Socratic seminar response 2nd week

The discussion we had, again, was not fun, because I did not learn anything. The questions used for discussion did not felt interesting to me. Just like last time I did not really have any anything to say or have any opinion about the topics that were being discussed. I disliked the discussion. I am not saying that the seminar is pointless, but I do not really enjoy these kinds of discussion. My classmates giving their opinions, made me kinda feel "powerless" because I had nothing to say. This time also I find Socratic seminar boring, and I do not think Socratic seminar is a way for me to learn, I like discussions in a small group, and I can learn from small group discussions. The reason why I did not participated in the seminar was because I had no opinion for the question we were discussing. I found the seed question pointless, because truly I couldn't have a opinion. The seed question for the discussion was about a racial word "nigger", about it's meaning, how it's used in today's language, and foul language. Many people had opinions. Some said it is okay to use "nigger", because some people grown up hearing and using the word in their daily life. Others, like our PE teacher Mrs. Yarber, said it is inappropriate to speak such word, and should be "banned from the English Dictionary".The reason why these people had opinion regarding this word was because the very word hold's a meaning in their life. To me, the word has no meaning. For me, "nigger" is just another word; therefore I had no opinion to give in the discussion.    

Diversity and Difference celebration by American Authors

America is a place where diversity and differences are celebrated for the good of all. The ideals America stands for are freedom, equality, and rights which are celebrated by all. In Whitman, and Hughes’s writing they show that they honor it. Whitman celebrates it, and Hughes with his positive attitude, looks forward to celebrate it.

“I hear America singing” by Walt Whitman shows what his America is and what it is like, and how they celebrate there work using general lifestyles of others around him such as “mechanics, carpenter, mason, hatter” and more. His vision of America seems like utopian society, where there is perfect political, social, and economically system. His uses words like “Singing” and “songs” which means working, and freedom. The celebration Whitman talks about is the “blithe” freedom that belongs to you and only you by stating “ The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat”. In Whitman’s America you will see repeated over and over a celebration of individuals regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, nationality, and social standing by expressing words or phrases like “ Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else”, “ the varied carols”, “young fellows, robust, friendly”, and more. (http://www.bartleby.com/142/91.html)

I, too, sing America by Langston Hughes shows Hughes calmly looking forward to celebrate diversity and differences with the white society. I, too, sing America has a point of view of 1st person, a poem about individual. Unlike Whitman, Hughes’s poem celebrate people for who they are not what they do. Hughes consider himself a part of American society, in his poem he declares “ I am the darker brother.”. His tone in the poem is very calm but strong and determined. (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15615)

Whitman celebrates the festival of diversity, by telling people celebrating their work in a utopian type of America, and expresses the celebration in a harmonious tone. Hughes looks forward to celebrates his Equality with his white brothers.

http://www.worldandi.com/specialcollection/special-collection-diversity.asp

Socratic seminar response

The good discussion we had yesterday was not fun, because I did not learn anything. I would rather like a reading day than Socratic seminar. The questions used for discussion did not felt interesting to me. I did not really have any anything to say or have any opinion about the topics that were being discussed. I disliked the discussion. I am not saying that the seminar is pointless, but I do not really enjoy these kinds of discussion. People just saying stuff, and being very loud, I do not like that. I also find Socratic seminar boring, I do not think Socratic seminar is a way for me to learn, I like discussions in a small group, and I can learn from small group discussions. The reason why I did not participated in the seminar was because I had no opinion for questions like, are men superior than women or men have more power than women? According to a person like me, I cannot form an opinion for such question. Since there was a huge argument about men are superior than women. I would say or my opinion would be, a man is superior than a woman or vice versa does not really bother me, I mean so what if a woman is superior than a man or a man is superior than a woman. I’m sorry but I think that The Wheel Of Power is nonsense. Pardon my language, but why the hell should there be any superiority or inferiority in our society ?   

Origin of the Civil War

Origins of the Civil War

The deepest cause of the Civil War lay in the divergence of two societies over slavery. As the North and the South developed divergent societies based on freedom and slavery, two separate regional identities emerged. The United States was a nation divided into two distinct regions separated by the Mason-Dixon line. The Wilmot Proviso, Compromise of 1850, and Kansas-Nebraska Act stirred up a great controversy over the extension of slavery into the western territories and also contributed a lot to the coming of the Civil War.

During the Mexican-American War (1846-48), the Wilmot Proviso was a bill in Congress to outlaw slavery in the new territories; it never passed but stirred intense controversy. The Wilmot Proviso was a proposal, by David Wilmot for Congress to forbid the expansion of slavery into the Southwest, the land acquired from Mexico after the Mexican-American War. Many northerners viewed the war with Mexico as part of a southern plot to extend the “slave power”. This belief and the Proviso inflamed great sectional tensions and helped cause the American Civil War, because the northerners voted for the Proviso even if they were democrat and the southerners voted against it even if they were Whigs.

The Compromise of 1850 in United States history was a series of legislative acts that were intended to resolve conflicts between pro-slavery and anti-slavery, but it ended up being a controversy. A political crisis began with a petition for the admission of California as a free state. Following the California Gold Rush, California had enough people for the formation of a government. But after the Missouri Compromise, it had been the practice of Congress to admit states in slave-free pairs so as to maintain the balance of free and slave states in the U.S. Senate. As there was no slave territory anywhere close to being ready or able to organize as a state, the admission of California as a free state would undo the compromise and grant a free-state majority in the Senate. Henry Clay proposed a compromise that would resolve this and other outstanding issues. Clay's bill admitted California as a free state, banned the sale of slaves in Washington, D.C., organized the remainder of the Mexican Cession into two territories-Utah and New Mexico-and allowed the settlers to decide the slavery issue by popular sovereignty, and strengthen the fugitive slave law. Parts of the compromise became sources of controversy, especially the new Fugitive Slave Law and the provision of popular sovereignty.

Most people thought the Compromise had ended the territorial issue, but Stephen A. Douglas reopened it in 1854, in the name of democracy. Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill with the intention of the railroad connections from Chicago into Kansas and Nebraska, but that was not a controversial point. The Bill proposed that the Nebraska Territory be divided into the Kansas territory and Nebraska territory, and the settler there be free to decide whether or not to allow slavery(popular sovereignty). The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act renewed the sectional controversy that had been at least partly resolved by the Compromise of 1850. In effect, it repealed the Compromise of 1820. This caused protest in north, and the party that caused this protest was called the Anti-Slavery Republic Party.

Some Historians see the Wilmot Proviso as the first round in an escalating political conflict that led ultimately to Civil War. The Compromise of 1850 was also one the steps leading to the Civil War. Manifest Destiny ,belief that the United States was destined to expand across theNorth American continent, played the most important role to trigger the Civil War.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/U.S._Civil_War,_Origins