Analyzing Thomas Moore's 'Explaining The Word'

Wes Moore establishes his writing style quickly with an intriguingly dictated introduction. Every word carefully chosen to lay out how he came across this story. How intricately the story intersects not only his life but the life of a man with too many similarities to Wes including sharing his name. Wes Moore introduces the readers into his world with the utmost respect for the people in this intense anecdote while making sure that respect translates into interest and concern for the people, not boredom.

The Other Wes Moore is an autobiographical novel that is told from the heart of author, Wes Moore, while showing an illustrative purpose. One section of his book, in the epilogue, shows Moore diving into a more personal note on the roller coaster of a life he has lived, thus far. He uses his tone and diction to reflect on how the environment people grow up in can influence the ways they act and to explain that the people closest to you can change the opportunities you may have later in life, while using imagery and parallelism to show that no matter who you are or what background you come from, it can’t restrict or confine you from doing extraordinary things.

According to Marian Erickson, “Most of life is choices, and the rest is pure dumb luck.” Real people’s lives depend on this quote everyday, which leads to the outcome of each problem individuals face. In the passages, characterization of the main personas helps one understand the theme. Conflict and symbolism also help lead to the overall idea that life is not always guaranteed to be full of success. The book The Other Wes Moore, the poem “If,” and the informational text “The Art of Resilience” all share a common theme of how choices and luck contribute to the success of life.

The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore (2011), tells the story of two children who grew up in the same neighborhood with the same first and last names. It was not just the neighborhood in which they grew or their names that were the same, however. The two boys engaged in the same activities growing up, being active participants in a difficult neighborhood, engaging in gang activity, and getting into trouble with the police (Moore, 2011). In spite of these similarities in their early life, Wes Moore, the author, had a remarkably different life than the second Wes Moore; in addition to being an author, he has been a Rhodes scholar and is the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BridgeEdU a social organization dedicated to increasing the ease through which a high school student can transition to the higher education process (Moore, 2011). Moore’s (2011) case is one that has intrigued many in the field of criminology, in part due to the myriad theories on criminal behavior and the disparities present between the situations of the two boys (Schram, & Tibbetts, 2018). Among the different crinimiological theories or perspectives that are the most in alignment with the situation described in Moore’s (2011) book are those of social learning theory and differential association theory (Schram, & Tibbetts, 2018).

Since the beginning of time, the environment in which one is accustomed to provides them with the choices that lead down paths that make their legacy. This environment can be negative or positive, structured or chaotic, rich or poor, all which give a variety of choices. Regardless of the different trials and tribulations we face ultimately, it is the choices we make in response that make us the person we become.

The desire for self-improvement has propelled humanity into considerable scientific advancements. But as scientific developments continue to grow, these advancements carry certain implications on humanity which need to be justified in the light of philosophy. In the science fiction novella, “Understand,” Ted Chiang challenges the audience’s philosophical views regarding extraordinary hyper-intelligence by demonstrating that heightened intelligence can be beneficial to humanity if used in a moral and ethical manner. The story follows Leon Greco, a freshly-minted mastermind, as he journeys from a vegetative state to a medical advancement after being treated with an experimental drug. In this context, Chiang uses mimesis to mimic Greco’s

The poem “Wordsmith” by Susan Young follows the speaker watching their father as he constructs their house. Throughout the poem, their bond as father and child is made abundantly clear that they both love each other and value time spent together. Firstly, neither of them explicitly state how much they care but rather convey their familial feelings through actions instead. The speaker only watches their father “from the sidelines” (8) as they “watch with something akin to awe” (3) and never expresses their admiration aloud. Likewise, their father hardly outright states his affection but does it through working. The speaker understands this as they compare “all of the empty crevices” to “the words [the father] did not know how to say” (17). Another

2. The author Moore describes the culture in the streets with violence, drug dealing, and lack of education. Guys think its cool for them to do drugs, being cool at school, and fighting because it makes them men. Wes was a drug dealer he was once caught selling rock to an undercover cop. Besides dealing them he also did them, “ … Wes held the plastic bag with both hands and poured in nine ounces of cocaine.” (145) The author Wes and the other Wes both tried to act cool about school. Tony always told him, “Yo, you need to take this shit serious, man. Acting stupid ain’t cool!” (27) And the author Wes told the story when he got into a fight but made him sound cool, “... I decided to juice up the story up a little. Or a lot.” (50) Tony told Wes

I feel as though some critics may take Moore's argument to literally. Moore is not just saying that, "Here is my right hand and here is my left hand. Therefore, I have hands and there is no need for skepticism." I believe that Moore is really trying to say that you are more justified in believing that you have two hands (or two eyes, two ears, etc.) compared to believing in the premises that are present in your skeptical argument. One could say Moore is not wrong in thinking that knowledge of his hands is non-inferential because his argument shows that a skeptical argument needs more than just doubt of an instance of reality. Moore shows how logic provides backing to a positive knowledge claim (in this case, his argument regarding his

Nicholas Carr author of Google making us stupid? Begins his article with a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to add comedic relief to the fact he proves in his article. Carr states that spending a lot of time on the Web reconfigures the human brain, causing us to think, read and process data differently, and ultimately Google plays a big role. Thought-out the article Carr uses sources from: researchers, acquaintances, history and professionals to prove this thesis.

Module 3 Assignment 1. Write at least a one paragraph summary of the entire lecture in your own words (no quotes). It must be obvious after reading your summary that you watched the entire lecture. In the lecture "The Stuff of Thought," Steven Pinker, a renowned anthropologist talked about different aspects of language.

In Rene Descartes writing, Mediations on First Philosophy, he reflects on his childhood and falsehoods he believed in his youth. In this piece of writing, the first skeptical hypothesis is found. The basic outline for this hypothesis is as follows, “If I don’t know I’m not in some skeptical scenario, then I don’t know p; I don’t know I’m not in a skeptical scenario; therefore I don’t know p.” There has been many responses to this argument, but the most successful argument was made by George Edward Moore. Moore’s response, which uses a Moorean Shift, counters the argument successfully due to its simplicity and verification by conditions.

In this chapter Moore basically describes the good and how people look at this definition in different views. G.E. Moore describes the term good of being some as such something, which is simple, and that good requires analysis and in the end good does solemnly not exist in the real world. Moore mentions that good cannot just be simply defined, that good is just a notion. He uses the example of “yellow” he describes yellow to good, because all it is is just a notion. Describes the word good as being a natural object, describes good as a natural object can predict the normality of the actual word good. Deeper into the chapter he discusses that we consider the word good through the process of natural objects. When we as individual and as a person

An author has a purpose for writing the many forms of nonfiction. The big reason author’s write nonfiction is to present information to the reader, to inform and to explain; however, they do write to entertain and persuade. Depending on what you are reading depends on what kind of information and how it is written.

“What do you think is the worst game to play in Physical Education?” asked Mr. Moore. I responded with, “Well, there are many. The one I would say that I wish I would never have to play ever again is wiffle ball.” Mr Moore scoffed in disgust because that is his favorite game. He likes to torture us by making us play it. I honestly do not know how he has us play it all the time because all we do is complain. Mr. Moore wanted me to give him the reasons why I hate wiffle ball so I started listing them in my head and this is what I came up with.