This week confuses me...
I. In last week's blog I was curious about the Charter for Compassion. I wanted to know more and see what other people have to say about it. After visiting the Charter for Compassion website, I found some very interesting facts. Here they are:
-Charter for Compassion is partnered with approximately 121 other organizations
-Contributions to the Charter come from three groups (Abrahamic faiths, Other faiths, Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist)
-Karen Armstrong is the life behind the Charter
-Over 150,000 people from over 180 countries contributed to the charter over the course of six weeks
-The Council of Conscience met in Vevey, Switzerland to craft the Charter for compassion
-The Charter for Compassion was unveiled November 12, 2009
-Pakistan launched the Charter for Compassion on February 1, 2011
-Seattle affirmed the charter on April 26, 2010
source: News of the Charter ∞ Learn ∞ Charter for Compassion. (n.d.). Charter for Compassion. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from http://charterforcompassion.org/learn/news
Actively Aware: Focus on Compassion ... Get Involved In Charter for Compassion. (n.d.). Actively Aware. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from http://activelyaware.blogspot.com/2010/11/focus-on-compassion-get-involved-in.html
II. This week in class we did a multitude of things, all dealing with ethics in one way or another. We're finally digging deep into ethical principles and looking at how they apply to real life. We looked at some more examples of the "Personal Gain vs. The Greater Good" scenario. This concept applies to real life situations like a water ban, Stalin's speech, an online novel, the Tragedy of the Commons, a stag hunt, and a button push. For one class period, the freshman class joined us to talk a little bit about Egypt. One day we looked into the Milgram Experiment and the Soloman Asch Experiment. Each of these is a psychological experiment that tests a hypothesis dealing with human behavior. The Milgram Experiment focuses on obedience to authority. The Soloman Asch Experiment deals with conformity and perception being affected by pressure from others. One of our homework assignments was called Ethics of Philanthropy. For this assignment, we had to research five different charities. We had to summarize their purpose and analyze their efficiency. We then had to write a persuasive essay about one of the charities.
Egypt Map Gallery. (n.d.). Welcome to African Travel, Inc.. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from http://www.africantravelinc.com/AboutATI/egypt.html
I thought this week was extremely interesting, although confusing at points. It's just complex, I guess. There's a lot of information to take in. I had never been exposed to the whole "Personal Gain vs. The Greater Good" concept before now. The scenarios that we discussed really intrigued me because I had never thought about them before. There are everyday situations in which we're faced with a choice between helping ourselves or helping someone or something else. I also thoroughly enjoyed the discussion about the two psychological experiments. I was remotely familiar with the Milgram Experiment but I had never heard of the Soloman Asch one. It's interesting to see how humans behave in response to the people around them. It's honestly kind of pathetic that these experiments produce the results that they do. What happened to individuality? It's sad that people are "obedient to monsters" and fall into peer pressure like they do. As for the Ethics of Philanthropy assignment, I actually enjoyed doing the research and what I found was of interest to me. It was pretty easy to choose the most deserving charity and write an essay persuading someone to support it.
I feel like there is a strong connection between the psychological experiments and high school kids. The age range wasn't ever directly stated in the information about the experiments, but I can totally connect their results to our high school environment. There's this uncontrollable desire in kids to "fit in with the crowd". It doesn't matter what "the crowd" is like...because it's what everyone wants to be. For some reason, teenage kids will go to great lengths to conform themselves. Individuality has become something of virtually no value. One of my favorite quotes is: be yourself, everyone else is taken. It's rather upsetting that people will lower their self value just to be like someone else. It seems like no one can stand up for themselves anymore. They would rather have the security of "being part of the group" than have security in who they are as individuals. The Soloman Asch Experiment shows that pressure from others affects perception and conformity. The Milgram Experiment shows that we, as humans, will obey almost anyone who claims to have higher authority. You name it, we'll do it...as long as someone better than us told us to. It's absolutely pitiful.
demotivational poster CONFORMITY . (n.d.). Over 77,000 Demotivational Posters! Welcome to Motifake.com. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from http://www.motifake.com/59789
III. For next week's blog i'd like to get some actual statistics for the Milgram and Soloman Ashe Experiments. I'm curious as to whether age, race, sexuality, etc. play an active role in the way people behave. I want to see how actual numbers that prove what percentage of people achieve the results that these experiments set out to prove.
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