North American Literature

Interpretation of North American Literature and the Concept of Original Sin

From the birth of the North American Colonies to the present day, the concept of evil has pervaded the culture of Western Civilization peoples who migrated to America in hopes of a more provident, spiritual, and elevated culture and station in life. America, founded upon liberty, life, and happiness and other ideas from the Enlightenment, began its long struggle for flawless and lawful perfection of morality and spirit from as early as the founding of Jamestown. The bible was used as both a divine set of laws and a metaphor to explain the superstitious, anomalous, and new terrain that the English would eventfully encounter as they explored, searched, and conquered America.

The origin of evil in North America was based in the fictive versus the imaginative. The concept of fiction versus imagination started long before settlers even landed in America. The concept that the world was round, amalgamated with stories of worldliness, splendor, gold, and exotic spices in the Asian “indies”, casted the land East of Europe to be a land of opportunity in the minds of navigators who thought that they had found the Indies. What Europeans found when they reached America was often far from the splendor explained in stories by Marco Polo and others. In fact, they were nowhere near the Indies. Nature, ore, animals, and fertile land existed in various forms in America, and would continually challenge Western settlers in their hopes of living prosperously and morally.

However, the fictive vs. imaginative construct did not cease to exist. Just like several of the accounts written at the time, it can be imagined that the socio-cultural history of the time was vague and possibly romanticized and exaggerated. The bible played a key role in creating a sense of things in the early settlements that were altogether unknown to men, many of whom came from cities with streets and pubs and police officers. However, several different religions existed in America, and bible verses were interpreted differently; the difference between southern Baptist views of slavery versus northern Protestant views would strike at the core of the country’s social and economic system, culminating in the Civil War.  Scenes of violence and killing immediately become prominent. Usually reasons for disputes were twisted or based in vengeance and intolerance. Violence became a staple of American culture and fuels the creation of the first American adventure story. Cross-race romance and violence was explored. It became a fascination. It was also immensely deplorable and was prominent in slavery, war, and even within the aristocratic pleasure of worldliness. The view of original sin could be seen as a nihilistic view of society. Based upon John Calvin’s education and view of society in Europe, it was determined that humans were a fallen race. However, no matter how sinful a race may think (or even know) it is, there will always be those within it who want others to face humiliation for their sins, as seen in the Scarlett Letter later on. Fictive accounts, unrepressed violence, lewd sex, and original sin were the basic foundations for the concept of general evil within the early American colonies.

The concept of evil was used to separate that which was sin from that which was not. If one were to commit a sexually deviant act, or to steal from a neighbor, you were then considered a sinner. You then were punished. Those who stalled the gain of American providence, enlightenment and moral superiority were considered evil. That which was destructive to the needs and wants of the settlers, be it even inanimate, was evil or was used for the pleasure and gratification of the settlers. Sin was conceptually shifted from merely a local political sphere to the sin of those external people and concepts that challenged the life of settlers. Indians fought against the westward intrusion of the settlers. Settlers then decided, that using the bible as a guide for behavior, that those Indians were sinners on several different counts. For one, they were sinners for not having converted to Christianity. “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen.” (433) Of course, they could also be considered sinners for a range of laws as interpreted by the Westerners that are located in the bible such as stealing from the settlers.  The bible, then, was both strictly and loosely read to justify the unrelenting hatred of sin in others. “Natural men’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment.” (433) The bible was used against evil forces within the colonies, and evil forces outside of the settlements such as unnatural beasts, nature, and people. “The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present … The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow…” (435) The imagery here is largely of the great waters surrounding America, and the bow and arrow of the Indians. The bible became the founding of the personal relationship that each had with God and each other, as interpreted by a minister in most cases, that allowed for the ousting, denial, disclusion, or discrediting of any one who didn’t follow the mission of the settlers in their long term journey to spread, prosper, and grow away from the perceptibly accursed civilization which they left.

The nature of sin was such that sin was the worst thing that anyone could do in life. There was little grievance for evil doers, and hostility towards sinners was inequitable in most cases. Furthermore, many of the allegations of wrong doing were based on superficial reasons. Punishments were often over the top and downright cruel and unusual. By the era of the Deep South, if a slave were to even flirt with a white woman, he was liable to be hung out lynched merely because of his skin color. Native Americans were considered utter savages, despite their close relationship with nature, and their economical choices that lead to their survival and the renewal of nature and wildlife. It is also safe to say that had it not been for the Native Americans, many of the early settlements would have perished or suffered worse losses because the Native Americans shared farming and agricultural techniques. Regardless, fear and hatred was rampant, and was not simply “European versus other continent natives.”

The concept of original sin pervaded “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” by Johnathan Edwards. “That they were always exposed to destruction … exposed to sudden unexpected destruction… they are liable to fall of themselves… and do not fall now, [is due to the fact that] God’s appointed time is not come.” (430) The way this is stated, over the course of four bulleted paragraphs, implies that there was strength in repeating similar statements. There was no originality in each of these assertions, but surely they were meant to drive at the point that sin is alive, destruction is around us everywhere, and God is the only thing holding this society together. “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” (431) The “mere” pleasure of God is placed there to serve as an example of the immensity of God’s “fickle” love with man. “…It makes no objection against God’s using His power at any moment to destroy them.” (431) Within this, Edwards sees the world of man as a continuing downward spiral and as a destruction both unplanned but powerfully controlled. In Edwards view, God is more powerful than any group that stands against him, and God casts men to hell as simply as a worm is stepped upon, in a second without repose. There is very little equivocation in his Edwards view, and what strikes the reader as odd, is how much the concept of strength and bigness plays a role in Edwards reading. The view of predestination is to the point that there is no way out but hell.

The fact that the settlers were both leaving the comforts of a society which they considered wretched and settling upon a land that was uncultivated and filled with mystery, danger, and conflict led them to lead a resonating fight. As the model of providence and as the model of the frontier against anarchy, despotism, and tyranny, American settlers naturally had the proclivity to endure hardship. They claimed their own freedom. They harrowed that which stood in their way. All the while, they retained the spirit and efficacy to fight against the cruel world that seemed to throw a monkey wrench in their plans at every turn. Of course, the sinners amongst them would be a problem because consanguinity was needed to win against the external aggression towards the settlers. By making evil a permanent, everlasting figure of society, it became easier to find a deep relationship with a God that had no toleration for those that wished ill-will to the settlers.

For High School Junior and Seniors

I just wanted to comment on some things that I think would help a Junior or Senior in high school succeed through their first couple years of college.
GO TO A 4YEAR INSTITUTION YOUR JUNIOR AND SENIOR YEAR: This may help for those who don’t have APs at their school. It also will help all students understand how quickly (or even slow) college can be. By taking 4-6 classes over the summer, you will gain the knowledge and skills to deal with planning, studying and balancing work, life, and fun. I recommend a 4 year institution because your college (presumably a 4 year institution) may not accept community college credit to transfer: especially if it is a Tier 1 institution. However, these credits will not only give you a leg up in graduating early, but will also help you advance your strength as a college student years later. Adding APs on top of that, it is possible that you could graduate from your 4 year college in less than 2 years.

STOP SOCIALIZING, START STUDYING: The more we get entrenched with this vision of utopian lifestyles, the more we crave them, but also tend to get out of touch with what is our reality at the moment. Of course, being an adult is a great thing, but often we focus so much on what others think, that we don’t realize that others may not be projecting a full version of reality. Much less, we may not be thinking about major life changes and ways to handle problems without the intervention of others. So, try and tabulate options and determine what really fits for you when you can, not because you are persuaded by some outside force.

READ AND WRITE: The more often one writes, the better they wiill become at articulating themselves. For the Arts and Sciences, one needs two things: the ability to write and the ability to do mathematics. For some of the humanities subjects, a general knowledge of history is acceptable and useful as well, but a general history is usually rather acceptable. Work on reading and writing as often as possible, if even to just articulate what you already know. Don’t be afraid to tackle any and every subject. We sometimes feel that there is a lack of things to write about, simply because we have it established within our ego construct to avoid certain topics. College is a time to understand what there is that we can tackle, not a time to bottle up and come across like some neutral, political, unfallible social dilletante.

There Are So Many Things to Remember

There are several things I have come across in my time at Northwestern that I’d like to share with several others.

TA OFFICE HOURS. Great thing to have, great resource to use. It’s always good to stay in contact with your professors and their TAs to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
4.0 PLAN I recently came across a 4.0 plan written by a Doctor, meant to help black youth do well in college. There are several of these out their, but very few. In fact, at schools like Northwestern, there are often no classes to learn things such as “how to time manage.” The ones that do exist, act as preparation for psychology majors or other departments meant to be for pre-professional work in that specific field. This 4.0 plan allows one to devote time to friends, work, and sleep, all without tiring onself out. However, the current plan that I am on is very similar and seems to be working well for now.

OUTDOOR CAMPING. It’s very good to be in touch with nature. Also, its good to challenge yourself at different skills. Some people learn how to twiddle their nose, others learn how to play piano, but there is much more out there to learn. Scuba Diving, Parasaling, Hang Gliding, Rock Climbing, Hiking, Nature Walking, or even plucking Apples from an Orchard are all great ones to challenge oneself to be better in any way possible. It’d be interesting if there were options available to learn others skills that may be useful. Sometimes I toy with the idea of going to Europe to learn watch design. Just a thought.

ONE CAN NEVER BE TOO CAREFUL. And then again, you may need help determining if your choice was careful enough.
BOOKS ARE NOT COFFEE CUP HOLDERS. Even if they are on the coffee table.

STOP TALKING. There is so much time spent wondering why, if, how, because… just do the damn thing already. Uncertainty is very annoying, so that’s why we plan around it. One can try and understand uncertainty, but why waste your time when you can understand certainty. 🙂

K-SWAG: I need to stop calling Kellogg, K-Swag. It’s a habit. Reminds me of when I used to call NU, NDubs.

First Week Back At School

For all the college students out in the blogosphere, wasting away their time on Facebook or haplessly dreaming of old Romances from days long gone, this is the beginning of a fresh new semester which may have already started for some. In my case, my first day of classes begin on Friday. I still haven’t really switched into school mode because I probably stay in a perpetual state of ‘school mode’. But today, after seeing several Dance Marathoners practice the Macarena in front of Argo Tea, I find myself slowly awakening to the reality of the year that lay ahead of me. This means less wandering through 7/11 looking for something to eat, and more awareness of deadlines and nuanced information.

I’ve asked several people what they think would best befit a college student. There are some Apps and websites that I think I’d like to share with those of you are interested in figuring out how to deal with the mountain of decisions that one must make at this point in your life.

Epicurious: This is a food application that can be found for free in the App Store of your Ipod. It has thousands of recipes for food created by some fantastic chefs. Also, it can complie a grocery cart of food items to pick up next time you are at the market. There are categories of foods too: low calorie meals, breakfast, fish meals, lunch specials, and so forth.

MyNetDiary: This is another food app, but is very different. It allows you to list the food you eat and it tabulates what effect the food will have on your weight. Working as a calorie counter, MyNetDiary allows you to determine your daily caloric intake by using the phones camera as a barcode scanner. I used this a year ago, after I gained 15 pounds, and it worked wonders on tabulating how many calories and nutrients I was putting into my body.

HuffPost: If you like to stay in touch with the news happening around the globe, rather than what is only occuring in your residence hall, Huffington Post is a great complement to anyone’s daily dose of reading. It takes in news from around the Net, including sources such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journals, and reworks it with their own editorial savvy. The Huffington Post has different sections as well; everything from business to college humour can be found on this IPhone App.

Pandora: Have you ever wanted to hear the blues but didn’t own an album? Or wondered what Phish sounded like because you saw someone in a tie dye shirt? Look no further, Pandora is what you need. Besides just offering high quality radio, Pandora allows the listener to create a radio station based off of a music group of their preference. So if you really liked Common when you heard him in concert, Pandora will link you to other artists known to make similar music as Common, like A Tribe Called Quest. Pandora is very good when you are trying to set a groove, or experience something new.

Google Calendar: Google has many tools. It’s calendar feature is just one of the many that will help you survive deadlines and confusing schedules. It can be updated from your IPhone and it is cross integrated with the Google online platform. Google Books may come in handy for finding references from legitimate authors. Google Shopping is great for finding low prices on books, and Google Translate can be very helpful to any language student, opera student, or anyone going abroad who may need a boost of knowledge to help determine where a bathroom is located.

Have a fun year everyone, and stay safe.

🙂

“Teach Your Children Well” by Madeline Levine

I recently read an article from the NY Times about a nonfiction psychological book on the values of good parenting. This book is similar to other psychology books on parenting which are warning parents not to force their children into working under extreme pressures to maintain the status quo when it comes to major life decisions, such as choosing a college.

It is all the norm nowadays for us to realize the great problems that exist with working too hard. Often, young students are being forced to do grueling work, tenuous activities, and keep a great composure on their way to achieving success in the college. Our culture’s materialistic obsessions with wealth and power have forced many to question the reliability of our cultures sensation with college aims.

The problem doesn’t stem from the ability to do the assignments. It seems the real problem comes from the lack of interest by parents. Parents themselves usually don’t have any way of helping in the process. They also usually don’t understand what college admissions, or even what the school work entails. Often, there is a great disconnect between parents and students about how things should be run, and parents can easily care too much, too little, or about the wrong subject at hand. It seems that often, children who are being forced into pressure can develop other problems along the way.

Often society doesn’t see the grueling work that students have to deal with on their progression to their inevitable goal. This book goes over why parents need to be attuned to the needs of their child and not attempt to force their child into a monomania.

 

Writing A Book

Have you ever thought about writing your own book? There are several literary festivals in America that search for book writers. While it doesn’t take many credentials to write a book, it does take several great credentials to be published and sold across the nation.

I’ve looked at the listing of NY Times Bestsellers. For those non-fiction authors who are not celebrities, they often had stellar academic qualifications. Most of them graduated from top schools. There was also a high proportion of authors who earned cum laude or higher. For fiction writers, many of them participated in writers’ conferences and workshops at some stage in their career.

So why write? I have always been a math person and usually avoided the power of vocabulary, words and writing. It has not been until most recently, that I have begun to develop my acumen in writing and language arts disciplines. There seems to be a growing consensus among professionals that communication skills are vital in the workplace. Writing also allows for a clear exchange of ideas.

If you’ve never written a book, but always wanted to communicate your ideas about a subject, then this proposition might help. Set aside two hours a day to write 4-5 pages of a book. Open up your word processor and adjust the layout of the page to be similar to the size of a book. A normal 8.5 by 11 page is about twice the size of a paperback page. Set a goal of writing 200 pages in the next 2 months. Write about whatever interests you. Attempt to outline the core details of the book or even use a voice recorder and pontificate on the contents of your book till you’ve got a solid core plot.

One book that may be of help is the Dramatic Writers Companion. I am currently using this book and have found it be a great joy. It helps develop character, plot, setting, dialogue and much more. It could be used for writing novels, short stories, and even plays. It really can be used as a serious course textbook as well. It has tons of exercises that directly help develop your story and main ideas. It encompasses the main tenets of dramatic writing. With it, you will probably never have writers block while writing your book. Another book is by Francine Prose and is titled “Reading Like a Writer.” This book examines well-known literature and explains the methods of dialogue, sentences, and paragraphs of famous books.

A Brief on Medical School Admissions

Today I’ve decided to take a look at the admission process of medical school. There are several major issues when deciding on medical school and whether it is right for an applicant or not. There are some key things that one should be aware of when applying to medical school in general.

There are three major issues that usually result in the rejection of a candidate from medical school according to a US News article. Just an analysis of the applicant pools at different colleges on websites such as mdapplicants.com would give one a great impression of what is occuring in the applicant pool. The major three problems have much to do with the undergraduate experience. Extracurricular activities, grades, and which school someone applies to may determine the final outcome for a candidate.

We know that being qualified is the norm, but what isn’t explained is how often that similar candidates still get rejected. The applicant pool is fairly large, and medical schools tend to be very small. Sometimes with only 175 students admitted every year, it is easy for Medical Schools to quivel over small errors or discrepancies in an applicants profile.

Depending on the rigor of the medical school, and the rigor of the undergraduate applicant (including their alma mater), it can be presumed that medical admissions is very difficult, tiresome, and hard to understand. The days where top students only attended other top medical schools are long gone. Though things have shifted, there still is a strong commitment to priority admissions based on the rigor of the alma mater. It can be presumed that this, along with other circumstantial aspects of an application, has the ability to discourage many applicants.

In America, most applicants are happy with ability to be admitted to a medical school. The amount of extracurriculars that one takes makes a huge difference on whether or not an applicant is accepted. Furthermore, even with stellar grades, scores, and extracurriculars, applicants often have to find schools that will accept the applicants prototypical package.

This process is very stressful and very expensive. Some people resort to finding a mentor. Others find tutors for the MCAT process. A post-baccalaureate degree may allow medical applicants the opportunity to fulfill pre-medical school requirements, as well as focus on extracurrricular activities, including research, that should allow the candidate to pursue medical school.

Corporate Governance and Complexity Theory by Marc Goergen

I just finished reading Corporate Governance and Complexity Theory, a short book about the features of the United States, EU and Japanese systems of corporate governance. The book began with an introduction to the role of corporate governance in major corporations. Corporate governance is the control of a company by an elected Board of Directors who determine major decisions about the inner workings of a corporation.

One of the major issues with corporate governance is the relationship between Board of Directors and the stakeholders of a company. Stakeholders of a company are constituted by a large range of groups. Shareholders, employees, interest groups, government agencies, regulatory bodies, consumers, and product intermediary companies are all examples of stakeholders to a company, and there are many more than that. Also, shareholders usually determine what occurs in a corporation by voting on representatives, especially in the case of fiduciary corporations, to represent them in the board.

This book looks at some of the legal aspects of a corporation. It explains the general law of what defines a corporation (as opposed to a LLC, etc). It also mentions how the government has had an effect on what occurs in a corporation. One consideration was the role of lawyers, accountants, top staff, and the board of direction when mitigating problems of fraud, trickery, or any illegal action by a corporation. People who work for corporations usually feel that it is unnecessary to report unlawful activity if it would damage the corporations credibility in the public light. Furthermore, questions were raised in the book about what group should be considered liable for corporate fraud. Should auditing agencies be accountable for any mistakes? Should other people be added to the board by regulatory bodies such as the SEC to assure there are no market mistakes? Are the officials in the company fit to whistle blow on themselves?

Lawyers in a company may be likely to ignore certain patterns of behavior that are unlawful. If in a corporation, there is a tendency for males to be promoted to higher ranks over females, lawyers in a corporation may see this as an ongoing trend and may reason or rationalize why it has occurred and not that it is an inherent problem. When someone becomes seasoned to a condition that isn’t necessarily just or fair, they are more likely to be a detriment to the corporation’s success by ignoring issues that stakeholders would find to be illegal or unfavorable.

The book goes on to talk about internal controls, management theories, and so forth. The final part of the text, though, goes over the basics of how to understand the relationship between stakeholders in a corporation. The network of relationships between board members of a large number of national companies, is said to be a small-world, meaning that though there is a large network of people, the actual friendship between any two people in the network can be found between only 1 -2 movements within the network of people. Complexity theory can be depicted by hierarchical trees, or neural networks. Complexity theory aims to explain the pattern of relationships of not only people, but also policies and decisions. Complexity theory helps us understand that with a laissez faire economic system, corporations will not create a state of equilibrium, but will create more complex systems, that tend to create optimal rules or structures that allow for more profit using more economical methods.

 

One group has e…

One group has estimated that over $21 trillion American dollars in secret tax havens were stashed by the end of 2010. Others have said that $21 trillion is a conservative figure, and the real amount of income being stashed is around $32 trillion.

Mind you, this is trillions of dollars, not billions. Tax Havens such as the Cayman Islands, Geneva, and other locales make it easy for wealthy people to store money and avoid national taxes of the their home country.

Upon investigating this trend, I came across an article about a doctor in Florida who earned just under $300,000 one year. Instead of filing taxes, he wire transferred the money to one of the Caribbean tax havens. He claimed only $36 dollars in earnings to the IRS, and paid only $4 dollars in Federal taxes. He was later charged and prosecuted by the IRS and did several years in prison for tax evasion.

It is said that less than 100,000 people worldwide own 9.8 trillion dollars in offshore assets. That is an average of 98 million dollars per person, though there is no real method to determine how many of these people may be hiding a significant portion of their wealth from their home governments.

The Power of Introverts: A Summary of an HBR Podcast

A third to a half of the population are introverts. In our society, we don’t really notice that. We usually think it’s a small percentage of people. Introverts usually have to conform to the habits and actions of extroverts. This is known to actually stop introverts from being able to function as well as they possibly can.

This week’s HBR podcast goes over the intrinsic differences between introverts and extroverts. Introverts have a tendency to work better in quieter environments. Psychologists have studied the effect of noise on introverts and extroverts, and found that introverts worked worse in loud environments. Introverts usually feel more energized in lower key environments.  Introverts aren’t necessarily the quiet girl in the room who dislikes talking to anyone.

Introverts usually work better by having one-on-one conversations where decisions may be made by arriving at a consensus. On the other hand, extroverts are much more likely to thrive in environments where many people are giving input on one topic. Often, in this environment, dominance, control, group think, and other methods of decision making are employed that disrupt the thought process of introverts.

In the HBR podcasts, Susan Cain talks about how she wishes that people in organizations would end the constant creation of group work. It can lead to group think, and people often begin to create similar opinions as other people within the group. The group often creates a point of view about how people should work. The most creative people actually have thrived on the use of solitude in their life. Solitude allows many of us the ability to grow on our own and create our own opinions.

Introverts should not be seen as weak people. If you give introverts and extroverts a difficult problem to solve, introverts usually spend more time setting up the problem. Introverts will also spend more time on developing a solution to a problem before giving up. Susan Cain quotes Einstein as a fantast who voiced his willingness to solve problems well because he tended to spend more time on developing a solution.

Introverted leaders are known to, according to research, lead proactive employees better than extroverted leaders. Introverted leaders are more likely to allow proactive employees the ability to shine and grow. Introverted leaders let their subordinates grow and take on more responsibility than extroverts normally do. In a company like Google, where employees are constantly creating innovative ideas, an introverted leader would help its employees grow the organization and grow their own spirit. I wouldn’t be surprised is Larry Page and Sergey Brin were not both introverted leaders.  (Cain 2012)

Works Cited

Cain, Susan. “The Power of the Introvert in Your Office.” Harvard Business Review – HBR Idea Cast. Harvard University. 19 Jul 2012. Podcast. 23 Jul 2012.