The Language of Politics and the Politics of Language

According to Borick, the Libertarian, Liberal, and Conservative political groups are more similar than we all might think. In fact, all political groups might be quite a bit more alike than anyone previously believed. Borick focuses much of his piece on the fact that it is at times very difficult to decipher specifically the differences between each political group. There are, after all, such things as a very very conservative liberal, and a very very liberal conservative. He demonstrated this with the survey and opinion box on page 680. The reason that it is so difficult to make out the separations between the conservative, liberal, and libertarian parties is because politics are people's opinions--they are the way people feel about the world and what goes on in it. Instead of simply indentifying ourselves with one sole group, it makes more sense to discuss certain issues separately so that the optimal solution can be reached, without the concern of certain group or party principles being alienated, ignored, or otherwise abused. In addition to this, there is often  lacking of consistent beliefs within the human race in general. Borick states in his piece, "Thus while the American liberal and conservative may have real differences, the divide may be exaggerated when labels are being applied in the heat of political debate." Which is, after all, true, since terms like conservative, Republican, liberal, libertarian, and all the rest are really only labels. But furthermore, Borick, with this statement, correctly and logically implies that human thought, opinion, and emotion regularly get in the way of politics, or are at least heavily involved in them. For this reason, it is difficult to decipher constant and exact separations between the conservative, liberal, and libertarian political parties.

Article Analysis

WP 1 Brainstorming

1. What interests me about the prompt?

More than anything, I think that it is the global spectrum of this problem that makes it so pressing and also so interesting to me. This idea of a sustainable economy, or the lack of one in our world right now, is an issue that is undoubtedly connected to each and every human being on the planet, no matter what. We are all a part of it. Additionally, this is an issue that has been on the minds of the people of this nation, in our homes, our economy, our politics. The explicit question that this prompt asks, whether there is another economic model we could live our lives by, is very pressing, since we truly have no choice other than to find another way to live. Mainly, the hardcore connection this prompt shares with human nature and feeling makes it so intriguing. 

2. Are there any binaries stated or unstated in the prompt?

consuming/disposal

products/waste

obsolescence/sustainable 

nourishing/dirty

ecosystem/technology (advances)

cleanliness/dirty

3. What are the big questions?

What is it? Our environment and the danger it is in because of our economy, the way we live, and how we depend on the earth to provide for us.

Is it good or bad? It is bad, very bad. Our dependence on the earth is the very thing killing it, the very thing that will take away the things we need to survive.

How did it get that way? Through our severe and desperate dependence and our drifting away from a natural and equally balanced relationship with our planet and its ecosystems.

What should we do about it? We should be doing anything and everything we can; nothing is of more importance since the planet is the basis for our life form. We need to move away from commercial corporations that demand us to consume and throw away faster than we know. We must start replacing what we use, we need to make choices that will positively affect our future and the future of the human species. We need to find ways to move away from an oil-dependent economy and continue exploring new options for the environment every day.

4. What are the smaller questions that need to be explored also? I think one of the largest underlying issues of this question are the up close and personal effects that industries and corporations have on the human mind, the control they have over our lifestyles, the ways in which we can be so easily manipulated. They have made it so that environmental conciousness is "uncool." 

5. I think many new ideas and answers could be explored through movies such as "The Story of Stuff", "An Inconvenient Truth" or "Who Killed the Electric Car." In addition, surveying people from different generations and backgrounds might provide many more answers.

Skills with Sources

Generally in my writing, I do not use any of my sources to supplement and add to my writing. Actually, I have never even considered using sources in most of the ways in which the chapter describes. When I use sources in my compositions, I view it as a chore and an interruption to what I am trying to say. I do not use them to make further explorations about my subject, or to ask new questions and make connections. These are one of the strategies that I will start to use my sources for, in addition to summarizing and truly considering them before I implement them into my writing. I also will begin to make explicit what is implicit within the sources, and plan it out into my writing so that the text of the sources has some true value to it. In addition, I feel that very often in my writing I simply restate exactly what the source has said with quotes around it, and leave that alone as the only supporting evidence for the argument I am making. Instead of simply validating or refuting the sources I gather, I want to try to open up conscious conversation between them within my text, which will help provide a body for my writing, with structure from outside sources, opinions, and research. At the same time, my goal is to keep my own opinion distinguished from that of the sources I am using in my writing. 

One of the other ideas that I personally find most easy to understand is taking one of the ideas in the sources that I find interesting or valid to the point that I am making and then using it and developing it further with my own thoughts and the context of the composition and the source. I believe this to be a very valuable idea, one that could potentially add very valuable elements to my writing and one that I had never considered before reading the chapter.