The Ted talk "Are We In Control of our Own Decisions" By Dan Airely talks about cognitive manipulation when making decisions. He explained how when making decisions people are more likely to choose the decision already made for them then, making their own decision. The example he used was about organ donation. In the United States our organ donation rate is really low compared to many European countries, the reasoning being cognitive manipulation. On the United States form people have to check the box to become an organ donor. In European countries it says mark the box if you do not want to become an organ donor. Since being an organ donor is already chosen for European countries their rate is way higher compared to the United States rate because the chosen decision in the United States is to not be an organ donor. The author did not ever specifically mention tragedy however, I believe the ted talk still connects to tragedy especially in Oedipus. Similarly to Oedipus we think we’re making our own decisions when indeed we’re not. For example Oedipus made all his decisions based on the fact that he did not want to fulfill the prophecy. However he had no control over the fact that he did not know his mother was the person he had children with accidentally fulfilling the prophesy. Similarly to how we don’t have full control over our decisions neither did Oedipus. This confirmed my belief about tragedy because tragedy is something people do not have control of even if they think they do.
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In the Tragedy Oedipus a heroic figure Oedipus is trying to help end the plague by figuring out who killed Laius. Oedipus asks a blind prophet Tiresias and accidentally fulfills his own prophecy and finds out that he killed Laius. Oedipus is a tragedy because it shows a person of high power and recognition falling due to many unfortunate events. The first indication that Oedipus is a tragedy is right in the beginning when many bad things are happening all at once, there's no harvest, mothers are having really bad birth pains, the cities on fire, and the plague is killing people. The story continues to show qualities of a tragedy because Oedipus is in a place of high recognition and is trying to be seen as a hero however it quickly blows up in his face. It becomes a horrific tragedy not only for him but for his children as well. Oedipus accidentally fulfills the prophecy of marrying his mother and killing his father. This is especially tragic because Oedipus and his family tried really hard to do everything so the prophecy wouldn’t be filled. His mother left him as a baby to get killed however he did not get killed then unknowingly married and had children with his mom. However the unfortunate events don't stop there, his mother kills herself and Oedipus gouges his eyes out. This is clearly an example of tragedy because a person of high power has a fall in power and destroys his and his families reputations forever due to several unfortunate events taking place. The article” Tragedy and The Common Man” by Aurthur Miller relates tragedy back to regular day to day situations. It makes connections between literature and real life situations of people dealing with tragedy and what is causing the tragedy. Miller’s article was very eye opening for me on what tragedy truly means. The main claim that I found valuable from Millers article is that tragedy is formed from a fall of power or high place in society . This claim is evident when Miller says “The quality in such plays that does shake us, however, derives from the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world.” This claim is easy to understand when you apply it to a real life example. For example if you think of it in terms of celebrities falling. For many things are exaggerated and seen as a big deal because it is blown up in the media and often ruins their reputations. Their reputations would not be ruined and their mistakes wouldn't be as publicly known if they weren't in the public eye. But since they are well known it is viewed as a tragedy because it ruins their career and reputation. This claim really helped me understand tragedy because it helped me see the origin of tragedy and challenged me to think of tragedy in a light because before I viewed tragedy as a thing that just happened not thinking about the cause of it. I think my new understanding of tragedy will challenge me to identify the origin of tragedy before the tragedy actually takes place in stories.
In Ap Lit we watched a Ted talk called “a kinder gentler philosophy of success”.The overall discussion in the video is how our panic is based on our career stress. The speaker spends a great deal of time discussing how we live in a meritocratic society where those who work hard deserve to be on top and those who don’t work hard are expected to stuck at the bottom. He also pointed out that this is an interesting philosophy to live by because it infers that those who are at the bottom have failed and deserve to live their whole life at the bottom.The speaker says that we live in a world full of snobs because they think they know everything about you based on how your career is going. The speaker talked about how we live in a success based society. He focused on how success and failure play a huge part of envy. Our society is filled with envy because of our individual based society. Where all success and failure is based on individual work and individual worship. We have envy because we our worship people and ourselves not a higher being. The speaker connected success and failure with tragedy. He explained that tragic art is an art form used in Greece and Rome to trace how people fail. He pointed out that Hamlet is not a loser he has simply lost which in terms of tragedy means something can be tragic without being a tragedy. When I think of tragedy, I think of an unfortunate event happening unexpectedly. For some reason whenever I think of tragedy I never make the connection with tragedy if its an expected thing because something usually is not devastating when your expected it because it gives you time to mentally prepare. Honestly I feel like I do not really know much about tragedy. I have never really pondered what tragedy meant probably because I tend to read a lot of predictable romance novels so there is usually not a tragedy and ends in a happy ending like ninety eight percent of the time . After doing a little bit of research I have learned that tragedy is a form of writing based on the suffering of people. A character will often undergo a difficult amount of disastrous events or circumstances. Usually these circumstances happen to a heroic or significant character in the novel making it tragic because that character is expected to save the day and be perfect. An example of tragedy in literature would be Romeo and Juliet. In the novel Romeo does everything to make their love work and then Juliet stages a fake death so that she doesn’t have to marry this guy Paris. However the word does not get to Romeo that it is a fake death so Romeo commits suicide and right as he is dying Juliet awakens and then she kills her self because Romeo is dead. This is an example of tragedy because an extreme amount of unfortunate events lead to both characters dying at the end of the novel. |
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