[Jake Trost]

I definitely agree with the idea that the canon is still primarily ruled by dead white men, and this particular class is a pretty good example (although it’s outside the norm in different ways) of education surrounding the ideas of these dead white men.  However, I also agree with Jess’s suggestion.  Nowadays, things that used to be incredibly important issues have been reduced to fads.  Things like political alignment and social activism aren’t always pursued based on ideological values, but rather because it’s the ‘new thing.’  For example, look at young adult literature now.  It’s primarily dominated by fantasy novels about dystopian societies in which a (usually) young protagonist must fight against the older, corrupt, ruling generation.  This idea of fighting against a corrupt ruling class wasn’t invented by today’s popular novels, but it has been monetized.  While the idea that inadequate government should be challenged is a good one, I think that it has also become the ‘trendy’ thing to do.  Therefore I agree with Jess’s statement that we should “sift through the information that comes our way,” rather than coming to an immediate snap-decision.

[Jake Trost]

EDIT:  WE CHANGED OUR MINDS

Every piece of literary work has some sort of associated paratext, whether it’s a large novel published by a popular company or a self-published work sold on Amazon for 99 cents.  However, one of these forms of literary paratext assigns much more importance to the work than the other.  How much do we judge works based on paratext rather than their content?  How much should paratext affect us in this way?

[Jake Trost]

I think I agree most with Emily’s interpretation of the passage.  Thoreau in my opinion seems to be enthralled by the “war” going on between the ants, but at the same time he spares none of the gruesome details.  He tells the reader that it is the first battle he has ever been witness to, and then begins to compare the ants to the heroes of classic literature.  I think that Thoreau might be trying to understand the motivations for human war by studying the war between the ants, rather than trying to understand the ants by comparing them to people.  He may himself be attempting to categorize human wars as an act of nature as a means of coming to terms with the brutality of conflict.  If “internecine war” can be thought of as a natural act, perhaps it can be more easily understood.

[Jake Trost]

When it comes to social mobility, I agree with Melanie in that technology can be viewed as a “double-edged sword.”  On one hand technology can be viewed as a great equalizer.  Anyone with a connection to the internet, which is a public domain, has access to the same information as everyone else, regardless of race, social class or gender.  This easily-accessed information made available to all makes it much easier for one to supersede the restrictions they may face in other mediums due to any of a number of social boundaries.

However, this is only one form of technology.  The internet is a public domain, and therefore available to all, but there are countless other technologies that are only available to a select few, mostly because of cost.  Advancements in medicinal, mechanic and computer technologies result in very expensive new products that are only available to a select few in the upper economic classes.  In this way technology not only fails to aid in social mobility, it even widens the gap.

[Jake Trost]

I agree that there is definitely no separating humanity from nature, as it would be impossible for human beings or any of our inventions to exist without the natural resources required to make them.  However, I do somewhat agree that the actions of human beings can be seen as natural actions, albeit extreme ones.

Everything that is severely affected by human beings (climate change, deforestation, extinction of species) can also occur naturally.  The climate of the planet has been cyclically changing since way before humanity began to industrialize, and like Thoreau states himself forest fires happen all the time due to natural causes.  And the number of species that have gone extinct over the planet’s history is monumental compared to the number that humans have had a hand in killing off.

So while I do believe that human beings should be more responsible caretakers of the planet, I also think that all we’re really doing is supplementing natural cycles that generally take much longer.  So though we do seemingly try to separate ourselves from nature, we haven’t really affected too much that hasn’t been naturally occurring already.  Except maybe plastic, that stuff is evil.

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