Knowledge is what one knows. To hear the word “knowledge” delights me because people think that my generation lacks it. Some people may think this way because they are afraid of the impact technology has had on our generation. They may not understand technology, so why would they accept it? Others may feel uncomfortable with the way we use it. Both are reasonable explanations. Another reason they may think we are ignorant is because of the dramatic rise in crime. There is a dramatic rise of violence happening and my generation is displaying most of it. Therefore people “throw us under the bus”. But I beg you not to judge. Let me put you in some of my generation’s shoes. A boy at the age of sixteen wakes up every morning to an exhausted mother …show more content…
The house is empty besides a broken thermostat and a phone that is ringing regarding unpaid bills. The pile of unpaid bills resembles a pile of leaves in autumn. He is stressing and has no time for relaxation. At school he makes straight A’s so the kids pick on him. He has dreams of going to medical school and becoming a doctor. His friends abandoned him because their view on college was different. He just wants to make a way to get his mom out of poverty and tired of section eight struggles. He just wants adequate living conditions. He never fell into peer pressure until times became harder than a cellar floor. He calls his cousin, who is a drug dealer, and asks him, “What should I do?” His cousin told him “Sell drugs, crime pays, plus survival is your only crime.” He tells his cousin “I’m tired of waiting for things to get better. I don’t want to wait to live in Heaven; I want live in Heaven while I’m alive.” So he starts selling drugs to get his family the things that they desire so they do not have to be poor and live “in hell” anymore. The money begins to come in rapidly. He figures turning papers in will not get him paid so he drops out of school. All his college dreams fade away like a …show more content…
He made bad decisions but he had good intentions. If someone would have taken the time to talk to him, the situation could have been avoided. Every drug dealer has a unique circumstance. They just need a person to talk to, a friend, someone who will help guide them through their hardship. Lastly, just because somebody chooses to live their life differently from us does not mean that we are superior. No sin out weighs another and we all sin. So who are you to judge us by the decisions we make? Most of my generation only resort to violence because they are poor. They do not have nice things. Therefore we do not lack knowledge. We lack people to care for us. It is almost guaranteed that most drug dealers did not have both parents in their lives. We feel like it is us against the world. So instead of talking down on us, why not help us? We are a creative generation that has a magnitude of knowledge but do not know how to use it. We need help, but from
In today’s world there are millions of people who grow up in situations that make them powerless. Poverty, violence, and drugs surround children from birth and force them to join the cycle. In L.B. Tillit’s Unchained a young boy named TJ grows up in this environment. With both his mother and father struggling with addiction, he is often left alone on the streets to fend for himself. He turns to a local gang for protection and a sense of place in Jr. High, but is quickly taken out of the life he knows when his father overdoses and dies. TJ is sent to live in a foster home where he learns to care for others and meets a girl and falls in love with her. However, when his mother regains custody of him, TJ is forced back into the gang where he uses violence and drug dealing to stay alive. With help from his foster care manager he soon realizes that he can make it out of his life and return to his foster home and the girl he loves. A central theme of Unchained is that people have the power to make decisions to determine their future.
Knowledge helps people make conclusions, lets them be skillful, smart, and keeps them aware. People gather knowledge through experience, whether it's from school, mistakes, witnessing a situation, or trying new activities out. Including in “Fahrenheit 451”, the author, Ray Bradbury does an amazing job in explaining and describing to his audience of how society results in a setting without reasonable amounts of knowledge. People in the society of “Fahrenheit 451” begin to lose common sense after the books are prohibited to keep. In the novel 451 Ray Bradbury warns the audience that without knowledge people are manipulated easily. In reality knowledge is the key to surviving.
We watch people prosper out of poor situation where they are the downtrodden ones to prosperity and achieve more than expected. How life starts taking its change is a mystery. However, most life changes are as a result of hard work and struggle to keep the pace with the ever changing circumstances. Some have dreams that they work for since they are young to the time they are grown and they later achieve them. One example of such man is bob fosse. While young he was very influential in the jazz music and at age of thirteen he had done notable things. He was outstanding and popular in his later age. How people described him moved me; “characterized by finger-snapping, tilted bowler hats, net stockings, splayed gloved fingers, turned-in knees
Throughout the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave many themes are developed relating to slavery. Such themes that are well developed include corruption, brutality, and knowledge. Perhaps the most important theme that was developed was knowledge and its power in everything. Frederick Douglass gained knowledge throughout his life, defying the laws surrounding slavery. Perhaps one of the most impressive things from the life of Frederick Douglass was the fact that, except for a few months at the beginning of his engagement with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, he was a self taught man who took it upon himself to expand his knowledge. Frederick Douglass discovered the power of knowledge and applied this to his life in many different stages. First, he discovered that knowledge is power. Second, he went out of his way to obtain all the knowledge he could. Third, he used that knowledge, that he had gained over years and years of self-taught, underground learning, and used it to run away from the brutal life of a slave. Finally, he used the knowledge he had gained to publicly speak against the institution of slavery and make it a point to earn the right of universal suffrage for all men. He presented many ideas, which we today, can see were very strong and moral convictions from his views as an abolitionist.
My story began on a cool summer’s night twenty short years ago. From my earliest memory, I recall my father’s disdain for pursuing education. “Quit school and get a job” was his motto. My mother, in contrast, valued education, but she would never put pressure on anyone: a sixty-five was passing, and there was no motivation to do better. As a child, my uncle was my major role-model. He was a living example of how one could strive for greatness with a proper education and hard work. At this tender age of seven, I knew little about how I would achieve my goals, but I knew that education and hard work were going to be valuable. However, all of my youthful fantasies for broader horizons vanished like smoke when school began.
Knowledge is of two different kinds: what we know or where we can go find the information upon it. The face of knowing something is sometimes gained through experience. With knowledge or the thought that you know something there are many possible and equally definitions of knowledge. People saying that they know something is a justification that they believe it, but facts could be proven and shown that what they believe is not true. It shouldn’t have to be a good reason for anyone to say they know such things and believe in it. If you know something, you know something. No feedback to test my knowledge. We all don’t think or act the same so the knowledge is different upon each human.
The Romantic Era followed the Age of Enlightenment, a time of scientific discovery, political changes, and philosophical advancement. Romanticism challenged the rationality of the Enlightenment (Britannica). Romantic artists placed emotions above reason. In keeping with the Romantic tradition, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley challenges the benefits of science, education, and knowledge. In Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein, his creature, and Robert Walton are all ambitious; they have a desire for knowledge. However, this quest for knowledge brings about destruction to Dr. Frankenstein, misery to the monster, and danger to Walton. Shelley draws parallels to the Biblical story of the Fall; a catastrophe which befell mankind because of a desire for knowledge.
Many philosophers have inquired about what is knowledge. Most believe that knowledge is attained by being taught, and not suppressed in our mind since birth. In Plato’s Meno, Socrates argues in favor of the pre existing knowledge, that knowledge is essentially suppressed, and is brought to light through questioning. The argument, which comes from this view of “knowledge”, is that if you know what it is you are inquiring about, you don’t need to inquire, because you already know. However, if you do not know what it is you are inquiring about, you are unable to inquire, because you do not know what you inquiring. One outcome about this view is Plato’s rejection of the claim that knowledge is derived from experience. However when you look at the scene between Meno, Socrates and the slave boy, you can see some flaws in this thinking. Plato uses Socrates’ experiment where he asks one of Meno’s slave boys to demonstrate this theory of recalling knowledge by using geometry. In some cases Socrates’ questions are almost leading the slave boy into the answer. Socrates’ places obvious questions in front of the boy that can be recognized immediately. Also, opposite to Plato’s views, I believe that knowledge can be obtained through other means, and not only through questioning and recollection. In the experiment, Socrates guides a slave through a series of geometric proofs to show that the slave already possessed this knowledge and, therefore, that “learning” is not acquiring but recolle...
What is knowledge? According to the scientific method, knowledge ought to be empirical in nature, measurable, and repeatable via experimentation. Another common definition is that “Knowledge represents our best understanding at any given time.” Looking at this well-known claim, by an anonymous author, we can approach it from a language perspective and focus on the part that states “at any given time.” This definition implies that knowledge is constrained by time. However, relating back to the notion that humans are flawed, we typically claim things as knowledge that shouldn’t be considered as such. A good example of this would be the notion of God. For some people, God exists. But if we were to base this piece of “knowledge” on the scientific method, this is not considered knowledge. We cannot complete an experiment that can be repeated with the same result...
Growing up in a household where a mother did not finish high school and a father did not finish elementary is not an ideal up brining for any child. I grew up emphatically impoverished for the majority of my life and my parents tell me they attribute that to the life choices they made in their youth. Today I use these circumstances not to debilitate my confidence, but to motivate me to strive for what I once imagined insurmountable.
A college degree is needed to be successful in this world. This was drilled in most if not all students’ head throughout their school days. The pressure to be successful will drive most to pursue a college degree. Some students attend college for the love of learning and others for the desire of success. In the essay “What is College For?” Gary Gutting states, “Our support for higher education makes sense only if we regard this intellectual culture as essential to our society”. If we don’t consider learning and knowledge as a necessity pursing a college career is pointless. At a young age my grandmother drilled the importance of knowledge into me. Instead of giving toys on Christmas she gave books and told me education was the one thing no one could take from me. The value of learning is significant to me because of my grandmother. The desire of gaining something new each day is the greatest gift of knowledge. In order to obtain this gift you must engage to receive the benefits. To have a successful education one must engage, value, and gain knowledge.
Ever wonder how the world would be today only if our great researchers implemented a different attitude towards their experiments? It is possible that the results would remain same. However, some argue that the consequences may be altered. Nonetheless, this does not make the earlier learned knowledge valued less or false, just supplementary. Abraham Maslow’s theory challenges nearly all ways of knowing, suggesting that if we limit our thinking, the outcomes remain homogenous, therefore, limiting the amount of knowledge we acquire. Dilemmas are mentioned in order to repudiate from the opinions that are profoundly accepted in the society. If Newton had eaten that apple, instead of using it as a tool to apply the theory of attraction, he may not have exposed gravity. Because he had more tools than a mere hammer and he was sagacious enough to expand his philosophy beyond hunger, he made such an innovation. It is widely claimed that inventions are accidental. In fact, all the chemical elements in the famous periodic table are a result of different tactics towards scientist’s research. As ToK teaches us that there is no possible end to a situation for it is influenced by the perceptive skills of the arguers. There is never a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or the ‘ultimate answer’ in the conflict, but the eminence of rationalization is what poises the deliberation. This suggestion explains that there is always that one more way to approach the conclusion. Thus, pursuit of knowledge habitually requires dissimilar ways of knowing for it lengthens the verdict.
When I think about knowledge the first thing that comes to my mind is education. I believe that knowledge comes to people by their experiences in life. In other words, life is an instrument that leads me to gain knowledge. Many people consider that old people are wise because they have learned from good and bad experiences throughout their lives. Education requires work, dedication and faith to gain knowledge. We acquired knowledge through the guidance of from parents, role models, college/University teachers and life experiences.
Truth and beliefs contribute in building the knowledge of a person. Cogent reasons for the beliefs convert the beliefs into knowledge. However, sometimes the beliefs are actually assumption, so they may be wrong. Truth is the facts known from different sources. Something can be considered as knowledge, only if it is true. The word epistemology refers to studying the source of knowledge. The epistemology helps in understanding the process of development of knowledge, sources of knowledge and makes distinctions between belief and actual truth. I critically examined and analyzed the origin and the process of acquiring the knowledge for the two essays I wrote earlier. One essay, an analytical one, was written on the subject of increasing prison population and improper justice system. The second essay was written on the subject of human resource management. To develop the knowledge and understanding I demonstrated in the essays, I had to search for resources, rationalize the information gained and evaluate it in conjunction with my personal beliefs.
There are certain traits in which many people wish to possess. One of those traits is knowledge. Everyone wants to be smarter than everyone else, and being the smartest around is not always a bad thing. However, sometimes knowledge does not have to be a good thing. Knowledge is helpful to save lives such as Odysseus’s journey in the Odyssey and when the CIA foiled Al Qaeda’s terrorist plot to bomb an airplane. However, knowledge is also a burden when one begins to have second thought from my personal experiences taking tests.