English 1006T
Prompt #6
1 December 2011
Reflecting on our expectations and assumptions
Here are the paragraphs, and the highlighted phrases, we considered
last time. In square brackets after each is the number of people who commented
on each phrase. I'd thought to transcribe the comments, or a selection
of them, but that turned out to be too labour-intensive. What I propose
to do instead is to discuss a number of them. If we can, I'd like to get
through the five most commented on ("trauma," "invaded," "children, families,"
"assault," "small religious communities") and a couple of those that were
never, or almost never, singled out ("compound," "the reasons why so great
a proportion," "the subsquent decades of").
Many of the comments simply paraphrased or restated what was literally
said in the word or passage. I think this is mainly a result of people
just not having the language to talk about how these things work. Language
about language is the hardest thing for people to do with language.
I'm hoping that as we attend to these, and as you think back over your
own choices and reasons, that way of talking -- and thus of thinking --
will continue to develop.
The Trumpet of Conscience features five lectures
that Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered in November and December 1967 for
the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Massey Lectures. Founded in
1961 to honor Vincent Massey, former Governor General of Canada [4],
the annual Massey Lectures served as a venue for earlier speakers such
as John Kenneth Galbraith and Paul Goodman. [3]
The trauma [13] associated with 9/11 affected and
continues to influence children, families [9], and other groups
of people. While research is cataloguing [3] the various
coping
difficulties [4] experienced, few studies specifically address issues
related to parenting perceptions and related activities or behaviours.
We examined individuals
employed in close proximity [4] to Ground
Zero and considered these individuals' perspectives regarding their parenting
perceptions and behaviours.
It might be argued that American civil religion became
something of a joke in the era of political cynicism associated with
[2] Vietnam and Watergate (although it was revived very briefly during
the Bicentennial). It certainly has not been a conspicuous element in the
national consciousness during the subsequent decades of [2] increasingly
bitter interest-group politics. Social scientists, heir to [3] the
positivist traditions of Comte and Marx, accepted as a given the trend
of modern societies toward "secularization," and hence have grown increasingly
impatient with the notion that religion--even a "civil" one--has any place
in a modern polity (Wilson 1998).
On February 28, 1993, the United States Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) launched the largest assault [9] in
its history against a small religious community [9] in central Texas.
Approximately eighty armed agents invaded [11] the compound [0],
purportedly to execute a single [4] search and arrest warrant. The
raid went badly; six Branch Davidians and four agents were killed, and
after a fifty-one-day standoff the United States Justice Department
[2] approved a plan to use CS gas against those barricaded inside.
Tanks carrying the CS gas entered the compound. Later that day, fire broke
out, and [3] all seventy-four men, women and children inside perished.
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great
a proportion [0] of men, long after nature has released them from alien
guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless [2] gladly remain
in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves
as their guardians [5]. It is so easy to be immature [5].
If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my
conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need
not exert myself [1] at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others
will readily undertake [4] the irksome work for me. The guardians
[1] who have so
benevolently [2] taken over the supervision
of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including
the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous,
not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb,
and having carefully [5] made sure that these docile creatures
[4] will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are
harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them,
should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great,
for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to
walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens
them out of all further attempts.
Go to Next Prompt
Go to Previous Prompt
Go to the main working site for English 1006T
Go to the Truth in Society Web
site