The World Is Not Falling Apart By Steven Pinker And Andrew Mack

In the novel The Year We Disappeared, Cylin and John Busby want the readers to understand that no matter what someone is going through, things will become better if they cooperate with what they’re going through. To illustrate, John Busby is in the hospital and he is struggling to live under his current conditions, but he believes he can survive. To show, John says, “I’d lost about thirty pounds or so but was building up strength every day, walking the halls with my IV pole, keeping my mind sharp” (40). This proves how even though John was practically living through Hell everyday, he kept his mind set positive and was determined to get back on his feet and cooperate with what he was going through, so that he could be his normal self again.

“Is Everyone really Equal” by Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo is an introduction to building frameworks that will help students comprehend Social Justice courses more completely. This highlights the patterns and tensions that is caused by inequality within Society. It is important to view these courses through a critical lens and not necessarily through a personal one.

The book “The Other America”, written by Michael Harrington, describes poverty in America in the 1950s and 1960s, when America became one of the most affluent and advanced nations in the world. The book was written in 1962, and Harrington states that there were about 50,000,000 (about 25% of the total population) poor in America at that time. The author did extensive research with respect to the family income levels to derive the poverty numbers, and used his own observations and experiences to write this book. This book addresses the reasons for poverty, the nature of poverty, the culture of poverty, the blindness of Middle Class America with respect to poverty, and the responsibility of all Americans in addressing the issue of poverty in America.

"Battleground America," written by Jill Lepore, provides a strong history of guns and the way they have changed in the eyes of the American through the years. She proves her point with strong evidence throughout her article, sprinkling it with opinion and argument that is strongly supported. She presents her argument to convince her audience that the open availability of guns allows citizens to undeservingly purchase them by displaying the credibility in her sources, using negative connotations in her speech, and the strength and objectivity only a strong logos appeal can provide.

Leaving the comforts of the first world, Jessica Alexander abandons her job, fiancé, family, and home to venture into the misleading volunteer work of Humanitarian aid. Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid by Jessica Alexander is a conglomeration of stories that are written from Jessica’s memory. “It is a true account based on [Jessica’s] best recollections of the events and [her] experiences.”.

Although Steven Crichley doesn’t fully come out and say that our country isn’t as great as it used to be, in his article, “Violence is Who We Are,” He does list situations that have increasingly become more of a problem. For example, “It used to be that a 12- year- old boy might sneak a look at his father’s Playboy magazine…. Now a 12-year-old can view the most extreme pornogaphy imaginable.” Because of the use of the internet incorrectly, looking at porn has become increasingly a larger problem. Another problem that is increasing, is the homicides and shootings in Pittsburgh and around the world. “Shootings and murders in the

     One popular theory suggests that many murderers are the product of our violent society. Our culture tends to approve of violence and find it acceptable, even preferable, in many circumstances (Holmes and DeBurger 27): According to research done in 1970, one out of every four men and one out of every six women believed that it was appropriate for a husband to hit his wife under certain conditions (Holmes and DeBurger 33). This emphasis on violence is especially prevalent in television programs. Violence occurs in 80 percent of all prime-time shows, while cartoons,

There has been a rise on the topic of gun violence. It has become a more relevant topic today and one cannot walk away from the news without hearing a story related to gun violence either being covered or displayed on the teleprompter below. This paper will analyze three sources: an article written by Dov Cohen, titled “Culture, Social Organization, and Patterns of Violence,”on the trends of violence based on location, a Ted Talk given by Dan Gross, titled “Why Gun Violence Cannot become America’s New Normal,”on the topic of gun violence and how it affected his life as well a proposition to ending violence in the U.S, and an article, “Analyzing Available Data Could Help Improve Background Checks Involving Domestic Violence Records,” written by the U.S. Government of Accountability Office(GAO) which covers the process of background checks within the sales of firearms. These three sources will be evaluated on the bases that they evoke a strong argument with the use ethos, pathos, and logos within their writings.

COLLAPSE by Jared Diamond attempts to answer the question, “What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?”

Pinker proposes a few possible answers to this question. For one, he states that better reporting and the instant access to news has made us more aware of violence and cruelty taking place in the world. A hundred years ago, a double-murder suicide in California most likely wouldn't have made it past local news. Today, the Associated Press would instantaneously have an article ready to be distributed by thousands of media outlets, and everybody would be able to read about it from anywhere with the internet. Another possible reason for the illusion of our world being more violent than ever is the advocacy market. As Pinker humorously points out, “Nobody attracted advocates and donors by saying ‘things just seem to be getting better and better’.” I suggest an answer similar to that of Pinker’s first, that the news media has helped to create this illusion. However, unlike Pinker, I don’t accredit this illusion to innocent improved reporting. I believe that the media draws out and dramatizes tragedies for the sake of ratings, and even attempts to encourage reportable behavior. For example, recently, in the attention build-up relating to the release of a video showing a white police

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond gives you an in depth look at societies you may or may not be familiar with and shows you the secrets to their success or failure using his personal 5-point framework. I enjoyed this book and thought he made a lot of good points and had convincing evidence to back it up. While reading you could really tell he knew a lot about the areas he discussed because of the depth he went into with details and descriptions. One complaint I would have about the book is the length he went to in the detailed descriptions, at some points I felt he went too far and got a little wordy and with as much as he gave you are left with almost no questions or curiosity. There were a few terms he uses in the book like

What’s So Great About America is a novel written by Dinesh D’Souza to defend the constant criticism of the United States after September 11. Instead of looking at the negatives of this country and the struggles of terrorism, D’Souza makes clear how important patriotism in America is and how to avoid fear of future conflict. Dinesh D’Souza, who immigrated from India, was able to share his optimistic experiences of living in America. Although being a former White House policy analyst, D’Souza illustrates America for what it is rather than sugarcoating it to make it politically ideal.

The chapter “The Age of Total War” in Eric Hobsbawm’s novel “The Age of Extremes” is broken into four sections in order to explore the time period of 1914-1945. This essay will explore the subjects and processes that are present in this chapter of Hobsbawm’s (1994) novel in a limited scope. The processes that will be discussed are how the zero sum game led to the total war of World War one; the desire for revanchism led to the existence of World War Two, the cost of World War Two led to the economic crisis and how the disaster these events caused resulted in the desensitization of human beings. Throughout this chapter, Hobsbawm (1994) frequently expresses a fear for human kind in both a literal and metaphoric sense arguing that people of

     Violence has spread rapidly and has affected many innocent civilians in various urban cities and towns across America. According to a 1992 poll by Newsweek out of 1,000 people surveyed, 50.4% backs and 29,9% whites fell victims of violent crimes. (Graham) More and more people are becoming victims of such crimes that can easily affect a mass amount of people, fortunately, there is a less amount of innocent civilians of homicide and 52 white males out of 100,000 were victims of homicide (Graham). Soon, kids will kill each other and society in the future will be completely washed out.

These incidents are not only increasing in number, but in the amount of bloodshed in each occurrence. Some experts seek to analyze the effects this violence has. Others figure the causes to be everything from movies to video games. In