What's So Bad About Hate

1. What can be defined as a hate crime?
2. If hate crimes are hate upon generalizations of a group, how is that worse than hate for a single person?
3. Could hate, something darker than "lazy prejudice", save our lives though?

I know it seems harsh to say that hate could save our lives, but hear me out. Andrew Sullivan, author of "What's So Bad About Hate?,"  discusses an incident where if a person hears footsteps behind them they start walking fast. Then looking back they see someone who isn't intimidating like a white woman. Put in this situation, I would react the same. Is it so wrong to judge a situation and people around when there could be imminent danger? Being a petite, young, white female myself, walking in the dark I can't say that I would walk down an alley where there were older, bigger males no matter their race. I think many people do the same. We kind of have to for our own safety and survival. "In some ways, some expression of prejudice serves a useful social purpose" (Sullivan, 10).

Could this even be considered hate either? Sullivan states, "we still have a remarkably vague idea of what it actually is"(2). There are so many kinds of hate; from fear, from contempt, from envy, revenge, from love, of others, etc. How can one define something as a hate crime? It seems to me that the hate crimes one hears of is against different races and people who are homosexual. Or maybe this is just because I don't actually watch the news. Why shouldn't, like Sullivan brings up, crimes against  little kids or that incident where a man killed his fifteen year old girlfriend for not getting an abortion be considered hate? Sullivan states, "The boundaries between hate and prejudice and between prejudice and opinion and between opinion and truth are so complicated and blurred that any attempt to construct legal and political fire walls is a doomed and illiberal venture"(10). If it cannot be defined how can legal measures be taken against it.

RESPONSE TO CHELSEA

I agree that we are becoming more accepting of people, but that begs the question of how far will we go? I hate to use the word, but if we follow with Gaga's example of sex its a little kinky. I wouldn't want people walking around in meat costumes or egg costumes all the time. She isn't the best role model especially for children because she is so concerned with her appearance. Kids shouldn't have to worry about not leaving the house without make-up like Gaga does.

Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex

1. Are we becoming desensitized towards death, sexuality, etc.?

2. Should what Lady Gaga represents and her “creativity” be considered talent or art?

3. How can someone like Lady Gaga be an icon?

It seems that as kids grow up in a world where they are in contact with some sort of media every day, they are becoming desensitized to things that older generations would have found appalling. Many stars and celebrities are capitalizing on this fact and marketing themselves to accommodate this change. Camille Paglia, author of Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex, analyzes the fame of Lady Gaga, a “depthless” “manufactured personality” as she describes her. Lady Gaga is one example of a person that takes advantage of people’s interest in violence and strange behavior. Paglia shares an anecdote of how Lady Gaga, in one of her performances, displayed some questioning behavior. Apparently, Lady Gaga “staged a barbaric spectacle” where blood and violence were the main attraction. Death by chandelier is sure to get more fans must have been the thought going through producers and her mind. Much of Lady Gaga’s appeal centers around violence, danger, and the unknown. Her videos have characteristics of criminal activity. All this in perspective, she still has billions of fans. Paglia also states that there is a blurred line between the sexes.  Rumor after rumor has spread about Lady Gaga being a transvestite or being bisexual or even gay. More people are starting to accept these circumstances and it is becoming more accepted. Other media sources are taking notice too. The news itself tries to keep its viewers by showing the most gruesome stories and focusing on appearance. When watching, I take notice of how done up the anchors are and how almost every single one is young and wears make-up. Of course this is more common with women. 

This question is an important one because when does will it end? How far will our generation go and will everything be accepted? Is there a line that won’t be crossed? These new children won’t have any values or morals because their “role models” aren’t behaving in a way that’s honorable or in any way inspirational.

RESPONSE TO LILY

I agree that there are other things that keep us from reading other than the internet. The television is a major distraction especially for me. I can't count how many times I've spent all day, and i mean literally all day, just watching tv. It sucks you in with how many movies they play one after another. Lifetime movie channel and the Hallmark channel are the worst examples of this. (Keep in mind this is from a girl's point of view) Although people get sucked into the tv and their phones, I think if you give the right person a book the enjoy it would be a different story. When I get a book i usually spend all day reading and do little else so really i think it depends on the person and the book. Carr should be more specific as to what type of reading he thinks people aren't doing because if it was leisure reading he is talking about then he could be wrong. At least using myself as the example he would be wrong.

Is Google Making Us Stupid by Nicholas Carr

1. How has the internet changed the way we think?
2.If our brains are trained to read quick blurbs and we can't read deeply, can't we then retrain our brains back?
3.Will we continue on this path and forget books altogether therefore abandoning deep thought?

Nicholas Carr, in his article Is Google Making Us Stupid, questions if people now are changing the way they think and if they are not able to stay focused while reading a long literary work. He has noticed that he himself cannot stay focused long enough to read a book. "Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages" Carr states (1). Carr believes that the internet has been the reason for this say "deterioration" of his brain. Supposedly the internet is doing this by training our brains to take in information quickly and in short little blurbs. This is a problem because, "Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking" (Carr, 10). If we lose the ability to read deeply we also lose deep thought.

Carr brings up the point that our brains are always changing. That "nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones" (Carr, 5).  If the brain can change itself and how it functions, then it obviously changed to accommodate the internet's fast pace. Along the same thinking, if this is becoming a problem, like Carr believes, couldn't we then train it back to before, before being where we can actually read long works?

This question is important to ask because our changing minds wouldn't be a problem. We could always just retrain it the way we want, maybe even train it to function both ways. There are so many programs out there, even games, that have the function to train people's brains. One example is Luminosity. One look at the site and one can see that people can train their brains to function the way they want. Based off this fact that the brain changes, Carr need not worry at all. All anyone needs to do is pick up a few books and put the internet to rest for a while.