Tag Archives: School

Language and Reality in Post-Classical Science and Postmodern Literature: Short Paper

Language is crucial to our understanding of the world around us. Russian speakers who have words that differentiate between lighter and darker blues are able to distinguish between shades of blue faster than English speakers; East Asian languages that use honorifics create a culture that emphasizes respect and age difference. The Native Americans whose languages are based on verbs and contain no nouns could not conceive receiving an offer to buy their land, while for the Europeans, noun-based linguistics normalized this concept. Language affects the very way we think and view the world, and Indo-European linguistics have contributed greatly to our current comprehension of classical science and literature.

The classical view of language leads us to hold a particular perspective in life in many ways, even simply by involving the separation and hierarchization of a “signifier” and “signified”. In order to understand ideas of post-classical science and post-modern literature and philosophy, we must deconstruct the language we use and release ourselves from the way it forces us to understand the world.

The “signified” referred to above indicates the actual concept that the “signifier” is attempting to “represent”; thus, modern language is based on the idea of representation of concepts. Everything is concrete – “present” – and able to be “held” or “grasped”, hence the heavy reliance of nouns in the English language. The representation of the “signified” requires something, normally an object, to be represented. Our fixation on “objects” reflects onto the way our mind thinks, as we are forced to separate and differentiate the world around us into perceived concepts. This “logic of representation” is what Derrida calls a “metaphysics of presence” because of the hierarchy and differentiation created by language. Much of Eurocentric thought is based on fundamentals that can be built on: pure truths (a “transcendental signified” that transcends all signifiers) that reveal more complex ideas, basic building blocks of life (elementary particles) that combine to build everything else in the universe.

In this way, the atomic view in science is similar to the classical view of language. Much of the classical perspective in science is based on a hierarchy. Basic elements, such as atoms and molecules, come together in different ways to form different – again – “objects”. Essentially, the classical perspective on the world attempts to understand a screenshot of the world – What is present at this point in time? What comprises of this world in the present? Just as the modern English language follows a “logic of representation”, classical science also implements a line of logical thinking that separates and categorizes our physical world using an “either-or” mindset in order to understand our world.

In contrast, the post-classical perspective regards time as something in a state of “flux”. Thus, the world is comprised not of “things”, but of “events”. Everything in the world is changing constantly; nothing in two different points of time are the same, not even what seems to be permanent. Even mountains are slowly eroding, no matter how slow it takes.

In this manner enters the idea of “undecidability”. Because of the ever-changing state of the world around us, “pure” concepts no longer exist and opposites intangle. Nothing is “ranked” higher than another. Good and evil are no longer opposite sides of a spectrum nor one considered superior to another, and everything around us is both present and absent. There is essentially a coexistence of opposites, as one cannot exist without the other; they are two sides of the same coin, running along opposite and both ends of a Mobius strip. Rather than classify the surrounding world through “either-or” mentality (which cuts through the balance of a chiasmic unity), Derrida’s notion of undecidability rejects the binary opposites and instead views the world through the perspective of the word “and”, the idea that we can be both sides of a dichotomy. This idea of “chiasmic unity” relates to that of “metaphor” in literature. Metaphoricity allows to understand ideas through the “and” lens, simply introducing relation rather than definition and distinction.

Post-classical scientists challenge the classical atomic structure of the universe with their own “and” glasses in the form of quantum theory. Niels Bohr discusses the results of experiments that reveal light to be both a wave as well as a particle. This concept of complementarity completely undermines the classical way of scientific thinking, as it is revealed that it is entirely possible to have the qualities of two mutually exclusive opposites. Werner Heisenburg later introduces the idea of “uncertainty”, which claims that it is impossible for a particle’s position and momentum to be precisely measured, due to the flux of time.

Because so much of our worldview is shaped by modern language, we must challenge the very fundamentals of language – including the classification of concepts separated by employment of “either-or” methods of thought – in order to understand the “complementarity” of opposites central to post-classical science and post-modern literature.

Essay: Distortion (‘Metamorphosis’ Timed Write)

In the story “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, Kafka distorts Gregor’s voice, body, and behavior to show how the modern worker’s obsession with work can lead to isolation.

Kafka first distorts Gregor’s body in order to demonstrate how one’s obsession with their job isolates one from their sense of self. When Gregor discovers his new body, he “saw his little legs struggling with each other more fiercely than ever, if that were possible, and saw no way of bringing peace and order to this mindless motion” (16). Kafka’s diction of “mindless motion” describes how Gregor considers his work to be “mindless”, as though his own mind is not put to use in his job. His inability to bring “peace and order” to this motion illustrates the lack of control Gregor has in his life and in his job. His own legs, which are supposed to carry him and take him where he wants to go, are out of control and useless, further symbolizing Gregor’s inability to support himself and take his life in the direction he desires. This lack of control, self-sustainability, and direction in Gregor’s life, along with his mind being wasted in his job, all help strip away Gregor’s individuality, potential, ambition, and thoughts, thus conveying the isolation from sense of self that can be caused from working too hard.

Gregor’s voice is also distorted in order to illustrate how lack of communication can lead to isolation from others. Upon conceiving the reactions of his family to his voice, Gregor realizes that “his words were no longer intelligible even though they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than before, perhaps because his ear had grown accustomed to them” (25). Due to his dedication to his work, Gregor rarely has time to have real conversations with his parents and his sister; when he finally has a need to communicate, his words are “no longer intelligible” from lack of previous communication. However, his words are “clearer than before” to Gregor himself, because he has become “accustomed” to his state of non-communication, to his work that took away his humanity and livelihood so that he no longer sounds human to his family. Work, as it had done to Gregor, can rob one of continual communication with their loved ones from whom they will thus be isolated.

Another aspect of Gregor that is distorted is his behavior; by distorting this aspect, Kafka demonstrates how working to please others causes one to abandon their own needs and isolate themselves further. When Gregor tries to get out of bed in the morning, “he no longer paid any attention to the pain in his abdomen, however it burned” (24). His abdomen, which has been in severe pain for a long while by this point, is ignored by Gregor as he attempts to get up even though the logical response is to treat the pain. Gregor is so desperate to get to his job that his basic health needs are disregarded, exemplifying how the modern worker’s personal needs will be overlooked in their desire to please their boss and support their family financially. Later on in the story, Gregor realizes his sister is repulsed by his appearance and “one day carried the sheet to the sofa on his back… and arranged it in such a way that he was now completely covered and his sister would not be able to see him” (51). Covering himself with the sheet to spare his sister the view of his transformed body is a quintessential example of isolating oneself to please others, as Gregor is purposefully using the sheet to create a barrier between himself and his family, believing it will help his sister despite sacrificing his own need for love and recognition. This action also represents how Gregor throws himself into work in order to support his family, and thus distances himself in the meantime, believing it to be the best for his family. Gregor ignoring the pain in his abdomen in favor of getting ready for work, as well as blocking his sister from himself, contribute to the idea of the desire to please others causes one to neglect one’s personal needs and isolate themselves.

The distortion of Gregor’s body, voice, and behavior in “The Metamorphosis” helps illustrate how the modern worker’s obsession of work, which comes with a lack of communication, lack of control and vitality, and a desire to please others, will lead to isolation from others as well as their own needs and identity. While having a job is important, it is essential for workers to maintain a happy, healthy relationship with their loved ones, and to hold on to their own lives and ensure they don’t lose their sense of selves.

Research Paper: Gun Violence (Problem-Solution Research Assignment)

Starting with Columbine in 1999, “more than 187,000 students attending at least 193 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus during school hours” according to a Washington Post study (Cox). In fact, the study found “an average of 10 school shootings per year since Columbine, with a low of five in 2002 and a high of 15 in 2014.” This year alone, as of “less than three months into 2018, there have been 11 shootings, already making this year among the worst on record.” The presence of guns has become prominent recently with all the frightening events occurring in what are supposed to be safe areas for students to learn. While the news frequently covers mass shootings, the study only proves that large-scale schools shootings are only a fraction of the danger students face in regards to gun violence at school.

The public holds contradicting opinions regarding the main cause of gun violence in schools, but generally agree on several ideas. One cause of this issue that many accept to be true is mental illness. Sue Klebold is the mother of one of the infamous Columbine shooters that were the first in a series of increasing incidents resulting in deaths, injuries, and trauma due to guns in schools. She attributes the tragedy largely to her son’s mental illness and the lack of help he received for it. Dylan Klebold was plagued by suicidal thoughts before the shooting, and his mother laments that his “spiral into dysfunction probably occurred over a period of about two years, plenty of time to get him help, if only someone had known that he needed help and known what to do” (Klebold). Klebold’s main concern regards Dylan’s “desire to die” causing him to kill others along with him, noting that the estimated statistic that around one or two percent of suicides are murder-suicides, meaning that rises in suicide rates will lead to rises in murder-suicide rates (Klebold). Justin Nutt concurs that mental illness is a definitive factor in gun violence, explaining how anxiety, mood, personality, and psychotic disorders, and even particular symptoms such as mania, can lead to feelings of being alone, powerless, and hopeless, and impaired reasoning and lack of control: “mental health issues can compound things and lead to a feeling that the only option is to lash out at the world or that the only way one can show others how he or she feels is to show them or make them feel the pain being felt” (Nutt). Klebold elaborates on the failure of our mental health care system, as it “is not equipped to help everyone, and not everyone with destructive thoughts fits the criteria for a specific diagnosis. Many who have ongoing feelings of fear or anger or hopelessness are never assessed or treated” (Klebold). Malcolm Gladwell also cites other psychological abnormalities such as the autism spectrum, psychoticism, and psychopathy as a potential source of dangerous gun usage in school: John LaDue had Asperger’s and obsessed over guns and school shootings out of morbid curiosity; Kip Kinkel was psychotic and had delusions; Eric Harris, mastermind behind Columbine, was your textbook psychopath in manner, behavior, and self-perception (Gladwell).

A large part of the mental health aspect is bullying, which goes hand-in-hand with mental health, and it is also a universally agreed upon factor in school violence. While it doesn’t explain LaDue, Kinkel, or Harris, bullying can help us better understand Dylan Klebold, who “had experienced triggering events at the school that left him feeling debased and humiliated and mad. And he had a complicated friendship with a boy who shared his feelings of rage and alienation, and who was seriously disturbed, controlling and homicidal” (Klebold). Bullying can help us pinpoint the root of Dylan’s suicidal thoughts and explain his relationship with an individual such as Eric Harris who was “seriously disturbed, controlling and homicidal” and yet “shared his feelings of rage and alienation” enough to be able to convince Dylan to join him on a quest of vengeance, homicide, and self-destruction.

However, mental health is only a portion of the problem. While mental health is prevalent among shooters, one must realize that “researchers have consistently concluded that [psychological problems] seldom play a role in shootings or violence of any kind” and that most shooters “showed no signs of debilitating mental illness, such as psychosis or schizophrenia” (Cox). Klebold, despite discussing her son’s mental illness, acknowledges as well that “only a very small percent of those who have a mental illness are violent toward other people” (Klebold). Furthermore, defining school shootings by mental illness can be dangerous; the president of the American Psychological Association, Jessica Henderson Daniel, stated that “framing the conversation about gun violence in the context of mental illness does a disservice to the victims of violence and unfairly stigmatizes the many others with mental illness… More important, it does not direct us to appropriate solutions to this public health crisis” (Cox).

In fact, while Gladwell details the different kinds of mental illness present in many of the minds of those who attempt to hurt others, there are also social factors (besides bullying) that easily contribute to violence towards students and faculty. Much of it boiled down to “chaotic home life” (for example Evan Ramsey who lived an extremely itinerant and abusive upbringing), and “group behavior/threshold,” which explains how the existence of a group of humans can cause people to act a certain way or demonstrate a certain behavior, the behavior in this case being shooting up schools in salute to Columbine. Group threshold theory explains cases such as Darion Aguilar, someone who would never have had reason to pick up a gun before the examples set by Harris and Klebold. Aguilar is only part of overwhelming percentages of major school shootings both in and outside the United States after Columbine that either imitated, referenced, or took inspiration from Harris and Klebold (Gladwell). In regards to societal explanations for gun violence in schools, some people even goes as far as to point at the media as a contributor to this epidemic. The notoriety gained from school shootings, due to a fixation on the attacker instead of the victim, can encourage students who “feel nameless and as though no one will care or remember them when they are gone” to do something as drastic as a school shooting believing it will ensure their infamy and make sure they are remembered in history (Nutt). Gladwell’s group threshold theory holds well in relation with this with the outcome of Columbine and consequential spotlight on the shooters that inspires others to follow suit.

Ultimately, every shooter is different, and people are harmed by guns for different reasons. As Cox and Rich state, “there is no archetypal American school shooter. Their ranks include a 6-year-old boy who killed a classmate because he didn’t like her and a 15-year-old girl who did the same to a friend for rejecting her romantic overtures. They also come from backgrounds of all kinds” (Cox). Whether or not the assailant was bullied or had mental illness, each shooter has their individual background and motivation, ranging from obsession, sadism, suicidal desire, abuse, revenge, inspiration from literature and entertainment, or admiration for previous shooters (Gladwell). The incident could even have been unintentional, with students bringing firearms on campus for self-protection or curiosity. What all gun-related horror stories in school environments have in common, however, is that the gun-wielder was able to get ahold of guns without ringing any alarms. Thus, despite many relevant and viable causes for gun violence in schools, I believe that the main cause that ties all these reasons and incidents together is undeniably the terrifyingly easy access that students have to guns.

Home is, unfortunately, the most common source of guns for our youth to get their hands on. Nine kids are shot unintentionally in the U.S. on a daily basis, nearly all with a parent’s gun; nine hundred adolescents commit suicide annually, nearly all with a parent’s gun; two-thirds of school shootings, including Sandy Hook, utilize a parent’s gun (Gross). In one particular case, a boy found a pistol given from his father to his brother and brought it to his first grade class, where a girl picked it up and accidentally shot 7-year-old Gage Meche through the stomach. Gage now suffers from trauma and continuous physical pain, and the girl suffers from guilt and post-traumatic stress. Although it may be easy to blame parents for keeping guns in the house where kids can easily find them, Dan Gross’ TED talk reminds us that they aren’t bad people, “they’re just living with the unimaginable consequences of a very bad decision, made based on very bad information that was put into their minds by very bad people, who know good and well the misery that they’re causing, but just don’t care” (Gross). Due to unfortunate politics, many households wind up misinformed about their children’s safety regarding the guns that they believe are protecting the family. Even in households without guns, it is still shockingly easy for kids to obtain guns. Despite her emphasis on mental health and social issues, Klebold also notes that “on top of this period in his life of extreme vulnerability and fragility, Dylan found access to guns even though we’d never owned any in our home” (Klebold). Gross compares gun control to airport security, attesting that “thousands of gun sales every day at guns shows or online without… background checks, just like there shouldn’t be two lines to get on an airplane — one with security and one with no security” (Gross). Klebold further comments that “it was appallingly easy for a 17-year-old boy to buy guns, both legally and illegally, without my permission or knowledge. And somehow, 17 years and many school shootings later, it’s still appallingly easy” (Klebold).

The system that Gross introduces us to, Brady background checks, have prevented – over 20 years – “2.4 million gun sales to those people that we all agree shouldn’t have guns” (Gross), these “people” being “domestic abusers, convicted felons, mentally ill persons, and other dangerous individuals” that may harm others if wielding a firearm (“Effectiveness”). So why is there still so much accessibility to guns? One factor is the lack of research, and thus, sufficient awareness of the issue to incorporate appropriate policies. Cox and Rich explain that “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped studying gun violence 22 years ago. At the time, the Republican-led Congress mandated that no CDC funds ‘may be used to advocate or promote gun control,’ language that, though vague, halted almost all study of gun violence” (Cox). Carvalho uses a more accusatory tone towards the corporate gun lobby having spent “billions of dollars blocking the CDC from doing research into the public health epidemic of gun violence… They’re desperate to hide the truth, because they view the truth as a threat to their bottom line” (Carvalho).

So what can be done? Improving our mental health care system is important and a frequently proposed solution, but it will mean little in the scheme of preventing gun violence with so many shooters absent of a diagnosable mental illness. Rather, using the power of community and information to convince government to take action is probably the best way to solve the issue. One of the lessons Carvalho takes from fighting drugs and gun violence is that “you need coalitions of the willing and of the unwilling to make change. In the case of drugs, we needed libertarians, anti-prohibitionists, legalizers, and liberal politicians. They may not agree on everything; in fact, they disagree on almost everything. But the legitimacy of the campaign is based on their diverse points of view” (Carvalho). Not only that, but the simple existence of such a group spreads information to the public and garners more support for the cause, which, if gains enough traction, will find its way to the government, as did Carvalho’s coalition: “within weeks, our national congress approved the disarmament bill that had been languishing for years. We were then able to mobilize data to show the successful outcomes of the change in the law and gun collection program… We could prove that in just one year, we saved more than 5,000 lives” (Carvalho). And according to Gross, unity is working regarding the issue for gun violence. After San Bernardino, the public began swarming Congress with demand for action, and soon enough, “we got a vote on a bill that nobody thought was going to see the light of day anytime soon. We’re seeing real movement to repeal some of the most evil, ugly gun lobby legislation passed over the last dark decade. The stranglehold of the gun lobby is clearly being broken” (Gross). While laws can’t solve everything, implementation and expansion of Brady background checks to a wider number of sales will save thousands of lives.

2018 started off tragic with significantly the most incidents yet, culminating decades of gun violence in schools starting with Loukaitis and popularized by Klebold and Harris. An educational environment is not one where students – and teachers – should have to be constantly afraid and cautious. Fortunately, people are speaking up, and the gun violence crisis may recede. By demanding action from government in large numbers, we will soon eliminate the easy access of minors to guns, and permanently eradicate gun violence in schools.

Works Cited