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The anatomy of a rumor
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We live in a world full of suspicions. We constantly make accusation in our mind, and judge. That is how our world has become. We someone tells us that there is a spy or saboteur among us we immediately take any mistakes and dislike to a person and blame them. We take our dislikes to a person and spread the thought to other people that the saboteur is this person. Suspicions affect everyone. In the card activity when Mrs. Ball old us there was a saboteur we assumed it was the person who had made the “mistake”. When in reality they had just messed up and made the cards fall. When we had our suspicions for the saboteur we blamed them for the rest of the day. We were saying in sixth and seventh period that this person is the saboteur and they
were trying to defend themselves. When Mrs. Ball said she sent the instructions to the saboteurs and we saw someone's email that we suspected we made our minds believe there really was an email that said “Card House Instructions”. The suspicions affected our group majorly. When we were told that there was a saboteur we tried to make the card house with little help as possible. We didn’t want someone to ruin our work. We argued with each other about the structure of the card house. When people we thought we helping too much we blamed them because we thought they would lead the group the wrong way. When people were not helping very much we suspected them to make one move and it all fail or leave us to build it ourselves. In the card building contest we blamed the people who were helping ot much and the people who were not helping enough. The people that were framed even though they knew they were not the saboteur they felt angry and annoyed at the group because out of the five of us they were being the one blamed and they weren’t even it. They were being accused of something they didn’t do with no evidence to prove it only mistakes, and opinions.
Conover inferred many times that when something bad happens there will always be another person pointing the finger at another o...
From those three points such as Dunstan changing his life to devote to Mary Dempster, Boy’s situation with Leola, and Paul’s persona change we see how guilt affects these characters in totally different ways. Even though Boy was the one who threw the snowball, Dunstan was the one to feel guilt about it, yet Boy wipes out this guilt. Even though Paul Dempster felt guilty for his mother he decided to deal with it by being a whole other person to handle it. Therefore, guilt is the intended study throughout the entire novel.
The people also deflected the blame to another person, here are a few examples. "Les Goodman's the one. His car started! Let's wreck it," another is "What about Steve's radio. He's the one that called them. Smash the radio. Get me a hammer. Get me something." The last one is... "It isn't the kid...it's Bob Weaver's house." There are a lot more than that, but they all have the same explanation, and that is, none of them wanted to get blamed because they saw the things that they said they were going to do to the person when they found whoever it
Scapegoats appear abundant in the world today. Political parties and businesses consistently seem to find a person or small group that takes the blame for serious issues. This can cause problems and arguments that sometimes lead to something serious like wars. Scapegoats are just a way of passing blame off of oneself and on to others, just so reputations can remain intact. This sort of attitude shows how lethargic the world has become, where people don’t even take responsibility for their actions. Many people from older generations complain about how all the new generations become too comatose and unwilling to take on their own actions and indiscretions. With attitudes like this, peace will never be found and will inevitably lead to conflict. Something must be done to stem the flow of scapegoats which have been utilized far too much over time.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a selfish Scottish thane becomes over-ambitious and commits several murders in order to gain and stay in power. After the murders, Macbeth evades suspicion by hiding his guilt and intentions, therefore deceiving others into thinking that he is innocent. Other characters including Lady Macbeth, the witches and the Scottish thanes also use their appearances to hide the truth and deceive others. With these examples, Shakespeare shows that appearances can be deceiving.
When I begin to experience a connection with someone, my fear of abandonment is initiated and my vulnerability causes me to become suspicious of the other person. I am aware of my deep need for acceptance but I panic because I believe that others will somehow demean me. In most cases, I view social connections as dangerous and, in my inexplicable anxiety, I attempt to sabotage the relationship while convincing myself that others do not truly care about me. Unfortunately, this leads to a pattern of avoiding emotional depth resulting in an overwhelming mistrust of others.
Espionage has always been a subject that has captured the thoughts and imaginations of many people. The idea of the glamorous life of espionage agents and spies with grand parties, high tech gadgets, and world destroying villains have led to the belief that spies live a life of adventure and almost science fiction. Real agents live far from that life in reality. Many live in constant fear of imprisonment or execution. The facts and fiction of espionage have become distorted overtime.
Stimulating characters that evolve with the plot are fundamental in most novels. These characters could range from the Mary Sue protagonist to the chaotically evil antagonist. In A Lost Lady, Niel Herbert is a significant character along this spectrum. Although Willa Cather herself pointed out he is merely a "peephole" and a "subordinate" to the woman she truly cared for, Niel is a central aspect since he carries the story (132: 20). Early in the novel, he is already portrayed as the classic hero as he injures himself trying to alleviate the woodpecker of its pain. A more intense insight, however, is gathered from him as the plot develops and as he matures. Consequently, Niel discredits initial presumptions about him as he presents qualities and ideologies that make him detrimental to Cather's fictional society, which may be viewed as a microcosm of the actual world. Accordingly, through the patriarchal ideals Niel embraced, the unfounded biases he held, and the ulterior motives he possessed, his heroic stature is unmerited.
Since the beginning of settled civilizations, people have had more mutual sharings than ever before. By the same token, there have been some conspiracy theories that are usually against the culturally accepted beliefs of religions, science and society. A conspiracy theory can be described so differently. However, as in his text, Marshall Brain explicates, a conspiracy is generally defined as a theory seeking to explain a disputed case or matter as a plot by a secret group or alliance rather than an individual or isolated act (Brain). Especially, after the new media has become quite popular, more and more conspiracies are theorized every single day, which aim to catch society’s attention via such media tools as the internet, journals and newspapers. Thus, people who theorize those conspiracies tend to use such objects as spiritual and mysterious ones in order to interest people. To illustrate, many examples can be given. For instance, many people have claimed that they were abducted by aliens, although they could show no evidences. Here, a citation from Blackmore could facilitate to understand the circumstance better. She states that people occasionally claim that they have been abducted from public places by aliens, in this case that may provide them with witnesses and affirmations but no evidence could be shown so far (Blackmore). As it is well known, only a small number of people believe such alien abductions, however, rating of this kind of news is quite high on media, because humankind has been wondering if there are extraterrestrial creatures out of the earth. Another example can be conspiracy theories which are about the origins of religions such as the rejection of Jesus Christ. There are some people who pay attention to...
From the beginning of time there has been an evident gap between the people and the government. In a democracy the government is supposedly, by the people, for the people, yet this hypothetical gap still exists. The gap is either censored or overall information common citizens do not know, it is what the government holds back from its naive citizens. Although society has evolved and the gap has become smaller, information and world events are still being altered in order for government to achieve what they want, not what the people want. Through the gap comes conspiracy, it is the belief that powerful people have worked together to orchestrate or withhold the
Thereafter Macbeth committed a serious crime, insane hallucinations fell upon him. The writing of Shakespeare reveals that wrong actions can cause serious consequences. Hallucinations and illusions result in the bizarre paranoia of Macbeth and his wife. Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth were innocent people at once, and the greed of the throne destroyed their peaceful mentality.
The path one takes to seek a personal reward may result in the treacherous acts that causes devastation for others. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the moral corruption that occurs between family members causes animosity that results in their downfall, and eventually their ultimate demise. More specifically, the tainted view of an individual in a family may result in the downfall of the other family members involved. Evidence of the tainted view of a family member causing undue harm can be found in the relationship between Hamlet and Claudius, Hamlet and Old King Hamlet, and Hamlet and Gertrude
Emotions and logic play an important role at the moment of decision making. In the play “Twelve Angry Man”these factors are used to determine the future of a young teenager. At first the jurors use emotions to conclude the boy’s guilty of his father murder. However throughout the play, the jurors start to use logic to expose the mistakes they made in the first decision. They used logic and analyze the evidence realizing they dismiss important details. Even though emotions are part of the human nature sometimes they can blind our judgment.
For an example, consider two alternative belief systems A and B consisting of beliefs A1, A2 and B1, B2 respectively. There are two beliefs in each system none of which can justify themselves alone. If A1 → A2 and A2 → A1, then there are 2 inferential connections in A and a high inferential density. Bonjour says this makes A likely. However, if only B1 → B2 and not vice versa, then there is only 1 non-mutual inferential connection in B and thus a low inferential density. Bonjour suggests that lack of mutual justification makes the whole system of B unjustified since B1 must act foundationally.