Blog Post for the Week: Respond to the following assertion with your own ideas on the issue. Sartre asserts that we are all ultimately responsible for everything in our lives,be it the actual choices we make or our perspective on situations seemingly out of our control. Do you agree with this contention? Keep this in mind, today I read in a health magazine that everyday we make 200 food-related choices alone, so there is probably millions of choices we make of which we are totally unaware. Due Friday at Midnight
Monday: We'll continue through the Sartre/ Existentialism Lecture. After that, we'll be reading a selection from Genesis on the binding of Isaac and do some discussion questions. We'll do the questions in small groups then come back together as a class and discuss.
Tuesday: Film on Sartre, Discussion of Heidegger and "Being"
Wednesday: Marx and Marxism lecture and reading selection
Thursday: More Marx, looking at how Marxism has evolved through the past century (Stalinism, Maoism, Titoism, Contemporary Post-Marxism)
Friday: How Marxism and Psychoanalysis have intersected and evolved and collided in the past twenty years or so.
I have a friend who asserts that people can fall into or out of love at their choosing. I can't believe a person has that much control. In general, a person has a great amount of choice and control in their life. They can decide what to do with their life, what job they want, who they hang out with, what they do in their free time. But we can't control every single tiny detail. Sometimes, things just get out of hand and we lose control. It would take an insane amount of awareness concerning each little detail to control every aspect of our lives, and I just don't think it's possible.
ReplyDeleteCallie Stribling, period 1/2
If we were as responsible for ourselves as Sartre says, then why do we spend so much time suffering? If we complain so much and are in control of our choices, we should just chose not to suffer. Most people would prefer to be happy, so the fact so many people claim to have problems and unhappy things in their life shows that we are indeed not fully in control of those choices. Our situation is also a factor in our choices. It may not be a possible choice for someone to go out and buy a brand new fancy car even though they might "choose" to. Thought we think we are in control, we really are under the effects of many other restrictions such as wealth, smarts, or even race or sexual orientation. Many gay couples would love to make the choice to marry, but it is legally impossible for them to do so. Though these people would chose to be married, they are not responsible either way, for it is not them preventing that from happening.
ReplyDelete~Hannah Bangs 1/2
Sartre's opinion that we are ultimately responsible for everything in our lives is a little too extreme in my opinion. It is true that we are products of our environment, and we do have impact our own situation as well, but there are certain things no matter how we feel about cannot be changed. We are not responsible for people who influence our lives and therefore cannot help what choices they make and how they change us. People have no control over the matters such as natural disasters or otherwise. We can try to control everything, but some things are meant to be out of grasp. State of mind and the choices we make when choosing how to live our lives can only go so far. Take, for example, dying. No matter if we embrace it or try everything within our power to keep it at bay, death comes knocking on everyone's door. In life, no one gets out alive. It is out of our control. What we add to our already present lives before then is our choice. How we choose to look at things does skew the situations we perceive, but in the end, no matter how you accept one thing, it does not change simply because you choose it to.
ReplyDelete- Jenna Lang, 1/2
Our choices are limited, but not very. They are limited to whatever is within our control. I can flap my arms for hours, but I will never fly. What I eat and how I spend my money are all within my control. Our body however, functions precisely because we have no control over its functions. If we had to spend our day telling our hearts to beat we'd get nothing else done. Every act requires a thought, whether it is blatantly conscious or not.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, our greatest challenge is in simply recognizing whether we control, influence or have no control over the events and outcomes in our lives. Once we piece these together and acknowledge that we have a choice, life becomes simpler and we can possess whatever it is that we desire. So I agree with Sartre's assertion even though sometimes we have to pay the price for various crucial decisions we make.
- Noe Mina 1/2
I do believe that for the most part, humans are responsible for all that takes place in their lives. Other than occurrences such as sickness or death of a family member, or similar things that we as humans have no affect over, we make all the big choices in our lives. We make decisions every day that not only affect our actions and thoughts, but also affect and shape the people that we turn out to be (which then affects more of our choices and so on). We decide who we are, or if we are going to let others take charge (we are still making that choice to surrender power of choice to others) of who we are. And even when we do not have a choice in a situation, we still have a point of view that is affected by those previous choices we already made. So yes, I do believe that everything we as human beings do is at least affected by the choices we make (even our perspectives/point of view).
ReplyDeleteAlexa Etheredge 1/2
I believe that we as humans have much less choice than we think we have. Yes we do make a lot of choices in our everyday lives, but these choices don't necessarily impact the way that we are going to feel or act the next day. Food choices could in fact lead to your death, but it is unlikely. Choice in clothing could lead to your death, but this is also very unlikely. the choices we make are so minescule in the span of our lifetime that I believe that eating a burger every now and then will not in fact kill you in the end, so long as you don't over indulge. Bad choices could effect your life in a short term manner, but most do not effect long term life. If you string them together however, this could lead to problems. However, I do not believe that we are in control of our lives as much as we lie ourselves into thinking. I don't believe in destiny, but i do believe that everything we do is leading up to our deaths, and we can make the best of it or the worst.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sartre that we do make choices in our life but we don't control everything in our life. I personally believe in essence before existence which means that I believe that the choices that I make are already predestined to happen. Me choosing to right this on this day is my choice, I thought about it & chose to write it but I think that it was predestined to happen. I believe that it was predestined for me to choose, write & click submit.
ReplyDeleteAs far as death, we cannot avoid that. If it supposed to happen, which it is, then it will happen. We can't stop death.
-Mikisa Harvey 1/2
I agree with Sartre that we everything that happens to us is a result of the choices that we make. It's not like fate where something is destined to happen to us or karma where we will be rewarded or punished for the actions which we undertake, but nothing that happens to us is random. If a freak event such as getting struck by lightning occurs, it's because you made the choices which resulted in you being there at that specific time. This doesn't mean that we have to live life in fear, carefully examining each and every choice we make with the utmost precaution, that would be counter-productive. Other people have written about death not being related to our choices, but it is. Dying isn't up to us as humans, but when it happens is a result of the previous decisions we've made.
ReplyDelete-Aiden Kahn 1/2
I do not completely agree with Sartre that we are all ultimately responsible for everything in our lives. While I do believe that we make millions of choices that we are not aware of, I still think that there are some things we can't control by our choices. The things that are determined are the things that disagree with this. For example, the rules of our government do not necessarily confirm this. You did not ultimately choose for those rules to be the way they are. You can choose whether you follow them or not, but unless you committed a crime that necessitated the law, you did not choose for those laws to be instituted. When I think about Sartre's assertion that our perspective on seemingly out-of-control situations can make us responsible, it intrigues me. Many people say you can make your life how you want it. I think this is a form of optimism, meaning that if you view your out-of-control experiences as something determined, it relieves the guilt of feeling that the situation is your fault, and helps you to feel that the situation must be "for the better". So, Sartre seems to be putting forth a libertarianist point of view, and I don't agree with it because I believe in more of the soft determinist point of view.
ReplyDelete---Gabi R. Hadad, 1/2
I think we are ultimately responsible for almost everything in our lives, but there are definitely some exceptions. Some things we are forced into, believe it or not, without a choice. Whenever we do have a choice about something, which is often the case, we may make a decision without even noticing. It could be coming from our subconscious or from a routine or ritual. There are many things that we do that we can't explain why we do them. On occasion, something may just happen without your causing it to and it will directly affect you anyways. So, no, I do not agree that we are ultimately responsible for everything, but for almost everything.
ReplyDeleteSam Kaspar 5/6
I do agree with Sartre that we are ultimately responsible for everything in our lives, but being responsible doesn't mean we made a conscious decision to be responsible. Though we make thousands of choices everyday, and are therefore responsible for all of them as they are the result of our own actions (or non-actions), less than a half of those decisions were reached with our own reasoning capacities. It's true that we are responsible for everything we do. However, this responsibility may not be voluntary, and may be influenced by the people we respect as well as our society's accepted norms. But because we ultimately ended up doing one thing as opposed to another, we have to be responsible for that action.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Zhang 1/2
I would agree only halfway with Satre's argument--I do believe that a lot of things do happen based on the actions that we take, and a lot of the time, we get out of a situation what we put into it. If someone gets into a car accident because they weren't paying attention because they were on their cell phone or something, then yes, Satre's philosophy applies. However, I don't believe that this is the case for all actions. Action to acheive certain results is often not taken in a lot of devastating scenarios, such as the acquistion of mental illnesses or cancers.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, I believe that it really just depends on the situation and if there are any plausible factors that one could contribute to results with.
Katie Pastor, Per. 5/6
I partially agree with Sartre when he states we are responsible for everything in our lives. Just like the food article states we make many sub conscious decisions. Those decisions are not always good in the long term but it was our own doing. May it be adding some mayo to your hot dog adding some extra calories to your diet ultimately adding on to your weight gain or simply biting your jaw over and over reducing the tooth’s size. However there are actions that we completely control that play a big part in our lives such as love and the simplicity of a heart beating. We can’t tell our heart to beat but we can affect it to eat food that would clog our arteries making it stop. Also, love is an emotion that we are not utterly responsible for. We can create and put ourselves in position to fall in love but the actual action just hits you without warning. About 80% of your actions can be controlled by you and the other 20% are uncontrollable when it occurs but the events prior to that can.
ReplyDeleteSebastian Canizares 1/2
Sartre's opinion that we have ultimate control over events of our lifes is a bit far fetched. I don't think we can be responsible for everything in our life because in a way, that just isn't possible. As individual beings, we have lots of control over many aspects of our lives like what we eat, or who we talk to but I think that there are times where things happen that are beyond our control or they just happen because we lost control. In my opinion, it would be extremely difficult to control every minute detail of our life. There is only so much control we can have over events because there are so many other "strings attached" or there are just so many other restrictions that could unknowlingly sway the decision. So no, I don't really believe that we ultimately control everything and are responsible for every action in our lives.
ReplyDeleteNikita Prasad
-5/6
Sartre's opinion is very much an extreme. When I think about this topic of our lives and what is in and out of our own control, I think it isn't all one way or all the other. Sartre believes that every single thing in our lives is in our control, but I have to disagree. While the vast majority of things in our life are affected by our actions, they aren't all completely in our control. So, some things in LCD are in your control, others are affected by your decisions in life, and others still are completely out of our control. For example, weather, death, and other people's decisions are often completely out of one's control.
ReplyDelete-Jesse Moritz 5/6
I don't agree fully with Sartre. I think there are a few things that we can't control, but there are many things that we can. We can't control who are parents are, when we are born, where we are born, or what kind of family we are born into, for example. We do make many choices, that we are responsible for, but we can't be held responsible for everything. We do have a lot of responsibility for our own lives due to the decisions we make, but we aren't able to control everything about our lives. Some things happen unexpectedly that affect us, even though other people are responsible for them. An example of this might be a car crash. If someone were to run a red light and hit me, I wouldn't consider myself responsible, but it would definitely affect my life.
ReplyDeleteEmerson Curtis 1/2
I think we make our own choices to a certain extent. Like we discussed in class a weeks ago, we feel that we make our own choices very often but it isn’t the case. Our choices are always influenced by other people or even society/culture. Using the example we used in class. We do have the choice in the morning of weather or not to go to school, but if we take into account that if we don’t show up, we are seen a lazy/bad people we decided that it isn’t worth it. For most of the choices we make, we think of how this will make us look.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that shows that we don’t make all the choices. In the question it said that we make 200 foods choice everyday and we don’t even realize it, OK I can agree with that but we only selected food out of the options that were given to us. This can apply to things we buy or decisions we make. We make a choice within the options that are given to us.
Sandra Norwood
Period 1/2
I partially agree with Sarte's assertions. I agree that we are responsible for our actions and consequences such as how one is responsible for scoring badly on a test if they didn't study. However, we are not responsible for what family we are born into. It is not someone's fault if they were born in a third world country. There are plenty of factors in our lives that we cannot control. However, I also think a lot of people are confusing the word "responsible" with the word "choice". It usually isn't anyone's choice to feel sad, but a person can be responsible for it, because it can be their fault for feeling sad. If I failed that test that I didn't study for, I would feel sad and though it isn't my choice to feel so, I would still be responsible for it.
ReplyDeleteperiod 1/2
ReplyDeleteI partly dont believe wit sartre because somethinks we do ave choices on like what to eat, wear, ect. But i do believe the choices we make leads us to out death. i think the way we decide on how to handle situatons are in our control, but also could lead towards our death.
ReplyDeletei believe that you can fight death, so for an example, if someone has cancer and it was destan that it was their time to go and that person chooses to fight it and wins then they beat cancer and death adn have changed their destiny. i dont believe that youhave a set destiny. i think everything we do cotributes to it and the things we do is chosen by ourselves adn not anyone else.
danni biddle
period 5/6
I don't completely agree with Sartre that we are solely responsible for our actions and consequences. Other people also have an influence on our lives. If I was walking down the street and was shot by someone that I had never known. This would be a random crime of violence that I had no control over, and the responsibility for my injury or death would have fallen on the person that shot me. I do agree though that we do make many choices every day and each one has varying importance on our lives. I think that deciding on what to wear isn't as important of a choice as choosing to go to college. One of those choices I have to make every day and the other one will affect my profession in the long run. Many choices are made without thinking, but things that have an impact on our lives we tend to think about more.
ReplyDeleteRyan Rash 1/2
In my opinion you can control everything in your day to day life. We can always make decisions about things that we have the power to. We don’t always have power over the occurrences around us but we do in how we react to them. We simply don’t have the means, and everything that happens to us isn’t necessarily our choice, it wouldn’t be my choice for my grandmother to die but it would be my choice not to go to her funeral or, at the least, protest against being unable to go. I also think that things that affect us on a global scale can result in our own decisions. If World War III broke out tomorrow and we experienced food shortages it wouldn’t be my choice to go onto rations—but it would be that or starve. Deciding to continue living in society and follow its own rules is a choice in itself.
ReplyDeleteKira Strzepa 1/2
A person has lots of responsibility and/or control over their lives, but not over everything. For many things, they do have control. For example, I have control, and am therefore responsible, for what time I do a given assignment, say a blog post. I could decide to do it first thing in the morning on Monday, as soon as it pops up, or I could choose to do it Friday at nine. I have this level of control over (almost) everything in my life. I could change the way I eat. I could eat my fries first, then my hamburger. I could chew on my right. The possibilities are endless, but in the end, there are way too many choices for me to be able to have that level of control over everything. I can't think about eating my fries first, chewing on my right, and watching the sunset all at the same time. Also, certain events I can't take responsibility for: If I trip and fall down the stairs because a small child left their bannana peel at the top, I can't be blamed for falling on my cat. So, I think that we can reasonably take responsibility for a majority of the things we do, but not everything.
ReplyDelete-- Lane Kolbly, Period 1/2
Although I don't believe that people completely control everything in their lives, it's necessary for a functional society that people behave like they are responsible for their actions. For example, if someone felt it was ok to kill others because they were, say, genetically predisposed to violence, then society would be in great danger. However, people who truly believe that everyone is completely "self-made" are living in a dream world. Take some conservatives, who argue that the poor should be able to pull themselves out of poverty. Most of these people started life with advantages that allowed them to get ahead, like George Bush, who "started on third base and thought he had hit a triple." It's important for people to realize that although many parts of their life are out of their control, we all have to act like we are responsible for our actions in order for society to properly function.
ReplyDeleteSander Trubowitz, 5th/6th Period
I do believe that as humans, we have control of and responsible for the situations we put ourselves in on a daily basis. We however, have less control over situations than we think. Situations such a contracting a sickness, waking up, or the death of a family member of course, are out of our control. With that being said, i do concur with Sartre. The things that we can change and have control over, we do, but those out of our reach are left alone (despite trying) as they are seemingly impossible to overtake.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, there are an infinite amount of choices that we can make each day. Whether they are positive or negative, beneficial or not beneficial, there is no way that we can have choice over everything.
~Raeneisha Cole/Periods 5&6
We truly are responsible for almost everything, if not all, of the things in our lives. Many decisions we make we’re not even conscious of, and we always wonder what would have happened if we had done things differently. We may not always see the immediate outcome of our choices, but we’re still completely responsible for the situations we get ourselves in. For example, several bad things have occurred to simply innocent people who happen to be at the wrong place at the right time. Although those people may not have been aware of the dangers and consequences of their actions, their fate could have been different had they acted differently. It is our own actions that govern the later events that will occur, which is why we should be more conscious of certain choices we make.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that humans have the freedom of choice, and these choices influence the outcome of our actions in the future. An example of this is the time we choose to get up at everyday for school, this can affect whether we hit traffic, or whether or not we will be late. However I cannot fully agree with Sartre, everyday accidents occur. It is absurd to predict and they are impossible to prevent, these occurrences will happen no matter what precautions we take. Take this scenario for example: Two drivers are driving one after the other down a single-lane street at about 60 mph. Both are safe drivers, seat-belts fastened, speed limit and other road regulations are carefully abided by. Then the first car hits a nail, blows a tire and swerves out of control. The second car has little time to react, and is unable to stop in time. The driver jerks the wheel out of reflex, and hits a wall on the side of the road. Both drivers were unable to predict the accident, and there was no way to prevent it once it had started.
ReplyDeleteAmber Mangalindan 5/6
Sartre has a really intense outlook on this. We cannot control our subconscious mind and if lots of our choices are made subconsciously it only makes sense that we couldn't control them. When it comes to everyday things that we feel like we have to do (going to school, treating adults with respect, etc) we always have a choice regardless of the constraints we think are there. We are truly constrained by the consequences we aren't willing to face. That being said, our actions and perspective on certain situations are based off of what the normal behavior or outlook is (for the most part). If intricate facial tattoos was the norm for our society we would not look down upon them as vulgar or inappropriate for business setting etc.
ReplyDeleteX. Jeanea Davis 5/6
I agree with Sartre because we are in fact ultimately responsible for everything in out lives. We are responsible starting with things as simple as what we are going to eat. One may argue that, given the limited food you may have in your house you cannot choose to have lobster. However, you could very well go and get yourself lobster if you were that set on it. Its the effort that deters us from most decisions, or the fact the other options may be unreasonable. We always have the choice on what happens. An example of a “seemingly out of control” situation would be your rushing to work because your late and you get sideswiped by a reckless driver. Thanks to your decision to not be on time due to whatever may have held you back, you happen to be in the position to get hit by that car. You also made the decision to go to that work, which you had to then rush to. So ultimately all your decisions add up whether or not you may realize it. We have all the power on what happens in our lives.
ReplyDeleteChristopher Delgado 1/2
I believe that Sartre's philosophy is partially correct. We cannot truly make a choice without being in some way aware of it. even if we subconsciously choose one brand of peanut butter over another, we know that we chose that peanut butter because of its taste, ideological value, etc. However, we cannot be the only ones at fault in say, a car accident. The other driver and their choices up until that moment have also effected the outcome. Sartre is correct in saying we are responsible for our choices, but I believe these choices are so influenced by others decisions that they become a tangled web with no single person at fault.
ReplyDeleteShannon Plunkett 1/2
I believe that we do not have complete control of our lives. I can't control when I get sick or other involuntary bodily functions. I also can't control what other people do to me. I can choose how to react to it, but what they do is their choice. I do believe that we are responsible for our choices though. I believe that every decision we make must seem the apt choice at the time, even if we have regrets later
ReplyDeleteSpencer Neth 5/6
I don't fully agree with Sartre because I believe that our lives are greatly influenced by other people. It would not be fair to say that we are responsible for everything in our lives because our choices and decisions are sometimes made with other people's ideas and thoughts in mind. We can, for the most part, control out own actions but the actions of those around us are completely out of our control. We must be aware of all of the choices and decisions that we make in our everyday lives, but we cannot control other people and the decisions that they make that might possibly affect us.
ReplyDeleteMichaela Boswell 1/2
Although I am a firm believer in Free Will I honestly don't agree with Sartre. The idea that my choice to eat a piece of toast or something of the sort eventually leads to killing my grandfather just seems too much. Sometimes I get really confused like when I am walking somewhere and I have two options that will lead me to my final destination. Sometimes I think, well I could go this way and then this train of thought goes back and forth and after i finally choose, I think about why i choose to go this way in the first place and if i was meant to choose that way and why i would choose that way. Normally, by this point my brain would hurt by such an open ended question. Sometimes i just feel like there are just reasons that control me no matter what i do.
ReplyDeleteMakala Kuhr 1/2
I disagree with Sartre's assumption in that we are ultimately responsible for everything that happens to us according to the day-to-day choices we make. I can't control whether someone dies or what time the school bus arrives in the morning. These outcomes are based off the choices of the others involved in the situation. I do agree with the magazine article in that we make hundreds of choices we are unaware of everyday such as where to sit at lunch or when to walk the dog, but I don't think these subconscious decisions always necessarily have an effect on the events that happen in ours and other people's lives.
ReplyDeleteDanielle D
Great Ideas 1/2