Honors Seminar Midterm - Human Nature
Part I
1.) Each text and the film that we viewed so far to this semester has provided great insight into human nature and the characteristics of humans; or what the author believes to be the characteristics of humans. While the authors’ beliefs regarding human nature vary greatly for the most part, they do not contradict each other, as the angles of examination of human nature differ completely in each book. This variance provides many different beliefs regarding human nature and characteristics that helps to make my personal understanding regarding the subject deepen with each book and opinion that I read. While I initially felt that the important themes within the film Memento centered on memory, trust, and relationships between humans, I now believe a more important theme is apparent.After reflecting on the film throughout the first half of the semester, I have come to believe that the film suggests that one characteristic of mankind is the yearning to have goals, to have something to constantly reach towards. The protagonist, Leonard, was useful in emphasizing certain human traits due to his memory condition. Leonard could only work towards the goal of avenging the murder of his wife as his short term memory loss essentially prevented him from creating new goals to achieve. Even after avenging what he believed to be the murder of his wife, Leonard continues to chase “suspects” and kill them; simply because humans need goals to work towards and mysteries to solve. In Ortega’s essay “Man Has No Nature”, he examines the freedom of humans in comparison to other species and the meaning of freedom itself. According to the text, humans have the ability to choose their path; they are the only thing on Earth that is not defined by others. Unlike a rock or a blade of grass, something that has a clearly defined existence and purpose (usually defined by humans), “man is the entity that makes itself” (Ortega 155). Ortega suggests a great variance in choice between the “paths” of life that exists for humans and no other species. In The Present Age, Kierkegaard’s writings suggest that man possesses the ability to act greatly, to make changes and revolutions through his actions. While man possesses the potential for this ability act, Kierkegaard is frustrated by the fact that in his own age (and likely our age if he were alive to comment), a characteristic of humans is to ignore this potential and reflect rather than act. Unlike a revolutionary age, which Kierkegaard clearly yearns for, “ours is the age of advertisement and publicity” (Kierkegaard 35). Kierkegaard states the danger of the present human tendency to reflect rather than act, as “an increased power of reflection…only adds to a man’s affliction” (Kierkegaard 42). The Needs of Strangers consists of many different points of view from a large group of philosophers. As the title suggest, Ignatieff spends much of his book discussing in depth the needs of those around us, not just physical needs, but mental and social needs. Needs required for physical survival (food, water, shelter, medicine) aside, Ignatieff makes fascinating suggestions about the characteristics of humans when it comes to defining and discovering their own needs. Ignatieff’s writings suggest that man creates needs through yearning, and that one negative characteristic of humans is the fact that we cannot “learn to give up what we cannot get” (Ignatieff). In Sayers’ Mind of the Maker, the metaphor used to explain the Christian god is that of an artist’s mind, specifically the creative mind of a writer and a playwright throughout most of the text. Sayers suggests that the mind and scenario in which artistic creativity occurs is the closest connection between God and humans that can be explained. In my mind, connections exist between Sayers’ writings regarding human nature and Gladwell’s text in the sense that much energy is given to an idea or a movement through the reaction of other humans to that idea. Silko’s collection of poetry and stories in Storyteller seems to highlight one vital human characteristic that had not yet been commented on yet this semester: the importance of history and connection to one’s past and ancestors. Silko shows the importance of this connection through her emphasis of oral storytelling. Silko gives countless examples of the importance of storytelling within Native American culture, including a grandmother that could handle loneliness after moving away from the majority of her family, but “she did not last long without someone to talk to” (Silko 35). The importance of oral storytelling provides a connection to the past that many other cultures do not experience because they rely heavily on the written word. By telling a similar story in every generation a connection is made to and from ancestors that helps fulfill the human requirement to belong within a community. Gladwell’s The Tipping Point provides a deep examination into the causes of many types of human behavior by investigating the causes of social epidemics. Gladwell’s writing is unique in comparison to the other texts, as he largely examines the characteristics and causes of certain group behaviors, and not the nature of one human. For lack of a better term, Gladwell dehumanizes human group behavior, as his statistics and studies make it possible to scientifically predict some epidemics and is able to trace most of these waves of social hysteria to the behaviors of a few “important” people.
2.) When examining the idea of human nature from so many different points of view it is important to look at the approach and assumptions of each author in their writings. This can be vital to a greater understanding of human nature, as a closer look at the approach of each author can lead to the discovery of limitations of an author’s point of view on the subject matter. By taking into account these limitations, it is possible to gain a greater and more accurate look at true human nature through a combination of the beliefs from each author. If the writer and/or director of the film Memento wished to use Leonard to express the human condition and to show characteristics of humans, one large assumption that they base their point of view on is the idea that to truly be human, and to truly live, one must have a goal that they are constantly trying to reach. This goal is clearly defined in the character of Leonard as the goal of attempting to avenge his wife’s “murder”. Ortega seems to approach the subject of human nature from a point of view that categorizes humans as the only inanimate or animate “objects” with the free will to define themselves. It is clear that Ortega’s approach is one that considers humans to be vastly superior to any other being that is encountered on Earth. I bring this up not to prove or disprove this apparent assumption; it is simply important to consider this as Ortega’s essay does not take into account animals or any other living things when discussing freedom, which provides an important limitation to his point of view. Kierkegaard’s approach to the issue of human nature in this specific writing also has some important limitations when considering the characteristic that he finds most important: the ability to act, which he seems to feel is often forgotten and replaced with the cardinal sin of reflection. The limitation of Kierkegaard’s approach is the fact that he depends so heavily on history, which is quite often glorified by future generations wishing for the “times of old”. This dependence on history could cause Kierkegaard to assume that humans in the past took action much more often than they did in reality, which could mean his belief in the vast potential of humans to act is false. Unlike some of the other authors, Ignatieff wisely approaches the subject of welfare (and of deciding the needs of others and acting upon them) highlighting possible limitations to the reader. Ignatieff states that attempting to calculate the needs of strangers “is the perilous business of speaking on behalf of needs which strangers have had no chance to articulate on their own” (Ignatieff 12). This approach helps Ignatieff to highlight one of the main themes of his book: the fact that that our attempts to define the needs of and aid strangers are greatly held back by our lack of ability to create a common knowledge to accurately define need. When considering Sayers’ metaphor of God to the creative mind, it is clear that her approach is based on the belief that man is made in the image of God. While her examination into the creative mind of an artist is interesting in any case, without the yearning to reveal the connection between God and man Sayers would not need to examine the artist or create the metaphor. As previously mentioned, Silko’s writings greatly emphasize the importance of oral storytelling within Native American culture, specifically Silko’s tribe. Unfortunately, this approach to expressing a certain human characteristic (the need for personal connection to history) is limited simply because it is written. By recording the stories in a book, Silko takes away some of the “magic” of oral storytelling, when the story is written “you can’t go on and on the way we do when we tell stories around here” (Silko 110). One of the limitations to Gladwell’s approach to writing is the fact that he at points generalizes about the actions that groups of people take in following social epidemics. Gladwell would surely agree that with every study and epidemic has many exceptions, but it is vital for the reader to keep in mind that Gladwell’s approach by no means proves that the reactions of all humans are the same to certain epidemics. “Stickiness” does not stick to every human, and it is by no means inherent for a human to be attracted to a certain product because of the stickiness it seems to provide to other groups of people
3.) To truly create a picture of the human condition on our contemporary age it is vital to balance the beliefs of each author with the beliefs of the other authors, whether they overlap on contradict each other. It is also important to take into account the previously mentioned limitations of each text to most accurately depict a clear picture of the human condition in our present age. The view of the writer of this seems to be a view of the human condition as a constant need to achieve goals, as magnified through the character of Leonard. One that is able to live a life without a constant yearning to yearn towards something is not living a “human” life. This point of view seems to support the ideas of Kierkegaard; constant yearning to achieve a goal would hopefully result in the human taking the necessary actions to achieve said goal, like the character of Leonard did when he believed that he was avenging the murder of his wife. Ortega’s point of view regarding the human condition would likely be one that would push humans to take advantage of the unique fact that they have the ability to define who they are by not allowing others to define them or others to decide their life path. I believe that Ortega would see a parent choosing their child’s career similar to a builder choosing to use a rock to build a wall. While that rock might useful to others in the wall, and the child might go on to lead a successful career, Ortega would see this as a waste of the child, of a human. A human contains the potential for freedom to decide, unlike the rock, thus a child not taking advantage of that freedom is becomes no more than a rock. From Kierkegaard’s point of view, the contemporary age would still be one of reflection over action, which would no doubt infuriate the man. Kierkegaard would like view the human condition today as he seemed to view the human condition when he wrote over 150 years ago: great, but unfulfilled potential. Kierkegaard would continue to see humans as beings that have the ability to act and make huge changes within the world (whether good or bad), but a group that chooses to reflect and discuss these changes instead of taking action. Ignatieff views the human condition in the same way as several other authors: being held back in some way by language. Ignatieff believes that the needs of other humans are not being met because the language to express these needs to strangers is not being achieved, causing the needs to go unfulfilled. Ignatieff’s writing seems to suggest that one of the large limitations of the human condition is the inability to truly fulfill the needs of strangers, which hurts both the strangers and those putting effort into completely fulfilling their needs. Many of the stories in Silko’s work outline mistakes made by ancestors (whether fictional or not) that are passed along to younger generations in the hopes that it will prevent the same mistake. By recording these stories, Silko seems to be suggesting that humans will inherently be tempted to make the same mistakes in each generation. Silko also suggests that humans, especially younger generations, will learn and absorb best through history. Rather than pestering a young individual with rules, Silko suggest that history is so inherently important to humans that giving historical and personal examples of mistakes and repercussions is more effective in preventive future mistakes than anything else. Gladwell seems to suggest a limitation on the conditions of humans as whole; humans are unable to break away from certain general rules of nature (Rule of 150, 80/20 Rule). Gladwell by no means suggests that humans are unique from person to person, but he makes it clear that when examined as a group, the group of humans will almost always act in a certain way. The human condition is such that groups, large or small, will follow the examples and advice of certain personality types and ignore that of others.
Part II
While I have always considered myself a very outspoken and opinionated person, it is difficult for me to rank which works and views I have found most compelling to this point in the semester, or even to decide which I found least compelling. Each work obviously has merits and strengths, or it would not have been assigned reading, but as in any philosophical discussion, each view also has a fair share of limitations, whether they are due to the time period in which they were written, a certain bias of the author, or another issue. With that said, for the sake of completing this assignment I will attempt to choose one work that I find most compelling to me personally and one work that did not move me greatly.
If I were to highlight to books that were the most compelling to me, I would say that the two latest books I read, Silko’s and Gladwell’s texts, were the most compelling. While I believe that Gladwell’s findings can be easily misunderstood and misinterpreted causing overgeneralization of humans, I do find many of the statistics and patterns both stunning and helpful if used correctly. I also found it to be the most credible simply because it was one of the most contemporary books and it used statistics. While the statistics could potentially be fabricated, I find that possibility pretty unlikely, and considering Gladwell was the only author to use a large amount of statistics, I not only find his work credible, but informative. I think I enjoyed Silko’s work for many reasons. In the context of the class I enjoyed it mostly because it provided a very new and different point of view regarding the human condition. On a personal level, I enjoyed it greatly because of the fact that I was able to learn about another culture and the short stories were very interesting to me, as it provided a point of view not often represented in literature. The role of the narrator in “Tony’s Story” continues to stick with me, because it is so unique and the story itself is haunting.
It is difficult for me to choose the least compelling work, as I honestly received a high level of enjoyment out of all the texts. If I had to choose one work that I found least helpful it would be Sayers’ Mind of the Maker. I choose Sayers to criticize not because I did not enjoy the book; I actually found it to be a very helpful metaphor to comprehend God and the idea of the Trinity along with being a fascinating glance into the mind of the creative artist. I choose Sayers because I believe that out of all the books that we have read so far this semester, it was the least helpful in our goal to dissect the human condition. This could very easily be due to a complete misreading on my part (I have been known to overlook obvious and important points), but I found this to be a book about God as the creator, and a book about the creative mind, not a book about the effect that God can have on a human, or even on the creative mind. I agree that it is vital to have religious books (specifically Judeo-Christian when studying the human condition of “Western” people), but I think a book examining the effect God or Christianity on a human that has had little or no past with Christianity would be much more compelling. I believe that a book like The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. This book provides a contemporary look on the changes that occur within the life of someone that lives by the “rules” of Christianity and begins to change both physically and mentally. With that said, I did greatly enjoy reading Sayers along with all of the other texts that we have delved into to this point in the semester.
Word Count: 3,020
1.) Each text and the film that we viewed so far to this semester has provided great insight into human nature and the characteristics of humans; or what the author believes to be the characteristics of humans. While the authors’ beliefs regarding human nature vary greatly for the most part, they do not contradict each other, as the angles of examination of human nature differ completely in each book. This variance provides many different beliefs regarding human nature and characteristics that helps to make my personal understanding regarding the subject deepen with each book and opinion that I read. While I initially felt that the important themes within the film Memento centered on memory, trust, and relationships between humans, I now believe a more important theme is apparent.After reflecting on the film throughout the first half of the semester, I have come to believe that the film suggests that one characteristic of mankind is the yearning to have goals, to have something to constantly reach towards. The protagonist, Leonard, was useful in emphasizing certain human traits due to his memory condition. Leonard could only work towards the goal of avenging the murder of his wife as his short term memory loss essentially prevented him from creating new goals to achieve. Even after avenging what he believed to be the murder of his wife, Leonard continues to chase “suspects” and kill them; simply because humans need goals to work towards and mysteries to solve. In Ortega’s essay “Man Has No Nature”, he examines the freedom of humans in comparison to other species and the meaning of freedom itself. According to the text, humans have the ability to choose their path; they are the only thing on Earth that is not defined by others. Unlike a rock or a blade of grass, something that has a clearly defined existence and purpose (usually defined by humans), “man is the entity that makes itself” (Ortega 155). Ortega suggests a great variance in choice between the “paths” of life that exists for humans and no other species. In The Present Age, Kierkegaard’s writings suggest that man possesses the ability to act greatly, to make changes and revolutions through his actions. While man possesses the potential for this ability act, Kierkegaard is frustrated by the fact that in his own age (and likely our age if he were alive to comment), a characteristic of humans is to ignore this potential and reflect rather than act. Unlike a revolutionary age, which Kierkegaard clearly yearns for, “ours is the age of advertisement and publicity” (Kierkegaard 35). Kierkegaard states the danger of the present human tendency to reflect rather than act, as “an increased power of reflection…only adds to a man’s affliction” (Kierkegaard 42). The Needs of Strangers consists of many different points of view from a large group of philosophers. As the title suggest, Ignatieff spends much of his book discussing in depth the needs of those around us, not just physical needs, but mental and social needs. Needs required for physical survival (food, water, shelter, medicine) aside, Ignatieff makes fascinating suggestions about the characteristics of humans when it comes to defining and discovering their own needs. Ignatieff’s writings suggest that man creates needs through yearning, and that one negative characteristic of humans is the fact that we cannot “learn to give up what we cannot get” (Ignatieff). In Sayers’ Mind of the Maker, the metaphor used to explain the Christian god is that of an artist’s mind, specifically the creative mind of a writer and a playwright throughout most of the text. Sayers suggests that the mind and scenario in which artistic creativity occurs is the closest connection between God and humans that can be explained. In my mind, connections exist between Sayers’ writings regarding human nature and Gladwell’s text in the sense that much energy is given to an idea or a movement through the reaction of other humans to that idea. Silko’s collection of poetry and stories in Storyteller seems to highlight one vital human characteristic that had not yet been commented on yet this semester: the importance of history and connection to one’s past and ancestors. Silko shows the importance of this connection through her emphasis of oral storytelling. Silko gives countless examples of the importance of storytelling within Native American culture, including a grandmother that could handle loneliness after moving away from the majority of her family, but “she did not last long without someone to talk to” (Silko 35). The importance of oral storytelling provides a connection to the past that many other cultures do not experience because they rely heavily on the written word. By telling a similar story in every generation a connection is made to and from ancestors that helps fulfill the human requirement to belong within a community. Gladwell’s The Tipping Point provides a deep examination into the causes of many types of human behavior by investigating the causes of social epidemics. Gladwell’s writing is unique in comparison to the other texts, as he largely examines the characteristics and causes of certain group behaviors, and not the nature of one human. For lack of a better term, Gladwell dehumanizes human group behavior, as his statistics and studies make it possible to scientifically predict some epidemics and is able to trace most of these waves of social hysteria to the behaviors of a few “important” people.
2.) When examining the idea of human nature from so many different points of view it is important to look at the approach and assumptions of each author in their writings. This can be vital to a greater understanding of human nature, as a closer look at the approach of each author can lead to the discovery of limitations of an author’s point of view on the subject matter. By taking into account these limitations, it is possible to gain a greater and more accurate look at true human nature through a combination of the beliefs from each author. If the writer and/or director of the film Memento wished to use Leonard to express the human condition and to show characteristics of humans, one large assumption that they base their point of view on is the idea that to truly be human, and to truly live, one must have a goal that they are constantly trying to reach. This goal is clearly defined in the character of Leonard as the goal of attempting to avenge his wife’s “murder”. Ortega seems to approach the subject of human nature from a point of view that categorizes humans as the only inanimate or animate “objects” with the free will to define themselves. It is clear that Ortega’s approach is one that considers humans to be vastly superior to any other being that is encountered on Earth. I bring this up not to prove or disprove this apparent assumption; it is simply important to consider this as Ortega’s essay does not take into account animals or any other living things when discussing freedom, which provides an important limitation to his point of view. Kierkegaard’s approach to the issue of human nature in this specific writing also has some important limitations when considering the characteristic that he finds most important: the ability to act, which he seems to feel is often forgotten and replaced with the cardinal sin of reflection. The limitation of Kierkegaard’s approach is the fact that he depends so heavily on history, which is quite often glorified by future generations wishing for the “times of old”. This dependence on history could cause Kierkegaard to assume that humans in the past took action much more often than they did in reality, which could mean his belief in the vast potential of humans to act is false. Unlike some of the other authors, Ignatieff wisely approaches the subject of welfare (and of deciding the needs of others and acting upon them) highlighting possible limitations to the reader. Ignatieff states that attempting to calculate the needs of strangers “is the perilous business of speaking on behalf of needs which strangers have had no chance to articulate on their own” (Ignatieff 12). This approach helps Ignatieff to highlight one of the main themes of his book: the fact that that our attempts to define the needs of and aid strangers are greatly held back by our lack of ability to create a common knowledge to accurately define need. When considering Sayers’ metaphor of God to the creative mind, it is clear that her approach is based on the belief that man is made in the image of God. While her examination into the creative mind of an artist is interesting in any case, without the yearning to reveal the connection between God and man Sayers would not need to examine the artist or create the metaphor. As previously mentioned, Silko’s writings greatly emphasize the importance of oral storytelling within Native American culture, specifically Silko’s tribe. Unfortunately, this approach to expressing a certain human characteristic (the need for personal connection to history) is limited simply because it is written. By recording the stories in a book, Silko takes away some of the “magic” of oral storytelling, when the story is written “you can’t go on and on the way we do when we tell stories around here” (Silko 110). One of the limitations to Gladwell’s approach to writing is the fact that he at points generalizes about the actions that groups of people take in following social epidemics. Gladwell would surely agree that with every study and epidemic has many exceptions, but it is vital for the reader to keep in mind that Gladwell’s approach by no means proves that the reactions of all humans are the same to certain epidemics. “Stickiness” does not stick to every human, and it is by no means inherent for a human to be attracted to a certain product because of the stickiness it seems to provide to other groups of people
3.) To truly create a picture of the human condition on our contemporary age it is vital to balance the beliefs of each author with the beliefs of the other authors, whether they overlap on contradict each other. It is also important to take into account the previously mentioned limitations of each text to most accurately depict a clear picture of the human condition in our present age. The view of the writer of this seems to be a view of the human condition as a constant need to achieve goals, as magnified through the character of Leonard. One that is able to live a life without a constant yearning to yearn towards something is not living a “human” life. This point of view seems to support the ideas of Kierkegaard; constant yearning to achieve a goal would hopefully result in the human taking the necessary actions to achieve said goal, like the character of Leonard did when he believed that he was avenging the murder of his wife. Ortega’s point of view regarding the human condition would likely be one that would push humans to take advantage of the unique fact that they have the ability to define who they are by not allowing others to define them or others to decide their life path. I believe that Ortega would see a parent choosing their child’s career similar to a builder choosing to use a rock to build a wall. While that rock might useful to others in the wall, and the child might go on to lead a successful career, Ortega would see this as a waste of the child, of a human. A human contains the potential for freedom to decide, unlike the rock, thus a child not taking advantage of that freedom is becomes no more than a rock. From Kierkegaard’s point of view, the contemporary age would still be one of reflection over action, which would no doubt infuriate the man. Kierkegaard would like view the human condition today as he seemed to view the human condition when he wrote over 150 years ago: great, but unfulfilled potential. Kierkegaard would continue to see humans as beings that have the ability to act and make huge changes within the world (whether good or bad), but a group that chooses to reflect and discuss these changes instead of taking action. Ignatieff views the human condition in the same way as several other authors: being held back in some way by language. Ignatieff believes that the needs of other humans are not being met because the language to express these needs to strangers is not being achieved, causing the needs to go unfulfilled. Ignatieff’s writing seems to suggest that one of the large limitations of the human condition is the inability to truly fulfill the needs of strangers, which hurts both the strangers and those putting effort into completely fulfilling their needs. Many of the stories in Silko’s work outline mistakes made by ancestors (whether fictional or not) that are passed along to younger generations in the hopes that it will prevent the same mistake. By recording these stories, Silko seems to be suggesting that humans will inherently be tempted to make the same mistakes in each generation. Silko also suggests that humans, especially younger generations, will learn and absorb best through history. Rather than pestering a young individual with rules, Silko suggest that history is so inherently important to humans that giving historical and personal examples of mistakes and repercussions is more effective in preventive future mistakes than anything else. Gladwell seems to suggest a limitation on the conditions of humans as whole; humans are unable to break away from certain general rules of nature (Rule of 150, 80/20 Rule). Gladwell by no means suggests that humans are unique from person to person, but he makes it clear that when examined as a group, the group of humans will almost always act in a certain way. The human condition is such that groups, large or small, will follow the examples and advice of certain personality types and ignore that of others.
Part II
While I have always considered myself a very outspoken and opinionated person, it is difficult for me to rank which works and views I have found most compelling to this point in the semester, or even to decide which I found least compelling. Each work obviously has merits and strengths, or it would not have been assigned reading, but as in any philosophical discussion, each view also has a fair share of limitations, whether they are due to the time period in which they were written, a certain bias of the author, or another issue. With that said, for the sake of completing this assignment I will attempt to choose one work that I find most compelling to me personally and one work that did not move me greatly.
If I were to highlight to books that were the most compelling to me, I would say that the two latest books I read, Silko’s and Gladwell’s texts, were the most compelling. While I believe that Gladwell’s findings can be easily misunderstood and misinterpreted causing overgeneralization of humans, I do find many of the statistics and patterns both stunning and helpful if used correctly. I also found it to be the most credible simply because it was one of the most contemporary books and it used statistics. While the statistics could potentially be fabricated, I find that possibility pretty unlikely, and considering Gladwell was the only author to use a large amount of statistics, I not only find his work credible, but informative. I think I enjoyed Silko’s work for many reasons. In the context of the class I enjoyed it mostly because it provided a very new and different point of view regarding the human condition. On a personal level, I enjoyed it greatly because of the fact that I was able to learn about another culture and the short stories were very interesting to me, as it provided a point of view not often represented in literature. The role of the narrator in “Tony’s Story” continues to stick with me, because it is so unique and the story itself is haunting.
It is difficult for me to choose the least compelling work, as I honestly received a high level of enjoyment out of all the texts. If I had to choose one work that I found least helpful it would be Sayers’ Mind of the Maker. I choose Sayers to criticize not because I did not enjoy the book; I actually found it to be a very helpful metaphor to comprehend God and the idea of the Trinity along with being a fascinating glance into the mind of the creative artist. I choose Sayers because I believe that out of all the books that we have read so far this semester, it was the least helpful in our goal to dissect the human condition. This could very easily be due to a complete misreading on my part (I have been known to overlook obvious and important points), but I found this to be a book about God as the creator, and a book about the creative mind, not a book about the effect that God can have on a human, or even on the creative mind. I agree that it is vital to have religious books (specifically Judeo-Christian when studying the human condition of “Western” people), but I think a book examining the effect God or Christianity on a human that has had little or no past with Christianity would be much more compelling. I believe that a book like The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. This book provides a contemporary look on the changes that occur within the life of someone that lives by the “rules” of Christianity and begins to change both physically and mentally. With that said, I did greatly enjoy reading Sayers along with all of the other texts that we have delved into to this point in the semester.
Word Count: 3,020