Ellie Barber Westernization

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of Indian head pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into that tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and this made me

In the first paragraph, Louv explains that we abuse nature. He gives examples of how people do not treat nature with respect. "Advertisers already stamp their messages into wet sands of public beaches." This sentence makes the author seem very disgusted at the people who are putting ads on beaches. Beaches are places where people go to have fun, but now the people make the beach seem less important because people give less respect to nature than what they did in the past.

The film Peepli Live begins with showing individuals on their way into the small village of Peepli in India. Two men, Natha and Budhia, make their way to their home. Natha’s wife, Dhaniya continuously asks what the bank wanted to talk to about with them. Natha stays quiet but Budhia

From the incorporation of slaves in America during the 19th century to the Jewish holocaust, human suffering has remained a dark, miserable part of history. Although today there are various viewpoints on such incidents, the stance of Brazilian author, Clarice Lispector, is unyielding. In her short story, “The Smallest Woman

One day, on her way to her mother’s sanctuary, Sophie spots a bush meat trader, along with a small young bonobo walking with him. Sophie could easily tell that this bonobo had been through very rough times, since he had a few fingers missing, small bald patches, thick ropes coiled around him, and he was grinning from ear to ear. Anybody else would think that he was really happy. However, hearing this from her mom, who was an expert on bonobos, a grinning bonobo most likely meant that it was terrified. Despite her normal belief: Humans before animals, feeling pity and love for the bonobo, and wanting to impress her mom, in hope of getting her attention for once, she buys the bonobo. Even though the man had retailed the bonobo for a hundred dollars, Sophie gives him sixty, which was all her pocket money. Since hunting and selling bonobos is the only way to feed his family, the man greedily accepts. When Sophie shows the bonobo to her mom, she gets the opposite reaction of pride from her, fury. For years, her mom had fought and worked hard to stop bush meat traders, like that man and it had started to show progress, however, Sophie may have just singlehandedly, unwittingly encouraged the bonobo black market all over again. Sure enough, the same man returns at the sanctuary, along with two shivering infant bonobos in a cage. Sophie and her mom know very well that the only way hunters take baby bonobos is by killing their entire family first. Sophie’s mom angrily sends him off, then calmly discusses with Sophie that the bonobo, who Sophie named Otto, is now Sophie’s responsibility. Hearing the word “responsibility” clicks in Sophie’s mind. She realizes that, for the first time in her life, she is responsible for another living being, that Otto’s life is in her hands, considering his really bad state. “During my childhood, I’d only half

With in JM. Coetzee novella The Lives of Animals he uses a fictional character Elizabeth Costello as a source of advocacy. He draws us into Elizabeth Costello's own sense of mortality, her compassion for animals, and her alienation from humans, even from her own family. As in the story of

After reading the book “Gang Leader for a Day” by Sudhir Venkatesh my view on poverty changed. I realized that poverty is truly a cycle and people who are come from it have a hard time leaving the cycle. I also thought that there would be more violence from the

2The main issues that have been described in these 2 articles, is that cheap labor in these countries like India and Pakistan drives them to success. Every day thousands of people are injured and murdered to for fill our needs. In both articles, it talks about the social and environmental

In the documentary titled Nevsun in Eritrea: Dealing With a Dictator, the director Scott Anderson’s main topic of focus delves into Nevsun, which is a Canadian mining company that has formed a business partnership with the war-torn poor country of Eritrea in east Africa, or more importantly, with the Eritrean government that receives a 40% stake in profit from Nevsun’s mining operations. However, while the partnership on the surface may be seen as an overall boon for the country and its citizens it’s actuality all a façade and the partnership formed between the two has actually caused more harm than good. For example, the documentary touches upon multiple key elements: such as human rights violations workers have experienced working in the

The perception of reality and morality differs from individual to individual, from community to community. The different cultures throughout the world provide breeding grounds to many different kinds of ethical values and societies. In The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, the author Ursula Leguin, creates a society that may be perceived as corrupt and unfair, yet is not too different from our own. Omelas is neither a “city of happiness” nor a Utopia; it is a city of paradox, of false freedom and desperation. The people of Omelas live lives full of happiness and comfort, over a rotten foundation of an abused and abandoned child. Yet Leguin sympathizes with the ones who choose to stay in Omelas for she believes that they are helpless, stuck in the paradox of moral obligations and moral values. The Omeleans stay for they live in denial, creating a reality different from ours. To them, they either believe it is truly moral to uphold the community, with the sacrifice of one child, or they live in Omelas as an obligation, infinitely appreciative for the child sacrifice. The ones who leave however, do not want to feel obligation, to rely on this child for happiness. They want to be responsible for their own happiness. Unfortunately, similar to the Omeleans, Americans consume hundreds of pounds of meat a day; hundreds of cows, chicken and pigs brutally handled and abused for the pleasure of our taste buds.

In “The Animals: Practicing Complexity”, the idea of morals and ethics is brought to question. Michael Pollan offers the idea of giving animals a better life before they are killed for food. He depicts a farm where the animals are used as a natural sort of farm machinery that never

Amidst the scarcity of life, caring for animals is not only encouraged but those who do not are vilified. In turn, many people, such as Rick, financially ruin themselves in pursuit of the social elitism that comes with animal ownership. Ashamed of his lack of ownership, Rick cares for an electric sheep and describes the experience as “[…] demoralizing. And yet from a social standpoint it had to be done, given the absence of the real article.” (48) Although the intention of animal ownership was to preserve life and atone for their lack of empathy during World War Terminus, ironically, it instead creates a hostile barrier between people leaving them less caring to each other. Rather than for the altruistic intentions that they claim to have, these people relentlessly pursue animal ownership in an arms race with each other. Symbolically, Kipple, metaphysical junk matter that multiples, is humanity’s excessive materialism destroying the planet and ourselves with it. As Isidore describes, “Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday’s homeopape. When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces

The next documentary was titled “Megaslums”. It showed us a different perspective. It had more in common with the functionalist perspective. This is because the people within the Megaslum was independent from the rest of Mumbai. This is because they function on their own, they make their own money, businesses, and everyone has their own duties to the Megaslum. The video we watched was about a mega slum named Dharavi. It is in Mumbai, India. They have around or over one million people living in an area smaller than Central Park in New York City. This is the area which the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed and aimed to show the lifestyles and things that people from Dharavi encounter every day. How a slum is defined is when there are more than 2 people living in one room. The term social class is important in this movie because they show you that in Mumbai if you live or come from the slum you are considered the lowest class within the area. This is because most people consider the habitants of the slums, people you don’t want to be around, or ever become. The whole population is one social class, even though, many of these small business owners are wealthy because of how their small businesses have thrived over time. The population or people living in Dharavi are considered “Tanning or Untouchables.” This is the bottom social class of the region. Many say that they never can stop being considered an “Untouchable”. They say that one million dollars come out of this slum

For Darling, this opportunity to make use of her past learning experience appeared when she moves to America. After a few years in America, she became more and more distant from her friends that were left in Zimbabwe. One day, Darling is directly confronted by an old friend in a Skype call as she complains about the suffering that existed in Zimbabwe. Chipo, her past friend blatantly states to Darling, “You are not the one suffering. You think watching on BBC means you know what is going on? No, you don’t my friend, it’s the wound that knows the texture of the pain; it’s us who stayed here feeling the real suffering”(287). Darling felt as if she were slapped by Chipo’s words, shocked to hear such things. Even after Darling had moved to America, she still feels connected to Zimbabwe and empathized with all the suffering happening there. Furthermore, when Chipo mockingly asks, “It’s your country, Darling? Really, it’s your country, are you sure?”Darling simply thinks, “What the fuck? Where is this even coming from? . . . I should just click it and hang up because really, I don’t have time for this shit” (288). Chipo believes that Darling no longer understands the suffering of those she left behind anymore and denies her the right to claim that she does. Clearly, Darling does not agree with Chipo’s statements and

The “bad apples” This only happens because of their leaders who make such decisions which leads towards increasing the profit margin and creating social mutually benefit (Godwin, 2006; Godwin, 2008; CBS, 2002; PBS, 2002).