This past weekend we read two articles, the first one Is Beauty In The Eye of The Beholder? and the second one The Morality of Fat. On Monday we had a Socratic seminar on the first article Is Beauty In The Eye of The Beholder? This article brought up excellent topics to talk about during seminar. One being that the definition of "beauty" is different in different cultures. For example in China it is beautiful for women to have very small bound feet where as America it doesn't matter if woman have small feet. Other things discussed in Socratic seminar was Americans obsession with being thin has spread to other countries, our standard of "beauty" have spread around the world. In Asia and Africa creams to make skin more pale have been really popular. Things I found in the article that I thought were interesting were, in modern era being plump was a sign of wealth. It was a sign of wealth because it said that you were able to afford food. Similar to that in areas around the world where food is scarce, it is between the people who can afford "high quality" healthy food or people who buy the cheap junk food. My favorite quote was found in the comments to this article. "Beauty is imperfection. Imperfection is character. Character is individuality. Individuality is what you need to fall in love. And someone you can fall in love with has the truest beauty of all." I completely agree with this quote.
Today we had a Socratic Seminar on The Morality of Fat as well as the first article this article brought up very interesting points. I think it would be very hard to explain what this article was about but the main point was Americas needs to be healthy and how we strive to be healthy. I found a couple of quotes that completely shocked me the first one "This country supplies enough food for people to consume 3,700 calories every day. Few people require more than 2,00 calories a day" I think its crazy that people are eating double the amount of calories needed. The second quote "We're a country with a lively appreciation of sin, and our eating behavior appears to be colored by it". This article brought our seminar to many discussion topics such as what priorities come first as a class we agreed that health would come first, inner beauty second, and outer beauty last. Because everyone gets so caught up in the media we get these priorities mixed up. Our discussion then turned into who should be responsible for teaching our kids which priorities come first and why. Our class thought of many different suggestions some thought parents, others thought it would be more effective if the media did, even government and a few thought it was no ones responsibility. These Socratic seminar have opened my eyes and made me see things from different perspectives.
Where You Can Find These Articles:
Morality of Fat
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05EED71F39F933A25750C0A960958260
Is Beauty in The Eye of The Beholder?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/3291271.stm
1 comment:
Wow! I completely agree with your response. Your quotes were similar to mine. I really enjoyed reading your response. You made some really great points about the articles and the seminar. I really liked how you made direct references to the text we read. You did a great job and I hope you enjoyed the seminars as much as I did.
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