Communism

In response to Laura's blog question "Do you think that communism will work now?"
I don't think that communism would work now. the fact of the matter is that we all have different jobs and we expect different pay for what we do. People that go to college expect to get paid more then someone working at McDonalds. Another problem is that we all love our individuality. We take pride in the different clothes we wear that represent ourselves as people. I don't think people would accept communism now. A major problem is the money thing because if everyone got paid the same then motivation to work hard would be eliminated.
I think communists have good intentions because they just want equality amongst the classes but i do not think it would work.I think a big thing with communism is that people dont accept their class levels because everyone wants to be upper class.
question: Confucius taught that people had to accept their places in society and be happy with where they were in life. Do you think a Confucian society would be more successful than a communistic one?

Jealousy

In response to Courtneys blog question "Question...that jealous anger that we sometimes feel toward the wealthy is a vile thing. What does that example say about humans? Can/does jealousy control us?"
I think jealousy controls some people, but that is because they allow themselves to be controlled by it. In some cases i would consider jealousy healthy because it influences you to work harder to gain the things you desire. Jealousy obviously has its bad effects on people as well. When it gets the best of people, murder, thefts, and other things can occur. I think it is natural to want the best for ourselves. The anger that is sometimes synonymous with jealousy has to be controlled before it gets out of control but i think that is more because anger is a dangerous emotion, not jealousy. As a whole, i think that society is not controlled by jealousy because there are too many other amazing emotions to experience.
question: Do you think good emotions can always overcome the bad ones?

Happiness

I am replying to Julia's post question. Which is "So, if this "happiness machine" did really exist, what might you see/perceive by stepping into it? (In other words, what would make you the most happy?)"
I do not know if I would even enter the happiness machine because I would not want to live in a world that was not real. It would bother me to know that everything in there was something I wasn’t actually experiencing. If I had to choose what I would experience in the happiness machine, it would be this; I would live in a medium sized house. The house would be incredibly detailed, (work that I had done myself). I would have a beautiful garden that rivaled many other gardens and inside my house I would have a library. This is the main goal that I work towards and I hope to achieve it soon. I know I would be content living with these things.
Can people ever be truly content?

Reason or Emotion?

I am responding to Meghan’s post question, which is “Why do we have phrases like "follow your heart," "gut instinct," etc? Why is it not like listen to what your mind tells you?”
We have phrases like “follow your heart” and “gut instinct” because people believe that your soul will know what to do over your conscious perception of things. In the desert for example, you see mirages even though there is nothing there. Your mind tells you that the images you are seeing are real, even though in your gut, you know that you are just hallucinating from dehydration or some other effects. Also, to say just listen to what your mind tells you, doesn’t leave a tone of emotion in it. When the phrase “follow your heart” is used, I interpret it to mean that even if there is way to benefit from something; if it is morally wrong then you shouldn’t do it. Basically, (opposite of what Plato believed), we should value emotion over reason. I agree with the phrases because I think that emotions are an important part of decision making and I would not want to make decisions without them.
Would you want to live in a world where decisions were based off of reason without emotion?

Forms.....

In class the other day we talked about the world of forms and used trees as an example, saying that our soul has knowledge of the world of forms and uses that knowledge to recognize a tree as a tree. I think that nature exists and that we name a tree as a tree because we need something to call it. It cannot be proven that there is a world of forms or a soul that has complete knowledge of said world. I think that is why people in the world recognize objects with different words, because they don't know all about forms and things. I think we just label objects with a word because we need a way to communicate to each other what we are talking about. A tree is a tree because we have called it such.
Question: what do you think about the world of forms?

Emotions

This is in response to Kolb's Corner's post question. He asks if we agree with his opinion that decisions will always be effected by emotion. I agree with him. I think that people will always make decisions while taking into consideration their emotions, or the emotions of other people. If your parents tell you not to do something and you want to do it anyway, you would take into consideration how angry they are going to be with you if you do it. I think it is good to have emotion when you are making decisions. In some countries in war, they sacrifice some of their men, for the good of the nation, like the kamikaze fighters from japan. If they had cared about their citizens as individuals more, more innocent people could have possibly been alive. i think its nearly impossible for people to make decisions without using any emotion though. if you make the decision to hit someone, you are feeling angry, if you decide not to hit them, you could be feeling sympathy or something else.
Question: is it possible for people to make decisions without using emotion?

Turtles