The purpose of a writing class is to develop a meaningful thesis, direct or implied, that will generate a compelling essay. Most importantly, a meaningful thesis will have a strong emotional connection between you and the material. In fact, if you don’t have a “fire in your belly” to write the paper, your essay will be nothing more than a limp document, a perfunctory exercise in futility. A successful thesis will also be intellectually challenging and afford a complexity worthy of college-level writing. Thirdly, the successful thesis will be demonstrable, which means it can be supported by examples and illustrations in a recognizable organizational design.
Other Website: http://herculodge.typepad.com/
In the context of Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost,” develop a thesis that evaluates the assertion that for many Americans the Civil War denies real history and replaces that real history with a pernicious mythology, often called The Lost Cause, that perpetuates the false doctrine of white supremacy. You may also consult John Oliver Confederate Flag critique video.
Variation of Option B:
Support or refute John Oliver's claim in his video that it is a moral abomination to put Confederate figures in the public square in the form of statues, memorials, and school names.
Develop a claim that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that electoral college should be replaced by the popular vote. Be sure to have a counterargument section.
October 21 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
October 23 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
October 28 Essay #3 due on turnitin.
Comma Splice Review
Comma Splices
A comma splice is joining two sentences with a comma when you should separate them with a period or a semicolon.
Incorrect
People love Facebook, however, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
People love Facebook. However, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
Though people love Facebook, they fail to realize Facebook is sucking all their energy.
Incorrect
Patience is difficult to cultivate, it grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Patience is difficult to cultivate. It grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Because patience grows within us so slowly, patience is extremely difficult to cultivate.
You can use a comma between two complete sentences when you join them with a FANBOYS word or coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
Correct
People love Facebook, but they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Student Comma Splices Part One (the second sentence feels like a continuation of thought from the first sentence, which it is, but it still requires a period before it)
My department decided to set up another office for me to do my work, I was no longer sitting out front like the permanent receptionist.
The permanent receptionist never spoke to anyone in the offices, he just answered phones.
He said, “You have a few choices, they need a coordinator at the new jobsite or working the business side as a coordinator.”
I was lucky, many opportunities came to me and now I had the required experience to get the job I wanted.
There was no stopping me, all my achievements were completed on my own.
I was promoted quickly, I went from coordinator to senior executive within a few months.
The drug dealing lifestyle was insatiable to Jeff Henderson, he believed he could elude the feds.
Our methods paralleled, my method was legal, his was illegal.
Jeff Henderson rose to the top of his game, he had established his fortune.
10. Jeff Henderson had no choice, it was either work or stay confined in his prison cell.
11. She was going to marry her high school sweetheart, what better way to spend the rest of your life in bliss?
12. He asked me to marry him, he was a Marine after all stationed in Japan.
13. Her life was finally beginning, she could leave Los Angeles.
14. This was her life, she did what she wanted.
15. Now she had nothing, she had given up her job to move overseas.
16. Life was too much of a challenge, she accepted that fact.
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week. Nonetheless, he remained skinny.
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week, but he remained skinny.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW. Instead, she bought the Acura.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW, yet she did buy the Acura.
Steve wasn't interested in college. Moreover, he didn't want to work full-time.
Steve wasn't interested in college, and he didn't want to work full-time.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me. However, I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do, however, want you to help me do my taxes.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid. Consequently, I think we should break up.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid, so I think we should break up.
Students hate reading. Therefore, they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Students hate reading, so they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Avoiding Comma Splices and Run-Ons
Fused (run-on) sentence
Klee's paintings seem simple, they are very sophisticated.
She doubted the value of medication she decided to try it once.
A fused sentence (also called a run-on) joins clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence with no punctuation or words to link them. Fused sentences must be either divided into separate sentences or joined by adding words or punctuation.
Comma Splice
I was strongly attracted to her, she was beautiful and funny.
We hated the meat loaf, the cafeteria served it every Friday.
A comma splice occurs when only a comma separates clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence. To correct a comma splice, you can insert a semicolon or period, connect the clauses with a word such as and or because, or restructure the sentence.
After each sentence, put a “C” for Correct or a “CS” for Comma Splice. If the sentence is a comma splice, rewrite it so that it is correct.
One. Bailey used to eat ten pizzas a day, now he eats a spinach salad for lunch and dinner.
Two. Marco no longer runs on the treadmill, instead he opts for the less injury-causing elliptical trainer.
Three. Running can cause shin splints, which can cause excruciating pain.
Four. Running in the incorrect form can wreak havoc on the knees, slowing down can often correct the problem.
Five. While we live in a society where 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers are on the rise, the reading of books, sad to say, is on the decline.
Six. Facebook is a haven for narcissists, it encourages showing off with selfies and other mundane activities that are ways of showing how great and amazing our lives our, what a sham.
Seven. We live in a society where more and more Americans are consuming 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers, however, those same Americans are reading less and less books.
Eight. Love is a virus from outer space, it tends to become most contagious during April and May.
Nine. The tarantula causes horror in many people, moreover there is a species of tarantula in Brazil, the wandering banana spider, that is the most venomous spider in the world.
Ten. Even though spiders cause many people to recoil with horror, most species are harmless.
Eleven. The high repair costs of European luxury vehicles repelled Amanda from buying such a car, instead she opted for a Japanese-made Lexus.
Twelve. Amanda got a job at the Lexus dealership, now she’s trying to get me a job in the same office.
Thirteen. While consuming several cinnamon buns, a twelve-egg cheese omelet, ten slices of French toast slathered in maple syrup, and a tray of Swedish loganberry crepes topped with a dollop of blueberry jam, I contemplated the very grave possibility that I might be eating my way to a heart attack.
Fourteen. Even though I rank marijuana far less dangerous than most pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, and other commonly used intoxicants, I find marijuana unappealing for a host of reasons, not the least of which is its potential for radically degrading brain cells, its enormous effect on stimulating the appetite, resulting in obesity, and its capacity for over-relaxing many people so that they lose significant motivation to achieve their primary goals, opting instead for a life of sloth and intractable indolence.
Identify the Comma Splices Below:
It’s not a question of will there be chaos or will there be destruction, it’s a question of how much?
MySpace was disruptive in its time, however, it’s a dated platform and to simply mention it is to make people laugh with a certain derision surely it’s a platform that has seen its time, another example is the meal replacement Soylent, its creator made a drink that says, “You’re too busy to eat,” so drinking this pancake batter-like concoction gives tech people street. I may laugh at its stupidity, instead I should admire it since the product has made millions for its creator. It’s proven to be somewhat disruptive.
To be sure, though, Facebook redefines the word disruptive, it has rapidly accrued over 3 billion users and will soon have half the planet plugged into its site, that is the apotheosis of a greedy person’s fantasy, imagine controlling half the planet on a platform that mines private information and targets ads toward specific personality profiles.
One of the scary disruptions of Facebook is that billions of people have lost their personal agency, what that means that people have unknowingly been manipulated by Facebook’s puppeteers to the point that many Facebook users suffer from social media addiction, moreover, these same users prefer the fake life they curate on social media to the real life they once had, in fact, their previous real life is just a puff of smoke that has faded into the distance, many people no longer even know what it means to be “real” anymore, having lost their agency, having succumbed to their Facebook addiction, they have become zombies waiting for their next rush of social media-fueled dopamine, what a sad state of affairs.
Vaping is creating "collective anxiety" because we haven't pinpointed the exact cause of the lung's inflammation response; however, vitamin E acetate and chemicals in THC products have been associated with most harm.
The "tracker" at the New York Times has 1,299 cases of illness and 29 deaths as of 10-11-2019.
One in five high school students vape.
Generic vaping isn't the danger; it's the specific practices of vaping, some custom, that are causing diseases.
Problems traced to following:
adding nicotine
modifying cartridges
THC
vitamin E acetate
Counterargument:
Vaping saves lives by getting people off cigarettes.
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings and all-night tantrums.
Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do, they have giant mood swings, and they have all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content.
You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony, they feature fatty, over-salted foods, and the lard everything with sugar.
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absent gym music, and the improved concentration.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis.
To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and write an intellectually rigorous thesis.
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the rules are hard to follow, and the MLA in-text citations are difficult to master.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems and their brain-dumbing effects.
You should avoid watching "reality shows" because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism, they distract you from your own problems, and they dumb you down.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
I'm still fat even though I've tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and the fasting diet.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and a thesis that elevates the reader's consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and maintaining a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
My children never react to my calm commands or my lugubrious supplications.
In the context of Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost,” develop a thesis that evaluates the assertion that for many Americans the Civil War denies real history and replaces that real history with a pernicious mythology, often called The Lost Cause, that perpetuates the false doctrine of white supremacy. You may also consult John Oliver Confederate Flag critique video.
Variation of Option B:
Support or refute John Oliver's claim in his video that it is a moral abomination to put Confederate figures in the public square in the form of statues, memorials, and school names.
Develop a claim that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that electoral college should be replaced by the popular vote. Be sure to have a counterargument section.
October 21 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
October 23 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
October 28 Essay #3 due on turnitin.
Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are incomplete thoughts presented as dependent clauses or phrases.
A dependent clause or a phrase is never a complete sentence.
Types of dependent clauses:
Whenever I drive up windy mountains,
Because I have craved pizza for 14 months,
Unless you add coffee to your chocolate cake recipe,
,which is currently enjoying a resurgence.
Phrases
Enamored by the music of Tupac Shakur,
Craving pesto linguine with olive-oil based clam sauce,
Flexing his muscles with a braggadocio never seen in modern times,
Lying under the bridge and eating garlic pepper pretzels with a dollop of cream cheese and a jug of chilled apple cider,
To understand the notion of Universal Basic Income and all of its related factors for social change in this disruptive age,
Running into crowded restaurants with garlic and whiskey fuming out of his sweaty pores while brandishing a golden scepter,
Examples
I won't entertain your requests for more money and gifts. Until you show at least a modicum of responsibility at school and with your friends.
I won't consider buying the new BMW sports coupe. Unless of course my uncle gives me that inheritance he keeps talking about whenever he gets a bit tipsy.
I can't imagine ever going to Chuck E. Cheese. Which makes me feel like I'm emotionally arrested.
I am considering the purchase of a new wardrobe. That is, if I'm picked for that job interview at Nordstrom.
Human morals have vanished. To the point at which it was decided that market values would triumph.
No subject
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution.
No complete verb
The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer.
Beginning with a subordinating word
We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.
A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.
Sentence Fragment Exercises
After each sentence, write C for complete or F for fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.
One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.
Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.
Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.
Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.
Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.
Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.
Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.
Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.
Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.
Ten. At the dance club where I espy my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.
Eleven. The BMW speeding ahead of me and winding into the misty hills.
Twelve. Before you convert to the religion of veganism in order to impress your vegan girlfriend.
Thirteen. Summoning all my strength to resist the giant chocolate fudge cake sweating on the plate before me.
Identify the Fragments Below
I drank the chalky Soylent meal-replacement drink. Expecting to feel full and satisfied. Only to find that I was still ravenously hungry afterwards. Trying to sate my hunger pangs. I went to HomeTown Buffet. Where I ate several platters of braised oxtail and barbecued short ribs smothered in a honey vinegar sauce. Which reminded me of a sauce where I used to buy groceries from. When I was a kid.
Feeling bloated after my HomeTown Buffet indulgence. I exited the restaurant. After which I hailed an Uber and asked the driver for a night club recommendation. So I could dance off all my calories. The driver recommended a place, Anxiety Wires. I had never heard of it. Though, it was crowded inside. I felt eager to dance and confident about “my swag.” Although, I was still feeling bloated. Wondering if my intestines were on the verge of exploding.
Sweating under the night club’s outdoor canopy. I smelled the cloying gasses of a nearby vape. A serpentine woman was holding the vape. A gold contraption emitting rose-water vapors into my direction. Contemplating my gluttony. I was suddenly feeling low confidence. Though I pushed myself to introduce myself to the vape-smoking stranger with the serpentine features. Her eyes locked on mine.
I decided to play it cool. Instead of overwhelming her with a loud, brash manner. Which she might interpret as neediness on my part.
Keeping a portable fan in my cargo pocket for emergencies. When I feel like I’m overheating. I took the fan out of my pocket, turned it on, and directed it toward the serpentine stranger. Making it so the vapors were blowing back in her face.
“Doesn’t smell so good, does it?” I said. With a sarcastic grin.
She cackled, then said, “Thank you for blowing the vapors in my face. Now I can both enjoy inhaling them and breathing them in. For double the pleasure. You are quite a find. Come home with me and I’ll introduce you to my mother Gertrude and her pitbull Jackson. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into our home. Considering what a well-fed handsome man you are.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” I said. “I would love to meet your mother Gertrude and your mother’s pitbull Jackson. Only one problem. My breath smells like a rotting dead dragon. Right after eating spicy ribs. Which reminds me? Do you have any breath mints?”
“I don’t believe in carrying breath mints. On account of the rose-water vape. That cleanses my palate. Making my breath rosy fresh.”
“Wow. Your constant good breath counteracts my intractable bad breath. Making us a match in heaven.”
“I agree. Totally. You really need to meet my mother. Because she’ll bless us and make our marriage official. Since we really need her blessing. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Now let me smell your breath. So I can identify the hot sauce.”
“Why must you do that?”
“So I can use the same hot sauce on our wedding cake, silly. To celebrate the first night we met. Capisce?”
“Capisce.”
She approached me. Affording me a view of her long, tired face. Covered in scales. Reptilian. Evocative of something primitive. Something precious and indelible from my childhood lost long ago. I wanted to run from her, but I could not. Some mysterious force drew me to her, and we inched closer and closer toward one another. Succumbing to a power neither of us could fathom.
Comma Splice Review
Comma Splices
A comma splice is joining two sentences with a comma when you should separate them with a period or a semicolon.
Incorrect
People love Facebook, however, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
People love Facebook. However, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
Though people love Facebook, they fail to realize Facebook is sucking all their energy.
Incorrect
Patience is difficult to cultivate, it grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Patience is difficult to cultivate. It grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Because patience grows within us so slowly, patience is extremely difficult to cultivate.
You can use a comma between two complete sentences when you join them with a FANBOYS word or coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
Correct
People love Facebook, but they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Student Comma Splices Part One (the second sentence feels like a continuation of thought from the first sentence, which it is, but it still requires a period before it)
My department decided to set up another office for me to do my work, I was no longer sitting out front like the permanent receptionist.
The permanent receptionist never spoke to anyone in the offices, he just answered phones.
He said, “You have a few choices, they need a coordinator at the new jobsite or working the business side as a coordinator.”
I was lucky, many opportunities came to me and now I had the required experience to get the job I wanted.
There was no stopping me, all my achievements were completed on my own.
I was promoted quickly, I went from coordinator to senior executive within a few months.
The drug dealing lifestyle was insatiable to Jeff Henderson, he believed he could elude the feds.
Our methods paralleled, my method was legal, his was illegal.
Jeff Henderson rose to the top of his game, he had established his fortune.
10. Jeff Henderson had no choice, it was either work or stay confined in his prison cell.
11. She was going to marry her high school sweetheart, what better way to spend the rest of your life in bliss?
12. He asked me to marry him, he was a Marine after all stationed in Japan.
13. Her life was finally beginning, she could leave Los Angeles.
14. This was her life, she did what she wanted.
15. Now she had nothing, she had given up her job to move overseas.
16. Life was too much of a challenge, she accepted that fact.
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week. Nonetheless, he remained skinny.
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week, but he remained skinny.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW. Instead, she bought the Acura.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW, yet she did buy the Acura.
Steve wasn't interested in college. Moreover, he didn't want to work full-time.
Steve wasn't interested in college, and he didn't want to work full-time.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me. However, I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do, however, want you to help me do my taxes.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid. Consequently, I think we should break up.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid, so I think we should break up.
Students hate reading. Therefore, they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Students hate reading, so they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Avoiding Comma Splices and Run-Ons
Fused (run-on) sentence
Klee's paintings seem simple, they are very sophisticated.
She doubted the value of medication she decided to try it once.
A fused sentence (also called a run-on) joins clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence with no punctuation or words to link them. Fused sentences must be either divided into separate sentences or joined by adding words or punctuation.
Comma Splice
I was strongly attracted to her, she was beautiful and funny.
We hated the meat loaf, the cafeteria served it every Friday.
A comma splice occurs when only a comma separates clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence. To correct a comma splice, you can insert a semicolon or period, connect the clauses with a word such as and or because, or restructure the sentence.
After each sentence, put a “C” for Correct or a “CS” for Comma Splice. If the sentence is a comma splice, rewrite it so that it is correct.
One. Bailey used to eat ten pizzas a day, now he eats a spinach salad for lunch and dinner.
Two. Marco no longer runs on the treadmill, instead he opts for the less injury-causing elliptical trainer.
Three. Running can cause shin splints, which can cause excruciating pain.
Four. Running in the incorrect form can wreak havoc on the knees, slowing down can often correct the problem.
Five. While we live in a society where 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers are on the rise, the reading of books, sad to say, is on the decline.
Six. Facebook is a haven for narcissists, it encourages showing off with selfies and other mundane activities that are ways of showing how great and amazing our lives our, what a sham.
Seven. We live in a society where more and more Americans are consuming 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers, however, those same Americans are reading less and less books.
Eight. Love is a virus from outer space, it tends to become most contagious during April and May.
Nine. The tarantula causes horror in many people, moreover there is a species of tarantula in Brazil, the wandering banana spider, that is the most venomous spider in the world.
Ten. Even though spiders cause many people to recoil with horror, most species are harmless.
Eleven. The high repair costs of European luxury vehicles repelled Amanda from buying such a car, instead she opted for a Japanese-made Lexus.
Twelve. Amanda got a job at the Lexus dealership, now she’s trying to get me a job in the same office.
Thirteen. While consuming several cinnamon buns, a twelve-egg cheese omelet, ten slices of French toast slathered in maple syrup, and a tray of Swedish loganberry crepes topped with a dollop of blueberry jam, I contemplated the very grave possibility that I might be eating my way to a heart attack.
Fourteen. Even though I rank marijuana far less dangerous than most pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, and other commonly used intoxicants, I find marijuana unappealing for a host of reasons, not the least of which is its potential for radically degrading brain cells, its enormous effect on stimulating the appetite, resulting in obesity, and its capacity for over-relaxing many people so that they lose significant motivation to achieve their primary goals, opting instead for a life of sloth and intractable indolence.
Identify the Comma Splices Below:
It’s not a question of will there be chaos or will there be destruction, it’s a question of how much?
MySpace was disruptive in its time, however, it’s a dated platform and to simply mention it is to make people laugh with a certain derision surely it’s a platform that has seen its time, another example is the meal replacement Soylent, its creator made a drink that says, “You’re too busy to eat,” so drinking this pancake batter-like concoction gives tech people street. I may laugh at its stupidity, instead I should admire it since the product has made millions for its creator. It’s proven to be somewhat disruptive.
To be sure, though, Facebook redefines the word disruptive, it has rapidly accrued over 3 billion users and will soon have half the planet plugged into its site, that is the apotheosis of a greedy person’s fantasy, imagine controlling half the planet on a platform that mines private information and targets ads toward specific personality profiles.
One of the scary disruptions of Facebook is that billions of people have lost their personal agency, what that means that people have unknowingly been manipulated by Facebook’s puppeteers to the point that many Facebook users suffer from social media addiction, moreover, these same users prefer the fake life they curate on social media to the real life they once had, in fact, their previous real life is just a puff of smoke that has faded into the distance, many people no longer even know what it means to be “real” anymore, having lost their agency, having succumbed to their Facebook addiction, they have become zombies waiting for their next rush of social media-fueled dopamine, what a sad state of affairs.
Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.
If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)
Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.
Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.
We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.
The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:
The plane took off and we were on our way.
Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.
When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.
In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.
Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.
The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:
In no time we were at 2,800 feet.
Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.
Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.
Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.
Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:
Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.
The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.
Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.
Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.
Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.
Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.
Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:
For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.
Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.
Nonrestrictive:
For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.
Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.
My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.
One. What did Hook’s mother teacher about desire in the mother’s attempt to quell the appetite for unaffordable things?
Whenever Bell Hooks expressed desire for even simple things like a yellow dress, she felt belittled and learned to distrust her desires and bury them. The instinct to desire things is considered inappropriate in part because to express desire for nice things is to fail to "know one's place."
To show desire for what you don't have is to say your family hasn't provided enough. You're expressing hunger for more, a desire to branch out, and a family may feel threatened by this, especially if the family is tight-knit, working class, and scrupulously religious.
Bell is raised to believe that knowing her place is equal to suppressing her desires.
The implicit message is that since she is of the lower classes she has to know her place and have no sense of entitlement. She must remain modest. She must be happy in life with life's bare minimum.
Knowing her place in the social hierarchy is about being apologetic about her existence.
Stay within the walls of your existence and curb your desires. Stay close to home, stay close to family, hold tight to your hard-fought moral values. Failure to do these things will result in moral disintegration.
To have desires for anything above one's station in life is considered impolite.
We can only imagine what this would do to her psyche.
That would drive me crazy to want something and to develop this reflex to immediately say I don’t actually want it.
Hooks’ save-money mentality followed her into college where money had to be first considered above all else.
To be religious, from her family's point of view, is to be happy with one's lot, is to be modest, and to shun the idolatry of materialism.
Hooks' parents are making a faulty equivalence of materialistic idolatry and making a better life for oneself through higher education.
Knowing One's Place Vs. College Ethos
In college, the ethos is to strive for better things, to climb the social and economic ladder, to reap the fruits of one's hard efforts.
Opposite of knowing one's place, college is for destroying one's old place and replacing with a far superior one.
Therefore, Bell carries this conflict of emotional baggage with her to college.
Class Shame
Bells' mother teaches her daughter that she doesn't fit with the morally dubious uppity people in part because she finds them threatening, but also she feels a sense of undying inferiority and shame for her poverty.
American Myth of Virtue
In America, a perverse mythology surrounds wealth and poverty. Wealth is associated with virtue, hard work, and noble character while poverty is linked to laziness, moral deformity, and self-destructive pathology. Therefore, wealth carries a desirable aura while poverty is infected with a stigma.
This state of affairs is uniquely American. In Europe, for example, wealth is often associated with lucky rich kids who inherited their wealth from their parents and who may be spoiled, entitled brats. Poor people may be looked upon as victims of a corrupt system. Such people deserve sympathy, not scorn.
Class Shame in College
During Hooks’ first year in college, she realizes a lot of her mother’s fears are rooted in class shame, the disgrace of not measuring up in the presence of “real classy people.” Sadly, we live in a society where the lower classes suffer an inferiority complex because they don't "measure up" to the higher classes.
Poverty is a contagion, an infection, a disease that must be avoided. Therefore, middle-class college kids may consciously or unconsciously ostracize students of modest economic means.
College Threatens the Moral Order
Anything that branches out of the tribe's rigid ways is looked upon as a threat to the moral order. Going to college is a threat to a lot of families who don't want to disrupt tradition and routine. Tribalistic conformity becomes the key to happiness. This theme is illustrated in a masterpiece short story "The Country of the Blind" by H.G. Wells.
Two. What happens to Bell Hooks in college?
She is isolated by the white girls who look at her in horror and disdain for being black and for being not rich. “Not only are you black; you’re not rich. Stay away from us, you pariah.” She becomes La Otra.
Like her childhood, Hooks was learning to be apologetic about her existence. "Sorry I don't fit in, rich girls. I'll try to stay out of the way."
Her existence becomes one of self-abnegation or self-erasure: “If I want things and if I feel overcome by loneliness, then too bad. I have to suffer. My existence is not worth these considerations. My needs mean nothing compared to these rich white girls.”
Bell Hooks sees the world as binary:
The haves and the have-nots. Those who live in glorious gardens with grass and trees and those who live in the scorched weeds.
Bell Hooks connects with one white girl who like Hooks is financially challenged. She is a Czechoslovakian immigrant with modest means. The two of them together become Las Otras.
Binary View of the World: Haves and Have-Nots
In 1978 when I was training at the gym, a 300-pound powerlifter scrutinized me with piercing eyes and told me "there are only two kinds of people in the world, homeowners and renters." And then he spit behind his back before bench pressing 500 pounds like it was a feather.
Unlike Hooks, though, the Czech girl has contempt and envy for the rich white girls. She desires their riches and resents them for having what she lacks.
In contrast, Hooks’ religious upbringing taught her to be leery of excess, of pride, of loving riches for their own sake.
Three. What finally sets off Hooks’ rage toward the rich white girls?
When they perform their ritual of trashing someone’s room and it ends up being Hooks’ room, Hooks is enraged that these rich narcissists cannot consider that someone with modest finances cannot easily replace all the items that were ruined during the trashing.
The rich girls’ lack of empathy and their failure of imagination stirs Hooks’ deep loathing for them.
Adding to her contempt is Hooks’ refusal to want to be white like them and to aspire to behave like a vain privileged white girl.
Her contempt for these immature white girls compels Hooks to go to a real college, Stanford, which will test her parents’ class anxieties. Her parents will hide behind religion and say that Stanford, which is in California, is sinful.
Four. What does the essay teach us about education?
To succeed in education, we have to break the bonds with our class identity and this can be excruciating if our class identity is tied up with our parental identity.
Time and time again, we read of college students who don’t succeed until they break from their parents’ and communities’ class influences and this break is often seen as a betrayal and it results in guilt. But it is necessary.
As a working-class student attends college, the following separation occurs with family:
One. The student separates from parents by virtue of self-isolation for the service of study or moving out of the house altogether.
Two. The student takes on a new language that his or her parents don't understand. Parents will feel their children have become "smarty pants college students" who talk down to their parents using the following pretentious words and expressions:
intersectionality
structural inequality
patriarchal
faux pas
apropos
indubitably
bourgeois
vis-a-vis
paradigm
milieu
per se
whilst
toxic masculinity
woke
hegemony
liminal (transitional stage)
incipient
inchoate
embryonic
elucidate
obfuscate
marginalization
contextualize
verisimilitude
surreptitious
mediated
Zeitgeist
juxtapose
non sequitur
tres chic
teleological
subjugate
reciprocity
dialectic
dichotomy
multifaceted
predicated
dearth
circumvent
correlative
causation
bifurcate
binary
demarcate
delineate
patina
festoon
schadenfreude
Weltanschauung
Three. The students take up political and philosophical value systems that may be more aligned with their professors and conflict with their parents'.
Five. What cynical worldview does Hooks observe at Stanford?
Her white roommate, a poor girl from Orange County, believes in the religion of privilege: “Cheating was worth it. She believed the world the privileged had created was all unfair—all one big cheat; to get ahead, one had to play the game. To her, I was truly an innocent, a lamb being led to the slaughter.”
Hooks isn't prepared to play the game because playing the game means selling one's soul to the devil.
For Hooks' roommate however the only devil to worry about is being poor.
Six. What does Hooks conclude about the manner in which students must adapt to college?
Hooks writes: "Slowly, I began to understand fully that there was no place in academe for folks from working-class backgrounds who did not wish to leave the past behind. That was the price of the ticket. Poor students would be welcome at the best institutions of higher learning only if they were willing to surrender memory, to forget the past and claim the assimilated present as the only worthwhile and meaningful reality."
In other words to assimilate into the privileged, educated class, we have to embrace their language, attitude, demeanor, characteristics, body language; in other words, we have to die to our former self, disavow our past, and become a new person born in a world of privilege.
This new privilege becomes evident in the way we speak, write, and affect our body language. We develop a certain superciliousness and hauteur (uppity, proud, self-regarding expression that says, "I'm all that").
Hooks is tormented by the above fact not only because it's true, with all of its questionable moral implications, but because Hooks went through the process herself even as she questioned it. She became an "upper class intellectual."
At best when we transform from working class to privileged educated class, she writes, someone like her will suffer contradictions, having a remnant of her past identity and a new identity based on privilege.
Paragraph 1, your introduction, explain bell hooks' emotional wounds, guilt, lamentation, and ambivalence she has toward higher education--both for others and herself.
Paragraph 2, your thesis, support or defend the claim that bell hooks' lamentations and misgivings about higher education are misguided.
Paragraphs 3-6: Address the following
Argument One: bell hooks frames college success as "selling out," but what about framing success in a different way: adaptation and self-transformation in the service of surviving and joining a higher economic class?
Argument Two: bell hooks spends a lot of time in her essay, pouring out her grief, guilt, and lamentations, as if the essay were a source of great catharsis; however, some might argue that she is simply engaging in meaningless masochism: Her self-hatred and guilt aren't helping anyone.
Argument Three: We can concede bell hooks' point that college is about the materialistic ambition of climbing the economic ladder. There is no way to massage that fact; however bell hooks has the luxury of lamenting materialism from her luxury home, Mercedes, and swimming pool situation, which when you think about it, is an absurdity.
Argument Four. While we can concede bell hooks' point that we should not surrender the morality given to us by our parents, we should let our students know that success and adaptation to higher education requires to a certain extent that we die to our old life, our past, our old connections. Death and rebirth are part of the life cycle, and if we resist this fact of nature, we are doomed to a life of stagnation and paralysis.
Paragraph 7: Your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 8: Your conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Sample Thesis
Bell Hooks convincingly shows in her personal narrative that climbing the education ladder entails a sort of betrayal of one's working class roots evidenced by _________________, _________________, ______________, and __________________.
Sample Support of Hooks
What some might call a "betrayal" in Bell Hooks' narrative is no betrayal at all. Rather, Bell Hooks takes on the arduous journey toward reasonable self-preservation and self-interest evidenced by her responsibility to be true to her intellect, her responsibility to nurture a career that matches well with her strengths, and her responsibility to steer away from those who are content with small-town tribalistic stagnation so that she can spread her wings and fly.
Sample Essay Response That Agrees with Bell Hooks
College should be a place that champions the humanitarian spirit, embracing the struggle of those who suffer under the weight of the elites, the privileged class. However, as Bell Hooks convincingly argues, college perpetuates class and sometimes racial elitism, tacitly scorning the working-class while adulating the privileged elites evidenced by the professor’s indoctrination of the students to act and be privileged, the pressures to disown one’s working-class family and community, and the rich students’ contempt for the poorer students.
Sample Essay Response That Disagrees with Bell Hooks
While I sympathize with Bell Hooks and would defend her against anyone, teacher, student, or otherwise, who would discriminate against her on the basis of her race or economic class, I find that her condemnation of the elitism she identifies at college to be misguided. The role of the college should be to teach students to lift themselves up from their lower class and into a more privileged class. That’s the point of going to college, to go from a lower station to a higher station in life. Secondly, having these ambitions doesn’t make us anti-humanitarian or contemptuous of the lower classes. We simply want to work toward a place of more privilege. That’s normal human nature that addresses the Darwinian, often brutal realities we face in this world. Bell Hooks has the luxury as someone who makes hundreds of thousand of dollars a year to decry the privileged class, but she needs to face the fact that she belongs to that privileged class and she worked hard to get there. Finally, Bell Hooks does a disservice if she doesn’t tell students from the working class the hard truth about succeeding at college, which is that to be successful we must disavow ourselves of our tribalistic past, even if it means separating ourselves from our working-class parents and community, even if our abandoning that family and community, as Bell Hooks herself did, gives us shame and guilt, because that separation is essential for becoming reborn as an empowered member of the privileged class who is now in a position to help our family in ways we never were before.
Response That Refutes the Above
The refutation of Bell Hooks under the claim that we must sell our souls to the devil in order to be successful is a grotesque absurdity misinformed by the blind ambition of class privilege, a convenient worship of Darwinian self-centeredness, and a failure to acknowledge that we can enjoy the joining the privileged ranks without disavowing our past identity, family, and community.
Response to the Above Refutation
I never claimed we should sell our soul to the devil and engage in Darwinian self-centeredness. My argument, contrary to the one misconstrued above, is that to embrace the new life of college, its ideas, its knowledge, its new identity, and yes the privileges that come with higher learning, we must go through the excruciating process of dying to our old self, the very self that was raised in our working-class homes and communities and that this process of dying and being reborn again is the very process that Bell Hooks admits to going through in order to become the success she is today.
Example of an Essay That Never Uses First, Second, Third, Fourth, Etc., for Transitions, But Relies on "Paragraph Links"
Stupid Reasons for Getting Married
People should get married because they are ready to do so, meaning they're mature and truly love one another, and most importantly are prepared to make the compromises and sacrifices a healthy marriage entails. However, most people get married for the wrong reasons, that is, for stupid, lame, and asinine reasons.
Alas, needy narcissists, hardly candidates for successful marriage, glom onto the most disastrous reasons for getting married and those reasons make it certain that their marriage will quickly terminate or waddle precariously along in an interminable domestic hell.
A common and compelling reason that fuels the needy into a misguided marriage is when these fragmented souls see that everyone their age has already married—their friends, brothers, sisters, and, yes, even their enemies. Overcome by what is known today as "FOMO," they feel compelled to “get with the program" so that they may not miss out on the lavish gifts bestowed upon bride and groom. Thus, the needy are rankled by envy and greed and allow their base impulses to be the driving motivation behind their marriage.
When greed is not impelling them to tie the knot, they are also chafed by a sense of being short-changed when they see their recently-married dunce of a co-worker promoted above them for presumably the added credibility that marriage afforded them. As singles, they know they will never be taken seriously at work.
If it's not a lame stab at credibility that's motivating them to get married, it's the fear that they as the years tick by they are becoming less and less attractive and their looks will no longer obscure their woeful character deficiencies as age scrunches them up into little pinch-faced, leathery imps.
A more egregious reason for marrying is to end the tormented, off-on again-off-on again relationship, which needs the official imprimatur of marriage, followed by divorce, to officially terminate the relationship. I spoke to a marriage counselor once who told me that some couples were so desperate to break-up for good that they actually got married, then divorced, for this purpose.
Other pathological reasons to marry are to find a loathsome spouse in order to spite one’s parents or to set a wedding date in order to hire a personal trainer and finally lose those thirty pounds one has been carrying for too long.
Envy, avarice, spite, and vanity fuel both needy men and women alike. However, there is a certain type of needy man, whom we'll call the Man-Child, who finds that it is easier to marry his girlfriend than it is to have to listen to her constant nagging about their need to get married. His girlfriend’s constant harping about the fact their relationship hasn’t taken the “next logical step” presents a burden so great that marriage in comparison seems benign. Even if the Man-Child has not developed the maturity to marry, even if he isn’t sure if he’s truly in love, even if he is still inextricably linked to some former girlfriend that his current girlfriend does not know about, even if he knows in his heart of hearts that he is not hard-wired for marriage, even if he harbors a secret defect that renders him a liability to any woman, he will dismiss all of these factors and rush into a marriage in order to alleviate his current source of anxiety and suffering, which is the incessant barrage of his girlfriend’s grievances about them not being married.
Indeed, some of needy man’s worst decisions have been made in order to quell a discontented woman. The Man-Child's eagerness to quiet a woman’s discontent points to a larger defect, namely, his spinelessness, which, if left unchecked, turns him into the Go-With-the-Flow-Guy. As the name suggests, this type of man offers no resistance, even in large-scale decisions that affect his destiny. Put this man in a situation where his girlfriend, his friends, and his family are all telling him that “it’s time to get married,” and he will, as his name suggests, simply “go with the flow.” He will allow everyone else to make the wedding plans, he’ll let someone fit him for a wedding suit, he’ll allow his mother to pick out the ring, he’ll allow his fiancé to pick out the look and flavor of the wedding cake and then on the day of the wedding, he simply “shows up” with all the passion of a turnip.
The Man-Child's turnip-like passivity and his aversion to argument ensure marital longevity. However, there are drawbacks. Most notably, he will over time become so silent that his wife won’t even be able to get a word out of him. Over the course of their fifty-year marriage, he’ll go with her to restaurants with a newspaper and read it, ignoring her. His impassivity is so great that she could tell him about the “other man” she is seeing and he wouldn’t blink an eye. At home he is equally reticent, watching TV or reading with an inexpressive, dull-eyed demeanor suggestive of a half-dead lizard.
Whatever this reptilian man lacks as a social animal is made up by the fact that he is docile and is therefore non-threatening, a condition that everyone, including his wife, prefers to the passionate male beast whose strong, irreverent opinions will invariably rock the boat and deem that individual a troublemaker. The Go-With-the-Flow-Guy, on the other hand, is reliably safe and as such makes for controlling women a very good catch in spite of his tendency to be as charismatic and flavorful as a cardboard wafer.
A desperate marriage motivation exclusively owned by needy, immature men is the belief that since they have pissed off just about every other woman on the planet, they need to find refuge by marrying the only woman whom they haven’t yet thoroughly alienated—their current girlfriend. According to sportswriter Rick Reilly, baseball slugger Barry Bonds’ short-lived reality show was a disgrace in part because for Reilly the reality show is “the last bastion of the scoundrel.” Likewise, for many men who have offended over 99% of the female race with their pestilent existence, marriage is the last sanctuary for the despised male who has stepped on so many women’s toes that he is, understandably, a marked man.
Therefore, these men aren’t so much getting married as much as they are enlisting in a “witness protection program.” They are after all despised and targeted by their past female enemies for all their lies and betrayals and running out of allies they see that marriage makes a good cover as they try to blend in with mainstream society and take on a role that is antithetical to their single days as lying, predatory scoundrels.
The analogy between marriage and a witness protection program is further developed when we see that for many men marriage is their final stab at earning public respectability because they are, as married men, proclaiming to the world that they have voluntarily shackled themselves with the chains of domesticity in order that they may be spared greater punishments, the bulk of which will be exacted upon by the women whom they used and manipulated for so many years.
Because it is assumed that their wives will keep them in check, their wives become, in a way, equivalent to the ankle bracelet transmitters worn by parolees who are only allowed to travel within certain parameters. Marriage anchors man close to the home and, combined with the wife’s reliable issuing of house chores and other domestic duties, the shackled man is rendered safely tethered to his “home base” where his wife can observe him sharply to make sure he doesn’t backslide into the abhorrent behavior of his past single life.
Many men will see the above analysis of marriage as proof that their fear of marriage as a prison was right all along, but what they should learn from the analogy between marriage and prison is that they are more productive, more socialized, more softened around his hard edges, and more protected, both from the outside world and from themselves by being shackled to their domestic duties. With these improvements in their lives, they have actually, within limits, attained a freedom they could never find in single life.
In the context of Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost,” develop a thesis that evaluates the assertion that for many Americans the Civil War denies real history and replaces that real history with a pernicious mythology, often called The Lost Cause, that perpetuates the false doctrine of white supremacy. You may also consult John Oliver Confederate Flag critique video.
Variation of Option B:
Support or refute John Oliver's claim in his video that it is a moral abomination to put Confederate figures in the public square in the form of statues, memorials, and school names.
Develop a claim that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that electoral college should be replaced by the popular vote. Be sure to have a counterargument section.
October 21 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
October 23 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
October 28 Essay #3 due on turnitin.
Option B
In the context of Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost,” develop a thesis that evaluates the assertion that for many Americans the Civil War denies real history and replaces that real history with a pernicious mythology, often called The Lost Cause, that perpetuates the false doctrine of white supremacy. You may also consult John Oliver Confederate Flag critique video.
Variation of Option B:
Support or refute John Oliver's claim in his video that it is a moral abomination to put Confederate figures in the public square in the form of statues, memorials, and school names.
Suggested outline for supporting or refuting John Oliver's claim that Confederate memorials should be abolished or relegated to history books and museums.
Paragraph 1: Summarize Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost,” or you can summarize the Vox video "How Southern Whites Rewrote Civil War History" and then you pivot to the fact that Confederate memorials are remnants or residual artifacts giving homage to The Lost Cause.
Paragraph 2: Develop your thesis that supports or refutes John Oliver's claim that Confederate memorials should be abolished or relegated to history books and museums.
Paragraphs 3-6 should address the following arguments:
Arguments Against Confederate Monuments:
One. The Lost Cause is a pernicious myth that finds continued life in these monuments. Allowing The Lost Cause myth to survive gives credence to a blasphemous narrative about the sins of the past, attributing glory to the days of slavery and Jim Crow when shame is due.
Two. We have no comparisons of other countries erecting monuments in the name of their atrocities. For example, Germany does not have Nazi statues.
Three. These monuments indulge narcissistic wounds of the lost fight for slavery; rather than indulge such self-pity, compassion should be reserved for the true victims of slavery and Jim Crow, not the perpetrators. Such an indulgence is a moral perversion and a moral abomination.
Four. These monuments give at the very least tacit glorification and approval of racism when in fact these atrocities should not be met with glorification and “honor” but rather repentance.
Paragraphs 7 and 8 should address the following two of the following three counterarguments:
Counterargument #1: "These monuments should not be taken down because they are history and "honor" the brave warriors that stood up for the South."
Counterargument #2: "If we start taking down Confederate heroes, where do we stop? Do we also take down statues of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington? You're taking us down a dangerous slippery slope?"
Counterargument #3: "Why must we focus on these Confederate memorials? What about all the other social injustices of the world? The high cost of college? Global warming? Immigration rights? I'm just saying."
Paragraph 9, your conclusion, should be a powerful restatement of your thesis.
One. Shortly after the Civil War, United Daughters of the Confederacy, a middle to upper class group of white Confederate women, went on a propaganda campaign to rewrite the story of the Civil War, giving nobility and honor to Southern whites while castigating Northern whites as tricksters, elitists, and malevolent enemies to the "Southern way of life," one of higher culture, refined sensibility, and honor.
Misinformation or "Fake News"
The UDC spread their misinformation campaign in public schools and churches so that white children would be indoctrinated in the Lost Cause.
Two. The Lost Cause is in part a consolation prize to the South; they may have lost the Civil War, but they get to keep their narrative: Southern whites were culturally superior to all other groups in America and slavery was a benign institution that civilized society and made for a strong economy. All racial groups "knew their place" and lived in harmony.
Three. The Lost Cause perpetuates this notion: The evil Northerners planted seeds of discontent in black Americans, which caused rioting and animosity in the South. It wasn't slavery that caused this animosity; it was the meddling of the Northern people. This notion contributes greatly to the divide between blue and red states.
Four. In the Lost Cause narrative, there is white nostalgia for a "lost way of life" that romanticizes the past while white-washing the evils of slavery. In many Civil War reenactments, black people are not even present or if they are, they are depicted as happy members of white Southern society.
The UDC therefore contributed to the false notion that Northern liberal elites "stole" the white Southern way of life and should not be trusted. This animosity exists today.
Five. In the Lost Cause narrative, white honor and courage are emphasized; black voices are always silenced.
Six. To this day, public schools and streets are named after white supremacist military and political figures such as Robert E. Lee and founder of the Confederacy and believer in unbridled expansion of slavery, Jefferson Davis.
Counterarguments Used to Support Lost Cause
One. "If we take down Confederate monuments, we will lose our history."
Two. "If we take down statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, next thing you know we'll be taking down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson" (slippery slope argument).
Why the Lost Cause Matters Today
We can trace a lot of America's cultural and political divide to the Lost Cause, a problem that has intensified in the age of social media.
Red states may adopt some modified version of the Lost Cause:
"White America is the true America, and as a culture, white culture is superior to other cultures. A politician can make this claim in coded language, but his listeners will get the message."
Red states see blue states as a bunch of condescending liberal elitists who want to push their liberal agenda down the red states' throats.
Blue states arguing against the Lost Cause are also arguing against the legitimacy of white America and the values of white Americans who live in red states.
Southern Resentment Toward Losing to the North
This hostility is amplified by Southern whites being hostile to losing to the North and having its state rights taken away. By state rights, we are talking about slavery. The South countered their loss to the North by promoting the Lost Cause narrative and imposing Jim Crow racism on the black population.
Southern whites, many who live in red states, see blue states as denigrating southern whites as "white trash," "hicks," and other insulting names. They see the end of the Lost Cause as a rejection of white people.
Politics
A lot of this racial tension spills over into differences in political policy:
Red states see blue states as being weak on immigration, border control, law enforcement, military strength, and small business owners (high taxes).
Blue states see red states as being out of step with race relations, gender relations, education, and medical care. Blue states want more acceptance of diverse identities and more taxes to fund education, infrastructure, and medical care.
Sadly, the geographical animosity of the Lost Cause overlaps with the above differences.
Nation Divided Doesn't Listen to the Other
As a result, the red states want to "own the libs." The red states will say, "All Democrats are in the secret hears "AOC socialists."
The liberals want to do "performance wokeness" for their liberal audience by passing political purity tests. The blue states will say, "All Republicans are Putin-bought racists."
America will continue to weaken and crumble if the above division continues to worsen.
We need a communicator who can bridge the gap:
We need a political leader who can find a reasonable approach to border control, immigration policy, responsible and strong law enforcement, strong military, fairness to diverse groups of people, economic fairness, affordable education and medical care without coming across as an in-your-face ideologue fanatic.
Such a leader would bring the red and blue states together. Such a leader could eradicate the Lost Cause while preserving the dignity and honor of Southern whites who cling to it.
Conclusion: Lost Cause is fake self-esteem for white people.
Any ideology that aggrandizes one race while denigrating another race is not affording true confidence, honor, and self-esteem to the aggrandized race.
Look at people you know who have genuine confidence and self-worth. Their confidence and self-worth is not based on hatred of another group of people. To the contrary, to depend on denigrating another race of people to feel good about oneself is a sign of pathological insecurity, an insecurity so pathological that deranged, psychotic racist ideologies are created, such as the Lost Cause.
Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are incomplete thoughts presented as dependent clauses or phrases.
A dependent clause or a phrase is never a complete sentence.
Types of dependent clauses:
Whenever I drive up windy mountains,
Because I have craved pizza for 14 months,
Unless you add coffee to your chocolate cake recipe,
,which is currently enjoying a resurgence.
Phrases
Enamored by the music of Tupac Shakur,
Craving pesto linguine with olive-oil based clam sauce,
Flexing his muscles with a braggadocio never seen in modern times,
Lying under the bridge and eating garlic pepper pretzels with a dollop of cream cheese and a jug of chilled apple cider,
To understand the notion of Universal Basic Income and all of its related factors for social change in this disruptive age,
Running into crowded restaurants with garlic and whiskey fuming out of his sweaty pores while brandishing a golden scepter,
Examples
I won't entertain your requests for more money and gifts. Until you show at least a modicum of responsibility at school and with your friends.
I won't consider buying the new BMW sports coupe. Unless of course my uncle gives me that inheritance he keeps talking about whenever he gets a bit tipsy.
I can't imagine ever going to Chuck E. Cheese. Which makes me feel like I'm emotionally arrested.
I am considering the purchase of a new wardrobe. That is, if I'm picked for that job interview at Nordstrom.
Human morals have vanished. To the point at which it was decided that market values would triumph.
No subject
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution.
No complete verb
The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer.
Beginning with a subordinating word
We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.
A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.
Sentence Fragment Exercises
After each sentence, write C for complete or F for fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.
One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.
Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.
Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.
Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.
Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.
Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.
Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.
Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.
Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.
Ten. At the dance club where I espy my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.
Eleven. The BMW speeding ahead of me and winding into the misty hills.
Twelve. Before you convert to the religion of veganism in order to impress your vegan girlfriend.
Thirteen. Summoning all my strength to resist the giant chocolate fudge cake sweating on the plate before me.
Identify the Fragments Below
I drank the chalky Soylent meal-replacement drink. Expecting to feel full and satisfied. Only to find that I was still ravenously hungry afterwards. Trying to sate my hunger pangs. I went to HomeTown Buffet. Where I ate several platters of braised oxtail and barbecued short ribs smothered in a honey vinegar sauce. Which reminded me of a sauce where I used to buy groceries from. When I was a kid.
Feeling bloated after my HomeTown Buffet indulgence. I exited the restaurant. After which I hailed an Uber and asked the driver for a night club recommendation. So I could dance off all my calories. The driver recommended a place, Anxiety Wires. I had never heard of it. Though, it was crowded inside. I felt eager to dance and confident about “my swag.” Although, I was still feeling bloated. Wondering if my intestines were on the verge of exploding.
Sweating under the night club’s outdoor canopy. I smelled the cloying gasses of a nearby vape. A serpentine woman was holding the vape. A gold contraption emitting rose-water vapors into my direction. Contemplating my gluttony. I was suddenly feeling low confidence. Though I pushed myself to introduce myself to the vape-smoking stranger with the serpentine features. Her eyes locked on mine.
I decided to play it cool. Instead of overwhelming her with a loud, brash manner. Which she might interpret as neediness on my part.
Keeping a portable fan in my cargo pocket for emergencies. When I feel like I’m overheating. I took the fan out of my pocket, turned it on, and directed it toward the serpentine stranger. Making it so the vapors were blowing back in her face.
“Doesn’t smell so good, does it?” I said. With a sarcastic grin.
She cackled, then said, “Thank you for blowing the vapors in my face. Now I can both enjoy inhaling them and breathing them in. For double the pleasure. You are quite a find. Come home with me and I’ll introduce you to my mother Gertrude and her pitbull Jackson. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into our home. Considering what a well-fed handsome man you are.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” I said. “I would love to meet your mother Gertrude and your mother’s pitbull Jackson. Only one problem. My breath smells like a rotting dead dragon. Right after eating spicy ribs. Which reminds me? Do you have any breath mints?”
“I don’t believe in carrying breath mints. On account of the rose-water vape. That cleanses my palate. Making my breath rosy fresh.”
“Wow. Your constant good breath counteracts my intractable bad breath. Making us a match in heaven.”
“I agree. Totally. You really need to meet my mother. Because she’ll bless us and make our marriage official. Since we really need her blessing. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Now let me smell your breath. So I can identify the hot sauce.”
“Why must you do that?”
“So I can use the same hot sauce on our wedding cake, silly. To celebrate the first night we met. Capisce?”
“Capisce.”
She approached me. Affording me a view of her long, tired face. Covered in scales. Reptilian. Evocative of something primitive. Something precious and indelible from my childhood lost long ago. I wanted to run from her, but I could not. Some mysterious force drew me to her, and we inched closer and closer toward one another. Succumbing to a power neither of us could fathom.
Comma Splice Review
Identify the Comma Splices Below:
It’s not a question of will there be chaos or will there be destruction, it’s a question of how much?
MySpace was disruptive in its time, however, it’s a dated platform and to simply mention it is to make people laugh with a certain derision surely it’s a platform that has seen its time, another example is the meal replacement Soylent, its creator made a drink that says, “You’re too busy to eat,” so drinking this pancake batter-like concoction gives tech people street. I may laugh at its stupidity, instead I should admire it since the product has made millions for its creator. It’s proven to be somewhat disruptive.
To be sure, though, Facebook redefines the word disruptive, it has rapidly accrued over 3 billion users and will soon have half the planet plugged into its site, that is the apotheosis of a greedy person’s fantasy, imagine controlling half the planet on a platform that mines private information and targets ads toward specific personality profiles.
One of the scary disruptions of Facebook is that billions of people have lost their personal agency, what that means that people have unknowingly been manipulated by Facebook’s puppeteers to the point that many Facebook users suffer from social media addiction, moreover, these same users prefer the fake life they curate on social media to the real life they once had, in fact, their previous real life is just a puff of smoke that has faded into the distance, many people no longer even know what it means to be “real” anymore, having lost their agency, having succumbed to their Facebook addiction, they have become zombies waiting for their next rush of social media-fueled dopamine, what a sad state of affairs.
Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.
If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)
Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.
Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.
We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.
The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:
The plane took off and we were on our way.
Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.
When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.
In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.
Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.
The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:
In no time we were at 2,800 feet.
Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.
Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.
Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.
Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:
Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.
The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.
Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.
Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.
Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.
Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.
Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:
For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.
Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.
Nonrestrictive:
For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.
Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.
My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.
Developing strong opinions = strong thesis, but are all opinions alike?
Some people say after reading an essay, “Well, it’s just an opinion.” But are all opinions alike? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, right?
The answer is no.
Opinions are not alike, opinions are not equal, opinions are not similarly valid.
When you have a serious medical ailment, a good doctor's opinion is more valuable than some guy in pajamas eating Hot Pockets and reading "alternative medicine news" on the Internet.
When you have a grammar question, more than likely a college English instructor's opinion will be more valuable than the opinion delivered by some random person chosen from HomeTown Buffet.
When you want an opinion about your leaky roof, an experienced contractor will suit your needs better than a rodeo clown.
Clearly, opinions are not alike, and many people should not be entitled to their ignorant opinions, so we must discard this cliche.
This cliche, that "everyone is entitled to their opinion," submits the lie that we value democracy because we value ignorance as much as we value knowledge.
We don't.
In important matters--matters that have to do with money, well-being, life, and death--we rely on expert opinions and we dismiss amateur or fake ones.
Some opinions are not based on ignorance.
Worse, they're based on willed ignorance and willed obfuscation of the truth, like when people glorify the Confederate flag, Confederate soldier statues, and engage in romanticized "Civil War re-enactments."
According to Pew Research Center, 48% of Americans believe the Civil War was over "state rights." Only 38% believe the Civil War was over the institution of slavery.
Let that sink in. Little more than a third of Americans accept the historical fact behind the Civil War.
48% of Americans embrace obfuscation (clouding the facts) and racist mythology as the reason behind the Civil War.
Such "opinions" are grotesque and undeserving of merit.
Robert Atwan in his American Now textbook writes six major types of opinions.
As you will see, some are more appropriate for the kind of critical thinking an essay deserves than others.
One. Inherited opinions: These are opinions that are imprinted on us during our childhood. They come from “family, culture, traditions, customs, regions, social institutions, or religion.”
People’s views on religion, race, education, and humanity come from their family.
Inherited opinions come from cultural and social norms.
In some cultures, it's okay to tell others your income. It's a taboo in America.
We are averse to eating dogs in America because eating dogs is contrary to America’s cultural and social norms. However, people in other countries eat dogs without any stigma.
We are also averse to eating insects in America when in some countries giant grubs are a delicacy.
We think it's normal to slaughter trees every year as part of our celebration of Christmas.
We eat until we're so stuffed we cannot walk in America; in contrast, in Japan they follow the rule of hara hachi bu, which means they stop at 80% fullness.
Peanut butter in America represents Mom's Love; in France and Brazil, however, peanut butter is trash and an insult to place in front of someone.
In America, we put dry cereal into a bowl and then pour milk over it. That is not practiced in a lot of other countries.
In America when a woman says yes to a man's date proposal, the man, Louis C.K. tells us, will shake his fist like a tennis champion and scream, "Yeah!" We admire this behavior because we grow up seeing it.
We soak up these types of opinions and customs through a sort of osmosis and a lot of these beliefs are unconscious.
Two. Involuntary opinions: These are the opinions that result from direct indoctrination and inculcation (learning through repetition). If we grow up in a family that teaches us that eating pork is evil, then we won’t eat at other people’s homes that serve that porcine dish.
Or we may, as a result if our religious training, abjure rated R movies.
Or we may have strong feelings, one way or another, regarding gay marriage based on the doctrines we’ve learned over time.
Or we may have strong feelings about immigration policy based on what we learn from our family, friends, and institutions.
Or we may have strong feelings about the police and the prison system based on what we learn from family, friends, and institutions.
Three. Adaptive opinions (Groupthink): We adapt opinions to help us conform to groups we wish to belong to. We are often so eager to belong to this or that group that we sacrifice our critical thinking skills and engage in Groupthink to please the majority.
A student from China back in the 1940s or 1950s was raised in the country. He went to a city school and the richest boy made a sculpture of a butterfly. Everyone loved the butterfly but my student. He explained that a butterfly had 4 wings, not 2. He was sent to the "dunce corner" for the whole day.
He should have kept his mouth shut or pretended that butterflies have 2 wings. That's an example of Groupthink.
Atwan writes that “Adaptive opinions are often weakly held and readily changed . . . But over time they can become habitual and turn into convictions.”
For example, it’s easy for one to be against guns in Santa Monica. However, those views might be less “adaptive” in rural parts of Kentucky or Tennessee.
It's easy to be a vegan in Southern California, but you'll have more challenges being a vegan in certain parts of Texas, Kansas, and the Carolinas where barbecue is king and where mentioning the word "vegan" is akin to saying "Satan."
Four. Concealed opinions. Sometimes we have strong opinions that are contrary to the group we belong to so we keep our mouths shut to avoid persecution. You might not want to proclaim your atheism, for example, if you were attending a Christian college. Or you might be reluctant to express your Christian faith at a college that champions secular humanism and disdains religious faith.
Five. Linked opinions. Atwan writes, “Unlike adaptive opinions, which are usually stimulated by convenience and an incentive to conform, these are opinions we derived from an enthusiastic and dedicated affiliation with certain groups, institutions, or parties.”
For example, the modern “Tea Party” people or self-proclaimed Patriots embrace a series of linked opinions: Obama is not American. Obama is a socialist. Obama is helping terrorists get across the boarder. Terrorists helped elect Obama. Obama wants to strip Americans of their right to own guns so that the government and/or terrorists can move in and take Americans’ freedoms.
As you can see, all these opinions are linked to each other. Believing in one of the above opinions encourages belief in the other.
Six. Considered opinions. Atwan writes, “These are opinions we have formed as a result of firsthand experience, reading, discussion and debate, or independent thinking and reasoning. These opinions are formed from direct knowledge and often from exposure and considering other opinions.”
Often considered opinions result in examining mythologies or fake narratives that are drilled down our throats and we deconstruct these false narratives so that we can see the truth behind them.
Considered opinions are practiced by Vulcans, according to Jason Brennan, author of Against Democracy. Sadly, Vulcans are a tiny percentage of the population.
Troll opinions based on fake news are held by Hooligans.
No opinions at all are held by the mindless shoppers, known as Hobbits.
There are many fake narratives as a result of inherited and involuntary opinions:
The Civil War, according to many in the South to this very day, was about "state rights" and "Northern aggression."
Columbus “discovered” America.
The European pilgrims “shared” with the American Indians.
White slave owners “blessing” Africans with Christianity.
The pharmaceutical industry making our health job one.
Mexican workers in America "stealing" jobs from Americans.
Poor people "choose" to be poor.
Poor people deserve to be poor because they're bad, morally flawed human beings.
Rich people are rich because they possess superior virtue, and God wishes to bless them with abundance.
Obese people got fat from indulging in the sin of being selfish, slothful, and gluttonous.
Developing critical thinking skills means being able to pick apart a false narrative and examine the true narrative behind it.
Some would define literacy as developing critical thinking skills and that failure to do so is to remain a mindless consumer, a Hobbit, an obedient child to the parental authorities of market trends and advertising.
It's your choice: You can either swallow the blue pill (blissful ignorance of the Hobbit) or the red pill (uncomfortable, often painful truth of the Vulcan).
The blue pill leads us into a fantasy world of chimeras, mirages, and self-delusions.
The red pill is the truth from developing considered opinions and valuing those opinions over ones based on ignorance.
In the context of Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost,” develop a thesis that evaluates the assertion that for many Americans the Civil War denies real history and replaces that real history with a pernicious mythology, often called The Lost Cause, that perpetuates the false doctrine of white supremacy. You may also consult John Oliver Confederate Flag critique video.
Variation of Option B:
Support or refute John Oliver's claim in his video that it is a moral abomination to put Confederate figures in the public square in the form of statues, memorials, and school names.
Develop a claim that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that electoral college should be replaced by the popular vote. Be sure to have a counterargument section.
Paragraph 1: Analyze the Jim Crow Museum in part as having a misinformation campaign to saturate minds with racist ideas that dehumanized black Americans.
Paragraph 2: Transition to Childish Gambino's "This Is America" video by arguing that the video presents a narrative that shows Old Jim Crow from the museum still exists today in the form of New Jim Crow. You are in essence comparing the Jim Crow Museum video to "This Is America" video. You should address the following parallels for your essay's body paragraphs: 3-8:
Three. Normalizing violence against African-American community,
Four. White America consuming black culture for entertainment (depending on all variations of minstrel stereotypes) while turning their back on social injustice,
Five. White America's use of guns as a form of oppression against the African-American community
Six. The exploitation of African-Americans as a form of entertainment in the form of violence.
Seven. American consumerism ("This is a celly" and the worship of bling) is a distraction for all Americans, regardless of skin color, from racism, violence, and white-ethnic fascism, which is spreading throughout America and the world.
Eight. The dual mask black America wears to survive in America: a happy entertainment face on one hand and the horror of violence and being gaslighted everyday on the other.
Paragraph 9, your conclusion is your thesis restated with emotional power.
Special Note:
Because this is essentially a comparison essay, there is no counterargument section.
Race is a social construction:
Origins of Racism Is Not "Ignorance and Hate." The origins are self-interest: Race as Justification for Slavery, Oppression, and Exploitation
One of the best books I've ever read about the world history of racism is the 2016 National Book Award winning Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram Kendi.
Kendi points the origins of racism to Aristotle who believed that the Greeks, who lived in a beautiful Mediterranean climate, were by the basis of the superior climate physically and mentally superior to people who lived in more extreme climates.
This stupid idea by Aristotle became the Greek rationale for slavery. "We're better than them."
At first, Europeans enslaved both white and black people from far regions of the world, but the Europeans noticed that the white slaves that escaped could easily mix with the population and never be caught. In contrast, the black slaves were easier to catch because their skin color didn't as easily mix with the population, so over time Europeans preferred slaves with dark skin color.
When people do evil over time, one of the ways they sustain their evil and find ways to soothe their conscience is to develop asinine theories that justify their evil. The invention of race is one of these asinine theories.
It was no coincidence that as Europeans and Americans enslaved more and more people of color, they had to assuage their conscience with a racist theory to justify their evil. So they came up with the absurd notion of a racial hierarchy, which gave full humanity to white people and less humane status to people of color.
Early white American Christians enjoyed sermons by ministers who wrote that white Christians were the fullest humans on earth and that black Christians could be elevated somewhat though not as high on the hierarchy as white people.
White Christians believed they were entitled to slaves and cherry picked their Bible passages to justify their evil position.
One of the most notorious examples of Christian racism is John Newton, the musician who composed the beloved hymn "Amazing Grace," sung in black and white churches all over the world. The tragic story, though, is that John Newton was a slave trader. That he could reconcile his faith with the moral abomination of slave trading speaks to the insanity of racism.
One. Shortly after the Civil War, United Daughters of the Confederacy, a middle to upper class group of white Confederate women, went on a propaganda campaign to rewrite the story of the Civil War, giving nobility and honor to Southern whites while castigating Northern whites as tricksters, elitists, and malevolent enemies to the "Southern way of life," one of higher culture, refined sensibility, and honor.
Misinformation or "Fake News"
The UDC spread their misinformation campaign in public schools and churches so that white children would be indoctrinated in the Lost Cause.
Two. The Lost Cause is in part a consolation prize to the South; they may have lost the Civil War, but they get to keep their narrative: Southern whites were culturally superior to all other groups in America and slavery was a benign institution that civilized society and made for a strong economy. All racial groups "knew their place" and lived in harmony.
Three. The Lost Cause perpetuates this notion: The evil Northerners planted seeds of discontent in black Americans, which caused rioting and animosity in the South. It wasn't slavery that caused this animosity; it was the meddling of the Northern people. This notion contributes greatly to the divide between blue and red states.
Four. In the Lost Cause narrative, there is white nostalgia for a "lost way of life" that romanticizes the past while white-washing the evils of slavery. In many Civil War reenactments, black people are not even present or if they are, they are depicted as happy members of white Southern society.
The UDC therefore contributed to the false notion that Northern liberal elites "stole" the white Southern way of life and should not be trusted. This animosity exists today.
Five. In the Lost Cause narrative, white honor and courage are emphasized; black voices are always silenced.
Six. To this day, public schools and streets are named after white supremacist military and political figures such as Robert E. Lee and founder of the Confederacy and believer in unbridled expansion of slavery, Jefferson Davis.
Counterarguments Used to Support Lost Cause
One. "If we take down Confederate monuments, we will lose our history."
Two. "If we take down statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, next thing you know we'll be taking down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson" (slippery slope argument).
Why the Lost Cause Matters Today
We can trace a lot of America's cultural and political divide to the Lost Cause, a problem that has intensified in the age of social media.
Red states may adopt some modified version of the Lost Cause:
"White America is the true America, and as a culture, white culture is superior to other cultures. A politician can make this claim in coded language, but his listeners will get the message."
Red states see blue states as a bunch of condescending liberal elitists who want to push their liberal agenda down the red states' throats.
Blue states arguing against the Lost Cause are also arguing against the legitimacy of white America and the values of white Americans who live in red states.
Southern Resentment Toward Losing to the North
This hostility is amplified by Southern whites being hostile to losing to the North and having its state rights taken away. By state rights, we are talking about slavery. The South countered their loss to the North by promoting the Lost Cause narrative and imposing Jim Crow racism on the black population.
Southern whites, many who live in red states, see blue states as denigrating southern whites as "white trash," "hicks," and other insulting names. They see the end of the Lost Cause as a rejection of white people.
Politics
A lot of this racial tension spills over into differences in political policy:
Red states see blue states as being weak on immigration, border control, law enforcement, military strength, and small business owners (high taxes).
Blue states see red states as being out of step with race relations, gender relations, education, and medical care. Blue states want more acceptance of diverse identities and more taxes to fund education, infrastructure, and medical care.
Sadly, the geographical animosity of the Lost Cause overlaps with the above differences.
Nation Divided Doesn't Listen to the Other
As a result, the red states want to "own the libs." The red states will say, "All Democrats are in the secret hears "AOC socialists."
The liberals want to do "performance wokeness" for their liberal audience by passing political purity tests. The blue states will say, "All Republicans are Putin-bought racists."
America will continue to weaken and crumble if the above division continues to worsen.
We need a communicator who can bridge the gap:
We need a political leader who can find a reasonable approach to border control, immigration policy, responsible and strong law enforcement, strong military, fairness to diverse groups of people, economic fairness, affordable education and medical care without coming across as an in-your-face ideologue fanatic.
Such a leader would bring the red and blue states together. Such a leader could eradicate the Lost Cause while preserving the dignity and honor of Southern whites who cling to it.
Conclusion: Lost Cause is fake self-esteem for white people.
Any ideology that aggrandizes one race while denigrating another race is not affording true confidence, honor, and self-esteem to the aggrandized race.
Look at people you know who have genuine confidence and self-worth. Their confidence and self-worth is not based on hatred of another group of people. To the contrary, to depend on denigrating another race of people to feel good about oneself is a sign of pathological insecurity, an insecurity so pathological that deranged, psychotic racist ideologies are created, such as the Lost Cause.
Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are incomplete thoughts presented as dependent clauses or phrases.
A dependent clause or a phrase is never a complete sentence.
Types of dependent clauses:
Whenever I drive up windy mountains,
Because I have craved pizza for 14 months,
Unless you add coffee to your chocolate cake recipe,
,which is currently enjoying a resurgence.
Phrases
Enamored by the music of Tupac Shakur,
Craving pesto linguine with olive-oil based clam sauce,
Flexing his muscles with a braggadocio never seen in modern times,
Lying under the bridge and eating garlic pepper pretzels with a dollop of cream cheese and a jug of chilled apple cider,
To understand the notion of Universal Basic Income and all of its related factors for social change in this disruptive age,
Running into crowded restaurants with garlic and whiskey fuming out of his sweaty pores while brandishing a golden scepter,
Examples
I won't entertain your requests for more money and gifts. Until you show at least a modicum of responsibility at school and with your friends.
I won't consider buying the new BMW sports coupe. Unless of course my uncle gives me that inheritance he keeps talking about whenever he gets a bit tipsy.
I can't imagine ever going to Chuck E. Cheese. Which makes me feel like I'm emotionally arrested.
I am considering the purchase of a new wardrobe. That is, if I'm picked for that job interview at Nordstrom.
Human morals have vanished. To the point at which it was decided that market values would triumph.
No subject
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution.
No complete verb
The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer.
Beginning with a subordinating word
We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.
A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.
Sentence Fragment Exercises
After each sentence, write C for complete or F for fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.
One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.
Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.
Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.
Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.
Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.
Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.
Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.
Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.
Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.
Ten. At the dance club where I espy my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.
Eleven. The BMW speeding ahead of me and winding into the misty hills.
Twelve. Before you convert to the religion of veganism in order to impress your vegan girlfriend.
Thirteen. Summoning all my strength to resist the giant chocolate fudge cake sweating on the plate before me.
Identify the Fragments Below
Identify the Fragments Below
I drank the chalky Soylent meal-replacement drink. Expecting to feel full and satisfied. Only to find that I was still ravenously hungry afterwards. Trying to sate my hunger pangs. I went to HomeTown Buffet. Where I ate several platters of braised oxtail and barbecued short ribs smothered in a honey vinegar sauce. Which reminded me of a sauce where I used to buy groceries from. When I was a kid.
Feeling bloated after my HomeTown Buffet indulgence. I exited the restaurant. After which I hailed an Uber and asked the driver for a night club recommendation. So I could dance off all my calories. The driver recommended a place, Anxiety Wires. I had never heard of it. Though, it was crowded inside. I felt eager to dance and confident about “my swag.” Although, I was still feeling bloated. Wondering if my intestines were on the verge of exploding.
Sweating under the night club’s outdoor canopy. I smelled the cloying gasses of a nearby vape. A serpentine woman was holding the vape. A gold contraption emitting rose-water vapors into my direction. Contemplating my gluttony. I was suddenly feeling low confidence. Though I pushed myself to introduce myself to the vape-smoking stranger with the serpentine features. Her eyes locked on mine.
I decided to play it cool. Instead of overwhelming her with a loud, brash manner. Which she might interpret as neediness on my part.
Keeping a portable fan in my cargo pocket for emergencies. When I feel like I’m overheating. I took the fan out of my pocket, turned it on, and directed it toward the serpentine stranger. Making it so the vapors were blowing back in her face.
“Doesn’t smell so good, does it?” I said. With a sarcastic grin.
She cackled, then said, “Thank you for blowing the vapors in my face. Now I can both enjoy inhaling them and breathing them in. For double the pleasure. You are quite a find. Come home with me and I’ll introduce you to my mother Gertrude and her pitbull Jackson. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into our home. Considering what a well-fed handsome man you are.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” I said. “I would love to meet your mother Gertrude and your mother’s pitbull Jackson. Only one problem. My breath smells like a rotting dead dragon. Right after eating spicy ribs. Which reminds me? Do you have any breath mints?”
“I don’t believe in carrying breath mints. On account of the rose-water vape. That cleanses my palate. Making my breath rosy fresh.”
“Wow. Your constant good breath counteracts my intractable bad breath. Making us a match in heaven.”
“I agree. Totally. You really need to meet my mother. Because she’ll bless us and make our marriage official. Since we really need her blessing. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Now let me smell your breath. So I can identify the hot sauce.”
“Why must you do that?”
“So I can use the same hot sauce on our wedding cake, silly. To celebrate the first night we met. Capisce?”
“Capisce.”
She approached me. Affording me a view of her long, tired face. Covered in scales. Reptilian. Evocative of something primitive. Something precious and indelible from my childhood lost long ago. I wanted to run from her, but I could not. Some mysterious force drew me to her, and we inched closer and closer toward one another. Succumbing to a power neither of us could fathom.
Comma Splice Review
Identify the Comma Splices Below:
It’s not a question of will there be chaos or will there be destruction, it’s a question of how much?
MySpace was disruptive in its time, however, it’s a dated platform and to simply mention it is to make people laugh with a certain derision surely it’s a platform that has seen its time, another example is the meal replacement Soylent, its creator made a drink that says, “You’re too busy to eat,” so drinking this pancake batter-like concoction gives tech people street. I may laugh at its stupidity, instead I should admire it since the product has made millions for its creator. It’s proven to be somewhat disruptive.
To be sure, though, Facebook redefines the word disruptive, it has rapidly accrued over 3 billion users and will soon have half the planet plugged into its site, that is the apotheosis of a greedy person’s fantasy, imagine controlling half the planet on a platform that mines private information and targets ads toward specific personality profiles.
One of the scary disruptions of Facebook is that billions of people have lost their personal agency, what that means that people have unknowingly been manipulated by Facebook’s puppeteers to the point that many Facebook users suffer from social media addiction, moreover, these same users prefer the fake life they curate on social media to the real life they once had, in fact, their previous real life is just a puff of smoke that has faded into the distance, many people no longer even know what it means to be “real” anymore, having lost their agency, having succumbed to their Facebook addiction, they have become zombies waiting for their next rush of social media-fueled dopamine, what a sad state of affairs.
Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.
If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)
Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.
Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.
We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.
The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:
The plane took off and we were on our way.
Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.
When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.
In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.
Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.
The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:
In no time we were at 2,800 feet.
Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.
Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.
Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.
Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:
Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.
The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.
Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.
Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.
Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.
Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.
Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:
For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.
Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.
Nonrestrictive:
For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.
Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.
My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.
Developing strong opinions = strong thesis, but are all opinions alike?
Some people say after reading an essay, “Well, it’s just an opinion.” But are all opinions alike? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, right?
The answer is no.
Opinions are not alike, opinions are not equal, opinions are not similarly valid.
When you have a serious medical ailment, a good doctor's opinion is more valuable than some guy in pajamas eating Hot Pockets and reading "alternative medicine news" on the Internet.
When you have a grammar question, more than likely a college English instructor's opinion will be more valuable than the opinion delivered by some random person chosen from HomeTown Buffet.
When you want an opinion about your leaky roof, an experienced contractor will suit your needs better than a rodeo clown.
Clearly, opinions are not alike, and many people should not be entitled to their ignorant opinions, so we must discard this cliche.
This cliche, that "everyone is entitled to their opinion," submits the lie that we value democracy because we value ignorance as much as we value knowledge.
We don't.
In important matters--matters that have to do with money, well-being, life, and death--we rely on expert opinions and we dismiss amateur or fake ones.
Some opinions are not based on ignorance.
Worse, they're based on willed ignorance and willed obfuscation of the truth, like when people glorify the Confederate flag, Confederate soldier statues, and engage in romanticized "Civil War re-enactments."
According to Pew Research Center, 48% of Americans believe the Civil War was over "state rights." Only 38% believe the Civil War was over the institution of slavery.
Let that sink in. Little more than a third of Americans accept the historical fact behind the Civil War.
48% of Americans embrace obfuscation (clouding the facts) and racist mythology as the reason behind the Civil War.
Such "opinions" are grotesque and undeserving of merit.
Robert Atwan in his American Now textbook writes six major types of opinions.
As you will see, some are more appropriate for the kind of critical thinking an essay deserves than others.
One. Inherited opinions: These are opinions that are imprinted on us during our childhood. They come from “family, culture, traditions, customs, regions, social institutions, or religion.”
People’s views on religion, race, education, and humanity come from their family.
Inherited opinions come from cultural and social norms.
In some cultures, it's okay to tell others your income. It's a taboo in America.
We are averse to eating dogs in America because eating dogs is contrary to America’s cultural and social norms. However, people in other countries eat dogs without any stigma.
We are also averse to eating insects in America when in some countries giant grubs are a delicacy.
We think it's normal to slaughter trees every year as part of our celebration of Christmas.
We eat until we're so stuffed we cannot walk in America; in contrast, in Japan they follow the rule of hara hachi bu, which means they stop at 80% fullness.
Peanut butter in America represents Mom's Love; in France and Brazil, however, peanut butter is trash and an insult to place in front of someone.
In America, we put dry cereal into a bowl and then pour milk over it. That is not practiced in a lot of other countries.
In America when a woman says yes to a man's date proposal, the man, Louis C.K. tells us, will shake his fist like a tennis champion and scream, "Yeah!" We admire this behavior because we grow up seeing it.
We soak up these types of opinions and customs through a sort of osmosis and a lot of these beliefs are unconscious.
Two. Involuntary opinions: These are the opinions that result from direct indoctrination and inculcation (learning through repetition). If we grow up in a family that teaches us that eating pork is evil, then we won’t eat at other people’s homes that serve that porcine dish.
Or we may, as a result if our religious training, abjure rated R movies.
Or we may have strong feelings, one way or another, regarding gay marriage based on the doctrines we’ve learned over time.
Or we may have strong feelings about immigration policy based on what we learn from our family, friends, and institutions.
Or we may have strong feelings about the police and the prison system based on what we learn from family, friends, and institutions.
Three. Adaptive opinions (Groupthink): We adapt opinions to help us conform to groups we wish to belong to. We are often so eager to belong to this or that group that we sacrifice our critical thinking skills and engage in Groupthink to please the majority.
A student from China back in the 1940s or 1950s was raised in the country. He went to a city school and the richest boy made a sculpture of a butterfly. Everyone loved the butterfly but my student. He explained that a butterfly had 4 wings, not 2. He was sent to the "dunce corner" for the whole day.
He should have kept his mouth shut or pretended that butterflies have 2 wings. That's an example of Groupthink.
Atwan writes that “Adaptive opinions are often weakly held and readily changed . . . But over time they can become habitual and turn into convictions.”
For example, it’s easy for one to be against guns in Santa Monica. However, those views might be less “adaptive” in rural parts of Kentucky or Tennessee.
It's easy to be a vegan in Southern California, but you'll have more challenges being a vegan in certain parts of Texas, Kansas, and the Carolinas where barbecue is king and where mentioning the word "vegan" is akin to saying "Satan."
Four. Concealed opinions. Sometimes we have strong opinions that are contrary to the group we belong to so we keep our mouths shut to avoid persecution. You might not want to proclaim your atheism, for example, if you were attending a Christian college. Or you might be reluctant to express your Christian faith at a college that champions secular humanism and disdains religious faith.
Five. Linked opinions. Atwan writes, “Unlike adaptive opinions, which are usually stimulated by convenience and an incentive to conform, these are opinions we derived from an enthusiastic and dedicated affiliation with certain groups, institutions, or parties.”
For example, the modern “Tea Party” people or self-proclaimed Patriots embrace a series of linked opinions: Obama is not American. Obama is a socialist. Obama is helping terrorists get across the boarder. Terrorists helped elect Obama. Obama wants to strip Americans of their right to own guns so that the government and/or terrorists can move in and take Americans’ freedoms.
As you can see, all these opinions are linked to each other. Believing in one of the above opinions encourages belief in the other.
Six. Considered opinions. Atwan writes, “These are opinions we have formed as a result of firsthand experience, reading, discussion and debate, or independent thinking and reasoning. These opinions are formed from direct knowledge and often from exposure and considering other opinions.”
Often considered opinions result in examining mythologies or fake narratives that are drilled down our throats and we deconstruct these false narratives so that we can see the truth behind them.
Considered opinions are practiced by Vulcans, according to Jason Brennan, author of Against Democracy. Sadly, Vulcans are a tiny percentage of the population.
Troll opinions based on fake news are held by Hooligans.
No opinions at all are held by the mindless shoppers, known as Hobbits.
There are many fake narratives as a result of inherited and involuntary opinions:
The Civil War, according to many in the South to this very day, was about "state rights" and "Northern aggression."
Columbus “discovered” America.
The European pilgrims “shared” with the American Indians.
White slave owners “blessing” Africans with Christianity.
The pharmaceutical industry making our health job one.
Mexican workers in America "stealing" jobs from Americans.
Poor people "choose" to be poor.
Poor people deserve to be poor because they're bad, morally flawed human beings.
Rich people are rich because they possess superior virtue, and God wishes to bless them with abundance.
Obese people got fat from indulging in the sin of being selfish, slothful, and gluttonous.
Developing critical thinking skills means being able to pick apart a false narrative and examine the true narrative behind it.
Some would define literacy as developing critical thinking skills and that failure to do so is to remain a mindless consumer, a Hobbit, an obedient child to the parental authorities of market trends and advertising.
It's your choice: You can either swallow the blue pill (blissful ignorance of the Hobbit) or the red pill (uncomfortable, often painful truth of the Vulcan).
The blue pill leads us into a fantasy world of chimeras, mirages, and self-delusions.
The red pill is the truth from developing considered opinions and valuing those opinions over ones based on ignorance.
September 16Essay 1 Due on turnitin. Go over Andrew Sullivan’s “I Used to be a Human Being,”, Sherry Turkle, and Tristan Harris. Watch “Nosedive.” Homework #3 for September 18: Read Lanier pages 1-39 and in 200-word paragraph explain how social media destroys free will.
September 18 Go over Lanier 1-39. Homework #4 for September 23: Read pages 39-76 and in a 200-word paragraph explain how social media makes us terrible versions of ourselves.
September 23 Go over Lanier 39-76. Homework #5 for September 25: Read Lanier 76-145 and in 200-word paragraph, explain the pathological effects of BUMMER.
September 25 Go over Lanier 76-145. Your homework #6 for September 30 is to turn in a preliminary thesis statement.
September 30 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
October 2 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
October 7 Essay 2 due on turnitin.
Writing Question: Using Your Homework to Support Your Essay's Thesis
Can I as a student use my homework assignments for my introduction and/or body paragraphs of my essay?
The answer is yes.
Writing Strategy:
Introduction Paragraph 1:
Summarize Lacey's "nosedive" in the "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror.
Or summarize Andrew Sullivan's "nosedive" in his essay "I Used to be Human Being."
Or summarize the "nosedive" of someone you know who got addicted to social media.
Or summarize social media addiction as described in any Tristan Harris or Sherry Turkle video of your choosing.
Or summarize Jaron Lanier's central argument in his book.
Thesis Paragraph 2:
Argue that Jaron Lanier has made a persuasive case that the existence of "BUMMER" in social media compels us to at the very least delete our social media use by 90% or outright eliminate it.
Paragraph 3:
Paragraph 3 based on your first Lanier homework assignment: Read Lanier pages 1-39 and in 200-word paragraph explain how social media destroys free will.
Paragraph 4:
Paragraph 4 based on your second homework assignment: Read pages 39-76 and in a 200-word paragraph explain how social media makes us terrible versions of ourselves. Lanier is referring to the "A Factor."
Paragraph 5: Another characteristic of BUMMER.
Paragraph 6: Another characteristic of BUMMER.
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-Rebuttal
Here are some common counterarguments:
"No one is holding a gun to your head and saying you need to be on social media."
"Social media has connected me to family and friends in ways that otherwise would be impossible."
"You show me extreme cases, but for every pathological social media addict I can show you dozens of well-adjusted mentally healthy people who use social media."
Conclusion Paragraph 8
Write an emotionally powerful restatement of your thesis.
McMahon’s “Secret” Refutation Essay Outline
Agree or disagree with the claim that we should delete our social media accounts based on the following evidence:
One. Social media is an addiction trap by design that hijacks our brains.
Two. Social media brings forth our worst version of ourselves.
Three. Social media encourages tribalism and alternative realities.
Four. Social media spreads weaponized misinformation.
Five. In its "race to the bottom" to get clickbait, social media erodes liberal democracies around the world.
Six. Social media encourages us to give up our private data until we have submitted all our privacy, and this surrender will result to a loss of individual rights and freedoms.
Paragraphs 3-6
Choose 4 of the above points to address in your body paragraphs.
Counterargument-Rebuttal Paragraph 7
Find a defense of social media and write a rebuttal of it.
Here are some common counterarguments:
"No one is holding a gun to your head and saying you need to be on social media."
"Social media has connected me to family and friends in ways that otherwise would be impossible."
"You show me extreme cases, but for every pathological social media addict I can show you dozens of well-adjusted mentally healthy people who use social media."
Conclusion Paragraph 8
Write an emotionally powerful restatement of your thesis.
McMahon’s “Secret” Refutation Essay Outline
Paragraph 1: Summarize Tristan Harris’ YouTube video “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds everyday,” and address the power of the few over the many; the race to the bottom, the outrage machine making clicks, the loss of free agency (free will), the destruction of democracy, the addiction that is baked in the social media landscape, the attention economy, etc.
Paragraph 2: Pivot to Jaron Lanier’s claim that we should delete our social media accounts and then argue that deleting one’s account isn’t the solution and provide reasons for your thesis. These reasons will be your supporting paragraphs.
Some reasons I covered in class:
One. Only mindful people will delete their accounts. This won’t be a game-changer because the majority “Homer Simpsons” won’t heed Harris’ or Lanier’s warnings.
Two. Saying that something is addicting so it should be eliminated from our life is a weak argument. Lots of things are addicting: TV, German chocolate cake, wine, relationships, etc. Moderation, not abstinence, is the more reasonable response.
Three. Disciplined use of social media can be valuable for business, communicating with loved ones who are far away, engaging in meaningful political causes, etc.
Four. Reducing one’s social media by over 90% is probably reasonable.
Five. Time-blocking one’s day is more reasonable than deleting all of one’s social media accounts.
Six. One should have a healthy contempt for social media because the diagnosis of its vileness by Harris and Lanier is accurate, but a healthy contempt doesn’t necessarily translate into deleting one’s accounts. As said earlier, a 90% reduction or more is more reasonable unless you’re hopelessly addicted.
Notice there is no counterargument-rebuttal because the WHOLE essay is a counterargument-rebuttal. This is called a refutation essay.
Conclusion is a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Overview of the Essay Topic
How does social media in the smartphone age hijack our freedom and autonomy and work against our best interests?
The following should be considered for your body paragraphs (mapping components of a thesis):
One. Social media is now a portable crack machine that puts us inside a dopamine feedback loop resulting in a gradual behavior modification and addiction that can entrap even the smartest, most disciplined individuals because the addictive nature of social media is not a bug; it's a feature. Social media exists so that we give up our autonomy.
Two. When we are addicted to anything, including social media's intermittent rewards, we become a nastier, meaner, dumber version of ourselves.
Three. Because we are tribalists, we are vulnerable to social anxiety and social status as it pertains to our social media interactions. Long-term social media immersion results in anxiety and eventually into acute depression.
Four. Not only do we become addicted; our addiction makes us willing participants in our own submission to data mining so that we are the product of the social media companies who sell our most private date to other business entities without our knowledge and consent.
Five. Social media by its very nature tends toward fakery, manipulation, propaganda, and "fake news" because in grabbing attention from the reptilian part of our brains, social media is in a "race to the bottom" to get outrage. This sense of outrage is essential for maximizing clickbait and revenue for the social media companies.
Six. As we adapt to the "race to the bottom," we become more polarized as a society and this polarization degrades democracy while strengthening fascism and totalitarianism.
Facebook and Google. The more a company uses BUMMER the more it attracts trolls like Russian operatives trying to destroy democracies around the world.
People often get weird and nasty online. This bizarre phenomenon surprised everyone in the earliest days of networking, and it has had a profound effect on our world. Nastiness also turned out to be like crude oil for the social media companies and other behaviour manipulation empires that quickly came to dominate the internet, because it fuelled negative behavioural feedback.
Why does the nastiness happen? In brief: ordinary people are brought together in a setting in which the main – or often the only – reward that’s available is attention.
With nothing else to seek but attention, people tend to become assholes, because the biggest ones get the most attention. This inherent bias toward assholedom flavours the action of all the other parts of the Bummer machine.
Spying is accomplished mostly through connected personal devices – especially, for now, smartphones – that people keep practically glued to their bodies. Data is gathered about each person’s communications, interests, movements, contact with others, emotional reactions to circumstances, facial expressions, purchases, vital signs: an ever-growing, boundless variety of data.
Algorithms correlate data from each person and between people. The correlations are effectively theories about the nature of each person, and those theories are constantly measured and rated for how predictive they are. Like all well-managed theories, they improve through adaptive feedback.
C is for Cramming content down your throat
Algorithms choose what each person experiences through their devices. This component might be called a feed, a recommendation engine, or personalisation. It means each person sees different things. The immediate motivation is to deliver stimuli for individualised behaviour modification.
Not all personalisation is part of Bummer. When Netflix recommends a movie or eBay recommends something to buy, it isn’t Bummer. It only becomes Bummer in connection with other components. Neither Netflix nor eBay is being paid by third parties to influence your behaviour apart from the immediate business you do with each site.
D is for Directing behaviours in the sneakiest way possible
The above elements are connected to create a measurement and feedback machine that deliberately modifies behaviour. The process runs thus: customised feeds become optimised to “engage” each user, often with emotionally potent cues, leading to addiction. People don’t realise how they are being manipulated. The default purpose of manipulation is to get people more and more glued in, and to get them to spend more and more time in the system. But other purposes for manipulation are also tested.
For instance, if you’re reading on a device, your reading behaviours will be correlated with those of multitudes of other people. If someone who has a reading pattern similar to yours bought something after it was pitched in a particular way, then the odds become higher that you will get the same pitch. You might be targeted before an election with weird posts that have been proven to bring out the inner cynic in people who are similar to you, in order to reduce the chances that you’ll vote.
Bummer platforms have proudly reported on experimenting with making people sad, changing voter turnout, and reinforcing brand loyalty. Indeed, these are some of the best-known examples of research that were revealed in the formative days of Bummer. The digital network approach to behaviour modification flattens all these examples, all these different slices of life, into one slice. From the point of view of the algorithm, emotions, happiness, and brand loyalty are just different, but similar, signals to optimise.
E is for Earning money from letting the worst people secretly screw with everyone else
The mass behaviour modification machine is rented out to make money. The manipulations are not perfect, but they are powerful enough that it becomes suicidal for brands, politicians, and other competitive entities to forgo payments to Bummer enterprises. Universal cognitive blackmail ensues, resulting in a rising global spend on Bummer.
If someone isn’t paying a platform in cash, then they must turn themselves into data-fuel for that platform in order to not be overwhelmed by it. When Facebook emphasised “news” in its feed, the entire world of journalism had to reformulate itself to Bummer standards. To avoid being left out, journalists had to create stories that emphasised clickbait and were detachable from context. They were forced to become Bummer in order to not be annihilated by it.
F is for Fake mobs and faker society
This component is almost always present, even though it typically wasn’t part of the initial design of a Bummer machine. Fake people are present in unknown but vast numbers and establish the ambience. Bots, AIs, agents, fake reviewers, fake friends, fake followers, fake posters, automated catfishers: a menagerie of wraiths.
Invisible social vandalism ensues. Social pressure, which is so influential in human psychology and behaviour, is synthesised.
The more specifically we can draw a line around a problem, the more solvable that problem becomes. Our problem is not the internet, smartphones, smart speakers, or the art of algorithms; the problem is the Bummer machine. And the core of the machine is not a technology, exactly, but a style of business plan that spews out perverse incentives and corrupts people.
It’s not even a widely used business plan. Outside of China, the only tech giants that fully depend on this system are Facebook and Google. The other three of the big five tech companies indulge occasionally, because it is normalised these days, but they don’t depend on it. A few smaller Bummer companies are also influential, like Twitter, though they often struggle.
Which companies are Bummer? A good way to tell is that first-rank Bummer companies are the ones that attract efforts or spending from bad actors, such as Russian state intelligence warfare units. This test reveals that there are pseudo-services that contain only subsets of the components, like Reddit and 4chan, but still play significant roles in the Bummer ecosystem.
The problem with Bummer is not that it includes any particular technology, but that it’s someone else’s power trip. You might choose to be treated by a cognitive behavioural therapist, and benefit from it. Hopefully that therapist will have sworn an oath to uphold professional standards and will earn your trust. If, however, your therapist is beholden to a giant, remote corporation and is being paid to get you to make certain decisions that aren’t necessarily in your own interests, then that would be a Bummer.
The problem isn’t any particular technology, but the use of technology to manipulate people, to concentrate power in a way that is so nuts and creepy that it becomes a threat to the survival of civilisation.
If you want to help make the world sane, you don’t need to give up your smartphone, using computer cloud services, or visiting websites. Bummer is the stuff to avoid. Delete your accounts!
One. What is the connection between emotional and financial insecurity?
Social media like Google and Facebook are “free” but this is not really a free service. The cost is huge.
Being free meant Facebook and Google exploded. Huge user base and billions of dollars were made quickly.
Just as quickly, over 2 billion people worldwide became “part-time lab rats” in a diabolical mind control experiment.
Advertising grew and grew on these “free” sites to the point that they became part of “mass behavior modification” (97).
Tech entrepreneurs got super rich and the giant customer base became miserable addicts beholden to the social media “drugs.”
Two. Why would paying for services be better than “free” BUMMER?
For one, the pay distribution would be bigger: More people would make money.
Should you pay Sam Harris directly for his podcast or let him get paid through royalties via some kind of AdSense venue? He probably gets paid 20 times more by direct payment rather than ad royalties.
For two, paying a vendor directly improves content. For example, we pay for HBO, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and their content is excellent. Compare their content to a YouTuber who makes Adsense revenue.
For three, BUMMER is an unhealthy barter system. Lanier writes: “Let us spy on you and in return you’ll get free services.”
Three. How is BUMMER a disease on Martin Luther King’s dream of the moral arc of justice?
Martin Luther King posited that over time, life’s moral arc tended toward justice. This is described in Timothy Snyder’s book The Road to Unfreedom as the politics of inevitability. It is inevitable that over time the human race gets better: more just, more smart, more moral, more decent.
But there is another vision of the world. We might call it the Pendulum View. The pendulum swings back and forth between justice and evil; kindness and cruelty; love and hate.
Lanier argues that BUMMER destroys the moral arc narrative and makes us tribalistic assholes unable to sustain the kind of democracy that would lift humanity toward the kind of justice Martin Luther King describes (107).
BUMMER weaponizes misinformation to spread racist totalitarianism throughout the world (109).
Themes from World Without End by Franklin Foer
Mold You Into Their Image Is Not Free
We read that social media tech entrepreneurs are attention merchants who make money from stealing your life. This is why social media is not free.
“More than any previous coterie of corporations, the tech monopolies desire to mold humanity into their desired image of it.”
Tech companies don’t make money by helping you preserve your free will. They make money by automating everything you do. You are a lab in a behavioral modification experiment. Your social media is not “free.”
GAFA stays dominant by enslaving you to their product. What is GAFA, as the Europeans call it? GAFA is the following: Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
Social Media Is Taking Us to Point of No Return
Foer writes: “Once we cross certain thresholds--once we transform the values of institutions, once we abandon privacy--there’s no turning back, no restoring our lost individuality.”
GAFA controls our diet of information resulting in them controlling our behavior. No one anticipated that a few institutions could control billions of people. This is a dream come true for tech giants.
This is a nightmare for individualism and freedom.
This concentration of power from the monopolies results in the “homogenization” of behavior. This spells death.
Facebook Steals Free Will:
“While it creates the impression that it offers choice, Facebook paternalistically nudges users in the direction it deems best for them, which also happens to be the direction that thoroughly addicts them. It’s a phoniness most obvious in the compressed, historic career of Facebook’s mastermind.”
Algorithms Replace Free Will
Foer writes: “Facebook would never put it this way, but algorithms are meant to erode free will, to relieve humans of the burden of choosing, to nudge them in the right direction.”
You are a transparent lab rat:
Foer writes: Facebook can predict users’ race, sexual orientation, relationship status, and drug use on the the basis of their ‘likes’ alone. It’s Zuckerberg’s fantasy that this data might be analyzed to uncover the mother of all revelations, ‘a fundamental mathematical law underlying human social relationships that governs the balance of who and what we all care about.’”
Amazon’s Growing Monopoly
Amazon’s monopoly control is explained by Hasan Minhaj in his Netflix show The Patriot Act.
Since the Dawn of Man, people have sought love and happiness . . .
In today’s society, we see more and more people cocooning in their homes . . .
Man has always wondered why happiness and contentment are so elusive like trying to grasp a bar of sudsy, wet soap.
We have now arrived at a Societal Epoch where we no longer truly communicate with one another as we have embarked upon the full-time task of self-aggrandizement through the social media of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al.
In this modern world we face a new existential crisis with the advent of newfangled technologies rendering us razzle-dazzled with the overwhelming possibilities of digital splendor on one hand and painfully dislocated and lonely with our noses constantly rubbing our digital screens on the other.
Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the luxuriant Garden of Eden searching for the juicy, succulent Adriatic fig only to find it withered under the attack of mites, ants, and fruit flies, mankind has embarked upon the quest for the perfect pesticide.
Three. Never apologize to the reader:
Sorry for these half-baked chicken scratch thoughts. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I didn’t have sufficient time to do the necessary research for the topic you assigned me.
I’m hardly an expert on this subject and I don’t know why anyone would take me seriously, but here it goes.
Forgive me but after over-indulging last night at HomeTown Buffet my brain has been rendered in a mindless fog and the ramblings of this essay prove to be rather incoherent.
Four. Don’t throw a thesis cream pie in your reader’s face.
In this essay I am going to prove to you why Americans will never buy those stupid automatic cars that don’t need a driver. The four supports that will support my thesis are ______________, ______________, _______________, and ________________.
It is my purpose in this essay to show you why I'm correct on the subject of the death penalty. My proofs will be _________, _______, _________, and ___________.
Five. Don’t use a dictionary definition (standard procedure for a sixth grade essay but not college in which you should use more sophisticated methods such as extended definition or expert definitions):
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines metacognition as “awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process.”
General Principles of an Effective Introduction Paragraph
It piques your readers’ interest (often called a “hook”).
It is compelling.
It is timely.
It is relevant to the human condition and to your topic.
It transitions to your topic and/or thesis.
The Ten Types of Paragraph Introductions
One. Use a blunt statement of fact or insight that captures your readers’ attention:
It's good for us to have our feelings hurt.
You've never really lived until someone has handed you your __________ on a stick.
Men who are jealous are cheaters.
We would assume that jealous men are obsessed with fidelity, but in fact the most salient feature of the jealous man is that he is more often than not cheating on his partner. His jealousy results from projecting his own infidelities on his partner. He says to himself, “I am a cheater and therefore so is she.” We see this sick mentality in the character Dan from Ha Jin’s “The Beauty.” Trapped in his jealousy, Dan embodies the pathological characteristics of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, _______________, ________________, and _______________.
Washington, D.C. may soon be littered with the political bodies of people who believed they could spin their way out of the impact of the new Bob Woodward book, Fear. I’ve been to the Washington rodeo enough times to know that Woodward’s methodical, grinding style of investigation doesn’t lend itself to escaping unscathed, especially for bad actors and loose cannons. Hell, as a young Department of Defense aide in 1990, I saw it up close when his book, The Commanders, led to the firing of USAF Chief of Staff Mike Dugan. He had tapes then, as he does now.
This week, it’s Donald Trump’s turn under Woodward’s political electron microscope, and the President’s hissy-fit reaction tells us how close Woodward’s work has struck. Trump knows his White House staff, up to and including his daughter, thinks he’s off the rails, a danger to himself and the country, and unable to execute the duties of a Waffle House manager much less the President of the United States.
John Taylor Gatto opens his essay “Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why” as thus:
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in the world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: Their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teacher’s lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn’t get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
Gatto goes on to argue in his thesis that school trains children to be servants for mediocre (at best) jobs when school should be teaching innovation, individuality, and leadership roles.
Two. Write a definition based on the principles of extended definition (term, class, distinguishing characteristics) or quote an expert in a field of study:
Metacognition is an essential asset to mature people characterized by their ability to value long-term gratification over short-term gratification, their ability to distance themselves from their passions when they’re in a heated emotional state, their ability to stand back and see the forest instead of the trees, and their ability to continuously make assessments of the effectiveness of their major life choices. In the fiction of John Cheever and James Lasdun, we encounter characters that are woefully lacking in metacognition evidenced by _____________, ______________, _____________, and _______________.
According to Alexander Batthanany, member of the Viktor Frankl Institute, logotherapy, which is the search for meaning, “is identified as the primary motivational force in human beings.” Batthanany further explains that logotherapy is “based on three philosophical and psychological concepts: Freedom of Will, Will to Meaning, and Meaning in Life.” Embracing the concepts of logotherapy is vastly more effective than conventional, Freud-based psychotherapy when we consider ________________, ______________, __________________, and ________________.
Three. Use an insightful quotation that has not, to your knowledge anyway, been overused:
George Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what we want. The second is getting it.” Shaw’s insight speaks to the tantalizing chimera, that elusive quest we take for the Mythic She-Beast who becomes are life-altering obsession. As the characters in John Cheever and James Lasdun’s fiction show, the human relationship with the chimera is source of paradox. On one hand, having a chimera will kill us. On the other, not having a chimera will kill us. Cheever and Lasdun’s characters twist and torment under the paradoxical forces of their chimeras evidenced by _____________, _______________, ______________, and __________________.
Four. Use a startling fact to get your reader’s attention:
There are currently more African-American men in prison than there were slaves at the peak of slavery in the United States. We read this disturbing fact in Michelle Alexander’s magisterial The New Jim Crow, which convincingly argues that America’s prison complex is perpetuating the racism of slavery and Jim Crow in several insidious ways.
We read that in the latest study by the Institute for Higher Education, Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento that only 30% of California community college students are transferring or getting their degrees. We have a real challenge in the community college if 70% are falling by the wayside.
8,000 students walk through El Camino's Humanities Building every week. Only 10% will pass English 1A. Only 3% will pass English 1C.
99% of my students acknowledge that most students at El Camino are seriously compromised by their smartphone addiction to the point that the addiction is making them fail or do non-competitive work in college.
Five. Use an anecdote (personal or otherwise) to get your reader’s attention:
Stanley was a big proponent of "follow your dreams." After he graduated from high school in 1977 and took some acting classes at a local community college, he dropped out to move to Los Angeles where he spent the 1980s working as a waiter and trying to make a break into Hollywood. He spent his money on coaches, mentors, acting gurus, body language masters, voice instructors, New Age positive thinking experts, all in an attempt to step up his game. He landed a few small parts here and there, just enough work to make him feel he was on the verge of making it. His optimism grew in the 1990s when he met some film directors who gave him some small roles and hinted at getting him larger roles when the opportunity came. Feeding on these dreams while living in a squalid apartment in the 1990s, Stanley continued to live a life of abject obscurity and futility with the hope that he just had to follow his dream and be persistent and that these two qualities would guarantee his success. He remained inside this delusional bubble for nearly two more decades while he lived in a roach-infested apartment in downtown L.A. where he supplemented his income by delivering plasma and working as a masseuse, a job he had to give up when his hands become afflicted with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. At the age of 60, around 2018, Stanley got strep throat and couldn't afford antibiotics since none of his part-time gigs offered health insurance. Curled into the fetal position on his apartment's bare mattress with roaches crawling over him, he wept as he felt betrayed by the fact that he had done what the American Dream told him to do: He sacrificed everything to follow his passion and remained tenacious over four decades to bring his dreams to fruition, but he knew in that moment that he was a pathetic, miserable failure, and that his dreams had soured and curdled into rotten milk.
This curdling of our dreams and the false promise of following those dreams is explored in Cal Newport's important book So Good They Can't Ignore You and his accompanying YouTube video "'Follow Your Passion' Is Bad Advice" in which Newport makes a persuasive case for replacing the Passion Hypothesis with the craftsman mindset. His claim rests on four compelling observations. Passion without spending time mastering a craft is worthless. Passion is not some low-hanging fruit that we pick from a tree, but an asset we develop over 10,000 hours of sustained hard work and tedium. Only 2% of the human race work at a "dream job." Most of us must find happiness because we are a "dream employer" who is valued based on the mastery of our craft. And finally, courage to pursue your dream without an honest of assessment of your capital is dangerous and self-destructive.
Second Example:
When my daughter was one years old and I was changing her diaper, she without warning jammed her thumb into my eye, forcing my eyeball into my brain and almost killing me. After the assault, I suffered migraine headaches for several months and frequently would have to wash milky pus from the injured eye.
One afternoon I was napping under the covers when Lara walked into the room talking on the phone to her friend, Hannah. She didn’t know I was in the room, confusing the mound on the bed with a clump of pillows and blankets. I heard her whisper to Hannah, “I found another small package from eBay. He’s buying watches and not telling me.”
That’s when I thought about getting a post office box.
This could be the opening introduction for an essay topic about “economic infidelity.”
As we read in Stephen King’s essay “Write or Die”:
“Hardly a week after being sprung from detention hall, I was once more invited to step down to the principal’s office. I went with a sinking heart, wondering what new sh** I’d stepped in.”
Six. Use a piece of vivid description or a vivid illustration to get your reader’s attention:
My gym looks like an enchanting fitness dome, an extravaganza of taut, sweaty bodies adorned in fluorescent spandex tights contorting on space-age cardio machines, oil-slicked skin shrouded in a synthetic fog of dry ice colored by the dizzying splash of lavender disco lights. Tribal drum music plays loudly. Bottled water flows freely, as if from some Elysian spring, over burnished flesh. The communal purgation appeals to me. My fellow cardio junkies and I are so self-abandoned, free, and euphoric, liberated in our gym paradise. But right next to our workout heaven is a gastronomical inferno, one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, part of a chain, which is, to my lament, sprouting all over Los Angeles. I despise the buffet, a trough for people of less discriminating tastes who saunter in and out of the restaurant at all hours, entering the doors of the eatery without shame and blind to all the gastrointestinal and health-related horrors that await them. Many of the patrons cannot walk out of their cars to the buffet but have to limp or rely on canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and other ambulatory aids, for it seems a high percentage of the customers are afflicted with obesity, diabetes, arthritis, gout, hypothalamic lesions, elephantiasis, varicose veins and fleshy tumors. Struggling and wheezing as they navigate across the vast parking lot that leads to their gluttonous sanctuary, they seem to worship the very source of their disease.
In front of the buffet is a sign of rules and conduct. One of the rules urges people to stand in the buffet line in an orderly fashion and to be patient because there is plenty of food for everyone. Another rule is that children are not to be left unattended and running freely around the buffet area. My favorite rule is that no hands, tongues, or other body parts are allowed to touch the food. Tongs and other utensils are to be used at all times. The rules give you an idea of the kind of people who eat there. These are people I want to avoid.
But as I walk to the gym from my car, which shares a parking lot with the buffet patrons, I cannot avoid the nauseating smell of stale grease oozing from the buffet’s rear dumpster, army green and stained with splotches and a seaweed-like crust of yellow and brown grime.
Often I see cooks and dishwashers, their bodies covered with soot, coming out of the back kitchen door to throw refuse into the dumpster, a smoldering receptacle with hot fumes of bacteria and flies. Hunchbacked and knobby, the poor employees are old, weary men with sallow, rheumy eyes and cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I imagine them being tortured deep within the bowels of the fiery kitchen on some Medieval rack. They emerge into the blinding sunshine like moles, their eyes squinting, with their plastic garbage bags twice the size of their bodies slung over their shoulders, and then I look into their sad eyes—eyes that seem to beg for my help and mercy. And just when I am about to give them words of hope and consolation or urge them to flee for their lives, it seems they disappear back into the restaurant as if beckoned by some invisible tyrant.
The above could transition to the topic of people of a certain weight being required to buy three airline tickets for an entire row of seats.
Seven. Summarize both sides of a debate.
America is torn by the national healthcare debate. One camp says it’s a crime that 25,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year from treatable disease and that modeling a health system from other developed countries is a moral imperative. However, there is another camp that fears that adopting some version of universal healthcare is tantamount to stepping into the direction of socialism.
Eight. State a misconception, fallacy, or error that your essay will refute.
Healthcare
Americans against universal or national healthcare are quick to say that such a system is “socialist,” “communist,” and “un-American,” but a close look at their rhetoric shows that it is high on knee-jerk, mindless paroxysms and short on reality. Contrary to the enemies of national healthcare, providing universal coverage is very American and compatible with the American brand of capitalism.
Civil War in America
In the South, it is still common to hear white people speak of the Civil War by denying its connection to the evils of slavery and treason. Rather, it is commonly spouted by white people in the south that the Civil War was the result of "Northern aggression" and "state rights," but these explanations are odious poppycock and are part of America's shameful history of fake news, which afflicts our country like an ugly, festering cancer sore to this very day.
Nine. Make a general statement about your topic.
From Sherry Turkle’s essay “How Computers Change the Way We Think”:
The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world. Although writing remains our primary information technology, today when we think about the impact of technology on our habits of mind, we think primarily of the computer.
Ten. Pose a question your essay will try to answer:
Why are diet books more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more fat?
Why is psychotherapy becoming more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more crazy?
Why are the people of Qatar the richest people in the world, yet score at the bottom of all Happiness Index metrics?
Why are courses in the Humanities more essential to your well-being that you might think?
What is the difference between thinking and critical thinking?
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings and all-night tantrums.
Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do, they have giant mood swings, and they have all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content.
You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony, they feature fatty, over-salted foods, and the lard everything with sugar.
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absent gym music, and the improved concentration.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis.
To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and write an intellectually rigorous thesis.
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the rules are hard to follow, and the MLA in-text citations are difficult to master.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems and their brain-dumbing effects.
You should avoid watching "reality shows" because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism, they distract you from your own problems, and they dumb you down.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
I'm still fat even though I've tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and the fasting diet.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and a thesis that elevates the reader's consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and maintaining a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
My children never react to my calm commands or my lugubrious supplications.
September 16Essay 1 Due on turnitin. Go over Andrew Sullivan’s “I Used to be a Human Being,”, Sherry Turkle, and Tristan Harris. Watch “Nosedive.” Homework #3 for September 18: Read Lanier pages 1-39 and in 200-word paragraph explain how social media destroys free will.
September 18 Go over Lanier 1-39. Homework #4 for September 23: Read pages 39-76 and in a 200-word paragraph explain how social media makes us terrible versions of ourselves.
September 23 Go over Lanier 39-76. Homework #5 for September 25: Read Lanier 76-145 and in 200-word paragraph, explain the pathological effects of BUMMER.
September 25 Go over Lanier 76-145. Your homework #6 for September 30 is to turn in a preliminary thesis statement.
September 30 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
October 2 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
October 7 Essay 2 due on turnitin.
Writing Strategy:
Introduction Paragraph 1:
Summarize Lacey's "nosedive" in the "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror.
Or summarize Andrew Sullivan's "nosedive" in his essay "I Used to be Human Being."
Or summarize the "nosedive" of someone you know who got addicted to social media.
Or summarize social media addiction as described in any Tristan Harris or Sherry Turkle video of your choosing.
Or summarize Jaron Lanier's central argument in his book.
Thesis Paragraph 2:
Agree or disagree with the claim that we should delete our social media accounts based on the following evidence:
One. Social media is an addiction trap by design that hijacks our brains.
Two. Social media brings forth our worst version of ourselves.
Three. Social media encourages tribalism and alternative realities.
Four. Social media spreads weaponized misinformation.
Five. In its "race to the bottom" to get clickbait, social media erodes liberal democracies around the world.
Six. Social media encourages us to give up our private data until we have submitted all our privacy, and this surrender will result to a loss of individual rights and freedoms.
Paragraphs 3-6
Choose 4 of the above points to address in your body paragraphs.
Counterargument-Rebuttal Paragraph 7
Find a defense of social media and write a rebuttal of it.
Here are some common counterarguments:
"No one is holding a gun to your head and saying you need to be on social media."
"Social media has connected me to family and friends in ways that otherwise would be impossible."
"You show me extreme cases, but for every pathological social media addict I can show you dozens of well-adjusted mentally healthy people who use social media."
Conclusion Paragraph 8
Write an emotionally powerful restatement of your thesis.
McMahon’s “Secret” Refutation Essay Outline
Paragraph 1: Summarize Tristan Harris’ YouTube video “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds everyday,” and address the power of the few over the many; the race to the bottom, the outrage machine making clicks, the loss of free agency (free will), the destruction of democracy, the addiction that is baked in the social media landscape, the attention economy, etc.
Paragraph 2: Pivot to Jaron Lanier’s claim that we should delete our social media accounts and then argue that deleting one’s account isn’t the solution and provide reasons for your thesis. These reasons will be your supporting paragraphs.
Some reasons I covered in class:
One. Only mindful people will delete their accounts. This won’t be a game-changer because the majority “Homer Simpsons” won’t heed Harris’ or Lanier’s warnings.
Two. Saying that something is addicting so it should be eliminated from our life is a weak argument. Lots of things are addicting: TV, German chocolate cake, wine, relationships, etc. Moderation, not abstinence, is the more reasonable response.
Three. Disciplined use of social media can be valuable for business, communicating with loved ones who are far away, engaging in meaningful political causes, etc.
Four. Reducing one’s social media by over 90% is probably reasonable.
Five. Time-blocking one’s day is more reasonable than deleting all of one’s social media accounts.
Six. One should have a healthy contempt for social media because the diagnosis of its vileness by Harris and Lanier is accurate, but a healthy contempt doesn’t necessarily translate into deleting one’s accounts. As said earlier, a 90% reduction or more is more reasonable unless you’re hopelessly addicted.
Notice there is no counterargument-rebuttal because the WHOLE essay is a counterargument-rebuttal. This is called a refutation essay.
Conclusion is a powerful restatement of your thesis.
One. How does Lanier compare the A*** Personality Factor to drug addiction?
Social media leads to addiction, which leads to radical personality change. To become an addict is for a normal person to lose her best self to her monster self.
The addict is in a constant state of neediness and deprivation, looking for the next hit. Smartphone nation is a nation of addicts.
Addiction is about selfishness.
The addict “is always deprived, rushing for affirmation.” He is nervous, “compulsively pecking at his situation.” He is selfish, self-absorbed, and too “wrapped-up” in his addictive cycle to have empathy for others (39).
Addicts succumb to a “personal mythology of grandiosity.” This grandeur speaks to their colossal insecurity.
Social media addicts are aggressive: They victimize others and they play the victim.
Social media addicts become competitive trolls trying to “win points” in arguments and become more and more belligerent.
Lanier notices when he was a prominent blogger at Huffpost he received a torrent of belligerent emails. He noticed manipulation and a prominent phony AH Factor, the result of personalities conforming to online addiction.
Of all the arguments against social media, this is the one that he is most emotional and “visceral” about.
How Social Media Creates A***
Simple syllogism: Assholes get the most attention. Social media creates attention addiction. Therefore, social media creates assholes.
Two. What is Solitary/Pack switch?
Lanier says we all have an inner troll. The troll is the pack wolf. We are more happy and more free as the solitary wolf.
But social media makes us pack wolves.
We all have a Solitary/Pack switch for our inner wolf.
Social media flips the Pack switch on. We become obsessed with our ranking in the wolf pack. Where we stand in our social hierarchy is our everything, so much that we lose contact with reality. Loyalty to the pack becomes more important that any adherence to reality, so if our pack denies climate change, we deny climate change to the death.
If our pack supports a racist politician, we justify our support of this racist politician. We may deny that this politician is racist even if overwhelming evidence supports the contrary.
This Pack Behavior is ruining America. It’s making us divided against each other. Social media has accelerated Pack Behavior in ways we cannot even imagine because in part in a very short period of time close to 2.5 billion people worldwide are on social media.
Pack behavior also creates a social outrage machine on Twitter where people will gang up on someone who is perceived as being bad. People get like sharks tasting blood. Take the case of Justine Sacco, for example.
Solitary Wolf
In contrast to being a Pack Wolf, a Solitary Wolf is an independent critical thinker who isn’t beholden to groupthink or being beholden to conforming to the pack.
Pack Behavior on Facebook and Twitter
Where you stand in the social hierarchy in Facebook and Twitter worlds becomes important because the social media environment manipulates you based on rewards and punishments. Rewards are likes and followers, which produce dopamine. We get addicted to dopamine and begin to behave in ways that will enhance our social esteem on these platforms, what Lanier calls “BUMMERland.”
We will also share outrage of the Pack.
We can become an inner troll as a result.
Lanier’s conclusion: Exit BUMMERland.
Three. How does fakery grow exponentially on social media?
Because behavior modification steers people to be fake versions of themselves, curating some grandiose self, everything else that generates from social media is likewise fake (54).
BUMMER amplifies everything that is fake because in part fake gets attention; real does not.
How Lies Beat the Truth
Armies of fake people gather to “steal the oxygen in the room” so that real voices can’t be heard (55).
If swarms of trolls repeat lies over and over, how do truth-tellers spend time on real news when they have to waste their time refuting lies, which becomes an exercise in futility.
When trolls accused President Obama of being a Muslim terrorist who didn’t have a birth certificate to prove that he was born in America, the media wasted a lot of time rebuking a lie that was so preposterous that it should not have been even addressed, but because of huge movement propagated this lie, the lie could not be ignored. The lie “stole the oxygen in the room,” so to speak.
Holocaust Deniers on Facebook
Zuckerberg allows Holocaust deniers to have a voice on Facebook as we read in this Guardian article.
Fake News Makes Money for Social Media Sites
Fake accounts spreading sensational fake news get a lot of hits and traffic for Facebook and YouTube, so these platforms profit from lies.
Fake news makes lots of money and is hard to detect, as we see in this Washington Post article.
Writing fake news can make individuals more than $10,000 a month on AdSense according to this Washington Post article.
Social Media Profits from Tribalistic Partisan Hatred of The Other
Fair-minded news is too boring for social media platforms, which appeal to our lowest reptilian self, so social media news by its very nature is tribalistic, partisan, hateful, and reptilian. As a result, America has never been so divided (57).
Fake News Is Dangerous
The mass lie that vaccination shots are dangerous and the cause of autism gains steam on social media platforms so that parents deny their children proper vaccinations. This can result in epidemics of measles and other life-threatening diseases.
People who immerse themselves in BUMMER cannot think critically. They are loyal to their tribe but disconnected from reality.
Four. How does social media remove context?
Social media replaces any context you give to your content with its own context, based on algorithms. “You are no longer a name but a number” (65). He continues: “A number is public verification of reduced freedom, status, and personhood.” In other words, living in social media’s algorithm-based context is a prison.
Five. How is social media destroying empathy and human connection?
Two ways: tribalism by isolating us in our own filter bubbles and the loss of public space to inward smartphone absorption.
Filter bubbles alters our reality and cuts us off the reality of others, as explained in this Ted Talk video of 9 minutes.
Consider we live in our own filter bubbles.
Consider we are cut off from our sense of physical space as we get and more and more plugged in to our smartphones.
Consider we become loyal to our tribe by expressing rage against our foes on the Social Outrage Machine of social media.
Consider all of the above, and you’ll see we’re becoming a people cut off from one other. This should concern us for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is violence.
Six. How does social media strip us of our capacity for happiness?
Social media makes its profits by winning our attention, so much so that these “attention merchants” are motivated to turn us into addicts. Addiction spells the end of happiness. As Jaron Lanier writes: “It will dole out sparse charms in between the doldrums as well, since the autopilot that tugs at your emotions will discover that the contrast between treats and punishment is more effective than either treats or punishment alone. Addiction is associated with anhedonia, the lessened ability to take pleasure from life apart from whatever one is addicted to, and social media addicts appear to be prone to long-term anhedonia” (82).
Anhedonia is the self-imposed prison of isolation and futile pleasure from a life that is beholden to addiction.
One. How long would you stay on Facebook or any other social media site if your posts were ignored?
These social media sites would die except that they give feedback. For example, one of the most popular sites, Reddit, uses up and down arrows to show approval or condemnation of posts.
Feedback is a reward system that stimulates the brain.
Social media works in part because of what we might call the Mutual Sycophant Club: I scratch your back and you scratch my back. We like each other’s posts, no matter how insipid, unremarkable, and mediocre, in order to fuel the feedback loop.
Getting caught up in this loop is a huge time suck, a huge distraction, a huge waste, and a huge diversion from meaningful pursuits. But its draw is peer pressure and the tyranny of Technology: Don’t live in the common currency of technology and be irrelevant, invisible, and essentially dead.
It takes a lot of courage to live off the grid.
Many people cannot do it. They are so dependent on the sense of community, however fake, that they derive from their social media accounts. To delete their accounts would result in a feeling of terrifying, primal aloneness, for which there is no word in English. We have to look to German:
Mutterseelinallein: complete abandonment, the sense that your mother's soul has left you.
People with tattered, undeveloped, needy selves will be too scared to go off the grid because they will become possessed by the terror of mutterseelinallein.
Feedback Loop Can Be Explained by Pigeon Experiments
In 1971, researcher Michael Zeiler did pigeon experiments in which he found they pecked more ravenously when their pellet rewards were inconsistently given because the inconsistency was analogous to gambling’s dopamine effects.
Decades later, Facebook did an experiment with a “like” button, the first of its kind on the Internet, and the “like” button had the effect of crack cocaine. It was a game-changer. Suddenly Facebook grew exponentially, not just in users, but in the amount of time users spent on Facebook.
Getting “likes” was like gambling. Your uploaded photo might win a lucky strike or it might be a dud, but when you got a “full house,” as it were, you received a huge dopamine hit.
Facebook users got addicted. They experienced euphoria when they enjoyed a hailstorm of “likes”; they experienced shame and anguish when their posts were ignored or not liked.
Think about it: Adults with higher degrees of education, with high-ranking jobs, with family responsibilities were sitting at their computers in their robes drinking their green Matcha tea or eating their Hot Pockets while obsessing over their Facebook ranking. They had been reduced to experimental pigeons. They had become needy and pathetic.
But here’s the thing: Users were on Facebook LONGER than before. And that’s the point. Website creators want you on their site, the longer the better. They need to find ways to get you hooked. They don’t like you. They don’t respect you. They look at you as a potential addict, and they’re the pusher.
They actually look at you as a dumb rat or a dumb pigeon. They are rich, and they are laughing at us.
In fact, Mark Zuckerberg is on record for having said that “trusting Facebook users are dumb *****.”
Two. What is the Human Self-Inflicted Distraction Principle?
Studies show that humans can’t sit still. They can’t be alone with their thoughts. They settle into a life of easy because, ironically, settling into the good life, a life full of comfort and non-conflict, drives people crazy.
People will induce their own problems out of nothing, they will create new challenges, they will sink into a hole, just so they can create a solution to a problem that never had to exist in the first place.
Rich movie stars do nose dives into self-destruction, we are told, because the thrill of success can’t be enjoyed unless interrupted by challenge.
In other words, we’re incurably stupid.
We operate on the Self-Inflicted Distraction Principle.
The drug pushers of the Internet know this all too well.
The makers of games know this all too well.
Tetris and World of Warcraft are built for people who need constant challenge and distraction.
People are addicted to setting never-ending goals to avoid being still.
Karoshi
They play games, try to improve their social media status, wear fitness watches, take their work home on laptops to “get ahead of the curve,” and the final summation of this never-ending treadmill is the Japanese term karoshi—“death from overworking.”
Getting on the Internet treadmill becomes a neurosis and a disease. People lose their essential self, and they don’t know it because it feels normal.
Three. What is the Zeigarnik Effect?
Incomplete experiences occupy our minds and stay in our memories more than completed ones.
This is analogous to a cliff hanger for a TV show. If it ends on a cliff hanger, we are more likely to become obsessed and watch subsequent shows.
Cliff hangers can create compulsive binge-watching.
“Post-play” maximizes the cliff hanger principle. Breaking Bad from Netflix becomes a 13-hour nonstop movie punctuated with cliff hangers.
The Assist
The Netflix binge became a phenomenon, and the binge works because in addition to cliff hangers, Netflix has your programming defaulted so that if you do nothing but just sit in front of the screen the next episode will begin automatically. This is called an “assist” in the industry.
Four. What is the “bad is stronger than good” principle?
No matter how good the reviews on Yelp, Amazon, and Rate My Professor, it’s the bad reviews that stick out and have the biggest influence on people.
This principle applies to social media. You may get lots of good feedback on your channel, but it’s the mean ones that punch you in the gut and make you forget the positive feedback.
Always wanting to overcome negative feedback with greater and greater positive feedback feeds social media addiction.
Five. Why are children more vulnerable to Internet addiction than adults?
Children don’t have the natural boundaries that mature people have.
And just as dangerous, if we let children do easy things like using the Internet at the expense of more difficult albeit rewarding things like reading books, we deprive children of an important principle: Hardship inoculation.
The younger we experience tough tasks and learn how to overcome their difficulty the more we will embrace meaningful, challenging tasks later in life. For example, we may be tragically raising a generation of non-book readers.
Six. What is gamification?
Gamification is taking a non-game experience like fitness, nutrition, or social media abstinence, and turning it into a game with points and opportunities to beat personal records and so on.
Alter writes: “Gamification is a powerful business tool and if harnessed appropriately it also drives happier, healthier, and wiser behavior. “
Writing Effective Introduction Paragraphs for Your Essays
Since the Dawn of Man, people have sought love and happiness . . .
In today’s society, we see more and more people cocooning in their homes . . .
Man has always wondered why happiness and contentment are so elusive like trying to grasp a bar of sudsy, wet soap.
We have now arrived at a Societal Epoch where we no longer truly communicate with one another as we have embarked upon the full-time task of self-aggrandizement through the social media of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al.
In this modern world we face a new existential crisis with the advent of newfangled technologies rendering us razzle-dazzled with the overwhelming possibilities of digital splendor on one hand and painfully dislocated and lonely with our noses constantly rubbing our digital screens on the other.
Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the luxuriant Garden of Eden searching for the juicy, succulent Adriatic fig only to find it withered under the attack of mites, ants, and fruit flies, mankind has embarked upon the quest for the perfect pesticide.
Three. Never apologize to the reader:
Sorry for these half-baked chicken scratch thoughts. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I didn’t have sufficient time to do the necessary research for the topic you assigned me.
I’m hardly an expert on this subject and I don’t know why anyone would take me seriously, but here it goes.
Forgive me but after over-indulging last night at HomeTown Buffet my brain has been rendered in a mindless fog and the ramblings of this essay prove to be rather incoherent.
Four. Don’t throw a thesis cream pie in your reader’s face.
In this essay I am going to prove to you why Americans will never buy those stupid automatic cars that don’t need a driver. The four supports that will support my thesis are ______________, ______________, _______________, and ________________.
It is my purpose in this essay to show you why I'm correct on the subject of the death penalty. My proofs will be _________, _______, _________, and ___________.
Five. Don’t use a dictionary definition (standard procedure for a sixth grade essay but not college in which you should use more sophisticated methods such as extended definition or expert definitions):
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines metacognition as “awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process.”
General Principles of an Effective Introduction Paragraph
It piques your readers’ interest (often called a “hook”).
It is compelling.
It is timely.
It is relevant to the human condition and to your topic.
It transitions to your topic and/or thesis.
The Ten Types of Paragraph Introductions
One. Use a blunt statement of fact or insight that captures your readers’ attention:
It's good for us to have our feelings hurt.
You've never really lived until someone has handed you your __________ on a stick.
Men who are jealous are cheaters.
We would assume that jealous men are obsessed with fidelity, but in fact the most salient feature of the jealous man is that he is more often than not cheating on his partner. His jealousy results from projecting his own infidelities on his partner. He says to himself, “I am a cheater and therefore so is she.” We see this sick mentality in the character Dan from Ha Jin’s “The Beauty.” Trapped in his jealousy, Dan embodies the pathological characteristics of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, _______________, ________________, and _______________.
Washington, D.C. may soon be littered with the political bodies of people who believed they could spin their way out of the impact of the new Bob Woodward book, Fear. I’ve been to the Washington rodeo enough times to know that Woodward’s methodical, grinding style of investigation doesn’t lend itself to escaping unscathed, especially for bad actors and loose cannons. Hell, as a young Department of Defense aide in 1990, I saw it up close when his book, The Commanders, led to the firing of USAF Chief of Staff Mike Dugan. He had tapes then, as he does now.
This week, it’s Donald Trump’s turn under Woodward’s political electron microscope, and the President’s hissy-fit reaction tells us how close Woodward’s work has struck. Trump knows his White House staff, up to and including his daughter, thinks he’s off the rails, a danger to himself and the country, and unable to execute the duties of a Waffle House manager much less the President of the United States.
John Taylor Gatto opens his essay “Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why” as thus:
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in the world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: Their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teacher’s lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn’t get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
Gatto goes on to argue in his thesis that school trains children to be servants for mediocre (at best) jobs when school should be teaching innovation, individuality, and leadership roles.
Two. Write a definition based on the principles of extended definition (term, class, distinguishing characteristics) or quote an expert in a field of study:
Metacognition is an essential asset to mature people characterized by their ability to value long-term gratification over short-term gratification, their ability to distance themselves from their passions when they’re in a heated emotional state, their ability to stand back and see the forest instead of the trees, and their ability to continuously make assessments of the effectiveness of their major life choices. In the fiction of John Cheever and James Lasdun, we encounter characters that are woefully lacking in metacognition evidenced by _____________, ______________, _____________, and _______________.
According to Alexander Batthanany, member of the Viktor Frankl Institute, logotherapy, which is the search for meaning, “is identified as the primary motivational force in human beings.” Batthanany further explains that logotherapy is “based on three philosophical and psychological concepts: Freedom of Will, Will to Meaning, and Meaning in Life.” Embracing the concepts of logotherapy is vastly more effective than conventional, Freud-based psychotherapy when we consider ________________, ______________, __________________, and ________________.
Three. Use an insightful quotation that has not, to your knowledge anyway, been overused:
George Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what we want. The second is getting it.” Shaw’s insight speaks to the tantalizing chimera, that elusive quest we take for the Mythic She-Beast who becomes are life-altering obsession. As the characters in John Cheever and James Lasdun’s fiction show, the human relationship with the chimera is source of paradox. On one hand, having a chimera will kill us. On the other, not having a chimera will kill us. Cheever and Lasdun’s characters twist and torment under the paradoxical forces of their chimeras evidenced by _____________, _______________, ______________, and __________________.
Four. Use a startling fact to get your reader’s attention:
There are currently more African-American men in prison than there were slaves at the peak of slavery in the United States. We read this disturbing fact in Michelle Alexander’s magisterial The New Jim Crow, which convincingly argues that America’s prison complex is perpetuating the racism of slavery and Jim Crow in several insidious ways.
We read that in the latest study by the Institute for Higher Education, Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento that only 30% of California community college students are transferring or getting their degrees. We have a real challenge in the community college if 70% are falling by the wayside.
8,000 students walk through El Camino's Humanities Building every week. Only 10% will pass English 1A. Only 3% will pass English 1C.
99% of my students acknowledge that most students at El Camino are seriously compromised by their smartphone addiction to the point that the addiction is making them fail or do non-competitive work in college.
Five. Use an anecdote (personal or otherwise) to get your reader’s attention:
Stanley was a big proponent of "follow your dreams." After he graduated from high school in 1977 and took some acting classes at a local community college, he dropped out to move to Los Angeles where he spent the 1980s working as a waiter and trying to make a break into Hollywood. He spent his money on coaches, mentors, acting gurus, body language masters, voice instructors, New Age positive thinking experts, all in an attempt to step up his game. He landed a few small parts here and there, just enough work to make him feel he was on the verge of making it. His optimism grew in the 1990s when he met some film directors who gave him some small roles and hinted at getting him larger roles when the opportunity came. Feeding on these dreams while living in a squalid apartment in the 1990s, Stanley continued to live a life of abject obscurity and futility with the hope that he just had to follow his dream and be persistent and that these two qualities would guarantee his success. He remained inside this delusional bubble for nearly two more decades while he lived in a roach-infested apartment in downtown L.A. where he supplemented his income by delivering plasma and working as a masseuse, a job he had to give up when his hands become afflicted with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. At the age of 60, around 2018, Stanley got strep throat and couldn't afford antibiotics since none of his part-time gigs offered health insurance. Curled into the fetal position on his apartment's bare mattress with roaches crawling over him, he wept as he felt betrayed by the fact that he had done what the American Dream told him to do: He sacrificed everything to follow his passion and remained tenacious over four decades to bring his dreams to fruition, but he knew in that moment that he was a pathetic, miserable failure, and that his dreams had soured and curdled into rotten milk.
This curdling of our dreams and the false promise of following those dreams is explored in Cal Newport's important book So Good They Can't Ignore You and his accompanying YouTube video "'Follow Your Passion' Is Bad Advice" in which Newport makes a persuasive case for replacing the Passion Hypothesis with the craftsman mindset. His claim rests on four compelling observations. Passion without spending time mastering a craft is worthless. Passion is not some low-hanging fruit that we pick from a tree, but an asset we develop over 10,000 hours of sustained hard work and tedium. Only 2% of the human race work at a "dream job." Most of us must find happiness because we are a "dream employer" who is valued based on the mastery of our craft. And finally, courage to pursue your dream without an honest of assessment of your capital is dangerous and self-destructive.
Second Example:
When my daughter was one years old and I was changing her diaper, she without warning jammed her thumb into my eye, forcing my eyeball into my brain and almost killing me. After the assault, I suffered migraine headaches for several months and frequently would have to wash milky pus from the injured eye.
One afternoon I was napping under the covers when Lara walked into the room talking on the phone to her friend, Hannah. She didn’t know I was in the room, confusing the mound on the bed with a clump of pillows and blankets. I heard her whisper to Hannah, “I found another small package from eBay. He’s buying watches and not telling me.”
That’s when I thought about getting a post office box.
This could be the opening introduction for an essay topic about “economic infidelity.”
As we read in Stephen King’s essay “Write or Die”:
“Hardly a week after being sprung from detention hall, I was once more invited to step down to the principal’s office. I went with a sinking heart, wondering what new sh** I’d stepped in.”
Six. Use a piece of vivid description or a vivid illustration to get your reader’s attention:
My gym looks like an enchanting fitness dome, an extravaganza of taut, sweaty bodies adorned in fluorescent spandex tights contorting on space-age cardio machines, oil-slicked skin shrouded in a synthetic fog of dry ice colored by the dizzying splash of lavender disco lights. Tribal drum music plays loudly. Bottled water flows freely, as if from some Elysian spring, over burnished flesh. The communal purgation appeals to me. My fellow cardio junkies and I are so self-abandoned, free, and euphoric, liberated in our gym paradise. But right next to our workout heaven is a gastronomical inferno, one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, part of a chain, which is, to my lament, sprouting all over Los Angeles. I despise the buffet, a trough for people of less discriminating tastes who saunter in and out of the restaurant at all hours, entering the doors of the eatery without shame and blind to all the gastrointestinal and health-related horrors that await them. Many of the patrons cannot walk out of their cars to the buffet but have to limp or rely on canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and other ambulatory aids, for it seems a high percentage of the customers are afflicted with obesity, diabetes, arthritis, gout, hypothalamic lesions, elephantiasis, varicose veins and fleshy tumors. Struggling and wheezing as they navigate across the vast parking lot that leads to their gluttonous sanctuary, they seem to worship the very source of their disease.
In front of the buffet is a sign of rules and conduct. One of the rules urges people to stand in the buffet line in an orderly fashion and to be patient because there is plenty of food for everyone. Another rule is that children are not to be left unattended and running freely around the buffet area. My favorite rule is that no hands, tongues, or other body parts are allowed to touch the food. Tongs and other utensils are to be used at all times. The rules give you an idea of the kind of people who eat there. These are people I want to avoid.
But as I walk to the gym from my car, which shares a parking lot with the buffet patrons, I cannot avoid the nauseating smell of stale grease oozing from the buffet’s rear dumpster, army green and stained with splotches and a seaweed-like crust of yellow and brown grime.
Often I see cooks and dishwashers, their bodies covered with soot, coming out of the back kitchen door to throw refuse into the dumpster, a smoldering receptacle with hot fumes of bacteria and flies. Hunchbacked and knobby, the poor employees are old, weary men with sallow, rheumy eyes and cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I imagine them being tortured deep within the bowels of the fiery kitchen on some Medieval rack. They emerge into the blinding sunshine like moles, their eyes squinting, with their plastic garbage bags twice the size of their bodies slung over their shoulders, and then I look into their sad eyes—eyes that seem to beg for my help and mercy. And just when I am about to give them words of hope and consolation or urge them to flee for their lives, it seems they disappear back into the restaurant as if beckoned by some invisible tyrant.
The above could transition to the topic of people of a certain weight being required to buy three airline tickets for an entire row of seats.
Seven. Summarize both sides of a debate.
America is torn by the national healthcare debate. One camp says it’s a crime that 25,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year from treatable disease and that modeling a health system from other developed countries is a moral imperative. However, there is another camp that fears that adopting some version of universal healthcare is tantamount to stepping into the direction of socialism.
Eight. State a misconception, fallacy, or error that your essay will refute.
Healthcare
Americans against universal or national healthcare are quick to say that such a system is “socialist,” “communist,” and “un-American,” but a close look at their rhetoric shows that it is high on knee-jerk, mindless paroxysms and short on reality. Contrary to the enemies of national healthcare, providing universal coverage is very American and compatible with the American brand of capitalism.
Civil War in America
In the South, it is still common to hear white people speak of the Civil War by denying its connection to the evils of slavery and treason. Rather, it is commonly spouted by white people in the south that the Civil War was the result of "Northern aggression" and "state rights," but these explanations are odious poppycock and are part of America's shameful history of fake news, which afflicts our country like an ugly, festering cancer sore to this very day.
Nine. Make a general statement about your topic.
From Sherry Turkle’s essay “How Computers Change the Way We Think”:
The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world. Although writing remains our primary information technology, today when we think about the impact of technology on our habits of mind, we think primarily of the computer.
Ten. Pose a question your essay will try to answer:
Why are diet books more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more fat?
Why is psychotherapy becoming more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more crazy?
Why are the people of Qatar the richest people in the world, yet score at the bottom of all Happiness Index metrics?
Why are courses in the Humanities more essential to your well-being that you might think?
What is the difference between thinking and critical thinking?
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings and all-night tantrums.
Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do, they have giant mood swings, and they have all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content.
You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony, they feature fatty, over-salted foods, and the lard everything with sugar.
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absent gym music, and the improved concentration.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis.
To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and write an intellectually rigorous thesis.
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the rules are hard to follow, and the MLA in-text citations are difficult to master.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems and their brain-dumbing effects.
You should avoid watching "reality shows" because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism, they distract you from your own problems, and they dumb you down.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
I'm still fat even though I've tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and the fasting diet.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and a thesis that elevates the reader's consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and maintaining a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
My children never react to my calm commands or my lugubrious supplications.
September 16Essay 1 Due on turnitin. Go over Andrew Sullivan’s “I Used to be a Human Being,”, Sherry Turkle, and Tristan Harris. Watch “Nosedive.” Homework #3 for September 18: Read Lanier pages 1-39 and in 200-word paragraph explain how social media destroys free will.
September 18 Go over Lanier 1-39. Homework #4 for September 23: Read pages 39-76 and in a 200-word paragraph explain how social media makes us terrible versions of ourselves.
September 23 Go over Lanier 39-76. Homework #5 for September 25: Read Lanier 76-145 and in 200-word paragraph, explain the pathological effects of BUMMER.
September 25 Go over Lanier 76-145. Your homework #6 for September 30 is to turn in a preliminary thesis statement.
September 30 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
October 2 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
October 7 Essay 2 due on turnitin.
Writing Strategy:
Introduction Paragraph 1:
Summarize Lacey's "nosedive" in the "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror.
Or summarize Andrew Sullivan's "nosedive" in his essay "I Used to be Human Being."
Or summarize the "nosedive" of someone you know who got addicted to social media.
Or summarize social media addiction as described in any Tristan Harris or Sherry Turkle video of your choosing.
Or summarize Jaron Lanier's central argument in his book.
Thesis Paragraph 2:
Agree or disagree with the claim that we should delete our social media accounts based on the following evidence:
One. Social media is an addiction trap by design that hijacks our brains.
Two. Social media brings forth our worst version of ourselves.
Three. Social media encourages tribalism and alternative realities.
Four. Social media spreads weaponized misinformation.
Five. In its "race to the bottom" to get clickbait, social media erodes liberal democracies around the world.
Six. Social media encourages us to give up our private data until we have submitted all our privacy, and this surrender will result to a loss of individual rights and freedoms.
Paragraphs 3-6
Choose 4 of the above points to address in your body paragraphs.
Counterargument-Rebuttal Paragraph 7
Find a defense of social media and write a rebuttal of it.
Here are some common counterarguments:
"No one is holding a gun to your head and saying you need to be on social media."
"Social media has connected me to family and friends in ways that otherwise would be impossible."
"You show me extreme cases, but for every pathological social media addict I can show you dozens of well-adjusted mentally healthy people who use social media."
Conclusion Paragraph 8
Write an emotionally powerful restatement of your thesis.
Social Media Is Designed for to be Addictive
Material from Adam Alter's Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
One. How does “Never Get High on Your Own Supply” pertain to Steve Jobs?
Adam Alter is making the point that even as Steve Jobs wallowed in the glory of making the greatest Internet device ever, the iPad, he refused to use one or let his children use one.
Likewise, other tech avatars refuse to let their children use iPads. They sent their kids to expensive private anti-technology Waldorf schools.
The point is that drug dealers stay strong and rich by not getting high on their own supply.
Alter asks a great question: Why are all the world’s greatest public technocrats also in private the world’s greatest technophobes?
Clearly, they know the dirt. They know the hell that is at the end of the iPad journey. They’ve seen the darkness, and they don’t want to go there. They don’t want their kids to go there.
But they want you and me to go there. They want our money. They want us hooked on technology they don't want for their kids, and this speaks to a huge exposure: The tech giants' moral integrity is seriously lacking.
Alter is making the point that we might reconsider embracing technology made by people who have no moral integrity and who secondly wouldn’t privately use the gadgets they make so seductive to the rest of us.
Adler asks: Could you imagine the outcry if religious leaders didn’t let their children practice the religion they preach to you?
What if the FDA recommended food to the public that the FDA wouldn't let their children eat? That they themselves would not eat? Imagine the scandal.
Why the double standard in technology? Because we're addicts, and addicts don't use their brains.
This book's introduction is a piece of rhetorical brilliance as it drives home the point that the technology that is being foisted upon us is by its very nature addictive. It’s not built to help us. It’s built to manipulate us. The technology makes money for its creators after all.
Video game designers avoid World of Warcraft.
An Instagram engineer admits Instagram is designed to send its users down a bottomless pit of addiction.
Smartwatches, Facebook and Netflix, like Instagram, are designed to maximize addiction and obsession.
A smartphone is an opium-drip gadget you carry around with you 24/7.
Two. Why can “normal” people succumb to addiction?
Because addiction is about immersion into environment and circumstance.
Steve Jobs and other successful technocrats know the secrets of addiction, and the addiction model is what fuels their designs.
Making irresistible tools to ensnare us is the formula for success in the crowded tech space.
Therefore, technocrats are in the addiction business.
“Design ethicist” Tristan Harris says even normal people with strong levels of willpower will succumb to addiction when “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have.”
New York Times journalist Nick Bolton, who doesn’t allow himself or his children to use an iPad, observes that the environment and circumstances for addiction in the digital age have no precedent in human history.
We can be snared by many digital hooks:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Porn
Email
Online shopping
The list goes one until we’ve lost the very core of our being.
In the early 2000s, tech was slow and “clunky,” but now it’s fast. It has to be fast if it’s to have sufficient addictive powers.
Tech engineers do thousands of experiments to make the visual experience appealing and addictive. They’ve created a sort of digital Las Vegas to seduce us.
Newer and newer versions of these digital Las Vegas seductive machines keep coming out until they’re “weaponized.”
“In 2004, Facebook was fun. In 2016, it’s addictive.”
Behavioral psychologists say everyone has an addiction, even successful, educated people, and they learn to compartmentalize, which means be functional addicts, like the teacher who has $80,000 debt from online shopping.
Three. Is Adam Alter guilty of making an over simplistic, paranoid anti-technology rant?
No, the concedes that technology has many virtues and advantages, and he has used tech to stay in touch with his family from Australia.
His book is not an anti-technology screed. He writes that technology is neither good nor bad until it’s designed for mass consumption.
Four. How our substance addictions and behavioral addictions similar?
Both stimulate the same area of the brain. But there’s a big difference. If you’re a speed or alcohol addict, you can do a lot to change your environment to avoid speed and alcohol.
But technology is different. It’s part of who we are, where we work, and how we connect with others. It is ubiquitous, meaning it is everywhere.
We can create boundaries and minimize digital addiction if we understand how behavioral addiction works.
Five. What 6 Ingredients does technology contain to create behavioral addictions?
One, it creates compelling goals just beyond our reach. We can never have enough likes or followers, for example.
Two, it gives us irresistible and unpredictable feedback.
Three, it creates a sense of incremental progress and improvement.
Four, it creates tasks that slowly become more difficult over time.
Five, it creates unresolved tensions that demand resolution.
Six, it provides a sense (delusion?) of strong social connection.
Six. What is the smartphone screen time average for people who use the app Moment because they are concerned about how much time they’re using their smartphones every day?
About 3 hours. We can infer that people who don’t use Moment are on a lot more. Not knowing how much we use something, and not wanting to know, contributes to behavioral addiction.
In the same way, food obsessives are asked to keep a food journal in which they write down everything they eat. This cuts down on eating.
Most smartphone users are addicts. They spend over a quarter of their life on the smartphone. And they don’t even know it.
Seven. What’s the difference between addiction and passion?
Addiction is a deep attachment to an experience that is harmful and difficult to do without.
Addictions arise when a person can’t resist a behavior (compulsion), which, despite addressing a deep psychological need in the short-term, produces significant harm in the long-term.
Addictions bring the promise of an immediate award or positive reinforcement.
Original use of the word addiction was in ancient Rome, and it meant a strong bond to something like slavery. So the first sense of the word addiction was to be enslaved to something.
Passion is different than addiction.
Passion is a strong drive for an activity that is important and valued as bringing meaning to one’s life. Because this passion is valued, it is worth the time and energy devoted to pursuing it.
Whereas we feel free to choose our passion, we are slaves to addiction, which is a form of compulsion.
Eight. How common are Internet-based behavioral addictions?
Internet Addiction Test (IAT)
The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) is the first Validated measure of Internet Addiction described in theIAT Manual to measure Internet use in terms of mild, moderate, to several levels of addiction.
For more information on using the IAT and building an Internet Addiction treatment program in your practice, visit RestoreRecovery.netfor our comprehensive workbook and training programs.
Based upon the following five-point Likert scale, select the response that best represents the frequency of the behavior described in the following 20-item questionnaire.
0 = Not Applicable 1 = Rarely 2 = Occasionally 3 = Frequently 4 = Often 5 = Always
___How often do you find that you stay online longer than you intended?
___How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time online?
___How often do you prefer the excitement of the Internet to intimacy with your partner?
___How often do you form new relationships with fellow online users?
___How often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend online?
___How often do your grades or school work suffer because of the amount of time you spend online?
___How often do you check your e-mail before something else that you need to do?
___How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the Internet?
___How often do you become defensive or secretive when anyone asks you what you do online?
___How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?
___How often do you find yourself anticipating when you will go online again?
___How often do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty, and joyless?
___How often do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are online?
___How often do you lose sleep due to late-night log-ins?
___How often do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when off-line, or fantasize about being online?
___How often do you find yourself saying “just a few more minutes” when online?
___How often do you try to cut down the amount of time you spend online and fail?
___How often do you try to hide how long you’ve been online?
___How often do you choose to spend more time online over going out with others?
___How often do you feel depressed, moody, or nervous when you are off-line, which goes away once you are back online?
After all the questions have been answered, add the numbers for each response to obtain a final score. The higher the score, the greater the level of addiction and creation of problems resultant from such Internet usage. The severity impairment index is as follows:
NONE 0 – 30 points
MILD 31- 49 points: You are an average online user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.
MODERATE 50 -79 points: You are experiencing occasional or frequent problems because of the Internet. You should consider their full impact on your life.
SEVERE 80 – 100 points: Your Internet usage is causing significant problems in your life. You should evaluate the impact of the Internet on your life and address the problems directly caused by your Internet usage.
Personal Score
I took the test and scored a 57, which is a low moderate addiction.
University Students
We see that 48% of university students suffer Internet addiction.
Worldwide, Internet addiction is about 40%.
Nine. What is the purpose of Alter’s long exposition on Freud’s research into cocaine?
Freud and others believed cocaine as safe. Coca-Cola sold cocaine to its consumers because cocaine was considered a safe and natural ingredient. We look back at this as foolishness because now we have a body of research that exposes the dangerous addictive forming nature of the drug.
In the same way, Alter wants us to see social media as early cocaine, something seen as safe or benign in the absence of massive research.
Alter’s book is one of the first comprehensive books about the internet and social media addiction.
But we see evidence that tech gadgets are like cocaine. Psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair observes that many children see their parents as “Missing in Action” as these parents are lost zombies, their noses deep in the screens of their iPads even while they sit with their children at the dinner table.
Parents claim they love their children, but they are mentally absent and are back-seating their children in favor of their gadget addiction.
“Wait, honey, I have to check my phone.”
“Not yet, honey, I have to check this text.”
These common words evidence twisted priorities of a nation of addicts.
And what’s worse is this behavior seems normal because everyone does it.
Ten. What game-changing study radically altered our view of addiction?
In 1954, Olds and Milner discovered that stimulating the pleasure centers of rats’ brains made them addicts.
Before this experiment, it was believed that certain people had a predisposition to addiction.
But juxtaposing the Olds and Milner Study with Vietnam Vets (20% developed heroin addiction), we saw that addiction was based on environment and circumstance.
You could have a healthy “non-addict” disposition, but still be a victim of addiction if your brain’s pleasure centers were stimulated effectively.
Welcome to the Internet.
Lesson Two. Based on Chapter 2 and 3
One. What makes it difficult to free ourselves from smartphone and general internet addiction?
The habits we have are “culturally ingrained,” and they are backed by “power psychological forces” that makes us feel that we are losing control.
Newport argues that no small tweaks will cure us of our dysfunction; rather, we need a “philosophy of technology use” (36).
Since the Dawn of Man, people have sought love and happiness . . .
In today’s society, we see more and more people cocooning in their homes . . .
Man has always wondered why happiness and contentment are so elusive like trying to grasp a bar of sudsy, wet soap.
We have now arrived at a Societal Epoch where we no longer truly communicate with one another as we have embarked upon the full-time task of self-aggrandizement through the social media of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al.
In this modern world we face a new existential crisis with the advent of newfangled technologies rendering us razzle-dazzled with the overwhelming possibilities of digital splendor on one hand and painfully dislocated and lonely with our noses constantly rubbing our digital screens on the other.
Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the luxuriant Garden of Eden searching for the juicy, succulent Adriatic fig only to find it withered under the attack of mites, ants, and fruit flies, mankind has embarked upon the quest for the perfect pesticide.
Three. Never apologize to the reader:
Sorry for these half-baked chicken scratch thoughts. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I didn’t have sufficient time to do the necessary research for the topic you assigned me.
I’m hardly an expert on this subject and I don’t know why anyone would take me seriously, but here it goes.
Forgive me but after over-indulging last night at HomeTown Buffet my brain has been rendered in a mindless fog and the ramblings of this essay prove to be rather incoherent.
Four. Don’t throw a thesis cream pie in your reader’s face.
In this essay I am going to prove to you why Americans will never buy those stupid automatic cars that don’t need a driver. The four supports that will support my thesis are ______________, ______________, _______________, and ________________.
It is my purpose in this essay to show you why I'm correct on the subject of the death penalty. My proofs will be _________, _______, _________, and ___________.
Five. Don’t use a dictionary definition (standard procedure for a sixth grade essay but not college in which you should use more sophisticated methods such as extended definition or expert definitions):
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines metacognition as “awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process.”
General Principles of an Effective Introduction Paragraph
It piques your readers’ interest (often called a “hook”).
It is compelling.
It is timely.
It is relevant to the human condition and to your topic.
It transitions to your topic and/or thesis.
The Ten Types of Paragraph Introductions
One. Use a blunt statement of fact or insight that captures your readers’ attention:
It's good for us to have our feelings hurt.
You've never really lived until someone has handed you your __________ on a stick.
Men who are jealous are cheaters.
We would assume that jealous men are obsessed with fidelity, but in fact the most salient feature of the jealous man is that he is more often than not cheating on his partner. His jealousy results from projecting his own infidelities on his partner. He says to himself, “I am a cheater and therefore so is she.” We see this sick mentality in the character Dan from Ha Jin’s “The Beauty.” Trapped in his jealousy, Dan embodies the pathological characteristics of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, _______________, ________________, and _______________.
Washington, D.C. may soon be littered with the political bodies of people who believed they could spin their way out of the impact of the new Bob Woodward book, Fear. I’ve been to the Washington rodeo enough times to know that Woodward’s methodical, grinding style of investigation doesn’t lend itself to escaping unscathed, especially for bad actors and loose cannons. Hell, as a young Department of Defense aide in 1990, I saw it up close when his book, The Commanders, led to the firing of USAF Chief of Staff Mike Dugan. He had tapes then, as he does now.
This week, it’s Donald Trump’s turn under Woodward’s political electron microscope, and the President’s hissy-fit reaction tells us how close Woodward’s work has struck. Trump knows his White House staff, up to and including his daughter, thinks he’s off the rails, a danger to himself and the country, and unable to execute the duties of a Waffle House manager much less the President of the United States.
John Taylor Gatto opens his essay “Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why” as thus:
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in the world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: Their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teacher’s lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn’t get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
Gatto goes on to argue in his thesis that school trains children to be servants for mediocre (at best) jobs when school should be teaching innovation, individuality, and leadership roles.
Two. Write a definition based on the principles of extended definition (term, class, distinguishing characteristics) or quote an expert in a field of study:
Metacognition is an essential asset to mature people characterized by their ability to value long-term gratification over short-term gratification, their ability to distance themselves from their passions when they’re in a heated emotional state, their ability to stand back and see the forest instead of the trees, and their ability to continuously make assessments of the effectiveness of their major life choices. In the fiction of John Cheever and James Lasdun, we encounter characters that are woefully lacking in metacognition evidenced by _____________, ______________, _____________, and _______________.
According to Alexander Batthanany, member of the Viktor Frankl Institute, logotherapy, which is the search for meaning, “is identified as the primary motivational force in human beings.” Batthanany further explains that logotherapy is “based on three philosophical and psychological concepts: Freedom of Will, Will to Meaning, and Meaning in Life.” Embracing the concepts of logotherapy is vastly more effective than conventional, Freud-based psychotherapy when we consider ________________, ______________, __________________, and ________________.
Three. Use an insightful quotation that has not, to your knowledge anyway, been overused:
George Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what we want. The second is getting it.” Shaw’s insight speaks to the tantalizing chimera, that elusive quest we take for the Mythic She-Beast who becomes are life-altering obsession. As the characters in John Cheever and James Lasdun’s fiction show, the human relationship with the chimera is source of paradox. On one hand, having a chimera will kill us. On the other, not having a chimera will kill us. Cheever and Lasdun’s characters twist and torment under the paradoxical forces of their chimeras evidenced by _____________, _______________, ______________, and __________________.
Four. Use a startling fact to get your reader’s attention:
There are currently more African-American men in prison than there were slaves at the peak of slavery in the United States. We read this disturbing fact in Michelle Alexander’s magisterial The New Jim Crow, which convincingly argues that America’s prison complex is perpetuating the racism of slavery and Jim Crow in several insidious ways.
We read that in the latest study by the Institute for Higher Education, Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento that only 30% of California community college students are transferring or getting their degrees. We have a real challenge in the community college if 70% are falling by the wayside.
8,000 students walk through El Camino's Humanities Building every week. Only 10% will pass English 1A. Only 3% will pass English 1C.
99% of my students acknowledge that most students at El Camino are seriously compromised by their smartphone addiction to the point that the addiction is making them fail or do non-competitive work in college.
Five. Use an anecdote (personal or otherwise) to get your reader’s attention:
Stanley was a big proponent of "follow your dreams." After he graduated from high school in 1977 and took some acting classes at a local community college, he dropped out to move to Los Angeles where he spent the 1980s working as a waiter and trying to make a break into Hollywood. He spent his money on coaches, mentors, acting gurus, body language masters, voice instructors, New Age positive thinking experts, all in an attempt to step up his game. He landed a few small parts here and there, just enough work to make him feel he was on the verge of making it. His optimism grew in the 1990s when he met some film directors who gave him some small roles and hinted at getting him larger roles when the opportunity came. Feeding on these dreams while living in a squalid apartment in the 1990s, Stanley continued to live a life of abject obscurity and futility with the hope that he just had to follow his dream and be persistent and that these two qualities would guarantee his success. He remained inside this delusional bubble for nearly two more decades while he lived in a roach-infested apartment in downtown L.A. where he supplemented his income by delivering plasma and working as a masseuse, a job he had to give up when his hands become afflicted with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. At the age of 60, around 2018, Stanley got strep throat and couldn't afford antibiotics since none of his part-time gigs offered health insurance. Curled into the fetal position on his apartment's bare mattress with roaches crawling over him, he wept as he felt betrayed by the fact that he had done what the American Dream told him to do: He sacrificed everything to follow his passion and remained tenacious over four decades to bring his dreams to fruition, but he knew in that moment that he was a pathetic, miserable failure, and that his dreams had soured and curdled into rotten milk.
This curdling of our dreams and the false promise of following those dreams is explored in Cal Newport's important book So Good They Can't Ignore You and his accompanying YouTube video "'Follow Your Passion' Is Bad Advice" in which Newport makes a persuasive case for replacing the Passion Hypothesis with the craftsman mindset. His claim rests on four compelling observations. Passion without spending time mastering a craft is worthless. Passion is not some low-hanging fruit that we pick from a tree, but an asset we develop over 10,000 hours of sustained hard work and tedium. Only 2% of the human race work at a "dream job." Most of us must find happiness because we are a "dream employer" who is valued based on the mastery of our craft. And finally, courage to pursue your dream without an honest of assessment of your capital is dangerous and self-destructive.
Second Example:
When my daughter was one years old and I was changing her diaper, she without warning jammed her thumb into my eye, forcing my eyeball into my brain and almost killing me. After the assault, I suffered migraine headaches for several months and frequently would have to wash milky pus from the injured eye.
One afternoon I was napping under the covers when Lara walked into the room talking on the phone to her friend, Hannah. She didn’t know I was in the room, confusing the mound on the bed with a clump of pillows and blankets. I heard her whisper to Hannah, “I found another small package from eBay. He’s buying watches and not telling me.”
That’s when I thought about getting a post office box.
This could be the opening introduction for an essay topic about “economic infidelity.”
As we read in Stephen King’s essay “Write or Die”:
“Hardly a week after being sprung from detention hall, I was once more invited to step down to the principal’s office. I went with a sinking heart, wondering what new sh** I’d stepped in.”
Six. Use a piece of vivid description or a vivid illustration to get your reader’s attention:
My gym looks like an enchanting fitness dome, an extravaganza of taut, sweaty bodies adorned in fluorescent spandex tights contorting on space-age cardio machines, oil-slicked skin shrouded in a synthetic fog of dry ice colored by the dizzying splash of lavender disco lights. Tribal drum music plays loudly. Bottled water flows freely, as if from some Elysian spring, over burnished flesh. The communal purgation appeals to me. My fellow cardio junkies and I are so self-abandoned, free, and euphoric, liberated in our gym paradise. But right next to our workout heaven is a gastronomical inferno, one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, part of a chain, which is, to my lament, sprouting all over Los Angeles. I despise the buffet, a trough for people of less discriminating tastes who saunter in and out of the restaurant at all hours, entering the doors of the eatery without shame and blind to all the gastrointestinal and health-related horrors that await them. Many of the patrons cannot walk out of their cars to the buffet but have to limp or rely on canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and other ambulatory aids, for it seems a high percentage of the customers are afflicted with obesity, diabetes, arthritis, gout, hypothalamic lesions, elephantiasis, varicose veins and fleshy tumors. Struggling and wheezing as they navigate across the vast parking lot that leads to their gluttonous sanctuary, they seem to worship the very source of their disease.
In front of the buffet is a sign of rules and conduct. One of the rules urges people to stand in the buffet line in an orderly fashion and to be patient because there is plenty of food for everyone. Another rule is that children are not to be left unattended and running freely around the buffet area. My favorite rule is that no hands, tongues, or other body parts are allowed to touch the food. Tongs and other utensils are to be used at all times. The rules give you an idea of the kind of people who eat there. These are people I want to avoid.
But as I walk to the gym from my car, which shares a parking lot with the buffet patrons, I cannot avoid the nauseating smell of stale grease oozing from the buffet’s rear dumpster, army green and stained with splotches and a seaweed-like crust of yellow and brown grime.
Often I see cooks and dishwashers, their bodies covered with soot, coming out of the back kitchen door to throw refuse into the dumpster, a smoldering receptacle with hot fumes of bacteria and flies. Hunchbacked and knobby, the poor employees are old, weary men with sallow, rheumy eyes and cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I imagine them being tortured deep within the bowels of the fiery kitchen on some Medieval rack. They emerge into the blinding sunshine like moles, their eyes squinting, with their plastic garbage bags twice the size of their bodies slung over their shoulders, and then I look into their sad eyes—eyes that seem to beg for my help and mercy. And just when I am about to give them words of hope and consolation or urge them to flee for their lives, it seems they disappear back into the restaurant as if beckoned by some invisible tyrant.
The above could transition to the topic of people of a certain weight being required to buy three airline tickets for an entire row of seats.
Seven. Summarize both sides of a debate.
America is torn by the national healthcare debate. One camp says it’s a crime that 25,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year from treatable disease and that modeling a health system from other developed countries is a moral imperative. However, there is another camp that fears that adopting some version of universal healthcare is tantamount to stepping into the direction of socialism.
Eight. State a misconception, fallacy, or error that your essay will refute.
Healthcare
Americans against universal or national healthcare are quick to say that such a system is “socialist,” “communist,” and “un-American,” but a close look at their rhetoric shows that it is high on knee-jerk, mindless paroxysms and short on reality. Contrary to the enemies of national healthcare, providing universal coverage is very American and compatible with the American brand of capitalism.
Civil War in America
In the South, it is still common to hear white people speak of the Civil War by denying its connection to the evils of slavery and treason. Rather, it is commonly spouted by white people in the south that the Civil War was the result of "Northern aggression" and "state rights," but these explanations are odious poppycock and are part of America's shameful history of fake news, which afflicts our country like an ugly, festering cancer sore to this very day.
Nine. Make a general statement about your topic.
From Sherry Turkle’s essay “How Computers Change the Way We Think”:
The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world. Although writing remains our primary information technology, today when we think about the impact of technology on our habits of mind, we think primarily of the computer.
Ten. Pose a question your essay will try to answer:
Why are diet books more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more fat?
Why is psychotherapy becoming more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more crazy?
Why are the people of Qatar the richest people in the world, yet score at the bottom of all Happiness Index metrics?
Why are courses in the Humanities more essential to your well-being that you might think?
What is the difference between thinking and critical thinking?
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings and all-night tantrums.
Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do, they have giant mood swings, and they have all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content.
You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony, they feature fatty, over-salted foods, and the lard everything with sugar.
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absent gym music, and the improved concentration.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis.
To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and write an intellectually rigorous thesis.
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the rules are hard to follow, and the MLA in-text citations are difficult to master.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems and their brain-dumbing effects.
You should avoid watching "reality shows" because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism, they distract you from your own problems, and they dumb you down.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
I'm still fat even though I've tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and the fasting diet.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and a thesis that elevates the reader's consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and maintaining a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
My children never react to my calm commands or my lugubrious supplications.
Too much homework is assigned at schools in an attempt to catch up with other countries. Causing students to lose sleep, hate school, and lose valuable free time.
A lot of the homework doesn't strengthen critical thinking or logic skills. Meaning that too much homework is meaningless and insulting.
Comma Splices with Fragments
We are too enthralled by our high school teachers' and counselors' advice to "follow your passion," as a result, we often pursue fruitless college majors that are about as valuable as a roll of Scott toilet paper. Resulting in a sense of betrayal from our following this egregious cliche.
Teachers would be well advised to cut down on meaningless homework assignments, however, we need to maintain academic rigor by encouraging critical thinking types of homework.
September 16Essay 1 Due on turnitin. Go over Andrew Sullivan’s “I Used to be a Human Being,”, Sherry Turkle, and Tristan Harris. Watch “Nosedive.” Homework #3 for September 18: Read Lanier pages 1-39 and in 200-word paragraph explain how social media destroys free will.
September 18 Go over Lanier 1-39. Homework #4 for September 23: Read pages 39-76 and in a 200-word paragraph explain how social media makes us terrible versions of ourselves.
September 23 Go over Lanier 39-76. Homework #5 for September 25: Read Lanier 76-145 and in 200-word paragraph, explain the pathological effects of BUMMER.
September 25 Go over Lanier 76-145. Your homework #6 for September 30 is to turn in a preliminary thesis statement.
September 30 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write an introduction, thesis, and two supporting paragraphs.
October 2 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write supporting paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, conclusion, Works Cited page.
October 7 Essay 2 due on turnitin.
Writing Strategy:
Introduction Paragraph 1:
Summarize Lacey's "nosedive" in the "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror.
Or summarize Andrew Sullivan's "nosedive" in his essay "I Used to be Human Being."
Or summarize the "nosedive" of someone you know who got addicted to social media.
Or summarize social media addiction as described in any Tristan Harris or Sherry Turkle video of your choosing.
Or summarize Jaron Lanier's central argument in his book.
Thesis Paragraph 2:
Agree or disagree with the claim that we should delete our social media accounts based on the following evidence:
One. Social media is an addiction trap by design that hijacks our brains.
Two. Social media brings forth our worst version of ourselves.
Three. Social media encourages tribalism and alternative realities.
Four. Social media spreads weaponized misinformation.
Five. In its "race to the bottom" to get clickbait, social media erodes liberal democracies around the world.
Six. Social media encourages us to give up our private data until we have submitted all our privacy, and this surrender will result to a loss of individual rights and freedoms.
Paragraphs 3-6
Choose 4 of the above points to address in your body paragraphs.
Counterargument-Rebuttal Paragraph 7
Find a defense of social media and write a rebuttal of it.
Here are some common counterarguments:
"No one is holding a gun to your head and saying you need to be on social media."
"Social media has connected me to family and friends in ways that otherwise would be impossible."
"You show me extreme cases, but for every pathological social media addict I can show you dozens of well-adjusted mentally healthy people who use social media."
Conclusion Paragraph 8
Write an emotionally powerful restatement of your thesis.
Overview of the Essay Topic
How does social media in the smartphone age hijack our freedom and autonomy and work against our best interests?
The following should be considered for your body paragraphs (mapping components of a thesis):
One. Social media is now a portable crack machine that puts us inside a dopamine feedback loop resulting in a gradual behavior modification and addiction that can entrap even the smartest, most disciplined individuals because the addictive nature of social media is not a bug; it's a feature. Social media exists so that we give up our autonomy.
Two. When we are addicted to anything, including social media's intermittent rewards, we become a nastier, meaner, dumber version of ourselves.
Three. Because we are tribalists, we are vulnerable to social anxiety and social status as it pertains to our social media interactions. Long-term social media immersion results in anxiety and eventually into acute depression.
Four. Not only do we become addicted; our addiction makes us willing participants in our own submission to data mining so that we are the product of the social media companies who sell our most private date to other business entities without our knowledge and consent.
Five. Social media by its very nature tends toward fakery, manipulation, propaganda, and "fake news" because in grabbing attention from the reptilian part of our brains, social media is in a "race to the bottom" to get outrage. This sense of outrage is essential for maximizing clickbait and revenue for the social media companies.
Six. As we adapt to the "race to the bottom," we become more polarized as a society and this polarization degrades democracy while strengthening fascism and totalitarianism.
Facebook and Google. The more a company uses BUMMER the more it attracts trolls like Russian operatives trying to destroy democracies around the world.
People often get weird and nasty online. This bizarre phenomenon surprised everyone in the earliest days of networking, and it has had a profound effect on our world. Nastiness also turned out to be like crude oil for the social media companies and other behaviour manipulation empires that quickly came to dominate the internet, because it fuelled negative behavioural feedback.
Why does the nastiness happen? In brief: ordinary people are brought together in a setting in which the main – or often the only – reward that’s available is attention.
With nothing else to seek but attention, people tend to become assholes, because the biggest ones get the most attention. This inherent bias toward assholedom flavours the action of all the other parts of the Bummer machine.
Spying is accomplished mostly through connected personal devices – especially, for now, smartphones – that people keep practically glued to their bodies. Data is gathered about each person’s communications, interests, movements, contact with others, emotional reactions to circumstances, facial expressions, purchases, vital signs: an ever-growing, boundless variety of data.
Algorithms correlate data from each person and between people. The correlations are effectively theories about the nature of each person, and those theories are constantly measured and rated for how predictive they are. Like all well-managed theories, they improve through adaptive feedback.
C is for Cramming content down your throat
Algorithms choose what each person experiences through their devices. This component might be called a feed, a recommendation engine, or personalisation. It means each person sees different things. The immediate motivation is to deliver stimuli for individualised behaviour modification.
Not all personalisation is part of Bummer. When Netflix recommends a movie or eBay recommends something to buy, it isn’t Bummer. It only becomes Bummer in connection with other components. Neither Netflix nor eBay is being paid by third parties to influence your behaviour apart from the immediate business you do with each site.
D is for Directing behaviours in the sneakiest way possible
The above elements are connected to create a measurement and feedback machine that deliberately modifies behaviour. The process runs thus: customised feeds become optimised to “engage” each user, often with emotionally potent cues, leading to addiction. People don’t realise how they are being manipulated. The default purpose of manipulation is to get people more and more glued in, and to get them to spend more and more time in the system. But other purposes for manipulation are also tested.
For instance, if you’re reading on a device, your reading behaviours will be correlated with those of multitudes of other people. If someone who has a reading pattern similar to yours bought something after it was pitched in a particular way, then the odds become higher that you will get the same pitch. You might be targeted before an election with weird posts that have been proven to bring out the inner cynic in people who are similar to you, in order to reduce the chances that you’ll vote.
Bummer platforms have proudly reported on experimenting with making people sad, changing voter turnout, and reinforcing brand loyalty. Indeed, these are some of the best-known examples of research that were revealed in the formative days of Bummer. The digital network approach to behaviour modification flattens all these examples, all these different slices of life, into one slice. From the point of view of the algorithm, emotions, happiness, and brand loyalty are just different, but similar, signals to optimise.
E is for Earning money from letting the worst people secretly screw with everyone else
The mass behaviour modification machine is rented out to make money. The manipulations are not perfect, but they are powerful enough that it becomes suicidal for brands, politicians, and other competitive entities to forgo payments to Bummer enterprises. Universal cognitive blackmail ensues, resulting in a rising global spend on Bummer.
If someone isn’t paying a platform in cash, then they must turn themselves into data-fuel for that platform in order to not be overwhelmed by it. When Facebook emphasised “news” in its feed, the entire world of journalism had to reformulate itself to Bummer standards. To avoid being left out, journalists had to create stories that emphasised clickbait and were detachable from context. They were forced to become Bummer in order to not be annihilated by it.
F is for Fake mobs and faker society
This component is almost always present, even though it typically wasn’t part of the initial design of a Bummer machine. Fake people are present in unknown but vast numbers and establish the ambience. Bots, AIs, agents, fake reviewers, fake friends, fake followers, fake posters, automated catfishers: a menagerie of wraiths.
Invisible social vandalism ensues. Social pressure, which is so influential in human psychology and behaviour, is synthesised.
The more specifically we can draw a line around a problem, the more solvable that problem becomes. Our problem is not the internet, smartphones, smart speakers, or the art of algorithms; the problem is the Bummer machine. And the core of the machine is not a technology, exactly, but a style of business plan that spews out perverse incentives and corrupts people.
It’s not even a widely used business plan. Outside of China, the only tech giants that fully depend on this system are Facebook and Google. The other three of the big five tech companies indulge occasionally, because it is normalised these days, but they don’t depend on it. A few smaller Bummer companies are also influential, like Twitter, though they often struggle.
Which companies are Bummer? A good way to tell is that first-rank Bummer companies are the ones that attract efforts or spending from bad actors, such as Russian state intelligence warfare units. This test reveals that there are pseudo-services that contain only subsets of the components, like Reddit and 4chan, but still play significant roles in the Bummer ecosystem.
The problem with Bummer is not that it includes any particular technology, but that it’s someone else’s power trip. You might choose to be treated by a cognitive behavioural therapist, and benefit from it. Hopefully that therapist will have sworn an oath to uphold professional standards and will earn your trust. If, however, your therapist is beholden to a giant, remote corporation and is being paid to get you to make certain decisions that aren’t necessarily in your own interests, then that would be a Bummer.
The problem isn’t any particular technology, but the use of technology to manipulate people, to concentrate power in a way that is so nuts and creepy that it becomes a threat to the survival of civilisation.
If you want to help make the world sane, you don’t need to give up your smartphone, using computer cloud services, or visiting websites. Bummer is the stuff to avoid. Delete your accounts!
Loss of Free Will: How Technology Owns Us
Cats integrate with society but essentially remain independent and free. Humans on the other hand will find that their brains get hijacked in the manner Tristan Harris explains.
What’s scary about getting our brains hijacked is that we don’t know they’re getting hijacked. The process is so gradual it feels natural. We become enslaved to the devil because we deny his existence. He ruins us by helping us in our denial. Such is the devil that lurks behind social media. We don’t know our lives we’re ruined with addiction until we’re deep in the muck of it.
Addiction sneaks up on you and catches you unawares.
We’re more like dogs and Facebook or some other social media site has become our Master.
Portability of the Machine destroys our free will.
Lanier observes that the smartphone is a “cage we carry around with us everywhere we go.” Many of us bring our smartphones to bed. Many of my students are so tethered to their smartphones they have a pathological need to attend to it during class. They think this is normal, but this is not normal. This is addiction.
Addiction and Data Mining
We’re being tracked, receiving engineered feedback, and being mined for our data.
We are being molded into specimens for advertising manipulation.
We are being siloed into our political tribe’s bubble.
The Machine causes behavior modification.
We are living in a world beyond advertising.
We are now living in a bubble of “continuous behavior modification.” I refer you to Adam Alter’s book Irresistible.
Lanier writes that we are test subjects in an experiment, and we are not even aware of this.
We should be alarmed, but most of us are not. We are asleep at the wheel, so to speak.
Social media empires are “behavior modification empires,” so writes Lanier.
We become trapped in a short-term dopamine feedback loop.
We get hit with dopamine when we receive likes, followers, and positive feedback. This dopamine becomes a short-term substitute for real self-esteem, real self-confidence, and a real sense of an adult self, but of course this dopamine, like any drug, fails and our tattered self remains the tattered rag that it is.
Jason Lanier is arguing that by becoming addicted to these “short-term dopamine feedback loops” on social media we have lost our free will.
Social media addiction is connected to the growing divisiveness and polarization of society.
Lanier argues that the underlying force of both social media addiction and polarization is behavior modification that leads to helpless addiction. This helpless addiction makes us “crazy.” We’re crazy for more and more dopamine fueled by outrage and short-term self-esteem as we lose sight of real cognitive skills to be full realized adults.
“The addict gradually loses touch with the real world and real people. When many people are addicted to manipulative schemes, the world gets dark and crazy” (10).
The Tech Lords who make us addicted to social media know it’s bad for us.
These very same Tech Lords who design social media don’t allow their children to use social media or gadgets. They send their children to expensive Waldorf schools where technology isn’t allowed.
“Don’t get high on your own supply.”
These Tech Lords know they’re dealing with dangerous addiction because they hire consultants who work with gambling sites to maximize addiction (14).
Social pressure becomes an unhealthy force in the world of social media.
“People are keenly sensitive to social status, judgment, and competition. Unlike most animals, people are not only born absolutely helpless, but also remain so for years. We only survive by getting along with family members and others. Social concerns are not optional features of the human brain. They are primal.”
When we receive negative feedback on social media: being ignored, being scorned, being insulted, or being rejected, we experience hurt. We experience physical and emotional pain.
This hurt is a powerful force in controlling our behavior. We feel compelled to curate an existence to others that they would approve of. Social media pours gasoline on the fire of our desire for others’ validation and approval.
Social Anxiety
The resulting social anxiety from social media is probably enough reason to delete our social media accounts.
When we feel rejected, our social anxiety turns into depression, dejection, and despondency.
For those of us who are already vulnerable to this type of social anxiety and depression, social media is a nightmare scenario.
Rewards and punishments as the primary tools for controlling our behavior is called behaviorism.
Counterarguments that need to be addressed:
One. Social media is free so people of all economic classes can participate in it.
Two. Everyone can participate in the marketplace of ideas. You don't have to be a professional journalist to have a blog or a vlog. Therefore, social media helps spread democracy.
Three. Social media gives us access to information that we've never had before.
Four. Social media helps us connect to people all over the world in ways that were once impossible.
Homework:
Read Lanier pages 1-39 and in 3 paragraphs explain how social media destroys free will.
Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism
One. How do so many of us become exhausted and broken by our internet habits?
The internet becomes our boss by making constant demands on our attention. We work so hard to please all the internet forces beckoning us 24/7.
We don’t even know we’re a slave. It happens gradually.
We lose uninterrupted time to focus on creating our better selves. We lose focus.
Internet companies’ success is based on making us addicted. That is their job.
The internet fosters anger and outrage because attention gets traffic, so the internet makes us an angrier, more outraged, more obnoxious version of ourselves, according to techno-philosopher Jaron Lanier.
Over time, Newport observes we lose our autonomy. We become addicts and slaves to the Internet Attention Merchants.
Two. What is the challenge of digital minimalism?
We can’t go back in time. Technology is here to stay. We must learn to reap the benefits while minimizing its liabilities.
Another challenge is to see the futility of “taking a break” or taking a “digital Sabbath” or a “digital cleanse.” Like junk food, Internet use can’t be purged from time to time. Rather, we need to change our overall habits.
Newport writes: What you need is a “full-fledged philosophy of technology use, rooted in your deep values, that provides clear answers to the questions of what tools you should use and how you should use them and, equally important, enables you to confidently ignore everything else.”
Such a philosophy seeks to find the sweet spot between the Neo-Luddites, who reject all technology as evil, and the Quantified Self Enthusiasts, who want to embrace technology in every micro task of their existence.
Three. What is the value of focus?
Focus excludes chaos and distraction and makes us concentrate on what makes us achieve excellence and become happy. Internet and social media are about distraction. But we need focus.
Newport quotes Marcus Aurelius: “You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life?”
The more we can be digital minimalists, Newport argues, the more we can focus on what makes life satisfying and reverent.
To achieve focus, we must engage in “aggressive action” to combat the pitfalls of social media: mental and spiritual disintegration. Our “hyper-connected world” or “humming matrix of chatter and distraction” is leaving us hyper-disconnected.
Technology became a Frankenstein monster that overtook us and killed our focus. When Steve Jobs first conceived the iPhone, he saw it as an iPod that would keep a phone number directory to make phone calls and play music, not a “general purpose computer” that we carry in our pockets and take to bed with us.
What’s crazy is that the radical influence of Facebook and smartphones on our lives was “unplanned and unexpected.” We have not had time to process this sucker punch to the face.
Four. What are the unforeseen effects of smartphones and social media?
Newport concedes that you can find tech people who use their smartphones and social media to increase their productivity and self-promotion, but this is just a “thin slice” of what is happening.
On a much broader scale, the average social media user has been rapidly losing self-control.
“It’s not about usefulness, it’s about autonomy.”
This loss of autonomy was unplanned, but once the tech lords realized they could control the masses and make money from this, they capitalized on it.
The “nerd gods” are “selling addictive product to children,” to quote Bill Maher.
As Tristan Harris says on Anderson Cooper and his many videos, the smartphone is a slot machine.
Silicon Valley is not programming apps; they’re are programming people.
Five. Is it true that technology is neutral; what makes technology good or bad is how we use it?
The answer is no. Technology is not neutral. It is designed to be addicting, polarizing, and mentally disintegrating. Bill Maher: “Big Tobacco wants your lungs. The App Store wants your soul.”
Six. What specifically is the crack cocaine that gets us hooked on social media?
Here it is: “Intermittent positive reinforcement and the drive for social approval.”
By intermittent, we are saying the positive reinforcement is unpredictable and erratic in its dishing out rewards; this becomes more addicting than predictable rewards.
Regarding social approval: Since Paleolithic times, we have been hardwired to gain social approval from the tribe in order to increase our survival and status in the group. We are hardwired to want approval.
The converse is a true: A lack of feedback causes anxiety and distress. What is wrong with us? We then do jumping jacks on social media and get lost down social media rabbit holes trying to win approval, the very thing the Tech Lords want for their profits.
When you tag or like someone on social media, they feel obliged to reciprocate; this in effect creates a social-validation feedback loop.
The Tech Lords are “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology,” the very thing a hacker does, so says Sean Parker.
What’s the net sum of this? We have lost control of our digital lives.
Newport cites Adam Alter, author if a book I taught two years ago: Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology.
Compulsive social media use “is not the result of a character flaw, but instead the realization of a massively profitable business plan.”
Seven. What is Newport’s central argument throughout the book?
Newport is not arguing whether or not social media and Internet devices are useful or not. He is arguing about how we’ve lost our autonomy.
Eight. What is the book’s most powerful metaphor about gaining our self-control and overcoming addiction?
He cites Plato’s Chariot with Two Horses Metaphor.
We are the driver of the chariot. We have two horses pulling the chariot, our good horse and our crappy horse. When we surrender to digital world, we energize and strengthen the crappy horse, which takes control of our chariot, resulting in our loss of control and direction.
The takeaway is to see how every situation we’re in is an opportunity to strengthen our good or bad horse.
Newport’s “concrete plan” is to show how digital minimalism is a way of strengthening our good horse and weakening our bad one.
In a 1,200-word essay, develop an argumentative thesis that compares the dehumanization in Andrew Sullivan's essay "I Used to be a Human Being" to the dehumanization articulated in Jason Lanier's notion of BUMMER, which is explored in his book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Be sure to have 3 sources for your Works Cited. One of the sources will be Lanier's book.
Study Questions
One. Why does Andrew Sullivan give up his smartphone and enter Internet Addiction Rehab?
His life as a curator of web news had taken over his life, had hijacked his brain, and had attacked his immune system. It didn’t happen overnight. It happened gradually. More and more, he became immersed in Internet activity, and his body and mind could not keep up with it.
What’s crazy is that he was driven to tread water even though he was dying.
He was losing his life. He was dying.
A spark of metacognition (self-awareness) kicked him in the pants and told him to go to rehab before it was too late.
His blogging was killing him while making him rich and famous:
“If the internet killed you, I used to joke, then I would be the first to find out. Years later, the joke was running thin. In the last year of my blogging life, my health began to give out. Four bronchial infections in 12 months had become progressively harder to kick. Vacations, such as they were, had become mere opportunities for sleep. My dreams were filled with the snippets of code I used each day to update the site. My friendships had atrophied as my time away from the web dwindled. My doctor, dispensing one more course of antibiotics, finally laid it on the line: “Did you really survive HIV to die of the web?”
But the rewards were many: an audience of up to 100,000 people a day; a new-media business that was actually profitable; a constant stream of things to annoy, enlighten, or infuriate me; a niche in the nerve center of the exploding global conversation; and a way to measure success — in big and beautiful data — that was a constant dopamine bath for the writerly ego. If you had to reinvent yourself as a writer in the internet age, I reassured myself, then I was ahead of the curve. The problem was that I hadn’t been able to reinvent myself as a human being.”
Sullivan described a certain anxiety I’ve read about in other Internet addicts, and I’ve seen it in myself during my worst times:
I tried reading books, but that skill now began to elude me. After a couple of pages, my fingers twitched for a keyboard. I tried meditation, but my mind bucked and bridled as I tried to still it. I got a steady workout routine, and it gave me the only relief I could measure for an hour or so a day. But over time in this pervasive virtual world, the online clamor grew louder and louder. Although I spent hours each day, alone and silent, attached to a laptop, it felt as if I were in a constant cacophonous crowd of words and images, sounds and ideas, emotions and tirades — a wind tunnel of deafening, deadening noise. So much of it was irresistible, as I fully understood. So much of the technology was irreversible, as I also knew. But I’d begun to fear that this new way of living was actually becoming a way of not-living.
Two. How does Sullivan suggest that the new technology is different from technologies of the past?
The new technology is infinite in its data, and it can penetrate our brains, hijack our brains, and manipulate our behavior through algorithms.
As he writes:
“We absorb this “content” (as writing or video or photography is now called) no longer primarily by buying a magazine or paper, by bookmarking our favorite website, or by actively choosing to read or watch. We are instead guided to these info-nuggets by myriad little interruptions on social media, all cascading at us with individually tailored relevance and accuracy. Do not flatter yourself in thinking that you have much control over which temptations you click on. Silicon Valley’s technologists andtheir ever-perfecting algorithms have discovered the form of bait that will have you jumping like a witless minnow. No information technology ever had this depth of knowledge of its consumers — or greater capacity to tweak their synapses to keep them engaged.
And the engagement never ends. Not long ago, surfing the web, however addictive, was a stationary activity. At your desk at work, or at home on your laptop, you disappeared down a rabbit hole of links and resurfaced minutes (or hours) later to reencounter the world. But the smartphone then went and made the rabbit hole portable, inviting us to get lost in it anywhere, at any time, whatever else we might be doing. Information soon penetrated every waking moment of our lives.”
Three. What is so scary for an Internet Addict who enters rehab?
In a word, silence. In silence, our demons that we’ve been tamping down with distractions come out of the woodwork, and we have to face them.
Another fear is boredom, or the boredom of the abyss. We’re conditioned to be repelled by boredom, as if it were a bad thing when boredom can be very productive and helpful.
Only in silence does our deepest psychic and soulful pain emerge, and we are overtaken by it, a terrifying but necessary event. In Sullivan’s words:
“And then, unexpectedly, on the third day, as I was walking through the forest, I became overwhelmed. I’m still not sure what triggered it, but my best guess is that the shady, quiet woodlands, with brooks trickling their way down hillsides and birds flitting through the moist air, summoned memories of my childhood. I was a lonely boy who spent many hours outside in the copses and woodlands of my native Sussex, in England. I had explored this landscape with friends, but also alone — playing imaginary scenarios in my head, creating little nooks where I could hang and sometimes read, learning every little pathway through the woods and marking each flower or weed or fungus that I stumbled on. But I was also escaping a home where my mother had collapsed with bipolar disorder after the birth of my younger brother and had never really recovered. She was in and out of hospitals for much of my youth and adolescence, and her condition made it hard for her to hide her pain and suffering from her sensitive oldest son.
I absorbed a lot of her agony, I came to realize later, hearing her screams of frustration and misery in constant, terrifying fights with my father, and never knowing how to stop it or to help. I remember watching her dissolve in tears in the car picking me up from elementary school at the thought of returning to a home she clearly dreaded, or holding her as she poured her heart out to me, through sobs and whispers, about her dead-end life in a small town where she was utterly dependent on a spouse. She was taken away from me several times in my childhood, starting when I was 4, and even now I can recall the corridors and rooms of the institutions she was treated in when we went to visit.
I knew the scar tissue from this formative trauma was still in my soul. I had spent two decades in therapy, untangling and exploring it, learning how it had made intimacy with others so frightening, how it had made my own spasms of adolescent depression even more acute, how living with that kind of pain from the most powerful source of love in my life had made me the profoundly broken vessel I am. But I had never felt it so vividly since the very years it had first engulfed and defined me. It was as if, having slowly and progressively removed every distraction from my life, I was suddenly faced with what I had been distracting myself from. Resting for a moment against the trunk of a tree, I stopped, and suddenly found myself bent over, convulsed with the newly present pain, sobbing.”
Four. What are some of the dehumanizing effects of always being online?
We suffer the aforementioned nervous energy.
We find that being online has become, without us being aware of it, a full-time job that becomes more important than real relationships.
We don’t share space with loved ones because our attention becomes fragmented. Likewise, our personalities become just as fragmented.
In Sullivan’s words:
“But of course, as I had discovered in my blogging years, the family that is eating together while simultaneously on their phones is not actually together. They are, in Turkle’s formulation, “alone together.” You are where your attention is. If you’re watching a football game with your son while also texting a friend, you’re not fully with your child — and he knows it. Truly being with another person means being experientially with them, picking up countless tiny signals from the eyes and voice and body language and context, and reacting, often unconsciously, to every nuance. These are our deepest social skills, which have been honed through the aeons. They are what make us distinctively human.
By rapidly substituting virtual reality for reality, we are diminishing the scope of this interaction even as we multiply the number of people with whom we interact. We remove or drastically filter all the information we might get by being with another person. We reduce them to some outlines — a Facebook “friend,” an Instagram photo, a text message — in a controlled and sequestered world that exists largely free of the sudden eruptions or encumbrances of actual human interaction. We become each other’s “contacts,” efficient shadows of ourselves.”
Another type of dehumanization: losing satisfaction of doing focused work. As Sullivan writes:
“Yes, online and automated life is more efficient, it makes more economic sense, it ends monotony and “wasted” time in the achievement of practical goals. But it denies us the deep satisfaction and pride of workmanship that comes with accomplishing daily tasks well, a denial perhaps felt most acutely by those for whom such tasks are also a livelihood — and an identity.”
We also suffer the breakdown of community. As Sullivan observes:
So are the bonds we used to form in our everyday interactions — the nods and pleasantries of neighbors, the daily facial recognition in the mall or the street. Here too the allure of virtual interaction has helped decimate the space for actual community. When we enter a coffee shop in which everyone is engrossed in their private online worlds, we respond by creating one of our own. When someone next to you answers the phone and starts talking loudly as if you didn’t exist, you realize that, in her private zone, you don’t. And slowly, the whole concept of a public space — where we meet and engage and learn from our fellow citizens — evaporates. Turkle describes one of the many small consequences in an American city: “Kara, in her 50s, feels that life in her hometown of Portland, Maine, has emptied out: ‘Sometimes I walk down the street, and I’m the only person not plugged in … No one is where they are. They’re talking to someone miles away. I miss them.’ ”
Another form of dehumanization is dopamine addiction. Sullivan writes:
Has our enslavement to dopamine — to the instant hits of validation that come with a well-crafted tweet or Snapchat streak — made us happier? I suspect it has simply made us less unhappy, or rather less aware of our unhappiness, and that our phones are merely new and powerful antidepressants of a non-pharmaceutical variety.
In addition to dopamine addiction, your brain enters a zombie limbo state, where you don’t feel full emotions:
“He recalled a moment driving his car when a Bruce Springsteen song came on the radio. It triggered a sudden, unexpected surge of sadness. He instinctively went to pick up his phone and text as many friends as possible. Then he changed his mind, left his phone where it was, and pulled over to the side of the road to weep. He allowed himself for once to be alone with his feelings, to be overwhelmed by them, to experience them with no instant distraction, no digital assist. And then he was able to discover, in a manner now remote from most of us, the relief of crawling out of the hole of misery by himself. For if there is no dark night of the soul anymore that isn’t lit with the flicker of the screen, then there is no morning of hopefulness either. As he said of the distracted modern world we now live in: “You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel … kinda satisfied with your products. And then you die. So that’s why I don’t want to get a phone for my kids.”
Yet another form of dehumanization in Sullivan’s view is the elevation of consumerism into a religion, which has replaced legitimate faith. Sullivan writes:
In his survey of how the modern Westlost widespread religious practice, A Secular Age, the philosopher Charles Taylor used a term to describe the way we think of our societies. He called it a “social imaginary” — a set of interlocking beliefs and practices that can undermine or subtly marginalize other kinds of belief. We didn’t go from faith to secularism in one fell swoop, he argues. Certain ideas and practices made others not so much false as less vibrant or relevant. And so modernity slowly weakened spirituality, by design and accident, in favor of commerce; it downplayed silence and mere being in favor of noise and constant action. The reason we live in a culture increasingly without faith is not because science has somehow disproved the unprovable, but because the white noise of secularism has removed the very stillness in which it might endure or be reborn.
Five. Why are we hostile toward silence and embrace the noise and chatter of the internet?
For one, as social creatures we are hardwired to love gossip. Gossip is part of the moral glue that keeps societies together.
For two, noise is confused with the sound of being busy, which makes us feel like we’re adhering to a work ethic. But in fact we’re not. We’re merely scatterbrained.
As Sullivan explains:
“Silence in modernity became, over the centuries, an anachronism, even a symbol of the useless superstitions we had left behind. The smartphone revolution of the past decade can be seen in some ways simply as the final twist of this ratchet, in which those few remaining redoubts of quiet — the tiny cracks of inactivity in our lives — are being methodically filled with more stimulus and noise.
And yet our need for quiet has never fully gone away, because our practical achievements, however spectacular, never quite fulfill us. They are always giving way to new wants and needs, always requiring updating or repairing, always falling short. The mania of our online lives reveals this: We keep swiping and swiping because we are never fully satisfied. The late British philosopher Michael Oakeshott starkly called this truth “the deadliness of doing.” There seems no end to this paradox of practical life, and no way out, just an infinite succession of efforts, all doomed ultimately to fail.
Counterarguments for Your Essay:
Digital Literacy or Digital Minimalism
Is deletion of social media too extreme? Isn't digital literacy a better solution? See the following:
Whether or not you go off social media, you have to achieve a savvy digital literacy that allows you to perform "Deep Work." What is Deep Work?
Study Questions
One. What is Deep Work and why is it important?
Definition
Deep Work is distraction-free concentration on professional activities “that push your cognitive abilities to your limit.”
To give us a clear grasp of the focus required for deep work, Newport quotes Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges:
“Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention; let your soul be all intent on whatever it is that is established in your mind as a dominant, wholly absorbing idea.”
Deep Work’s 3 Important Results
Deep Work has 3 important results: It creates new value, improves your skill, and creates unique work that is hard to replicate.
Science Supports Claims About Deep Work
Only through deep work can we maximize our intellectual capacity and see how far we can go with what skills and talents we have.
Neurological and psychological studies support the claim that pushing yourself in non-distracted focus and enduring mental discomfort in pursuit of your goals is the only way to improve your skills.
What Should be Obvious and Commonplace No Longer Is in the Social Media Age
It should be obvious that you need prolonged focus attention to maximize the quality of your work, and it should be commonplace that people follow such a principle.
However, in the age of social media, emails, messaging, and texting, we live in an age of Attention Fragmentation.
Shallow Work
The activities done in a state of multi-tasking and attention fragmentation amount to what Newport calls shallow work.
Shallow work has become the norm, the commonplace. We think it’s natural because everyone else does it.
But shallow work results in mediocrity at best, and more often than not shallow work results in us becoming “bottom feeders” in the competitive economy.
If we want to be on the top of the food chain, we have to engage in Deep Work, which means committing ourselves to losing our distractions.
It’s difficult to commit to deep work because we live in a culture that encourages shallow work. We work in multi-tasking work environments in which were required to instantly respond to email, text messages, not to mention people who are playing games and uploading images on social media sites.
Most people are in a fragmented state and are performing shallow work. What they do is easily replicated.
Shallow work also makes us unfocused, unhappy, depressed, and hollowed-out versions of ourselves.
Recent studies even show that huge declines in teen drug and alcohol use might be explained by drugs and alcohol being substituted with smartphone and social media addiction.
Two. What is the difference between influential people and most people who are employed in the “knowledge work” industry?
Influential people have one thing in common: They make deep work a priority. In contrast, most knowledge workers or white-collar workers do shallow work.
Three. What is shallow work and why is it so dangerous?
Shallow work is non-demanding busy “logistical” work that anyone can do. Shallow work is done in a state of distraction and multi-tasking.
In other words, shallow work is meaningless work, and we can safely conclude that meaningless work, while easy, will bore and depress us.
The vicious cycle of shallow work is the more we’re bored and depressed by our shallow work the more we crave distractions like social media sharing, so that we become trapped in a cycle of shallow work and depression.
When we get jobs that require shallow work, we reduce ourselves to “human routers,” and as such we are very replaceable by new software and new machines. Does anyone want a job that reduces them to a “human router?”
What adds to this tragedy is that as teens we become acclimated to being addicted to our smartphones, social media sharing, and multi-tasking so that at a very young age we are conditioning ourselves for shallow work and depression.
Another tragedy is that shallow work can cripple us so that we may never be able to deep work. As Newport writes: “Spend your time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work.”
Four. What practical career matter does Cal Newport want to address in his book?
Newport is observing that as fewer and fewer people are engaging in deep work, deep work is becoming more and more prized so that to be able to perform deep work in this new environment makes one more sought after for the most desirable jobs.
In other words, committing yourself to deep work gives you a huge competitive advantage over shallow workers.
Newport presents this idea in his “Deep Work Hypothesis”:
The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.
Newport uses the example of Jason Benn who was a replaceable worker doing spreadsheets. He did shallow work and found himself addicted to distraction like checking his emails all the time. When he got replaced by a computer program, he forced himself to learn computer programming, a task that only deep workers can do.
He had to re-condition himself, unplug himself from his “drug”: smartphone distractions, and go into deep work. Only after becoming a deep worker did he surpass others in his field of computer science.
Your friends who think they’re cool, hip, and sexy being plugged in to their smartphones all day and night are conditioning themselves to be bottom-feeders, depressed members of the Shallow Work Society. Do you want to join their ranks or be a Deep Worker? It’s up to you.
Five. Why is deep work more important than ever?
Newport observes that we entering the Intellectual Machine Age, also called The Great Restructuring, in which robots and high-tech are replacing a significant amount of jobs. This job loss if very scary to the workforce.
However, there are 3 fields that will provide “lucrative” income to the American workforce and all 3 fields require deep work.
Being a superstar and a venture capitalist are 2 fields, but those fields are not realistic for most of us. However, Newport points to a third field that should interest us: Being able to work with Intelligent Machines.
The types of majors that allow us to work well with Intelligent Machines are computer science, math, and statistics.
All 3 of these majors require deep work. You’re not getting anywhere if you’re on your smartphone all day and night.
Six. What is deliberate practice and why is it important to deep work?
To do deep work, one must engage in deliberate practice, which requires two things:
One, is prolonged focus and this strains the mind. However, the longer you do prolonged focus the more you develop the myelin plasma shafts in your brain, which become thicker like bigger broadband. They are fatty tissue that allow brain circuits to fire in your brain. The stronger these brain circuits become the more they can fire effortlessly and effectively.
Later Newport explains that oligodenrocytes wrap layers of myelin around the neurons “cementing the skill.” Only intense focus achieves this.
Shallow work, in contrast, weakens the myelin brain circuits. Transforming yourself from a shallow to deep worker requires a re-hardwiring of your brain circuits.
Two, deliberate practice requires that you receive feedback so that you can correct and improve your approach.
Deliberate practice produces higher quality work. As Newport writes:
High-Quality Work Produced= (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)
(The above formulation applies to students’ essays as well)
Seven. What is the relationship between multitasking and “attention residue”?
When we switch back and forth between Task A and Task B (and maybe Task D and C?), we suffer from attention residue in which the previous task is soaking our brain with residue that we’re not focused on the task at hand.
The result is loss of focus intensity, and this leads to mediocrity. We’re drifting into becoming “human routers” and bottom-feeders.
Oversimplification
Is Lanier committing an oversimplification by being one-sided? See the following:
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings and all-night tantrums.
Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do, they have giant mood swings, and they have all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content.
You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony, they feature fatty, over-salted foods, and the lard everything with sugar.
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absent gym music, and the improved concentration.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis.
To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and write an intellectually rigorous thesis.
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the rules are hard to follow, and the MLA in-text citations are difficult to master.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems and their brain-dumbing effects.
You should avoid watching "reality shows" because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism, they distract you from your own problems, and they dumb you down.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
I'm still fat even though I've tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and the fasting diet.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and a thesis that elevates the reader's consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and maintaining a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
My children never react to my calm commands or my lugubrious supplications.
In an essay of 1,000 words, defend, refute, or complicate Cal Newport’s claim from his book excerpt from So Good They Can’t Ignore You that the Passion Hypothesis is dangerous and should be replaced by the craftsman mindset. Your second source will be “In the Name of Love” by Miya Tokumitsu. You won’t receive credit unless you have an MLA format Works Cited page at the end of your essay.
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses Ibram X. Kendi’s claim in “There Is No Middle Ground on Reparations” that we as a society are morally compelled to implement reparations as a response to slavery and Jim Crow.
August 28 Go over Newport chapters 1-3. Homework #2 for September 4: Read Karl Taro Greenfeld’s “My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me” and Andrea Townsend "A Teacher's Defense of Homework" and in 200-word paragraph, explain the dilemma parents face when struggling with their children’s homework.
September 2 Holiday
September 4 Go over the homework debate. We will also go over Ibram X. Kendi’s supports his claim in “There Is No Middle Ground on Reparations” that we as a society are morally compelled to implement reparations as a response to slavery and Jim Crow.
September 9 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Our goal is to write an introduction paragraph, thesis paragraph, and one or two supporting paragraphs.
September 11 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Our goal is to write two supporting paragraphs, a counterargument-rebuttal paragraph, a conclusion, and a Works Cited page.
September 16Essay 1 Due on turnitin.
Suggested Essay Structure:
Paragraph 1: Explain the homework dilemma facing America for your introduction.
Paragraph 2: Develop a thesis that agrees or disagrees with Greenfeld's contention that his daughter is assigned too much homework and this overload points to a broader problem about homework in American society.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-Rebuttal Paragraph in which you anticipate how your opponents will oppose your thesis and your rebuttal to their counterargument.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion: Dramatic reiteration of your thesis.
1,000 words
Sources and Signal Phrases
You must use at least 2 sources and 6 signal phrases for your essay.
Sample Introduction and Thesis
Karl Taro Greenfeld writes a sympathetic account of the struggles that he and his daughter must suffer to keep up with his daughter's homework. They feel there is a gun pointed at their heads 24/7, they are sleep deprived, they feel constantly behind in the homework, and the father's complaints to his daughter's teacher are met with the standard "I'm merely following the core standards and if you wish me to demote your daughter to the remedial class, I can make that happen." Not willing to compromise his daughter's educational standing, he backs down, but he wishes to make the case that the American education system is so caught up in teaching core standards that it is unleashing a torrent of homework on children to their detriment.
While I agree with a lot of Greenfeld's observations, I sadly and reluctantly must argue against him. Our teachers have no choice but to continue to push lots of homework on our children in the cause of teaching core standards, in the cause of getting us caught up in STEM, in the cause of acknowledging that career competition is far more ruthless than when Greenfeld was a child, and in the cause of holding teachers accountable for exercising high classroom standards.
Default Setting Essay Template for 1,000-word essay
8 Paragraphs, 130 words per paragraph, approx. 1,000 words (1,040 to be exact)
Paragraph 1: Attention-getting introduction
Paragraph 2: Transition from introduction to argumentative claim (thesis)
Paragraphs 3-5: Body paragraphs that give reasons for supporting your claim.
Paragraphs 6 & 7: Counterarguments in which you anticipate how your opponents will disagree with you, and you then provide rebuttals to those counterarguments.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, an emotionally powerful re-statement of your thesis.
Make sure to include a Works Cited page.
Your paper must be logically organized and focused.
Should We Give Homework to Children?
One. What are Karl Taro Greenfeld’s concerns about his daughter Esmee’s homework?
One, memory over logic: Esmee chants the mantra, “Memorization, not rationalization,” suggesting it is better to saturation the brain the mindless memory rather than learn logic and the process of higher thinking.
So there is a concern for the type of homework.
Two, unreasonable volume of homework: But secondly, there is a concern for the sheer volume of homework. Esmee is doing three to four hours of homework to pass standardized tests based on core learning requirements that the school is legally bound to perform. In addition to the rigors of 3-4 hours of homework, Esmee, who is 13, is only getting 6.5 hours sleep a night.
Thirdly, Esmee’s pressure to do well in her homework is causing her to fake sleep, get up, and do more homework behind her parents’ backs.
Fourth, when Esmee tries to do his daughter’s homework, he finds it a daunting task. One night is 79 pages of a memoir, a Life Science assignment, and Algebra.
Fifth, the textbooks, such as the one in Life Science, are written in overwrought, crappy academic style that makes them unreadable for anyone, let alone a 13-year-old child.
Sixth, without doing any research, American schools are trying to play catch-up with other countries that are crushing us, especially in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), but our solution may be worse than the problem.
Seven, When a parent such as Greenfeld, approaches a teacher with concern about his daughter’s lack of sleep and overall burnout, the teacher threatens to demote child to remedial class.
Eight, Greenfeld compares parent-teacher conferences to speed dating.
Nine, at times Greenfeld wonders if they have brainwashed his daughter into accepting overwork as natural work since she feels assured she is battle-tested for high school. In a broader problem, we seem to be a culture acclimated to a term coined by Derek Thompson, “Workism,” as he expounds in an essay.
Thompson writes:
What is workism? It is the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.
Homo industrious is not new to the American landscape. The American dream—that hoary mythology that hard work always guarantees upward mobility—has for more than a century made the U.S. obsessed with material success and the exhaustive striving required to earn it.
No large country in the world as productive as the United States averages more hours of work a year. And the gap between the U.S. and other countries is growing. Between 1950 and 2012, annual hours worked per employee fell by about 40 percent in Germany and the Netherlands—but by only 10 percent in the United States. Americans “work longer hours, have shorter vacations, get less in unemployment, disability, and retirement benefits, and retire later, than people in comparably rich societies,” wrote Samuel P. Huntington in his 2005 book Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity.
There is nothing wrong with work, when work must be done. And there is no question that an elite obsession with meaningful work will produce a handful of winners who hit the workist lottery: busy, rich, and deeply fulfilled. But a culture that funnels its dreams of self-actualization into salaried jobs is setting itself up for collective anxiety, mass disappointment, and inevitable burnout.
In the past century, the American conception of work has shifted from jobs to careers to callings—from necessity to status to meaning. In an agrarian or early-manufacturing economy, where tens of millions of people perform similar routinized tasks, there are no delusions about the higher purpose of, say, planting corn or screwing bolts: It’s just a job.
“We’ve created this idea that the meaning of life should be found in work,” says Oren Cass, the author of the book The Once and Future Worker. “We tell young people that their work should be their passion. ‘Don’t give up until you find a job that you love!’ we say. ‘You should be changing the world!’ we tell them. That is the message in commencement addresses, in pop culture, and frankly, in media, including The Atlantic.”
But our desks were never meant to be our altars. The modern labor force evolved to serve the needs of consumers and capitalists, not to satisfy tens of millions of people seeking transcendence at the office. It’s hard to self-actualize on the job if you’re a cashier—one of the most common occupations in the U.S.—and even the best white-collar roles have long periods of stasis, boredom, or busywork. This mismatch between expectations and reality is a recipe for severe disappointment, if not outright misery, and it might explain why rates of depression and anxiety in the U.S. are “substantially higher” than they were in the 1980s, according to a 2014 study.
One of the benefits of being an observant Christian, Muslim, or Zoroastrian is that these God-fearing worshippers put their faith in an intangible and unfalsifiable force of goodness. But work is tangible, and success is often falsified. To make either the centerpiece of one’s life is to place one’s esteem in the mercurial hands of the market. To be a workist is to worship a god with firing power.
As Anne Helen Petersen wrote in a viral essay on “Millennial burnout” for BuzzFeed News—building on ideas Malcolm Harris addressed in his book, Kids These Days—Millennials were honed in these decades into machines of self-optimization. They passed through a childhood of extracurricular overachievement and checked every box of the success sequence, only to have the economy blow up their dreams.
While it’s inadvisable to paint 85 million people with the same brush, it’s fair to say that American Millennials have been collectively defined by two external traumas. The first is student debt. Millennials are the most educated generation ever, a distinction that should have made them rich and secure. But rising educational attainment has come at a steep price. Since 2007, outstanding student debt has grown by almost $1 trillion, roughly tripling in just 12 years. And since the economy cratered in 2008, average wages for young graduates have stagnated—making it even harder to pay off loans.
The second external trauma of the Millennial generation has been the disturbance of social media, which has amplified the pressure to craft an image of success—for oneself, for one’s friends and colleagues, and even for one’s parents. But literally visualizing career success can be difficult in a services and information economy. Blue-collar jobs produce tangible products, like coal, steel rods, and houses. The output of white-collar work—algorithms, consulting projects, programmatic advertising campaigns—is more shapeless and often quite invisible. It’s not glib to say that the whiter the collar, the more invisible the product.
Since the physical world leaves few traces of achievement, today’s workers turn to social media to make manifest their accomplishments. Many of them spend hours crafting a separate reality of stress-free smiles, postcard vistas, and Edison-lightbulbed working spaces. “The social media feed [is] evidence of the fruits of hard, rewarding labor and the labor itself,” Petersen writes.
Among Millennial workers, it seems, overwork and “burnout” are outwardly celebrated (even if, one suspects, they’re inwardly mourned). In a recent New York Times essay, “Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?,” the reporter Erin Griffith pays a visit to the co-working space WeWork, where the pillows urge do what you love, and the neon signs implore workers to hustle harder. These dicta resonate with young workers. Asseveral studiesshow, Millennials are meaning junkies at work. “Like all employees,” one Gallup survey concluded, “millennials care about their income. But for this generation, a job is about more than a paycheck, it’s about a purpose.”
The problem with this gospel—Your dream job is out there, so never stop hustling—is that it’s a blueprint for spiritual and physical exhaustion. Long hours don’t make anybody more productive or creative; they make people stressed, tired and bitter. But the overwork myths survive “because they justify the extreme wealth created for a small group of elite techies,” Griffith writes.
There is something slyly dystopian about an economic system that has convinced the most indebted generation in American history to put purpose over paycheck. Indeed, if you were designing a Black Mirror labor force that encouraged overwork without higher wages, what might you do? Perhaps you’d persuade educated young people that income comes second; that no job is just a job; and that the only real reward from work is the ineffable glow of purpose. It is a diabolical game that creates a prize so tantalizing yet rare that almost nobody wins, but everybody feels obligated to play forever.
Is America Making Burnout the New Normal?
My students are burned out.
Here are 7 takeaways from my college students:
One. Most of my students are decent people trying to play by society’s rules so they can climb the economic ladder.
Two. Most of my students show up to class with a chronic sleep deficit.
Three. Most of my students don’t have big chunks of time to study and contemplate the joys of education for its own sake. Rather, my students grit their teeth and squeeze in college with the rest of their frantic schedule.
Four. Most of my students live in a state of constant financial insecurity.
Five. Most of my students are playing academic catch-up to make up for wasted time in high school.
Six. The cumulative effect of the above pressure points makes most of my students feel constantly stressed and exhausted, a condition they face with a mix of stoicism and depression.
Seven. The state of affairs described above has gotten progressively worse since I started teaching college in the 1980s.
In Contrast:
My wife’s school district where she teaches sixth grade give limits based on grade: 10 minutes per grade level.
For example, a third-grader gets 30 minutes, a sixth grader gets 60 minutes, and so on.
Also, anything more than 2 hours is considered counterproductive, according to major Stanford Study. In addition, Psychology Today draws from several studies to recommend only one hour of homework a night.
Townsend writes that she is obliged to prepare her students for college. She writes:
I teach biology at the Charles School, a five-year early-college high school in Columbus, Ohio. I believe that my job is to prepare my students for college. In order to do that, I teach a wide variety of topics including cells, genetics, evolution, and ecology, using the National Science Standards. I teach each topic in depth so that the students understand and appreciate the information. I teach them about the scientific method, lab procedures, and scientific writing, all skills they will need in college. It’s a lot to fit into one short year, and my class requires a lot of effort from my students.
Townsend wish she could have students do more in-class work to reduce homework load, but the students aren’t efficient with their time. As she writes:
Unfortunately, many kids choose to socialize when I give them time to work on their own. The students always say, “I’ll just do this for homework” and neglect to get much, if any, of the assignment done in class. Then, they come home with a pile of homework, which many parents assume the teachers assigned at the end of class.
Townsend goes on to say that homework may be difficult, but it trains kids for adulthood:
A few times a year, I require students to write a scientific paper. We spend a significant amount of time on these assignments at school, but effort outside of class is required as well. And I think that’s great. Schoolwork prepares students for work-related tasks, financial planning, and any project that ends with the feeling of a job well done. Long-term planning, projects, and deadlines are a key part of adulthood.
Townsend also argues that homework is necessary to compete on the world stage:
Nevertheless, some parents think their kids are getting too much work. One argument, which Greenfeld uses, is to compare American students with those in other countries. In his article, Greenfeld cites the fact that students in many overseas countries are scoring higher than American children, while being assigned less homework. He uses Japan as an example. In 2011, Japan was ranked fourth in science scores in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. But according to a study cited in Greenfeld’s article, Japanese students are actually assigned less homework by their teachers. Why, then, do they achieve more? The answer comes when you look at the differences in our cultures and our views on education. Japanese teachers may not be assigning much homework, but it turns out that Japanese kids are doing plenty of homework anyway.
I spoke with Chris Spackman, who is the English as a Second Language coordinator at my school. Chris taught for 13 years in Japan, and served on the Board of Education in the city of Kanazawa. I asked him why Japanese kids are scoring so high on achievement tests despite having relatively little homework. “Because Japanese kids go to juku,” he answered. He went on to explain that juku is a common after-school program that prepares Japanese kids for achievement testing. In Japan, senior high school is not required or guaranteed. Instead, students compete for spots at prestigious high schools by scoring high on achievement tests. “Some schools are for art, or college prep,” says Chris. “You have to study hard in junior high to get into the high school that you want.” In high school, Japanese kids continue to go to juku so that they can get into the college they want as well. So, Japanese kids do academic work outside of school, just not necessarily work assigned by their classroom teacher.
Townsend finishes her essay by arguing that a compromise should be made and for parents to realize that teachers are fighting for their kids’ best interests:
There is room for compromise on the homework debate. In their book Reforming Homework, Richard Walker and Mike Horsley state that while homework isn’t very beneficial for younger kids, it’s still beneficial for older students. I agree. I’ve learned, while preparing my students to start college early, that study skills become much more important than they were in primary school. It’s also important for teachers to assign work that’s high in quality, instead of quantity. The vast majority of teachers I know are careful to only assign work that’s important for student success. Remember, teachers have to grade all of these assignments – we wouldn’t want to spend extra time grading papers that have no value.
In the comments on Greenfeld’s article, some readers assume that teachers don’t have our students’ best interests at heart. But usually, teachers who aren’t incredibly devoted to their students don’t last in the profession. The teachers who do stay are committed to giving the best education to their students. We wouldn’t be assigning that homework, giving that test, or reading that book if we didn’t truly believe it was worthwhile. All we ask is that you trust us, just a little.
Signal Phrases
We use signal phrases to signal to the reader that we are going to cite research material in the form of direct quotes, paraphrase or summary.
We include the author's background information to give author credibility or ethos in our argumentation.
After we cite the information, we present our own analysis to show how this material supports our argument.
We are fools if we think we were put on Planet Earth to be happy. That is the fantasy of a four-year-old child. Ironically, this infantile pursuit of happiness makes us unhappy. In the words of John Mellencamp: “I don’t think we’re put on this earth to live happy lives. I think we’re put here to challenge ourselves physically, emotionally, intellectually.”
The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. As we read in Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits' essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."
Variation of the above:
The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. According to Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits in his essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."
Signal Phrases Used for In-Text Citations
About 80% of your essay should be your writing and 20% should be quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material.
We use signal phrases to let reader know we are quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing.
Adapted from A Writer’s Reference with Writing in the Disciplines 7th ed. by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers
How can I use them?
Below are some guidelines and tips for using signal phrases.
Signal phrases usually include the author’s name but can also include the author’s job title or background (“reporter for Washington Post,” “researcher,” “senator,” “scholar,” and so on) and/or the title of the source.
Signal phrases usually come at the beginning of a sentence before the source material, but they can also occur in the middle of a source or at the end.
To avoid monotony and repetition, try to vary both the language and placement of your signal phrases.
According to Maxwell and Hanson,…
As the 2017 IRS report indicates, …
Smith and Johnson state that …
Some scholars have shown…
Legal scholar Terrence Roberts offered a persuasive argument: “….”
Choose a verb that is appropriate to the way you are using your source. Below is a list of verbs that can be used in signal phrases:
You need to do four things when you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from a text.
Step One: The first thing you need to do is introduce the material with a signal phrase.
Make sure to use a variety of signal phrases to introduce quotations and paraphrases.
Step Two: The quote, paraphrase, or summary you use.
Step Three: The parenthetical citation, which comes after the cited material.
Kwon points out that the Fourth Amendment does not give employees any protections from employers’ “unreasonable searches and seizures” (6).
In the cultural website One-Way Street, Richard Prouty observes that Lasdun's "men exist in a fixed point of the universe, but they have no agency" (para. 7).
Step Four: Analyze your cited material. The analysis should be of a greater length than the cited material. Show how the cited material supports your thesis.
“Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition” by Ross Andersen (The Atlantic)
In the West, consciousness was long thought to be a divine gift bestowed solely on humans. Western philosophers historically conceived of nonhuman animals as unfeeling automatons. Even after Darwin demonstrated our kinship with animals, many scientists believed that the evolution of consciousness was a recent event. They thought the first mind sparked awake sometime after we split from chimps and bonobos. In his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes argued that it was later still. He said the development of language led us, like Virgil, into the deep cognitive states capable of constructing experiential worlds.
“Welfare for Those Unwilling to Work? It’s Not as Crazy as You Think” by Christine Emba (Washington Post)
As journalist Annie Lowrey, whose book “Give People Money” surveyed basic income programs around the world, points out, the United States is distinguished both by its exaltation of self-sufficiency and its unique racial divide. As it turns out, racism makes it hard to improve the safety net: Research shows that whites are less likely to support welfare programs when they’re told that blacks might benefit, even if they themselves are receiving social support. In fact, this was a flaw in the original New Deal: Agricultural and domestic laborers, most of whom were black, were purposefully excluded from many of the New Deal’s most important provisions.
“70,000 Years of Human History in 400 Pages” by Michael Saler (The Nation)
Through the ubiquity of such tools, scholars and laypeople alike are slowly being acclimatized to thinking in the long term, an outlook encouraged by Jo Guldi and David Armitage in The History Manifesto (2014). They argue that an emphasis on what the historian Fernand Braudel called the longue durée back in 1958 is now the approach best suited to a world awash in data of extended times and climes. Critics of The History Manifesto reasonably point out that while Big and Deep may be appealing, even seductive, size matters: Extra-large will not fit all, and specific historical questions will always determine the scope and method of investigation. Yet the existence of the debate itself (quite lively on Twitter, of all places) is testimony to the reincarnation of Braudel’s project.
“Can You Believe YouTube Caused the Rise in Flat-Earthers?” by Madison Malone Kircher
When YouTube said earlier this year that it would “begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways,” people praised the decision. A certain ex-engineer called it a “historic victory” on Twitter and applauded the company for making such a move, possibly at a great expense to its business model. Which … ha. Among the types of videos YouTube said it would cut back on recommending was flat-Earth content. As in, videos peddling the idea that the Earth is not, as science has repeatedly proven, round. And while I’m all for quashing the spread of truly wrongheaded and potentially dangerous ideas, in the case of flat-Earth indoctrination, the damage has long since been done.
Researchers from Texas Tech University believe they’ve isolated YouTube videos as ground zero for the spread of flat-earth theories, TheGuardianreports. Speaking with attendees at the biggest annual gathering of flat-Earthers both in 2017 and 2018, the research team found that people who fell into the world of the flat Earth were often those who were already spending time on YouTube watching other conspiracy videos (about 9/11, for example). This feedback loop — where watching conspiracy videos leads to being shown more conspiracy videos, which in turn motivates creators to make more conspiracy content — was also cited by the above-mentioned ex-YouTube engineer. It’s that circle that has enabled flat-Earth content to thrive. Researchers said one of the most popular videos is a nearly two-hour-long piece that details myriad reasons why, if you’re smart enough to think beyond what has been crammed into your brain by society for your whole life, the Earth is so obviously flat.
Study Questions for Ibram X. Kendi’s essay “There Is No Middle Ground on Reparations.”
One. How does Kendi address his opponents’ charge that slavery reparations are a politically radical and extreme idea?
Kendi shows that Abraham Lincolon, hardly a radical, proposed compensating freed slaves with reparations. Kendi writes:
On December 1, 1862—a month before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation—President Abraham Lincoln wrote to Congress. He was not yet the Great Emancipator. Instead, he proposed to become the Great Compensator.
Lincoln proposed a Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: the most expansive and expensive slavery-reparations plan ever put forth by a U.S. president. “Every State wherein slavery now exists shall abolish the same therein at any time or times before” January 1, 1900, and slaveholders “shall receive compensation from the United States” for emancipating the enslaved.
Lincoln stressed to his fellow citizens that “we cannot escape history.” Pursuing gradual emancipation, and compensating the enslavers for their lost labor and wealth—and not the enslaved for their lost labor and wealth—would repair a broken America once and for all. “Other means may succeed,” he said in closing; “this could not fail.”
Indeed, Lincoln’s proposal did not fail to escape history. His politically expedient plan made and portended history, projecting a middle ground for Americans to stand between permanent slavery and inequality, and immediate emancipation and equality.
Two. What compelling reason does Kendi present to defend his claim that we are morally compelled to provide reparations?
The wealth gap is immorally huge. We read in The Washington Post and elsewhere that white wealth is 10:1 over black wealth in America.
Kendi argues that economic disparity is an extension of slavery. Kendi writes:
Today, many Americans who oppose reparations, including a slight majority of Democrats, stand on this middle ground. These Americans self-identify as “not racist,” but do nothing in the face of the racial wealth gap that grows as white people are compensated by past and present racist policies. Or they support small-scale solutions that barely keep up with this growth. Or they support class-based solutions that are bound to partially fail in solving this class- and race-based problem. Or they oppose reparations because they’ve consumed the racist idea that black people will waste the “handouts,” that the reparations bill will be too expensive, or that black America is not too big to fail.
Kendi’s claim is reinforced in The Washington Post Sheryll Cashin essay “Reparations for Slavery Aren’t Enough” in which the author claims that economic disparity continues through racist policies that happened after abolition of slavery.
Three. What moral deficits are evidenced in being against reparations?
According to Kendi, rather than address the “urgency” of racist-driven poverty, those who reject reparations are more interested in “political expediency” and placating white racists who feel wounded and threatened in a diverse America. Kendi writes:
Americans who prefer gradual approaches that do not radically disrupt inequality and who label their approaches “plain, peaceful, generous, just,” to use Lincoln’s words, carelessly ignore or understate the complex, violent, stingy, and unjust damage wrought by inequality. These Americans care more about responding to political expediency than about the emergency of inequality, care more about repairing alienated white Americans than about repairing pillaged black coffers, and claim to be horrified by slavery and “not racist” but end up, knowingly or unknowingly, compensating the white beneficiaries of slavery and racism.
These Americans claim they oppose racism and reparations. They support the drive for economic equality between the races at the same time they are pumping the brakes on the only foreseeable policy that can dramatically close the growing racial wealth gap. Only an expansive and expensive compensation policy for the descendants of the enslaved and relegated of the scale Lincoln proposed for the enslavers and subsidized could prevent the racial wealth gap from compounding and being passed onto another generation.
Four. Is the racial wealth gap “repairing” on its own?
In short, no. To the contrary, the racial wealth gap is worsening. Kendi writes:
For every $100 of wealth that white families hold, black families hold just $5. One in four black households has zero or negative wealth, in contrast to one in 10 white households. White households make up 96 percent of the top 1 percent, while black households constitute 2 percent of that highest wealth bracket.
The racial wealth gap will not repair itself. And it is growing.
From 1983 to 2013, the wealth of the median black household declined 75 percent as the wealth of the median white household increased 14 percent. By 2020, black people are projected to lose an additional 18 percent of wealth, and white households will own 86 times as much wealth as their black counterparts. By 2053, the median black household is projected to flatline at $0. Generally speaking, black people are facing economic death.
Five. What “alternative history” impedes exacting justice in the form of reparations to ancestors of slaves?
This fake history paints white racists as the victims who need compensation. Kendi writes:
State-sanctioned racist policies, which have opened, sustained, and broadened the racial wealth gap, have often been ironically framed as reparative for white people. Wealthy-white victimhood has been the creed of racist history since long before Donald Trump vowed to repair America’s greatness from the tyranny of the first black president. The Founding Fathers identified only themselves as the victims of tyranny. Slaveholders cast themselves as under siege by abolitionists, runaways, and especially revolting captives. Confederates fought the so-called War of Northern Aggression. Whites described civil- and voting-rights bills and judgments as “made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race,” to quote President Andrew Johnson’s reasoning for vetoing the first Civil Rights Act in 1866. Klansmen and lynchers said they were fighting against black debauchery. Whites complained they were subjected to affirmative action, welfare queens, the Central Park Five, reverse discrimination, race cards, and roving and ravishing migrants and immigrants.
Throughout this alternative history, white people were collectively accumulating, compounding, and passing down wealth from selling black bodies; exploiting no-wage or low-wage black labor; stealing black assets, from the days of whitecapping to the foreclosure era; seizing opportunities, such as the New Deal or GI Bill, that were denied to black people; utilizing family wealth to start businesses; owning government-subsidized homes in government-subsidized white suburbs or gentrified neighborhoods; and cashing in on Reagan-, Bush-, and Trump-era tax cuts for the already wealthy.
Racist policies have historically compensated people for their whiteness and extracted wealth from people because of their blackness. But Americans occupying the middle ground do not attack these policies like they attack reparations. They support (what they don’t call) reparations for white people at the same time they oppose reparations for black people.
Six. Is there any “middle ground” in the reparations debate?
No, according to Kendi. He writes:
Reparations is not my litmus test for presidential candidates. But it is a litmus test for whether a person is being a racist or anti-racist when it comes to one of the most damaging racial inequities of our time, of all American time—the racial wealth gap. To oppose reparations is to be racist. To support reparations is to be anti-racist. The middle ground is racist ground. It is occupied by people passively doing nothing in the face of racial inequity, or actively supporting policies that reproduce racial inequity. The anti-racist approach requires standing up for the policies, like reparations, that can create racial equity.
Take Lincoln’s compensation plan in 1862. He considered it a “compromise among friends.” Opposition to his planned Emancipation Proclamation had been mounting like casualties from the Civil War. In the November 1862 midterm elections, Democrats gained 34 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives shouting at Republicans like Lincoln: We are warring for reunion with our Southern brethren, not for emancipation. Lincoln shuddered and related. In the summer of 1862, he had publicly declared: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.”
Lincoln’s reparations plan went nowhere. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation as scheduled, on January 1, 1863, as “a necessary war measure” to save the Union. But when slavery reemerged in another form after the Civil War, when former slaveholders received a different manner of compensation from Jim Crow, when a civil war had to be fought each time black people proclaimed they should be the ones receiving reparations, it renewed the questions Lincoln answered with his plans to compensate the slaveholders. These questions still divide Americans today. Who is being damaged? Who is being compensated and repaired?
The slaveholder still—or will it finally be the enslaved?
Review of Kend’s Major Arguments
One. To support reparations is to be anti-racist because in part these reparations are just compensation for America’s greatest sin: slavery.
Two. To be opposed to reparations or to be passive or neutral or to take some “middle ground” position is to be racist because such apathy perpetuates the racial income gap.
Three. The racial income gap is evidence of the evil legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Four. The racial wealth gap is not “repairing on its own” but worsening.
Five. Justification for impeding reparations is based on white supremacist “alternative history,” which paints whites as victims; in short, such whites create a moral inversion by gas lighting their opponents.
Since the Dawn of Man, people have sought love and happiness . . .
In today’s society, we see more and more people cocooning in their homes . . .
Man has always wondered why happiness and contentment are so elusive like trying to grasp a bar of sudsy, wet soap.
We have now arrived at a Societal Epoch where we no longer truly communicate with one another as we have embarked upon the full-time task of self-aggrandizement through the social media of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al.
In this modern world we face a new existential crisis with the advent of newfangled technologies rendering us razzle-dazzled with the overwhelming possibilities of digital splendor on one hand and painfully dislocated and lonely with our noses constantly rubbing our digital screens on the other.
Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the luxuriant Garden of Eden searching for the juicy, succulent Adriatic fig only to find it withered under the attack of mites, ants, and fruit flies, mankind has embarked upon the quest for the perfect pesticide.
Three. Never apologize to the reader:
Sorry for these half-baked chicken scratch thoughts. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I didn’t have sufficient time to do the necessary research for the topic you assigned me.
I’m hardly an expert on this subject and I don’t know why anyone would take me seriously, but here it goes.
Forgive me but after over-indulging last night at HomeTown Buffet my brain has been rendered in a mindless fog and the ramblings of this essay prove to be rather incoherent.
Four. Don’t throw a thesis cream pie in your reader’s face.
In this essay I am going to prove to you why Americans will never buy those stupid automatic cars that don’t need a driver. The four supports that will support my thesis are ______________, ______________, _______________, and ________________.
It is my purpose in this essay to show you why I'm correct on the subject of the death penalty. My proofs will be _________, _______, _________, and ___________.
Five. Don’t use a dictionary definition (standard procedure for a sixth grade essay but not college in which you should use more sophisticated methods such as extended definition or expert definitions):
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines metacognition as “awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process.”
General Principles of an Effective Introduction Paragraph
It piques your readers’ interest (often called a “hook”).
It is compelling.
It is timely.
It is relevant to the human condition and to your topic.
It transitions to your topic and/or thesis.
The Ten Types of Paragraph Introductions
One. Use a blunt statement of fact or insight that captures your readers’ attention:
It's good for us to have our feelings hurt.
You've never really lived until someone has handed you your __________ on a stick.
Men who are jealous are cheaters.
We would assume that jealous men are obsessed with fidelity, but in fact the most salient feature of the jealous man is that he is more often than not cheating on his partner. His jealousy results from projecting his own infidelities on his partner. He says to himself, “I am a cheater and therefore so is she.” We see this sick mentality in the character Dan from Ha Jin’s “The Beauty.” Trapped in his jealousy, Dan embodies the pathological characteristics of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, _______________, ________________, and _______________.
Washington, D.C. may soon be littered with the political bodies of people who believed they could spin their way out of the impact of the new Bob Woodward book, Fear. I’ve been to the Washington rodeo enough times to know that Woodward’s methodical, grinding style of investigation doesn’t lend itself to escaping unscathed, especially for bad actors and loose cannons. Hell, as a young Department of Defense aide in 1990, I saw it up close when his book, The Commanders, led to the firing of USAF Chief of Staff Mike Dugan. He had tapes then, as he does now.
This week, it’s Donald Trump’s turn under Woodward’s political electron microscope, and the President’s hissy-fit reaction tells us how close Woodward’s work has struck. Trump knows his White House staff, up to and including his daughter, thinks he’s off the rails, a danger to himself and the country, and unable to execute the duties of a Waffle House manager much less the President of the United States.
John Taylor Gatto opens his essay “Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why” as thus:
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in the world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: Their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teacher’s lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn’t get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
Gatto goes on to argue in his thesis that school trains children to be servants for mediocre (at best) jobs when school should be teaching innovation, individuality, and leadership roles.
Two. Write a definition based on the principles of extended definition (term, class, distinguishing characteristics) or quote an expert in a field of study:
Metacognition is an essential asset to mature people characterized by their ability to value long-term gratification over short-term gratification, their ability to distance themselves from their passions when they’re in a heated emotional state, their ability to stand back and see the forest instead of the trees, and their ability to continuously make assessments of the effectiveness of their major life choices. In the fiction of John Cheever and James Lasdun, we encounter characters that are woefully lacking in metacognition evidenced by _____________, ______________, _____________, and _______________.
According to Alexander Batthanany, member of the Viktor Frankl Institute, logotherapy, which is the search for meaning, “is identified as the primary motivational force in human beings.” Batthanany further explains that logotherapy is “based on three philosophical and psychological concepts: Freedom of Will, Will to Meaning, and Meaning in Life.” Embracing the concepts of logotherapy is vastly more effective than conventional, Freud-based psychotherapy when we consider ________________, ______________, __________________, and ________________.
Three. Use an insightful quotation that has not, to your knowledge anyway, been overused:
George Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what we want. The second is getting it.” Shaw’s insight speaks to the tantalizing chimera, that elusive quest we take for the Mythic She-Beast who becomes are life-altering obsession. As the characters in John Cheever and James Lasdun’s fiction show, the human relationship with the chimera is source of paradox. On one hand, having a chimera will kill us. On the other, not having a chimera will kill us. Cheever and Lasdun’s characters twist and torment under the paradoxical forces of their chimeras evidenced by _____________, _______________, ______________, and __________________.
Four. Use a startling fact to get your reader’s attention:
There are currently more African-American men in prison than there were slaves at the peak of slavery in the United States. We read this disturbing fact in Michelle Alexander’s magisterial The New Jim Crow, which convincingly argues that America’s prison complex is perpetuating the racism of slavery and Jim Crow in several insidious ways.
We read that in the latest study by the Institute for Higher Education, Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento that only 30% of California community college students are transferring or getting their degrees. We have a real challenge in the community college if 70% are falling by the wayside.
8,000 students walk through El Camino's Humanities Building every week. Only 10% will pass English 1A. Only 3% will pass English 1C.
99% of my students acknowledge that most students at El Camino are seriously compromised by their smartphone addiction to the point that the addiction is making them fail or do non-competitive work in college.
Five. Use an anecdote (personal or otherwise) to get your reader’s attention:
Stanley was a big proponent of "follow your dreams." After he graduated from high school in 1977 and took some acting classes at a local community college, he dropped out to move to Los Angeles where he spent the 1980s working as a waiter and trying to make a break into Hollywood. He spent his money on coaches, mentors, acting gurus, body language masters, voice instructors, New Age positive thinking experts, all in an attempt to step up his game. He landed a few small parts here and there, just enough work to make him feel he was on the verge of making it. His optimism grew in the 1990s when he met some film directors who gave him some small roles and hinted at getting him larger roles when the opportunity came. Feeding on these dreams while living in a squalid apartment in the 1990s, Stanley continued to live a life of abject obscurity and futility with the hope that he just had to follow his dream and be persistent and that these two qualities would guarantee his success. He remained inside this delusional bubble for nearly two more decades while he lived in a roach-infested apartment in downtown L.A. where he supplemented his income by delivering plasma and working as a masseuse, a job he had to give up when his hands become afflicted with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. At the age of 60, around 2018, Stanley got strep throat and couldn't afford antibiotics since none of his part-time gigs offered health insurance. Curled into the fetal position on his apartment's bare mattress with roaches crawling over him, he wept as he felt betrayed by the fact that he had done what the American Dream told him to do: He sacrificed everything to follow his passion and remained tenacious over four decades to bring his dreams to fruition, but he knew in that moment that he was a pathetic, miserable failure, and that his dreams had soured and curdled into rotten milk.
This curdling of our dreams and the false promise of following those dreams is explored in Cal Newport's important book So Good They Can't Ignore You and his accompanying YouTube video "'Follow Your Passion' Is Bad Advice" in which Newport makes a persuasive case for replacing the Passion Hypothesis with the craftsman mindset. His claim rests on four compelling observations. Passion without spending time mastering a craft is worthless. Passion is not some low-hanging fruit that we pick from a tree, but an asset we develop over 10,000 hours of sustained hard work and tedium. Only 2% of the human race work at a "dream job." Most of us must find happiness because we are a "dream employer" who is valued based on the mastery of our craft. And finally, courage to pursue your dream without an honest of assessment of your capital is dangerous and self-destructive.
Second Example:
When my daughter was one years old and I was changing her diaper, she without warning jammed her thumb into my eye, forcing my eyeball into my brain and almost killing me. After the assault, I suffered migraine headaches for several months and frequently would have to wash milky pus from the injured eye.
One afternoon I was napping under the covers when Lara walked into the room talking on the phone to her friend, Hannah. She didn’t know I was in the room, confusing the mound on the bed with a clump of pillows and blankets. I heard her whisper to Hannah, “I found another small package from eBay. He’s buying watches and not telling me.”
That’s when I thought about getting a post office box.
This could be the opening introduction for an essay topic about “economic infidelity.”
As we read in Stephen King’s essay “Write or Die”:
“Hardly a week after being sprung from detention hall, I was once more invited to step down to the principal’s office. I went with a sinking heart, wondering what new sh** I’d stepped in.”
Six. Use a piece of vivid description or a vivid illustration to get your reader’s attention:
My gym looks like an enchanting fitness dome, an extravaganza of taut, sweaty bodies adorned in fluorescent spandex tights contorting on space-age cardio machines, oil-slicked skin shrouded in a synthetic fog of dry ice colored by the dizzying splash of lavender disco lights. Tribal drum music plays loudly. Bottled water flows freely, as if from some Elysian spring, over burnished flesh. The communal purgation appeals to me. My fellow cardio junkies and I are so self-abandoned, free, and euphoric, liberated in our gym paradise. But right next to our workout heaven is a gastronomical inferno, one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, part of a chain, which is, to my lament, sprouting all over Los Angeles. I despise the buffet, a trough for people of less discriminating tastes who saunter in and out of the restaurant at all hours, entering the doors of the eatery without shame and blind to all the gastrointestinal and health-related horrors that await them. Many of the patrons cannot walk out of their cars to the buffet but have to limp or rely on canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and other ambulatory aids, for it seems a high percentage of the customers are afflicted with obesity, diabetes, arthritis, gout, hypothalamic lesions, elephantiasis, varicose veins and fleshy tumors. Struggling and wheezing as they navigate across the vast parking lot that leads to their gluttonous sanctuary, they seem to worship the very source of their disease.
In front of the buffet is a sign of rules and conduct. One of the rules urges people to stand in the buffet line in an orderly fashion and to be patient because there is plenty of food for everyone. Another rule is that children are not to be left unattended and running freely around the buffet area. My favorite rule is that no hands, tongues, or other body parts are allowed to touch the food. Tongs and other utensils are to be used at all times. The rules give you an idea of the kind of people who eat there. These are people I want to avoid.
But as I walk to the gym from my car, which shares a parking lot with the buffet patrons, I cannot avoid the nauseating smell of stale grease oozing from the buffet’s rear dumpster, army green and stained with splotches and a seaweed-like crust of yellow and brown grime.
Often I see cooks and dishwashers, their bodies covered with soot, coming out of the back kitchen door to throw refuse into the dumpster, a smoldering receptacle with hot fumes of bacteria and flies. Hunchbacked and knobby, the poor employees are old, weary men with sallow, rheumy eyes and cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I imagine them being tortured deep within the bowels of the fiery kitchen on some Medieval rack. They emerge into the blinding sunshine like moles, their eyes squinting, with their plastic garbage bags twice the size of their bodies slung over their shoulders, and then I look into their sad eyes—eyes that seem to beg for my help and mercy. And just when I am about to give them words of hope and consolation or urge them to flee for their lives, it seems they disappear back into the restaurant as if beckoned by some invisible tyrant.
The above could transition to the topic of people of a certain weight being required to buy three airline tickets for an entire row of seats.
Seven. Summarize both sides of a debate.
America is torn by the national healthcare debate. One camp says it’s a crime that 25,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year from treatable disease and that modeling a health system from other developed countries is a moral imperative. However, there is another camp that fears that adopting some version of universal healthcare is tantamount to stepping into the direction of socialism.
Eight. State a misconception, fallacy, or error that your essay will refute.
Healthcare
Americans against universal or national healthcare are quick to say that such a system is “socialist,” “communist,” and “un-American,” but a close look at their rhetoric shows that it is high on knee-jerk, mindless paroxysms and short on reality. Contrary to the enemies of national healthcare, providing universal coverage is very American and compatible with the American brand of capitalism.
Civil War in America
In the South, it is still common to hear white people speak of the Civil War by denying its connection to the evils of slavery and treason. Rather, it is commonly spouted by white people in the south that the Civil War was the result of "Northern aggression" and "state rights," but these explanations are odious poppycock and are part of America's shameful history of fake news, which afflicts our country like an ugly, festering cancer sore to this very day.
Nine. Make a general statement about your topic.
From Sherry Turkle’s essay “How Computers Change the Way We Think”:
The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world. Although writing remains our primary information technology, today when we think about the impact of technology on our habits of mind, we think primarily of the computer.
Ten. Pose a question your essay will try to answer:
Why are diet books more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more fat?
Why is psychotherapy becoming more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more crazy?
Why are the people of Qatar the richest people in the world, yet score at the bottom of all Happiness Index metrics?
Why are courses in the Humanities more essential to your well-being that you might think?
What is the difference between thinking and critical thinking?
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Read Cal Newport’s claim from his book excerpt from So Good They Can’t Ignore You that the Passion Hypothesis is dangerous and should be replaced by the craftsman mindset and in a 200-word paragraph explain how he arrives at his claim.
One. What revelation does Thomas, the Buddhist Monk, make as he finds how to crack the koan codes (word puzzles) and become an enlightened Buddhist practitioner?
Sometimes your passion is a canard, a dead-end, a chimera, and an illusion.
Sometimes you think you know your passion but you don't.
Sometimes your passion fills you on a caprice, a whim, an impulse and is therefore short-lived.
Following your passions could make you homeless.
McMahon's passions:
radio announcer
writer
pianist
comedian
public intellectual
Cal Newport's Aspiring Monk
For example, the aspiring monk followed his passion, to pursue Buddhism to the extreme, and he felt empty, he felt he was the same person he was before, he felt the same urge to find meaning.
His passion had betrayed him.
Cal Newport juxtaposes Thomas’ failed quest with an obsession that Newport has had for a long time, the very obsession that provides impetus for this book we’re reading: Why do some people end up loving what they do while others fail to be happy and feel empty and wasted in their efforts?
Trying to find a professor job in a struggling economy in 2010, Newport’s prospects were bleak. How could he find happiness in such bleak circumstances?
As Newport embarked on his quest to discover why some people find happiness in their work while others do not, he concluded that passion was overrated.
In fact, he ended up rejecting the Passion Hypothesis, the idea that we find happiness by following our passion. “Follow your bliss” is a false path, a canard, a dangerous cliché.
Two. What common thread holds Newport’s book together?
The importance of developing a high-quality ability that cannot be easily replicated so that one is not easily replaceable is one of the dominant themes of this book.
How to develop such an ability is another theme.
Rule #1: Don’t Follow Your Passion
Steve Jobs, as we know him, is a myth.
Not only is Steve Jobs a myth, he perpetuated a myth: “The only way to be great at your work is to love what you do. Don’t settle. Keep searching until you find your passion.”
“Follow your passion. Life is for the living.”
“Passion is the engine to living a life.”
Steve Jobs’ words are a disingenuous, empty clichés; they are false; they are dangerous; and he didn’t even apply those words to his life, his real life, not the mythical one people have been led to believe about him.
Steve Jobs is a perpetrator of the Passion Hypothesis, which says the following: The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then to find a job that matches this passion.
Three. What is the real Steve Jobs story?
He never followed his passion to create Apple computer. Before Apple, he was living as a hippy on a commune and doing work with Atari. He traveled as a sort of nomad or vagabond, dabbling in Zen Buddhism, but really he lived the life of a dilettante, doing casual work here and there.
But then he needed money, and he Steve Wozinak who helped Steve Jobs sell model-kit computers at $500 a piece. Steve Jobs had no passion and no vision for some giant company that would take over the world. He wanted quick cash. That was it.
Once he saw an opportunity to make even bigger money, Steve Jobs busted his butt doing deep work to make himself competitive against the other people trying to make money in the same computer space.
Had Steve Jobs followed his passion, to be a lazy Buddhist monk living in Zen communes and travelling here and there, he would have never been able to compete against the burgeoning computer engineers.
He would have floundered.
He would have been a nobody.
He would have been a professional bum.
He would have been an annoying quasi-spiritual Zen-cliché-larded mountebank.
Steve Jobs Became Successful Because He Didn’t Follow His Passion
Steve Jobs didn’t follow his passion. He followed an opportunity and delivered by developing in himself a unique ability that made him valuable to others.
Following your passion is a lie.
Following your passion is canard.
Following your passion is the kiss of death.
Following your passion is an empty cliché spewed by sanctimonious, brain-dead mediocrities.
Cal Newport points out that Steve Jobs became passionate AFTER he mastered his craft, AFTER he honed his talent, AFTER he developed unique skills that allowed him to navigate a world-dominating computer company.
Three. What is famous radio broadcaster Ira Glass’ advice on becoming successful?
Much to the disappointment of the interviewers who wanted Glass to pontificate on the notion of “following your bliss,” Glass gives some sobering advice:
First, you’re going to suck at what you do. You have to go through the drudgery and mental strain of moving through your suck at it phase and reach a point of mastery.
It’s the endurance and drive to move past your “I suck at it” phase and reach a higher level of expertise that accounts for success and happiness.
You have to develop your Tedium Muscle to make breakthroughs and elevate your craft to a higher level.
Cal Newport goes on to explain that we can’t know what our passion is in the beginning. It’s rare that people have a clearly defined passion at a young age.
I can only think of one exception: George Carlin, the famous comedian, told Terry Gross on Fresh Air that he knew he was going to be a comedian when he was in the fifth grade.
But that is the exception, not the rule.
We should live by the general rule.
Complex Career Origin Principle
Cal Newport writes: “Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the single idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.”
Real Passion Principle: Time and Mastery
“Passion takes time.” You have to cultivate it with deep work, undistracted focus on your craft.
To support the above, Yale researcher Amy Wizesniwski wanted to look at job happiness. She divided jobs in 3 ways:
One. A job is a way to pay the bills.
Two. A career is a path toward increasingly better work.
Three. A calling is work that is an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity.
Dream Job Fallacy
Mastery is greater than passion as a factor for happiness.
Having a “dream job” wasn’t the key to happiness, AW found. She found that it was time spent on the job and mastery of the job.
Her findings contradict the lame Passion Hypothesis, that childish, infantile myth that all you have to do is find your passion and as soon as you get the job you are instantly happy. “You followed your bliss! Oh happy you!”
Complexity to Consider: You don't have a passion and build a master for it; quite the contrary, you may have to build a mastery or at the very least a baseline of competence in order to have enough knowledge to have an authentic passion.
“Passion is a side effect of mastery.”
Develop your mastery first. Then the passion comes as a natural result.
This reminds me of something Viktor Frankl writes: Don’t aim to be happy. Aim for a life of purpose and meaning and then happiness will be an unintentional byproduct.
Rule #1: Don’t Follow Your Passion
Steve Jobs, as we know him, is a myth.
Not only is Steve Jobs a myth, he perpetuated a myth: “The only way to be great at your work is to love what you do. Don’t settle. Keep searching until you find your passion.”
“Follow your passion. Life is for the living.”
“Passion is the engine to living a life.”
Steve Jobs’ words are a disingenuous, empty clichés; they are false; they are fatuous; they are dangerous; and he didn’t even apply those words to his life, his real life, not the mythical one people have been led to believe about him.
Steve Jobs is a perpetrator of the Passion Hypothesis, which says the following: The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then to find a job that matches this passion.
Three. What is the real Steve Jobs story?
He never followed his passion to create Apple computer. Before Apple, he was living as a hippy on a commune and doing work with Atari. He travelled as a sort of nomad or vagabond, dabbling in Zen Buddhism, but really he lived the life of a dilettante, doing casual work here and there.
But then he needed money, and he Steve Wozinak who helped Steve Jobs sell model-kit computers at $500 a piece. Steve Jobs had no passion and no vision for some giant company that would take over the world. He wanted quick cash. That was it.
Once he saw an opportunity to make even bigger money, Steve Jobs busted his butt doing deep work to make himself competitive against the other people trying to make money in the same computer space.
Had Steve Jobs followed his passion, to be a lazy Buddhist monk living in Zen communes and travelling here and there, he would have never been able to compete against the burgeoning computer engineers.
He would have floundered.
He would have been a nobody.
He would have been a professional bum.
He would have been an annoying quasi-spiritual Zen-cliché-larded mountebank.
Real Passion Principle: Time and Mastery
“Passion takes time.” You have to cultivate it with deep work, undistracted focus on your craft.
To support the above, Yale researcher Amy Wizesniwski wanted to look at job happiness. She divided jobs in 3 ways:
One. A job is a way to pay the bills.
Two. A career is a path toward increasingly better work.
Three. A calling is work that is an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity.
Having a “dream job” wasn’t the key to happiness, AW found. She found that it was time spent on the job and mastery of the job.
Her findings contradict the lame Passion Hypothesis, that childish, infantile myth that all you have to do is find your passion and as soon as you get the job you are instantly happy. “You followed your bliss! Oh happy you!”
“Passion is a side effect of mastery.”
Develop your mastery first. Then the passion comes as a natural result.
This reminds me of something Viktor Frankl writes: Don’t aim to be happy. Aim for a life of purpose and meaning and then happiness will be an unintentional byproduct.
Newport's Career Manifesto
A CAREER MANIFESTO: Be a Craftsman or a Craftsperson
Career advice has fallen into a terribly simplistic rut. Figure out what you’re passionate about, then follow that passion: this idea provides the foundation for just about every guide to improving your working life.
The Career Craftsman rejects this reductionist drivel.
The Career Craftsman understands that “follow your passion and all will be happy” is a children’s tale. Most people don’t have pre-existing passions waiting to be unearthed. Happiness requires more than solving a simple matching problem.
The Career Craftsman knows there’s no magical “right job” waiting out there for you. Any number of pursuits can provide the foundation for an engaging life.
The Career Craftsman believes that compelling careers are not courageously pursued or serendipitously discovered, but are instead systematically crafted.
The Career Craftsman believes this process of career crafting always begins with the mastery of something rare and valuable. The traits that define great work (autonomy, creativity, impact, recognition) are rare and valuable themselves, and you need something to offer in return. Put another way: no one owes you a fulfilling job; you have to earn it.
The Career Craftsman believes that mastery is just the first step in crafting work you love. Once you have the leverage of a rare and valuable skill, you need to apply this leverage strategically to make your working life increasingly fulfilling. It is then — and only then — that you should expect a feeling of passion for your work to truly take hold.
The Career Craftsman thinks the idea that “societal expectations” are trying to hold you down in a safe but boring career path is a boogeyman invented to sell eBooks. You don’t need courage to create a cool life. You need the type of valuable skills that let you write your own ticket.
The Career Craftsman never expects to love an entry level job (or to stay in that job long before moving up).
The Career Craftsman thinks “is this my calling?” is a stupid question.
The Career Craftsman is data-driven. Admire someone’s career? Work out exactly how they made it happen. The answers you’ll find will be less romantic but more actionable than you might expect.
The Career Craftsman believes the color of your parachute is irrelevant if you take the time to get good at flying the damn plane in the first place.
“Drivel” of the Passion Mindset
Or if you reject the craftsman mindset, you can have the passion mindset, which asks how much value your job is offering you.
Newport argues it is only by producing the craftsman mindset that you can create work that you love.
In terms of maturity, the craftsman mindset is the approach of a mature, fully realized human being.
In contrast, a passion mindset is the approach of a naive, immature, lazy narcissist.
Seven. What is the pre-existing passion principle and why does Cal Newport reject it?
There are some who argue that musician Jordan Tice and comedian Steve Martin, both referenced in Newport’s book, are master craftsman who work hard because they are doing so in the service of something they love, in work they are passionate about.
Newport rejects this argument. In the entertainment business, “the tape doesn’t lie.” Both performers work super hard because they want to improve their performance.
They both actually have doubt about their vocations as musician and comedian respectively.
What they are sure about is that if they are going to be good they are going to have to engage in deep work.
Both Jordan Tice and Steve Martin have developed consistent habits of hard work as the foundation of improving their craft.
They have developed a craftsman mindset.
Eight. Why does a craftsman mindset produce a great job?
Only by creating a great craft, bringing great product to the job, does a person have a great job, which Newport observes is distinguished by three ingredients:
Creativity: Ira Glass reinvented radio.
Impact: Steve Jobs affected the way the world uses technology.
Control: Craftsman are not micromanaged by their bosses because of the value they bring to the job.
Nine. What is career capital?
One, great work, which is rare and valuable.
Two, great workers, who have rare and valuable skills.
Three, craftsman mindset, which is determined to be so great they can’t ignore you.
Always Know How Much Career Capital You Have Before Making Career Change
On Cal Newport’s blog, he elaborates on the life of Lisa Feuer, who is featured in his book:
The Courage Fallacy
In 2005, Lisa Feuer quit her marketing job. She had held this same position throughout her 30s before deciding, at the age of 38, that it was time for something different.
As the New York Times reported in an article from last summer, she wanted the same independence and flexibility that her ex-husband, an entrepreneur, enjoyed. Bolstered by this new resolve, Lisa invested in a $4000 yoga instruction course and started Karma Kids Yoga — a yoga practice focused on young children and pregnant women.
Lisa’s story provides a pristine example of what I call the choice-centric approach to building an interesting life. This philosophy emphasizes the importance of choosing better work. Having the courage to leave your boring but dangerously comfortable job — to borrow a phrase from Tim Ferriss — and instead follow your “passion,” has become the treasure map guiding this philosophy’s adherents.
But there’s a problem: the endings are not always so happy…
Tedium Is Necessary: Build Your Tedium Muscle
Why did Jordan Tice excel in guitar in ways that Cal Newport did not in spite of their equal years of playing time?
“Discomfort with mental discomfort is a liability in the performance world.”
You must work through the discomfort to reach higher limits of your talent. Only then can you achieve breakthroughs and develop a skill that is rare and valuable.
Jordan practiced, and this meant a lot of repetitious tedium.
In addition to doing deep work, Jordan got instant feedback.
We learn that deep work is most effective when a teacher or mentor figure gives us feedback as we make our progress.
In contrast, Cal played casually. Jordan became a professional. Cal became a guitar-playing dilettante.
What is the 10,000-Hour Rule?
Excellence at performing a complex task requires a minimum of hours to accomplish. We’re not just talking any hours. We’re talking deep work hours, that is undistracted focus entailing a lot of mental discomfort.
Being willing to do 10,000 hours of deep work is a trait we see in people who labeled as geniuses like Mozart and Bill Gates.
Genius does not exist without deep work.
Talent without deep work is a flop, a dud, and a waste.
Is hard work enough to reach a level of mastery?
No. Deep work leads to deliberate practice, which requires feedback. Without deliberate practice and feedback, even a talented hard-working person will hit a plateau.
What are the Five Habits of a Craftsman?
1: Decide what capital market you are in. There are 2 kinds of markets –
Winner-take-all: One killer skills with a few winners all over the world (e.g. Hollywood script writer)
Auction: Diverse collection of skills. Here, there are many different types of career capital and each person might generate their own unique collection (e.g. CEO of a Fortune 500 company)
2: Identify your capital type. Ignore this if you are in a winner-take-all market as there’s only one type of capital. (i.e. be among the top 10 script writers in the world to make it in Hollywood)
For an auction market, however, seek open gates i.e. opportunities to build capital that are already open to you. Open gates get us farther faster. Skill acquisition is like a freight train: Getting it started requires a huge application of effort, but changing its track once it’s moving is easy. (e.g. keep moving upwards in an organization and then laterally instead of trying to move laterally and start from scratch)
3: Define “good.” Set clear goals. For a script writer, the definition of “good” is clear – his scripts being taken seriously.
4: Stretch and destroy.Deliberate practice – that uncomfortable sensation in our heads that feels like physical strain, as if neurons are physically re-forming into new configurations.
5: Be patient. Look years into the future for the payoff. It’s less about paying attention to your main pursuit, and more about your willingness to ignore other pursuits that pop up along the way to distract you.
Six. What is the power of control and how does control result in job happiness?
Giving people more control at work increases their happiness, fulfillment, and engagement.
But you cannot earn safe control without career capital. Think of the lady who quit her job to run yoga studios. She had to go on food stamps.
The Economics of Remarkable Lives
As the recession hit, Lisa’s business struggled. One of the gyms where she taught closed. Two classes offered at a local public high school were dropped due to under-enrollment. The demand for private lessons diminished.
In 2009, she’s on track to make on $15,000 — not nearly enough to cover her expenses.
This, of course, is the problem with the choice-centric approach to life: it assumes that a much better job is out there waiting for you. The reality, however, is often more Darwinian: much better jobs are out there, but they’re only available to people with much better skills than most of their peers.
As I’ve argued before, the traits that make a remarkable life remarkable — flexibility, engagement, recognition, and reward — are highly desirable. Therefore, to land a job (or start a business) that returns these rewards, you must have a skill to offer that’s both rare and valuable.
It’s simple economics.
Lisa didn’t have a skill that was rare or valuable. She did receive professional Yoga training, but the barrier to entry for this training was the ability to write a tuition check and take a few weeks worth of classes. This skill wasn’t rare or valuable enough to guarantee her the traits she admired in the lives of successful entrepreneurs, and as soon as the economy hiccuped she experienced this reality.
Her courage to follow her “passion” was not enough, in isolation, to improve her life.
The Value of Nerves
This brings me back to the (perhaps) controversial title of this post. If you’re in a job that’s boring but tolerable, and you feel nervous about quitting, you might consider trusting this instinct. Your mind might be honing in on the economic truth that you don’t have a skill rare and valuable enough to earn you a substantially better deal somewhere else. Because of this, your mind understandably reacts to your career day dreams with jitters.
On the other hand, those who have built up highly desirable skills rarely feel much nervousness about the prospect of switching jobs. They’ve probably had other job offers, or can name a half-a-dozen clients that would pay handsomely for their consulting services.
For example…
Tens of thousands of bored cubicle dwellers fantasize about building their own companies. (Writers have built lucrative careers around pitching this message.) Most of these workers, however, are nervous about this idea due to the very real possibility that their business ventures will fold, leaving them, like Lisa, broke, without health insurance, and worse off than before.
By contrast, earlier this year I received a call from a head hunter trying to recruit me to work at a Manhattan-based start-up incubator that would, in essence, pay me to think up and try out business ideas. (Jeff Bezos was in a similar position at D.E. Shaw when he came up with the idea for Amazon.com.)
My point is that if I wanted to start my own company (which I don’t), I wouldn’t feel nervous. The reason is clear: By earning a PhD in computer science at MIT I developed a skill that’s rare and valuable to this particular economic segment. The market has made this value clear to me; ergo, no nerves.
The Hard Focus-Centric Approach
Though I’m not nervous about the idea of starting my own company, I am, at this point in my career, nervous about the path that most interests me: becoming a professor at a quality research university.
Instead of paralyzing me, however, these nerves provide wonderful clarity. My goal during my postdoc years now centers on eliminating this nervousness. To do so, I need to make myself unambiguously one of the top candidates in the computer science academic job market. This, in turn, requires incredibly high-quality research that promises to push my research sub-fields forward. This specific goal has trickled down into concrete changes in my day to day work habits. Most notably, I’ve recently rebuilt my schedule around hard focus, and I spend much more time reading the research literature and thinking about the long-term direction of my short-term work.
In other words, nervousness can provide more than just sober-minded warning. It can also help guide you in your efforts to build a remarkable life. Instead of grappling with vague worry — “Am I stupid for wanting to try this new career path?” — you can focus your energy toward a clear metric: building up a valuable skill until you’ve eliminated this nervousness.
Jobs to Avoid
One, the job offers you few opportunities to distinguish yourself with rare and valuable work.
Two, the job makes you focus on useless or morally wrong activities.
Three, the job forces you to work with people you don’t like.
Essay 1 Options with Suggested Outlines for Essay 1 Due on September 16
Option 1:
In an essay of 1,000 words, defend, refute, or complicate Cal Newport’s claim from his book excerpt from So Good They Can’t Ignore You that the Passion Hypothesis is dangerous and should be replaced by the craftsman mindset. Your second source will be “In the Name of Love” by Miya Tokumitsu. You won’t receive credit unless you have an MLA format Works Cited page at the end of your essay.
Suggested Outline with Sample Thesis:
Paragraph 1: Write a cautionary tale of someone who followed the Passion Hypothesis or simply define the Passion Hypothesis.
Paragraph 2: Make a claim or argument in defense or refutation of Newport's thesis that the Passion Hypothesis is an impediment to success.
Thesis Example for Paragraph 2:
"Cal Newport's argument that we should shun the Passion Hypothesis and replace it with a craftsman's mindset is convincing (is not convincing) because ______________, ______________, _________________, and ______________________.
Paragraphs 3-6: Develop body paragraphs that support your claim.
Paragraph 7: Write a counterargument and rebuttal to show reader you've considered opposing views.
Paragraph 8: Write a conclusion that restates your claim or thesis with emotional power.
Introduction Paragraph
You could start your essay with an introduction about someone you know who followed his or passion with or without the desired result.
Sample Introduction and Thesis
Stanley was a big proponent of "follow your dreams." After he graduated from high school in 1977 and took some acting classes at a local community college, he dropped out to move to Los Angeles where he spent the 1980s working as a waiter and trying to make a break into Hollywood. He spent his money on coaches, mentors, acting gurus, body language masters, voice instructors, New Age positive thinking experts, all in an attempt to step up his game. He landed a few small parts here and there, just enough work to make him feel he was on the verge of making it. His optimism grew in the 1990s when he met some film directors who gave him some small roles and hinted at getting him larger roles when the opportunity came. Feeding on these dreams while living in a squalid apartment in the 1990s, Stanley continued to live a life of abject obscurity and futility with the hope that he just had to follow his dream and be persistent and that these two qualities would guarantee his success. He remained inside this delusional bubble for nearly two more decades while he lived in a roach-infested apartment in downtown L.A. where he supplemented his income by delivering plasma and working as a masseuse, a job he had to give up when his hands become afflicted with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. At the age of 60, around 2018, Stanley got strep throat and couldn't afford antibiotics since none of his part-time gigs offered health insurance. Curled into the fetal position on his apartment's bare mattress with roaches crawling over him, he wept as he felt betrayed by the fact that he had done what the American Dream told him to do: He sacrificed everything to follow his passion and remained tenacious over four decades to bring his dreams to fruition, but he knew in that moment that he was a pathetic, miserable failure, and that his dreams had soured and curdled into rotten milk.
This curdling of our dreams and the false promise of following those dreams is explored in Cal Newport's important book So Good They Can't Ignore You and his accompanying YouTube video "'Follow Your Passion' Is Bad Advice" in which Newport makes a persuasive case for replacing the Passion Hypothesis with the craftsman mindset. His claim rests on four compelling observations. Passion without spending time mastering a craft is worthless. Passion is not some low-hanging fruit that we pick from a tree, but an asset we develop over 10,000 hours of sustained hard work and tedium. Only 2% of the human race work at a "dream job." Most of us must find happiness because we are a "dream employer" who is valued based on the mastery of our craft. And finally, courage to pursue your dream without an honest of assessment of your capital is dangerous and self-destructive.
Default Setting Essay Template for 1,000-word essay
8 Paragraphs, 130 words per paragraph, approx. 1,000 words (1,040 to be exact)
Paragraph 1: Attention-getting introduction
Paragraph 2: Transition from introduction to argumentative claim (thesis)
Paragraphs 3-5: Body paragraphs that give reasons for supporting your claim.
Paragraphs 6 & 7: Counterarguments in which you anticipate how your opponents will disagree with you, and you then provide rebuttals to those counterarguments.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, an emotionally powerful re-statement of your thesis.
Make sure to include a Works Cited page.
Signal Phrases
We use signal phrases to signal to the reader that we are going to cite research material in the form of direct quotes, paraphrase or summary.
We include the author's background information to give author credibility or ethos in our argumentation.
After we cite the information, we present our own analysis to show how this material supports our argument.
We are fools if we think we were put on Planet Earth to be happy. That is the fantasy of a four-year-old child. Ironically, this infantile pursuit of happiness makes us unhappy. In the words of John Mellencamp: “I don’t think we’re put on this earth to live happy lives. I think we’re put here to challenge ourselves physically, emotionally, intellectually.”
The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. As we read in Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits' essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."
Variation of the above:
The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. According to Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits in his essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."
Signal Phrases Used for In-Text Citations
About 80% of your essay should be your writing and 20% should be quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material.
We use signal phrases to let reader know we are quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing.
Adapted from A Writer’s Reference with Writing in the Disciplines 7th ed. by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers
How can I use them?
Below are some guidelines and tips for using signal phrases.
Signal phrases usually include the author’s name but can also include the author’s job title or background (“reporter for Washington Post,” “researcher,” “senator,” “scholar,” and so on) and/or the title of the source.
Signal phrases usually come at the beginning of a sentence before the source material, but they can also occur in the middle of a source or at the end.
To avoid monotony and repetition, try to vary both the language and placement of your signal phrases.
According to Maxwell and Hanson,…
As the 2017 IRS report indicates, …
Smith and Johnson state that …
Some scholars have shown…
Legal scholar Terrence Roberts offered a persuasive argument: “….”
Choose a verb that is appropriate to the way you are using your source. Below is a list of verbs that can be used in signal phrases:
You need to do four things when you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from a text.
Step One: The first thing you need to do is introduce the material with a signal phrase.
Make sure to use a variety of signal phrases to introduce quotations and paraphrases.
Step Two: The quote, paraphrase, or summary you use.
Step Three: The parenthetical citation, which comes after the cited material.
Kwon points out that the Fourth Amendment does not give employees any protections from employers’ “unreasonable searches and seizures” (6).
In the cultural website One-Way Street, Richard Prouty observes that Lasdun's "men exist in a fixed point of the universe, but they have no agency" (para. 7).
Step Four: Analyze your cited material. The analysis should be of a greater length than the cited material. Show how the cited material supports your thesis.
“Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition” by Ross Andersen (The Atlantic)
In the West, consciousness was long thought to be a divine gift bestowed solely on humans. Western philosophers historically conceived of nonhuman animals as unfeeling automatons. Even after Darwin demonstrated our kinship with animals, many scientists believed that the evolution of consciousness was a recent event. They thought the first mind sparked awake sometime after we split from chimps and bonobos. In his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes argued that it was later still. He said the development of language led us, like Virgil, into the deep cognitive states capable of constructing experiential worlds.
“Welfare for Those Unwilling to Work? It’s Not as Crazy as You Think” by Christine Emba (Washington Post)
As journalist Annie Lowrey, whose book “Give People Money” surveyed basic income programs around the world, points out, the United States is distinguished both by its exaltation of self-sufficiency and its unique racial divide. As it turns out, racism makes it hard to improve the safety net: Research shows that whites are less likely to support welfare programs when they’re told that blacks might benefit, even if they themselves are receiving social support. In fact, this was a flaw in the original New Deal: Agricultural and domestic laborers, most of whom were black, were purposefully excluded from many of the New Deal’s most important provisions.
“70,000 Years of Human History in 400 Pages” by Michael Saler (The Nation)
Through the ubiquity of such tools, scholars and laypeople alike are slowly being acclimatized to thinking in the long term, an outlook encouraged by Jo Guldi and David Armitage in The History Manifesto (2014). They argue that an emphasis on what the historian Fernand Braudel called the longue durée back in 1958 is now the approach best suited to a world awash in data of extended times and climes. Critics of The History Manifesto reasonably point out that while Big and Deep may be appealing, even seductive, size matters: Extra-large will not fit all, and specific historical questions will always determine the scope and method of investigation. Yet the existence of the debate itself (quite lively on Twitter, of all places) is testimony to the reincarnation of Braudel’s project.
“Can You Believe YouTube Caused the Rise in Flat-Earthers?” by Madison Malone Kircher
When YouTube said earlier this year that it would “begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways,” people praised the decision. A certain ex-engineer called it a “historic victory” on Twitter and applauded the company for making such a move, possibly at a great expense to its business model. Which … ha. Among the types of videos YouTube said it would cut back on recommending was flat-Earth content. As in, videos peddling the idea that the Earth is not, as science has repeatedly proven, round. And while I’m all for quashing the spread of truly wrongheaded and potentially dangerous ideas, in the case of flat-Earth indoctrination, the damage has long since been done.
Researchers from Texas Tech University believe they’ve isolated YouTube videos as ground zero for the spread of flat-earth theories, TheGuardianreports. Speaking with attendees at the biggest annual gathering of flat-Earthers both in 2017 and 2018, the research team found that people who fell into the world of the flat Earth were often those who were already spending time on YouTube watching other conspiracy videos (about 9/11, for example). This feedback loop — where watching conspiracy videos leads to being shown more conspiracy videos, which in turn motivates creators to make more conspiracy content — was also cited by the above-mentioned ex-YouTube engineer. It’s that circle that has enabled flat-Earth content to thrive. Researchers said one of the most popular videos is a nearly two-hour-long piece that details myriad reasons why, if you’re smart enough to think beyond what has been crammed into your brain by society for your whole life, the Earth is so obviously flat.
Writing Effective Introduction Paragraphs for Your Essays
Since the Dawn of Man, people have sought love and happiness . . .
In today’s society, we see more and more people cocooning in their homes . . .
Man has always wondered why happiness and contentment are so elusive like trying to grasp a bar of sudsy, wet soap.
We have now arrived at a Societal Epoch where we no longer truly communicate with one another as we have embarked upon the full-time task of self-aggrandizement through the social media of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al.
In this modern world we face a new existential crisis with the advent of newfangled technologies rendering us razzle-dazzled with the overwhelming possibilities of digital splendor on one hand and painfully dislocated and lonely with our noses constantly rubbing our digital screens on the other.
Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the luxuriant Garden of Eden searching for the juicy, succulent Adriatic fig only to find it withered under the attack of mites, ants, and fruit flies, mankind has embarked upon the quest for the perfect pesticide.
Three. Never apologize to the reader:
Sorry for these half-baked chicken scratch thoughts. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I didn’t have sufficient time to do the necessary research for the topic you assigned me.
I’m hardly an expert on this subject and I don’t know why anyone would take me seriously, but here it goes.
Forgive me but after over-indulging last night at HomeTown Buffet my brain has been rendered in a mindless fog and the ramblings of this essay prove to be rather incoherent.
Four. Don’t throw a thesis cream pie in your reader’s face.
In this essay I am going to prove to you why Americans will never buy those stupid automatic cars that don’t need a driver. The four supports that will support my thesis are ______________, ______________, _______________, and ________________.
It is my purpose in this essay to show you why I'm correct on the subject of the death penalty. My proofs will be _________, _______, _________, and ___________.
Five. Don’t use a dictionary definition (standard procedure for a sixth grade essay but not college in which you should use more sophisticated methods such as extended definition or expert definitions):
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines metacognition as “awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process.”
General Principles of an Effective Introduction Paragraph
It piques your readers’ interest (often called a “hook”).
It is compelling.
It is timely.
It is relevant to the human condition and to your topic.
It transitions to your topic and/or thesis.
The Ten Types of Paragraph Introductions
One. Use a blunt statement of fact or insight that captures your readers’ attention:
It's good for us to have our feelings hurt.
You've never really lived until someone has handed you your __________ on a stick.
Men who are jealous are cheaters.
We would assume that jealous men are obsessed with fidelity, but in fact the most salient feature of the jealous man is that he is more often than not cheating on his partner. His jealousy results from projecting his own infidelities on his partner. He says to himself, “I am a cheater and therefore so is she.” We see this sick mentality in the character Dan from Ha Jin’s “The Beauty.” Trapped in his jealousy, Dan embodies the pathological characteristics of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, _______________, ________________, and _______________.
Washington, D.C. may soon be littered with the political bodies of people who believed they could spin their way out of the impact of the new Bob Woodward book, Fear. I’ve been to the Washington rodeo enough times to know that Woodward’s methodical, grinding style of investigation doesn’t lend itself to escaping unscathed, especially for bad actors and loose cannons. Hell, as a young Department of Defense aide in 1990, I saw it up close when his book, The Commanders, led to the firing of USAF Chief of Staff Mike Dugan. He had tapes then, as he does now.
This week, it’s Donald Trump’s turn under Woodward’s political electron microscope, and the President’s hissy-fit reaction tells us how close Woodward’s work has struck. Trump knows his White House staff, up to and including his daughter, thinks he’s off the rails, a danger to himself and the country, and unable to execute the duties of a Waffle House manager much less the President of the United States.
John Taylor Gatto opens his essay “Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why” as thus:
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in the world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: Their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teacher’s lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn’t get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
Gatto goes on to argue in his thesis that school trains children to be servants for mediocre (at best) jobs when school should be teaching innovation, individuality, and leadership roles.
Two. Write a definition based on the principles of extended definition (term, class, distinguishing characteristics) or quote an expert in a field of study:
Metacognition is an essential asset to mature people characterized by their ability to value long-term gratification over short-term gratification, their ability to distance themselves from their passions when they’re in a heated emotional state, their ability to stand back and see the forest instead of the trees, and their ability to continuously make assessments of the effectiveness of their major life choices. In the fiction of John Cheever and James Lasdun, we encounter characters that are woefully lacking in metacognition evidenced by _____________, ______________, _____________, and _______________.
According to Alexander Batthanany, member of the Viktor Frankl Institute, logotherapy, which is the search for meaning, “is identified as the primary motivational force in human beings.” Batthanany further explains that logotherapy is “based on three philosophical and psychological concepts: Freedom of Will, Will to Meaning, and Meaning in Life.” Embracing the concepts of logotherapy is vastly more effective than conventional, Freud-based psychotherapy when we consider ________________, ______________, __________________, and ________________.
Three. Use an insightful quotation that has not, to your knowledge anyway, been overused:
George Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what we want. The second is getting it.” Shaw’s insight speaks to the tantalizing chimera, that elusive quest we take for the Mythic She-Beast who becomes are life-altering obsession. As the characters in John Cheever and James Lasdun’s fiction show, the human relationship with the chimera is source of paradox. On one hand, having a chimera will kill us. On the other, not having a chimera will kill us. Cheever and Lasdun’s characters twist and torment under the paradoxical forces of their chimeras evidenced by _____________, _______________, ______________, and __________________.
Four. Use a startling fact to get your reader’s attention:
There are currently more African-American men in prison than there were slaves at the peak of slavery in the United States. We read this disturbing fact in Michelle Alexander’s magisterial The New Jim Crow, which convincingly argues that America’s prison complex is perpetuating the racism of slavery and Jim Crow in several insidious ways.
We read that in the latest study by the Institute for Higher Education, Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento that only 30% of California community college students are transferring or getting their degrees. We have a real challenge in the community college if 70% are falling by the wayside.
8,000 students walk through El Camino's Humanities Building every week. Only 10% will pass English 1A. Only 3% will pass English 1C.
99% of my students acknowledge that most students at El Camino are seriously compromised by their smartphone addiction to the point that the addiction is making them fail or do non-competitive work in college.
Five. Use an anecdote (personal or otherwise) to get your reader’s attention:
When my daughter was one years old and I was changing her diaper, she without warning jammed her thumb into my eye, forcing my eyeball into my brain and almost killing me. After the assault, I suffered migraine headaches for several months and frequently would have to wash milky pus from the injured eye.
One afternoon I was napping under the covers when Lara walked into the room talking on the phone to her friend, Hannah. She didn’t know I was in the room, confusing the mound on the bed with a clump of pillows and blankets. I heard her whisper to Hannah, “I found another small package from eBay. He’s buying watches and not telling me.”
That’s when I thought about getting a post office box.
This could be the opening introduction for an essay topic about “economic infidelity.”
As we read in Stephen King’s essay “Write or Die”:
“Hardly a week after being sprung from detention hall, I was once more invited to step down to the principal’s office. I went with a sinking heart, wondering what new sh** I’d stepped in.”
Six. Use a piece of vivid description or a vivid illustration to get your reader’s attention:
My gym looks like an enchanting fitness dome, an extravaganza of taut, sweaty bodies adorned in fluorescent spandex tights contorting on space-age cardio machines, oil-slicked skin shrouded in a synthetic fog of dry ice colored by the dizzying splash of lavender disco lights. Tribal drum music plays loudly. Bottled water flows freely, as if from some Elysian spring, over burnished flesh. The communal purgation appeals to me. My fellow cardio junkies and I are so self-abandoned, free, and euphoric, liberated in our gym paradise. But right next to our workout heaven is a gastronomical inferno, one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, part of a chain, which is, to my lament, sprouting all over Los Angeles. I despise the buffet, a trough for people of less discriminating tastes who saunter in and out of the restaurant at all hours, entering the doors of the eatery without shame and blind to all the gastrointestinal and health-related horrors that await them. Many of the patrons cannot walk out of their cars to the buffet but have to limp or rely on canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and other ambulatory aids, for it seems a high percentage of the customers are afflicted with obesity, diabetes, arthritis, gout, hypothalamic lesions, elephantiasis, varicose veins and fleshy tumors. Struggling and wheezing as they navigate across the vast parking lot that leads to their gluttonous sanctuary, they seem to worship the very source of their disease.
In front of the buffet is a sign of rules and conduct. One of the rules urges people to stand in the buffet line in an orderly fashion and to be patient because there is plenty of food for everyone. Another rule is that children are not to be left unattended and running freely around the buffet area. My favorite rule is that no hands, tongues, or other body parts are allowed to touch the food. Tongs and other utensils are to be used at all times. The rules give you an idea of the kind of people who eat there. These are people I want to avoid.
But as I walk to the gym from my car, which shares a parking lot with the buffet patrons, I cannot avoid the nauseating smell of stale grease oozing from the buffet’s rear dumpster, army green and stained with splotches and a seaweed-like crust of yellow and brown grime.
Often I see cooks and dishwashers, their bodies covered with soot, coming out of the back kitchen door to throw refuse into the dumpster, a smoldering receptacle with hot fumes of bacteria and flies. Hunchbacked and knobby, the poor employees are old, weary men with sallow, rheumy eyes and cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I imagine them being tortured deep within the bowels of the fiery kitchen on some Medieval rack. They emerge into the blinding sunshine like moles, their eyes squinting, with their plastic garbage bags twice the size of their bodies slung over their shoulders, and then I look into their sad eyes—eyes that seem to beg for my help and mercy. And just when I am about to give them words of hope and consolation or urge them to flee for their lives, it seems they disappear back into the restaurant as if beckoned by some invisible tyrant.
The above could transition to the topic of people of a certain weight being required to buy three airline tickets for an entire row of seats.
Seven. Summarize both sides of a debate.
America is torn by the national healthcare debate. One camp says it’s a crime that 25,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year from treatable disease and that modeling a health system from other developed countries is a moral imperative. However, there is another camp that fears that adopting some version of universal healthcare is tantamount to stepping into the direction of socialism.
Eight. State a misperception, fallacy, or error that your essay will refute.
Healthcare
Americans against universal or national healthcare are quick to say that such a system is “socialist,” “communist,” and “un-American,” but a close look at their rhetoric shows that it is high on knee-jerk, mindless paroxysms and short on reality. Contrary to the enemies of national healthcare, providing universal coverage is very American and compatible with the American brand of capitalism.
Civil War in America
In the South, it is still common to hear white people speak of the Civil War by denying its connection to the evils of slavery and treason. Rather, it is commonly spouted by white people in the south that the Civil War was the result of "Northern aggression" and "state rights," but these explanations are odious poppycock and are part of America's shameful history of fake news, which afflicts our country like an ugly, festering cancer sore to this very day.
Nine. Make a general statement about your topic.
From Sherry Turkle’s essay “How Computers Change the Way We Think”:
The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world. Although writing remains our primary information technology, today when we think about the impact of technology on our habits of mind, we think primarily of the computer.
Ten. Pose a question your essay will try to answer:
Why are diet books more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more fat?
Why is psychotherapy becoming more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more crazy?
Why are the people of Qatar the richest people in the world, yet score at the bottom of all Happiness Index metrics?
Why are courses in the Humanities more essential to your well-being that you might think?
What is the difference between thinking and critical thinking?'
Paragraph 1: For your introduction, summarize Karl Taro's Greenfeld's description of burnout as he and his daughter attempt to do what appears to be an onslaught of homework and the teacher's response when the father presents his complaint.
Paragraph 2: Make a claim that argues for or against the kind of rigorous homework discussed in the two essays above.
Paragraphs 3-6: Develop body paragraphs that support your claim.
Paragraph 7: Write a counterargument and rebuttal.
Paragraph 8: Write a conclusion that restates your thesis with emotional power
Option 3:
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses Ibram X. Kendi’s claim in “There Is No Middle Ground on Reparations” that we as a society are morally compelled to implement reparations as a response to slavery and Jim Crow.
Essay Outline
Paragraph 1: Summarize Kendi's arguments for reparations.
Paragraph 2: Develop a claim that supports or refutes Kendi's claim.
Paragraphs 3-6: Develop body paragraphs that support your claim.
Paragraph 7: Develop a counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 8: Write a conclusion that restates your claim with emotional power.