The Many Face of Freedom?
Freedom is a concept that people are often willing to die for and it is the cause of much fighting. However, few people ever claim to dislike freedom. This raises an interesting question: how can people fight over what is generally considered to be a positive idea? Does this mean that someone must be against freedom? The answer is that people cannot agree on what freedom is, thus numerous groups can claim to be "for freedom" while strongly disagreeing on the means by which to achieve it. These groups often argue vehemently and passionately, trying to convince the majority that their side is right. However, emotion is only one part of deciding who is more persuasive. I offer two examples of disagreements regarding freedom, as proof that freedom is neither tangible, nor a singular idea.
An example of a disagreement about freedom between two larger groups is offered in Michael Rossman's account of a student protest in "The Wedding Within the War". Feelings between students and the administration came to a head in an argument regarding tables set up by student organizations to meet new members and pass out information. The administration first restricted the students' rights by forcing them to move the tables from the heart of campus to the edge of campus, further from the majority of students. Then, a few years later, the students were told that they were not allowed to have the tables at all (102). Since their campus is a microcosm of the larger government of America, this limiting of their rights frightened them, causing them to react. As a result, they held a demonstration to make these concerns heard. Their main point, as presented in "Catch-801" by Marvin Garson was that "the University Administ...
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...s to be a singular concept. The personal quality of an individual's definition of freedom is also the reason why the students were able to be more persuasive. Their writing contained a sense of personal concern, that decisions made regarding freedom would impact each one of them individually. In contrast, political speeches, although concerned more with the majority, spoke more in terms of abstract freedom, which is much less persuasive.
Works Cited
Garson, Marvin. "Catch-801." Takin' It to the Streets. New York. NY: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Reagan, Ronald. "Freedom vs. Anarchy On Campus." Takin' It to the Streets. New York. NY: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Rossman, Michael. "The Wedding Within the War." Takin' It to the Streets. New York. NY: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Roth, Philip. Goodbye, Columbus. New York. NY: Bantam Books, 1968.
...hile African Americans went through journeys to escape the restrictions of their masters, women went through similar journeys to escape the restrictions of the men around them. Immigrants further strived to fit in with the American lifestyle and receive recognition as an American. All three groups seemed to shape up an American lifestyle. Today, all three of these perceptions of freedom have made an appearance in our lives. As we can see, the transition of freedom from race equality to gender equality shows that freedom has been on a constant change. Everyone acquires their own definition of freedom but the reality of it is still unknown; people can merely have different perceptions of freedom. Nevertheless, in today’s society, African Americans live freely, women are independent, and immigrants are accepted in society. What more freedom can one possibly ask for?
Foner focuses, specifically, on how the definition of liberty has been molded over time. He describes how other factors played a role in the change of liberty using three interrelated themes. The first theme, as he describes it, covers the dimensions or meanings of freedom. The dimensions include “political freedom, or the right to participate in public affairs… civil liberties, or rights that individuals can assert against authority…[and] moral or ‘Christian’ ideal of freedom,” the freedom to act morally or ethically good (Foner xvii). It also includes personal freedom or being able to make individual choices free from coercion, and “economic freedom…[which covers how] the kinds of economic relations constitute freedom for… [individual’s working lives]” (Foner xviii). All these dimensions are looked at individually as they play a role in reshaping the definition of freedom or liberty.
Hynes, Samuel Lynn. "What Happened in Nam." The soldiers' tale: bearing witness to modern war. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: A. Lane, 1997. 177-222. Print.
Freedom has been discussed and debated for a while now and yet no one can completely agree that it exists. Since the Civil, War America has been conditioned to be divided politically. The conflict over the meaning of freedom continues to exist from the civil war, throughout the sixties and in the present. The Civil War was fought over the question of what freedom means in America. The issue was in the open for all to see: slavery. Human slavery was the shameless face of the idea of freedom. The cultural war in the sixties was once more about the question of what freedom is and what it means to Americans. No slaves. Instead, in the sixties and seventies four main issues dominated the struggle for racial equality: opposition to discriminatory immigration controls; the fight against racist attacks; the struggle for equality in the workplace; and, most explosively, the issue of police brutality. For more than two centuries, Americans demanded successive expansions of freedom; progressive freedom. Americans wanted freedom that grants expansions of voting rights, civil rights, education, public health, scientific knowledge and protections from fear.
The prompt for this essay is, “Does freedom need to be won more than once?” In my opinion, it does and it has to be won with every generation. I think even though there are laws ensuring our rights, they are not always upheld. For example, women and men are supposed to be equal, but in some situations they get paid less. In this essay, I will argue that our freedoms must continually be earned. For instance, the Revolutionary War was fought to gain independence from Britain, the Civil War was fought to abolish slavery, and the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the 1910s to 1920s was aimed to allow women to vote.
The topic of freedom can be seen throughout the short story “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela. In the short story “The Censors”, it says, “...thinking that something might happen to Mariana because of his letters. Of all people, Mariana, who must who must finally feel safe there where she always dreamed she’d live.” This evidence shows freedom because based on the quotes, it shows how the letters might harm an individual. This means that if someone sends a rebellious letter to the government, the person who receives or sends the letter will be executed if caught. Another evidence that was stated in the book is, “Juan knows there won’t be a problem with the letter’s contents, that it’s irreproachable,
America is one word that brings the hope of freedom to many people around the world. Since the United States’ humble beginnings freedom has remained at the core of its ideologies and philosophies. People of all races, nations, and tongues have found refuge in America. The National Anthem proclaims, “…land of the free, and home of the brave” (Key, 1814). But has America been consistently a land of the free? Unfortunately freedom has not always reigned. There is a constant struggle to overcome fear and prejudice in order to provide a true land of freedom. In times of heightened tension, the masses of common people seek to find a scapegoat. Often, this scapegoat is a minority with ties to current negative events. As fear uncontrollably grows, it can cause people to allow and commit unspeakable atrocities.
...9). The proposal calls for ships that blow micro sized drops of seawater into the air, and use the Twomey effect to increase the reflectivity; the water uses the salt as a nucleus and when the small drops of water reach the cloud level, they will bond with the existing clouds, increasing the amount of water in the cloud, and therefore making it more reflective (I 2). The plan also calls for ships that run off the wind, and therefore don’t contribute to the CO2 production. Additionally, these ships could be used to target specific areas that need to be cooled sooner rather than later: above the ice caps, and by coral reefs. This proposal has the ability to “hold the earth’s temperature constant for many decades” (Schneider 9), through the ability to add more ships to meet our CO2 production, very natural, and relatively cheap: a proposed $1.5- 3 million per ship.
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty. 3rd ed. Vol. Two. New York: Norton &, 2011. Print.
After reviewing the article titles given for this first assignment, I believe they indicate that Sociology, generally speaking, is not only a study of diversity or commonality in traits among people; it is also a science about factors in a person’s life and how these factors culminate responses. Interestingly enough, its topics of concern seem to be directly determined by current and common events of the world. Through the invention and expansion of new ideas, popular trends and fashions through time, Sociology adapts to responsibly to service the very subjects of interest it studies; for, even the slightest change of a person’s daily experience can have an insurmountable impact on attitude, personal growth, family dynamics and basic group behavior.
American freedom has faced many tribulations, especially throughout the slavery, segregation, and women’s suffrage eras. However, the ideological belief of individual freedom has always triumphed. From when the first Pilgrim stepped onto American soil to the present day America has been run by a democracy and the freedom that system of government allows its peoples to have. “Americans share a common identity grounded in the freedom — consistent always with respecting the freedom of others — to live as they choose” (Friedman).
"What We Want, What We Believe." Takin' it to the Streets. Ed. Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.
P. Erhard, D. Etling, U. Müller, U. Riedel, K.R. Sreenivasan, J. Warnatz, Prandtl-Essentials Fluid Mechanic 3rd Edition, Sprinker (2008)
...epts compose the very subject matter of the study of sociology. As the result, one must agree that we are limited by the impossibility of experiment, which signifies that the scientific methods are not applicable to the entire study of sociology.
The social problem means getting out of what is common in the normal situation and prevalent in social organization. This term has been introduced into sociology from a sociological perspective of biological. Where they compared society to the physical member in terms of its development and its relationship to the functions of other parts of the body in both. A normal society is characterized by