An Elephant Crackup By Charles Siebert

The Elephant Man can, at times, be a tough play to talk about. The production instills a sort of guilt in the audience, seemingly as though they are the culprits of the Elephant Man's emotional isolation from society. This guilt is very likely due to society's tendency to see the disabilities of the disabled person, as opposed to the person him or herself, as The Elephant Man presents this societal problem, among others, with all of the subtleties befitting a train colliding with a merry-go-round.

Human beings have full control over their identities after they have received knowledge and have become shaped from external stimuli. These stimuli include the teaching process of humans which comes through tradition, schooling, and the actions of other humans and the influence of the organisms around them. Andrew Solomon, through “Son,” was able to use his experience of growing up and labeling himself as a gay dyslexic to show how his environment and knowledge had shaped his identity and how it was viewed by others with different identities. In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert was able to explain how the other organisms or humans are able to form new identities for elephants over time by shaping them a new environment and having the elephants process it. In “Mind’s Eye,” Oliver Sacks had different case studies of blindness from different people and was able to show how each one experienced their blindness help shape and express their individual identities. The stimuli that becomes processed by a person in the situations, accounts, and studies of these works assist in the role of explaining the formulation of an identity.

George Orwell’s 1930 short story “Shooting an Elephant,” demonstrates the total dangers of the unlimited authority a state has and the astounding presentment of “future dystopia”. In the story, Orwell finds himself to be in an intricate situation that involves an elephant. Not only does the fate of the elephant’s life lie in Orwell’s hands, he has an audience of people behind him cheering him on, making his decision much more difficult to make. Due to the vast crowd surrounding his thoughts, Orwell kills the elephant in the end, not wanting to disappoint the people of Burma. Orwell captures the hearts of readers by revealing the struggles he has while dealing with the burden of his own beliefs and morals.

When you are a senior in high school, your first few months of school are spent taking standardized test and choosing what colleges you will apply to. The decision of selecting a college that you will spend four consecutive years at furthering your education, and getting ready for the real world, is a decision that takes a lot of thought. When we look into Universities we not only look at them at an academic standpoint, but we also look at what a school has to offer that will make us feel as if we belong there, and that it is somewhere we can call home. A lot of students choose to attend Southern Universities because of all the wonderful things they have to offer, and because of the family orientated vibe that they give off.

There are many examples of political domination between the readings from Orwell, Douglass, Obama, and Wong. Whether it’s an extreme example such as imperialism or whether it’s a smaller example such as different culture, political domination can be found in all these readings. Each of these authors use an “unexpected event” to show off how their experience of being an outsider. In George Orwell’s, “Shooting an Elephant”, the story begins through the eyes of a colonial policeman in British Burma who is hated by the Burmese people.

Harry Harlow’s thorough research on the connection between maternal comfort and rhesus monkeys provides information and knowledge to the reader as an insight into our social and emotional development. In this article, Harlow uses experimental observation of mental and emotional associations of the affectionate ties between the child and the mother. As Harlow says, this is “an instinct incapable of analysis”.

The human brain contains specific neurochemical systems that create feelings in us. Over many studies, scientists

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen features a combination of circus life in the early twentieth century and the life of an elderly man at a nursing home. The book tells the story of Jacob Jankowski and his journey in the 1930s from the end of his time at Cornell University – a very familiar institution – to his various experiences in the circus. It incorporates a variety of different events imbued with drama and conflict between characters and the animals in the menagerie. Gruen’s book is effective in contextualizing the historical circumstances of the time period, as well as conveying the lifestyle of those involved in the circus.

I am reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, and I am currently on page ____. The plot begins with a 90 year old Jacob Jankowski recounting his time as a part of the circus. When Jacob was 23 in 1931 he was attending Cornell University to become a veterinarian. However, his plans became derailed when he discovers that his parents died in a fatal car crash. Unable to cope Jacob makes the rash decision to ride the rails and leave behind his life. By chance Jacob finds himself on a train belonging to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Uncle Al the owner of the circus decides to give Jacob as job as the vet for the animals. As he is tending to one of the horses he meets Marlena. She is one of the performers, and is very connected

The process of neural coupling makes people have empathy. Empathy is something that you gain when you feel other people’s emotions. It can only be earned when you understand one’s pain. According to Fredrickson, these conscious acts can only be reached by sharing a unified connection. When talking to people, you typically share a smile or you attentively pay attention to their expressions. By doing so, you can reach the level of happiness that you deserve. Yet, Gilbert would say that all these emotions are not possible. You have to rely on your unconscious during these types of moments. These are rare moments that you typically share between family, friends, or strangers. Usually, we rely on our psychological immune system to make us happy. If the process is typically unconscious, how do we know that what we are feeling in Love 2.0 is a real connection between a stranger or soul mate? This concludes that Fredrickson’s theory needs to be assisted by Gilbert’s.

Individuals who face traumatic experiences are to the adverse effects of their memories due to the unpredictable nature of their trauma. Trauma manifests itself in the individual without having adverse effects on those surrounding the victim. Yet, there exists unity between the community and the individual in finding a solution to the traumatic experiences. In “An Elephant Crackup”, Charles Siebert discusses impact that elephants afflicted by traumatic experiences have on a herd while Martha Stout shows how people attempt to keep their traumatic experiences contained and the negative effects of such method. A community that wishes to protect their tradition tends to have an adverse effect on the individual because they value the group over the individual. The opposite also holds true because a community that incorporates the troubled individual provides security under which the individual can recover from their trauma. A community that provides this emotional shelter while also allowing the victim to discover their own path in overcoming traumatic experiences.

Every behavior begins with biology. Our behaviors, as well as our thoughts and feelings, are produced by the actions of our brains, nerves, muscles, and glands. In this chapter we will begin our journey into the world of psychology by considering the biological makeup of the human being, including the most remarkable of human organs—the brain. We’ll consider the structure of the brain and also the methods that psychologists use to study the brain and to understand how it works.

In everyone’s life there are moments that change us forever. Certain events that give us a new outlook of the world, or that just show us blatantly what we already knew. For no one else was this truer than George Orwell. Born Eric Arthur Blair he is arguably the most influential novelist of all time. No other author has had so much influence on popular culture, creating the hit novels ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’ which have engrained themselves into popular culture.

Did you know that the United States population grew almost 400% in two decades because of newcomers? Is globalization a threat or an opportunity for economies worldwide? Would individuals consider a globalized effort to change, a better living for themselves? How come there are different views of globalization when towards the end, globalization is helping different backgrounds and cultures come together and benefit from one another? Globalization is definitely an opportunity for economies worldwide, because throughout the years, more countries have shown progress by adapting to modern lifestyles. There has been an increase in diversity, however, different groups of individuals have taken this analysis in two different paths. In most situations, there are advantages and disadvantages, and society has made individuals come to a realization that our increasingly globalized culture will affect our future lifestyles when it comes to several issues like immigration, the economy, and politics. An increasing globalized culture must be approached with caution to increase cultural awareness in order to stop the eventual depletion of economies, and to discover new ways to adapt to a more dependable political system.

If you’re not paying attention, the mind can be a tricky labyrinth. The less you know about it, the more inexplicable and frightening it becomes. For example, why do seemingly benign elephants wreak havoc upon villages? In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert explores the aberrant nature of these elephants and correlates them to their traumatizing upbringing, deprived of community and kinship. The biochemistry of the human mind, analyzed in “Love2.0” by Barbara Frederickson, serves as a worthy addendum to Siebert’s conjecture. “Love2.0” explains that the brain, hormones, and nerves work in unison to build emotional fortitude, stimulate oneself, and express positivity resonance. Siebert’s ideas of elephant culture and trans-species psyche can put Frederickson’s theory of emotions into practice. The absence of certain hormones within elephants, provided their fragmented community, can explain their volatile outbreaks. Alternatively, the reinstitution of human parental roles into elephant culture can help reconstruct their broken emotional states of elephants and rebuild their resilience; this healing process can also extend to humans.