presence of a master and slave had always demonstrated obedience in its extremes. I call this type of obedience an extreme since the obedient person becomes a robot or an animal acting upon certain presented orders. For instance ,the master used to make the orders and the slave obeyed them all whether he was convinced or not. The only reason behind this was the fear of death on the hands of the upper class . They served the fruits and drinks, they cooked, cleaned, took care of the elderly and entertained the master and his guests , and that was all without any payment . When you think about it , you see that the master is controlled by another powerful master who is god. So technically we are all slaves of god, which means that we tend to dedicate fully to god. But, if we were true, then slavery would not exist. The life we are talking about is different, with different circumstances and laws. We are actually slaves of desire, the desire of power which is an invisible force which controls us and we show it by controlling people. We believe that what is not theirs should be theirs. Desire of power means greed and that's what we are for , we practically want everything. The concept of slavery is not necessary physical but also mental. Let's look at the servant, unless he's chained he can run away and be "free", but what freedom would that be if he is a slave of circumstances. He was born with no power or lost his power during his life. If he is to run, then what shall he do? Live a hard life in a cruel world? What about his family? He needs to feed them also and take care of them. What life would they have as outcasts and refugees? He is a slave of love, family and duty!
Other then the case of the slaves, there is the commitment to a group, whether religious, ethnic, or political. People in such groups tend to believe in all the group's norms and values and obey all its rules and orders, otherwise death would be better than living according to them. In an article by Emile Durkheim, the author mentions that when an individual is really bounded to a highly integrated group, he tends to accept the values and norms with total convincement and agreement. He would not distinguish between his and the group's interests. He would actually sacrifice himself for the group's sake. In this case, self-destruction is looked upon as self-conformation and fulfillment. This type of obedience can lead to Altruistic Suicide.
Moreover, when we discuss obedience we directly think of obedient women who lose their dignity and self esteem when being under their husbands' control. Many women in our society suffer from such marriages where the woman should stay at home, cook , do the dishes, teach her children, be in bed , limit her friend list. He would also limit or stop her visits to her parents house, use violence on her like hitting and slapping her when doing something wrong, humiliate her and so on. She , as his wife should be obedient since she knows it might be hard for to remarry or she would lose her children or end up would a bad reputation. On the other hand , in some marriages it is the opposite.The man would be under his wife's control. She might use violence and engage him in matters that affects his masculinity . In all cases ,obedience to that extent can have harsh impacts on both sexes , whether the male or the female is obeying his/her partner.
In an experiment by Milgram , the psychologist wanted to see people's degree of obedience . He brought in 40 participants who had to act like teachers . When a student answers a wrong question , the teacher should automatically punish him/ her by sending on voltage shocks of increasing intensities depending on the number of incorrect answers. Milgram realized that when the teacher reached a certain level , the student would make another mistake and the teacher would be forced to use the punishing tool even if he/she wasn't convinced. 65% of the participants reached the maximum shocks. This shows that even people under certain circumstance would always obey even if they were not convinced or had nothing in return . We , human beings, have the trait of obedience in our blood, carrying it from one generation to the next. (Milgram, 1974 )
On the other hand, there are always cases of disobedience by people and a well known case was the case of Adam and Eve, two of which were living in the Gardens of Eden. They obeyed god in everything, they lived in peace and harmony. But all that changed when they disobeyed an order. That was when god allowed them to eat from everything except the tree of knowledge. The serpent started telling them to eat from the tree since it will make them immortal. They then disobeyed god and ate from it, which made them leave heaven and go down to earth. They did not intend to disobey god, but the circumstances and their desires made them do so. That was one of the cases that created the human civilization by an act of disobedience.(Fromm,1963)
In addition, we see many people in our societies being disobedient to any law or order. They miss meetings, workers for instance if not given authority, would disobey since in all cases they are not getting enough wages. They would do only part of their job, would not be punctual and would mess up. They do work inefficiently either cause of pay as mentioned or cause of abuse by the manager , or simple cause no one is watching them. That is natural human behavior, obedience can not be put into action unless there is authority. Moreover, traffic is a good example of representing disobedience. For instance, most people in Lebanon specifically , tend to ignore traffic lights which is one of the main causes of great accidents and collisions in the world. Since there is no authority and the police do not really punish those outlaws and rebellious actions, people insist on doing so. Also, in the family, you can always find a disobedient child who never listens to his parents' orders. He would not pay attention to his studies , would rather make his parents shout all day and not do the thing they want, and would act more repulsive and rebellious.
Even though, many people might disagree with me , they might say that things are changing to the better as more societies are showing authority and discipline. People have become more open minded, more social through the use of media and internet, and are able to seek whatever they want. And when talking about women , we now see that matters have changed . Women have more rights, laws are easier , divorce rates have increased, women are educated and can no longer accept such torture. Still, we have not reached the point were we have control over the extremes. When people go to war or destroy something, they always have this common statement " We have nothing to do with this . We are only obeying.". when the manager tells the workers to work in a dangerous place and then something goes wrong , they would put the blame on the workers even though they were obeying the manager's orders. And we still find thousands of women beaten up for not making their husbands coffee in the morning or not obeying one of his orders!
To sum up, in our society there are 2 stages , the first is the order/law carrying it out represents authority, morality and moderation. The second one depends on your humanity and psychology , and that determines whether you would actually obey or disobey.
The teacher wanted us to write about obedience and disobedience in their extremes(whether they exist or not ..) and does our society apply moderation as a whole when talking about obedience. We need to write an essay and we should include 3 body paragraphs , two supportive to my thesis statement and my argument and one representing the counter argument and I should show that my argument is more effective. I cant group all my points in just 3 paragraphs but if there is a way then ill be thankful . I also need to make sure of my errors. Is the essay well organized and how can i make it better.
thanks a lot
...
Obedience is a characteristic of human beings in all societies. We obey god, our parents, teacher, manager and any person having an authority over us. But sometimes obedience can go to the extremes, which can lead a man to only obey or to only disobey. Obedience and disobedience have always been two opposites that have shaped our society and our relationships whether in moderation or extremes . When laws , orders and authority are diminished , people tend to be obedient or disobedient according to their circumstances but when the 3 exist together , then people would moderate.
When a society lacks the laws and authority to control its people, chaos happens. People start to obey for survival or for being convinced while others disobey for being under no one's control. This is not a recent issue , it was and will always be part of our society as long as we are stay in chaos. As a matter of fact , throughout history, the presence of a master and slave had always demonstrated obedience in its extremes. I call this type of obedience an extreme since the obedient person becomes a robot or an animal acting upon certain presented orders. For instance ,the master used to make the orders and the slave obeyed them all whether he was convinced or not. The only reason behind this was the fear of death on the hands of the upper class . They served the fruits and drinks, they cooked, cleaned, took care of the elderly and entertained the master and his guests , and that was all without any payment . When you think about it , you see that the master is controlled by another powerful master who is god. So technically we are all slaves of god, which means that we tend to dedicate fully to god. But, if we were true, then slavery would not exist. The life we are talking about is different, with different circumstances and laws. We are actually slaves of desire, the desire of power which is an invisible force which controls us and we show it by controlling people. We believe that what is not theirs should be theirs. Desire of power means greed and that's what we are for , we practically want everything. The concept of slavery is not necessary physical but also mental. Let's look at the servant, unless he's chained he can run away and be "free", but what freedom would that be if he is a slave of circumstances. He was born with no power or lost his power during his life. If he is to run, then what shall he do? Live a hard life in a cruel world? What about his family? He needs to feed them also and take care of them. What life would they have as outcasts and refugees? He is a slave of love, family and duty!
Other then the case of the slaves, there is the commitment to a group, whether religious, ethnic, or political. People in such groups tend to believe in all the group's norms and values and obey all its rules and orders, otherwise death would be better than living according to them. In an article by Emile Durkheim, the author mentions that when an individual is really bounded to a highly integrated group, he tends to accept the values and norms with total convincement and agreement. He would not distinguish between his and the group's interests. He would actually sacrifice himself for the group's sake. In this case, self-destruction is looked upon as self-conformation and fulfillment. This type of obedience can lead to Altruistic Suicide.
Moreover, when we discuss obedience we directly think of obedient women who lose their dignity and self esteem when being under their husbands' control. Many women in our society suffer from such marriages where the woman should stay at home, cook , do the dishes, teach her children, be in bed , limit her friend list. He would also limit or stop her visits to her parents house, use violence on her like hitting and slapping her when doing something wrong, humiliate her and so on. She , as his wife should be obedient since she knows it might be hard for to remarry or she would lose her children or end up would a bad reputation. On the other hand , in some marriages it is the opposite.The man would be under his wife's control. She might use violence and engage him in matters that affects his masculinity . In all cases ,obedience to that extent can have harsh impacts on both sexes , whether the male or the female is obeying his/her partner.
In an experiment by Milgram , the psychologist wanted to see people's degree of obedience . He brought in 40 participants who had to act like teachers . When a student answers a wrong question , the teacher should automatically punish him/ her by sending on voltage shocks of increasing intensities depending on the number of incorrect answers. Milgram realized that when the teacher reached a certain level , the student would make another mistake and the teacher would be forced to use the punishing tool even if he/she wasn't convinced. 65% of the participants reached the maximum shocks. This shows that even people under certain circumstance would always obey even if they were not convinced or had nothing in return . We , human beings, have the trait of obedience in our blood, carrying it from one generation to the next. (Milgram, 1974 )
On the other hand, there are always cases of disobedience by people and a well known case was the case of Adam and Eve, two of which were living in the Gardens of Eden. They obeyed god in everything, they lived in peace and harmony. But all that changed when they disobeyed an order. That was when god allowed them to eat from everything except the tree of knowledge. The serpent started telling them to eat from the tree since it will make them immortal. They then disobeyed god and ate from it, which made them leave heaven and go down to earth. They did not intend to disobey god, but the circumstances and their desires made them do so. That was one of the cases that created the human civilization by an act of disobedience.(Fromm,1963)
In addition, we see many people in our societies being disobedient to any law or order. They miss meetings, workers for instance if not given authority, would disobey since in all cases they are not getting enough wages. They would do only part of their job, would not be punctual and would mess up. They do work inefficiently either cause of pay as mentioned or cause of abuse by the manager , or simple cause no one is watching them. That is natural human behavior, obedience can not be put into action unless there is authority. Moreover, traffic is a good example of representing disobedience. For instance, most people in Lebanon specifically , tend to ignore traffic lights which is one of the main causes of great accidents and collisions in the world. Since there is no authority and the police do not really punish those outlaws and rebellious actions, people insist on doing so. Also, in the family, you can always find a disobedient child who never listens to his parents' orders. He would not pay attention to his studies , would rather make his parents shout all day and not do the thing they want, and would act more repulsive and rebellious.
Even though, many people might disagree with me , they might say that things are changing to the better as more societies are showing authority and discipline. People have become more open minded, more social through the use of media and internet, and are able to seek whatever they want. And when talking about women , we now see that matters have changed . Women have more rights, laws are easier , divorce rates have increased, women are educated and can no longer accept such torture. Still, we have not reached the point were we have control over the extremes. When people go to war or destroy something, they always have this common statement " We have nothing to do with this . We are only obeying.". when the manager tells the workers to work in a dangerous place and then something goes wrong , they would put the blame on the workers even though they were obeying the manager's orders. And we still find thousands of women beaten up for not making their husbands coffee in the morning or not obeying one of his orders!
To sum up, in our society there are 2 stages , the first is the order/law carrying it out represents authority, morality and moderation. The second one depends on your humanity and psychology , and that determines whether you would actually obey or disobey.
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