[Dillon Murphy]

The juxtaposition is certainly an interesting one. When I read it, I was picturing a massive battlefield consisting of preternaturally skilled warriors fighting for glory; a writhing mass of ants was far from my mind when Thoreau wasn’t making a point to remind us that he really was talking about insects. By comparing the ant battle to a human battle, it is immediately easier to relate to and (for most people, I imagine) more interesting. He is also putting the ants on a sort of pedestal, saying that their fervor far exceeded that of human soldiers, and that there are still some things that nature does better.

[Dillon Murphy]

I’ve always thought of ignorance as the belief that your personal view of the world is the only one that exists and/or matters. The latter is, of course, self-inflicted and self-perpetuating and much more harmful to society that naivety. It is something we all have to deal with, whether within ourselves or in others around us. Unfortunately, the solution to overcome it is more than education; it’s a full change of attitude that can’t be forced and must take place over time. The amount of humility required to open oneself up to other ways of thinking or experiencing life is clearly nonexistent among a vast amount of the United States, evident by simply tuning in to some of the terrible things people have been saying about Balitmore, as Allison pointed out.

But since Allison also mentioned social media’s ability to quickly spread information, I feel like I should mention just how susceptible it is to spread misinformation and play a role in fueling ignorance as well. The people behind their computer screens, the people in front of news cameras, they are all human beings and subject to their own biases, prejudices, and looking to push their own agendas. When events like the Baltimore Riots occur, every small detail can be spun to make a point for whichever argument is being made. The amount of clearly false information I’ve seen and heard from others at the expense of biased news sources is appalling and we must keep in mind the possible prejudices being spread through what are often misrepresented as neutral news sources

[Dillon Murphy]

I’ve used a program called f.lux for a couple months now that I really love. It tones down the color of your monitor and makes it softer, as well as corresponds the brightness with the time of day. So in the middle of the night if you have to use your computer in a dark room you won’t find yourself succumbing to blindness like normal screens tend to cause

It’s free for Windows users, though I think you have to purchase it for OS X and Linux

[Dillon Murphy]

What stood out to me was Lincoln’s capitalization of the word Liberty in the later versions, along with his disposal of quotation marks around ‘all men are created equal.’ I see this as Lincoln solidifying these ideas from something abstract to something set in stone; he might not have justified fighting a war for liberty, but fighting for Liberty may have meant something different to him.

The Bliss copy also has more hard pauses, similar to how someone speaking would pause for effect and let their words hang in the air for the audience to contemplate. This is probably his attempt to better capture the way in which he delivered the address, emphasizing the parts he felt to be most important

[Dillon Murphy]

I shared Maya’s interpretation of the passage, in the sense that Thoreau witnessed firsthand an event that many people would walk right on by (or, unfortunately, straight through). His comparisons to ancient heroes and legends not only gave us images of brutal warfare that we could better relate to and painted war in a more unfavorable light. It’s easy not to care about ants ripping the legs off of one another but what about men driving swords through each others; hearts? Certainly a scene that resonates with a reader.

Ralph Waldo Emerson tells us that true beauty in nature comes from the meaning that we give it, that nature and humanity must be paired together for either to reach their potential in life. A specific example he gives of this is the ant. To paraphrase, ‘who cares if ants never sleep and never stop working? It’s not until we think of those qualities in light of our own lives that we can really appreciate them.’ Emerson is saying that the ants’ work ethic is important because it is a trait we can try and strive for ourselves; Thoreau takes this idea and flips it on his head by showing us the brutality of this insect’s life and how it also applies to humanity.

[Dillon Murphy]

We discussed Thoreau’s thoughts on the “pursuit of knowledge” and that discussion is relevant in this context as well. Thoreau valued the obtaining of knowledge in all its forms, though in his later life obviously favored experiential learning; this could be due to his growing friendship with Emerson and his transcendentalist beliefs (Emerson complains that the people of his time are too “retrospective” and dependent on the knowledge of their elders) or it could be a normal change in perspective that comes with aging. No matter what he preaches in Walden, Thoreau spent much of his life in a learning environment as both the student and the teacher. I would argue that when Thoreau makes claims such as his views on both higher education and experiential learning it’s safe for us to try and pin his true opinion somewhere in the middle, and here I believe that that idea takes us to the idea that higher education can be a form of experiential learning when undertaken with deliberately. Language, literature, the sciences, all of these fields require demanding research, constant reevaluation, and access to an impressive library. Experiential learning in the context of higher education means performing the experiments to view the results with your own eyes, learning as many languages as you can and reading the classics to see if their messages speak to you the same way they spoke to society hundreds or thousands years ago.

[Dillon Murphy]

I don’t think Thoreau is concerned with the family’s Irish heritage. In my reading of it he viewed Fields as an example of the mass of discontented men he discusses in Economy. The family is undeniably poor and underprivileged and Thoreau views this as a direct result of not owning their own land, working for someone else’s benefit, etc. His description is given a little more bite because Fields denies the lifestyle of self-sufficiency that Thoreau offers him.

[Dillon Murphy]

The same could be said about many real life social interactions as well– have you ever tried discussing big thoughts at a football game? In those environments you can barely grab the attention of a vendor long enough to order food, let alone discuss something with any sort of value. The same could be said for online discussions as well– it’s true that in many instances true discussion is impossible, sometimes due to an overwhelming number of participants, but those situations are far from the only experience possible. Though it can sometimes be difficult to get into a rewarding conversation through the mass of incoherence or offensive material my best advice is if you’re stuck in those conversations you should consider visiting different websites

[Dillon Murphy]

I disagree with Thoreau’s point of view on this point. When I think of the word “adventurous” I am inevitably drawn to the idea of pressing forward, often into the unknown. While I concede that the classics are very important to one’s education, I would argue that contemporary literature is equally as important, and even more so in terms of being “adventurous” and discovering potential new classics among us today

[Dillon Murphy]

When you’re assessing a book’s physical presentation, it’s important to keep in mind that the cover art and often even the title of the book is out of the author’s hands. Our readings were centered around a time when literature had much less competition than it does these days; books are competing with the internet, tv, video games in a society where reading is quickly losing a battle to those other pursuits. Publishing is a business, not an art, and it is the duty of the publishers to ensure books sell and make money, and as we’ve seen it can be at the cost of the integrity of truly great works. But with a growing market of self-published literature in the form of short stories, novels, and everything in between these emerging authors maintain total control of their work. I never paid these new authors much mind (“if the book was any good it would’ve been picked up by a real publisher, right?”) but I have nothing but respect for the way they’re continuing to innovate the market. In the same way paperbacks changed the game completely, eBooks and self-publishing are starting a new revolution; only this time, the authors possess the voice they deserve

[Author]

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