In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir compares and contrasts the “serious man” with the child. To de Beauvoir, the “spirit of seriousness is to consider values as ready-made things” (de Beauvoir, 35). A child views the world as serious because he is cast into an already-made world that he did not help create. His subjectivity is insignificant, as he does not have the cognitive capacity to distinguish values for himself. According to de Beauvoir, that ability does not surface until adolescence, the point in a person’s life when he can undergo existentialist conversion, making himself a lack of being, and assume his subjectivity. The serious man is someone who is in or beyond adolescence, and continues to conform to the childlike state of abiding by ready-made values in the world. He does so because he is afraid of the possibilities of freedom, and so, he continues to live under the values of his parents and teachers, dishonestly continuing to renew the denial of his freedom. While the child and the serious man may appear to have similar situations, they are, in fact, quite different, because, whereas the child’s serious condition is sincere and authentic, the serious man’s is not. …show more content…
The child and the serious man live without having to embrace their own freedom, so they set up their ends as absolutes as they live in a world to which they submit themselves. That being said, they also escape the anguish of freedom (the realization of the intimidation of freedom). They do so because they are protected “against the risk of existence by the ceiling which human generations have built over [their heads]” (36). They remain devoid of a sense of responsibility, living easily by the ready-made values around
As you read the book Johnny Tremain from the front to the back you see a young boy change into a mature man. Although you cannot see into the future of Johnny Tremain, you know that he will be respected and make wise decisions as an adult because he learned from his many mistakes at a young age. He changes from being proud to humble, having a fiery temper to being understanding and calm, and from selfish to a very caring man. As all of these pieces fit together to get a mature young man. At the end of the story, a woman posed a question. “’How old are you Johnny’ she asked. ‘Sixteen.’ ‘And what's that-a boy or a man?’ He laughed. ‘A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war.’”
The first idea that Mr. Quentin presents is the negative aspect of freedom. He believes that “extensive freedom makes people miserable” (Mr. Quentin Crisp). To prove the argument, his home country United Kingdom is used as an example. The people mentioned in the speech are capable of identifying that their lives are miserable, though are not capable of making a direct connection between the reason and the result (freedom and miserable life).
The way a person is taught from a young age often times affects his or her values and perceptions throughout their life. A person is taught how to think and what to think about but is rarely given the choice of how to perceive this information. This can be seen in Plato 's “Allegory of the Cave,” “Learning to Read and Write,” by Frederick Douglass and the speech, “This is Water” by David Wallace. Each of the three pieces talks about characters being born into enslavement either hypothetically or literally. Being born into enslavement resulted in each of them to seek for freedom in different ways. Only knowing one way to see and think due to the environment arises self-centered thoughts by the protagonist.
As Madeleine L’Engle aptly said, “because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person,” taking away freedom of choice is equivalent to stripping off humanity. Mankind has evolved to have the ability to use the mind for reason and understanding, which separates humans from beasts and machines. It is this ability that allows man to analyze and formulate different choices, and have the freedom over them. Despite the knowledge that freedom of choice is fundamental in making humans human, social control has always been one of the leading reasons to justify the removal of that freedom. Through showing the need for the loss of freedom for social stability and the resulting problems, both The Unincorporated Man and A Clockwork Orange highlight the conflict between control and freedom.
The first six years of a child’s life is a window of opportunity when a child unquestionably accepts the virtues modeled by his or her parents (“8 Ways to Raise a Moral Child | Ask Dr. Sears”). In their first few years, children believe that their behaviors are right or wrong according to what a parent tells them. By five years old, a child begins to adopt their parent’s values, whether they are noble or not. Merseault’s childhoo...
...ts set for them. Children are constantly aware of adults’ choices, and they begin to formulate their own understanding of general values at a young age. When adults are hypocritical of their pre-set standards, it sends children into a state of discombobulation. Staying true to one’s values as an example for children will be beneficial to them as they travel along the highway of childhood and come upon the exit necessary to reach the interstate of adulthood.
Loss of innocence can happen in many ways. Some losses are enormous and hugely impactful, like killing, while others are small and subtle like growing up. Innocence is lost in the most innocuous ways, most of which aren’t noticeable, which brings this paper to a closing question, something implied through both of these works; something to think about. Is every loss of innocence bad, or are they just stepping stones on the path to becoming an adult?
So many are seen giving into the group in which they have decided to follow and often find themselves in regret at some point. So many give in to the obedience of a group, conforming to all ideas big and small, just to fit in. That can all be prevented if people decide to become aware and actually use this information, the knowledge of the human race’s mechanisms, to end blind obedience and make independence a truthful claim. But we can’t just plainly state the natural attraction to obedience to our children and peers, no, we have to teach it through example and word (Lessing 613). No one wants their children to grow up thinking only about how they could please others and agreeing with every majority opinion just to prevent isolation. No one ever tells their kids, “You can only be what someone else wants you to be, not whatever you want, but whatever the group wants,” says no parent
Somewhere around the beginning of the seventeenth century, the perception of the nature of childhood -- its duration, its perceived purpose, its requirements, its quality -- changed rather significantly in the Eurocentric world, a period Valerie Suransky identifies as a watershed for the modern notion of childhood (1982, p. 6). Actually, two things seemed to have happened: first, the idea of childhood as a separate developmental stage began to arise; second, the idea of who was deserving of childhood also began to broaden. The pattern was similar in Europe and America, with some minor variations which resulted from geography, religion, etc., but the differences are inconsequential. Generally speaking, the factors which influenced this change are the view of the nature of humankind, the development of industry, urbanization, parents themselves, and the women's movement.
In today’s society, these themes are still dominant. While some view freedom as a responsibility, others take advantage of the privilege. Those with a survival of the fittest attitude do what they want, when they want, in order to get what they want. People with individual conscience believe they have the privilege to do what is right, whether it be for themselves or for others. Unfortunately, those who search for freedom are usually seeking it from those who take advantage of it. While freedom comes with a cost, every American should be able to enjoy their own freedoms and liberties without anyone restricting them.
Throughout history the concept of innocence in literature has been a topic in which author’s have held an obsession with. According to Harold Bloom, the loss of innocence has played a large role in western literature since the Enlightenment when man was said to be initially good and then corrupted only by his institutions. (Bloom 6) The institution in which Bloom speaks of is nothing more then society. Society is what is believed to be the cause for the loss of innocence in children. Bloom has stated that a return to the childhood mindset would eliminate the social problems in which people suffer. This is unerringly why the cause of many physiological problems can be traced back to a problem or unsettlement in one’s childhood. (Bloom 7) The history of innocence continues further back in history as it is said that the first encounter of loss of innocence or “original sin” was from Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. (Bloom 7) These historical events and ideas are what influence the works of authors from the 19th century to modern day.
There has been a long and on going discourse on the battle of the sexes, and Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex reconfigures the social relation that defines man and women, and how far women has evolved from the second position given to them. In order for us to define what a woman is, we first need to clarify what a man is, for this is said to be the point of derivation (De Beauvoir). And this notion presents to us the concept of duality, which states that women will always be treated as the second sex, the dominated and lacking one. Woman as the sexed being that differs from men, in which they are simply placed in the others category. As men treat their bodies as a concrete connection to the world that they inhabit; women are simply treated as bodies to be objectified and used for pleasure, pleasure that arise from the beauty that the bodies behold. This draws us to form the statement that beauty is a powerful means of objectification that every woman aims to attain in order to consequently attain acceptance and approval from the patriarchal society. The society that set up the vague standard of beauty based on satisfaction of sexual drives. Here, women constantly seek to be the center of attention and inevitably the medium of erection.
Because of this autonomy, being is never a mere means for the reverent man and
Plaisance in this chapter examines concepts of autonomy and its relationship with freedom, and puts those explanations into media practice. Freedom, liberty, and autonomy are different concepts. Freedom and liberty are pretty similar which refer to one’s be free from restrain. While autonomy is a “self-rule”—it refers to a person who governs his or her own actions based on their own values. Therefore autonomy can bring up with more moral issues. All these three concepts are about freedom. But do we have free will? Research turn out to support that absolute free will is an illusion. Based on such research, it is necessary for us to look at implications of elements of moral life, and to find out the ethical obligations of autonomy. Even a more specific definition of autonomy is not always the highest good if placing too much significance on it. Colby and Damin’s study on “moral examplars”,as well as arguments of feminists, suggests that human development and individuation are sometime contradictory.
Given the original definition of freedom it can be inferred that while neither Winston nor the proles are completely free, the proles enjoy individual liberties while Winston does not. Our assumptions about human nature lead to the conclusion that we consider freedom to be important as it allows us to progress in our search to protect and promote ourselves.