End of the class

Thank you for teaching this class. I want to say that this class was an awakening in the human psyche. It allowed me to see that many of the things we see on television is manipulated by outside forces. My topic, the media, is the best example of this. The media influences are great on the human mind. The human mind is really quite a fragile thing. We learned this throughout the class. If a person suffers trauma, the person is doomed to repeat it. This repetition can occur physically or mentally. The media, who plays violent images all over the air waves, can be held responsible for the news they report, using this logic. This is quite scary, that the news reporting bad news, can result only in more bad news in the future.
This class was useful for a manifold reasons. For one, we understands ourselves better. If you can understand one person, then you can understand many others. If you think about it, we are all apes with a grandiose attitudes. Most of us operate the same as anyone else, so chances are that we experience trauma much the same way as each other. If we can understand trauma, then we will learn to deal with it better.

Third Posting

Wow, I've never visited a holocaust museum until today, and the experience pierced deeper than what I expected. Yes, I've heard and studied about the Holocaust, but the museum had a way of making the experience personal. The pictures of all the children murdered during the even hit me personally. They were obviously objects in a conflict which did not concern them whatsoever. They had no control over themselves, and followed their parents and government in everything they did. It is terrible, knowing how helpless they were.

The Jewish adults, although objects of their environment, had partial control over their fate, at least some of them did. Many Jews, the Bielski brothers were emphasized in this museum, fought against the Germans. To a certain extent, they had control over their destinies. The museum emphasized that the resistance fighters were subjective to the war, but they were not objective about all the people in the camps.

The difference between the two museums we visited is the point of the museums. The existence of the military museum is for a more hands on approach of learning. It felt more educational than the holocaust museum. It did not trigger emotions as explosive as the Holocaust museum. The displays showed the equipment we used to kill a faceless enemy. In this way, the museum felt patriotic. Look what we made, and kicked everyone's ass with. The Holocaust museum was more of a memorial. It was a way to remember the dead. Yes, it did have an educational purpose to it, but it had a more forboding purpose to it. The Holocaust museum was sending out a message to all the visitors: Don't let this happen again.

Second Blog post

A segment of yesterday's class was devoted to Christianity. In Lessing's writings, she argues that Christianity is becoming a lot like Socialism and Communism, at least in the way they function. She says that Evangelicals, who are more fanatical and extreme in their views, are more apt to disagree with other forms of Christianity that have differing views. This same concept applies to Communism and Socialism, who believe the entire world must believe in the same things as they do, or the entire concept will fall apart. Christians want to save people from going to hell, same idea: We are saved, you are damned.

The problem that I see in America today is the growing branch of fanaticisms in Christianity, particularly the born-again Evangelicals. As a group, they tend to be extremely social Conservatives, who sometimes commit terrorist attacks or murder to enforce their views. See the following articles:
http://www.now.org/nnt/01-95/pensocla.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0213-08.htm

One of the quotes from the terrorist is "Pray, that every one I kill causes a hundred to quit." -Clayton Waagner, convicted murderer and member of Army of God. Forms of Christianity have grown extreme tendencies, and unfortunately, these are the fastest growing forms of religion in this country.

One of the best examples of the "We are saved, you are damned" theory, is the Westboro Baptist Church group. They are the Christians picketing funerals and holding up "God Hates Fags" signs, amongst other offensive slogans. These groups form a mob mentality, so it's very difficult to change their views, when they have many others backing up their point of view.

The thing which sprung this topic is an article I read several days ago about law makers in Mississippi and their crusade against Evolution. The article can be read here: http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/01/antievolution-legislation-mississippi-003688.

First Blog Entry

The shock of any trauma, I think changes your life. It's more acute in the beginning and after a little time you settle back to what you were. However it leaves an indelible mark on your psyche. -Alex Lifeson

Trauma, as it says in our readings, doesn't truly start to effect us, until the actual trauma is over. This is apparent in Freud's writing, with his made up history of Jews. The story he makes up reflects his own actual life. He notes that no matter where he goes, his problems follow him, and this trauma is also reflected in his writings. No matter where the Jews flee, trouble and trauma awaits them.



The Trauma most interesting, personally, is the trauma that is experienced right at the moment. It is the trauma that gets in peoples faces, like knowing they will die. It is an interesting concept that in the face of even the greatest trauma, people retain the essential human need. The need to communicate. This really brings to light how important writing is. Writing is a more permanent way of talking, and without it, we are hardly more than animals. Writing allows us to experience other people's traumas.

I am confused about one part in this section. How is trauma seen as a departure versus an arrival? These two concepts, departure and arrival, appear too close in meaning.