Module 4: Assignment #1

Michelle Wilson
Module 4: Assingment #1
11/08/06

You walk down the street and are affected by multiple images and you don’t even know it. The person you are today was made by these images that you’ve seen throughout your life. What you seen on television as a child molded the way you talked and the way you thought. If all you watched was the Simpsons and Family Guy, you would think it was perfectly normal for parents and children to curse at each other and fight physically. You saw Bart being choked by Homer all the time and Lois telling Meg to kiss her girlfriend to prove that she was indeed a lesbian. On the other hand, if you watched good family shows like Seventh Heaven and Full House, and then you would know what a real family looked like and how they acted. The Camden’s always worked it out in the end and the Tanner family stayed together by having two outsiders come in and join their family. Put two kids in separate rooms and have one watch the first two shows for a couple hours and the second watch the other two shows. Their language and thoughts would be different. Images affect what you see as appropriate to say and your stance on what is and is not moral.

In Anne Sexton’s poem “Cinderella”, she stereotypes people based on their socioeconomic status. The people she talks about at the beginning of the poem gain something of monetary or social value and are then seen as better off. Money is not all it takes to be better off or even happy for that matter. What money does do is give those people a better image. This image is based on society and the social value we place on money. I do not think money and social value should ever be directly proportional because just having money doesn’t make you a better person and a lack of it doesn’t make you any less off. The bottom line is, money doesn’t make you any better off because the person you are is what is important and how much money you have should be irrelevant to your “image”.

Another example of images affecting our sense of self could be the use of incredibly skinny models. While the public regards these models as beautiful and often aspires to attain a similar, often unhealthy body, they do not realize that many times these images are air-brushed and do not represent a true human body. Unfortunately, these images can lead girls to develop eating disorders in hopes of achieving the “perfect body.” The article we read about eating disorders at Miami highlighted the fact that girls develop these disorders to fit in. They see an image of the model on television and think that they have to be that skinny or else they are fat. When you live with a bunch of girls that all believe they should be this thin, then you start to think you have to be it too. Paris Hilton is constantly in the magazines and is scary thin, but young girls see her and think it is normal. Images can have an effect on your self-esteem. Someone’s personality can be affected by the by their self-esteem. They would be shyer and reserve if their self-esteem is low. Images are everywhere and greatly affect a person’s sense of self.

Module 2: Assignment 1

Are we always the same person? Physically, of course, but mentally I believe everyone has multiple personalities. Goffman would say that the way a person acts is dictated by who the person is engaging with. I started to analyze the way I act when I’m with different groups of people and I totally agree with him, bring up the question of whether or not I may have multiple personality disorder. Looking at Eve’s particular case, I would say that I do not, but are we all that different from Eve? I think the answer is in the definition of personality. Goffman sees a personality as a smaller entity than Eve’s doctors. The word mood would probably best describe Goffman’s opinion of a personality. Eve was seen to be three totally different people that all had multiple “moods”. I talk about personalities as moods, not totally different beings so I would say that I have “multiple mood disorder”.
This disorder, as I call it, affects the way I act when I’m with different people. For instance, I am calm and intellectual when I have conversations with my grandparents. We talk about politics and the world as a whole. I love these conversations and would like to be able to have them with everyone. The problem is that I am a totally different person when I’m just chatting with my friends. The only depth to our conversations is when we are talking about how stupid the boys in our lives are. Bringing politics into the conversation just seems silly. My family sees me as one person, but my friends know me as someone totally different. I present myself with the same comfort with both groups though. When I am with either of them I truly feel like I am being myself, just in different moods. Shy is not usually a word used to describe me, but I do act different when I’m meeting new people. I want to be able to put my best foot forward. I am a jokester and when I am meeting new people for the first time I don’t like to be as comical because I want them to see more than just the funny side of my personality. My mood usually swings to calm, yet outgoing. I try to be a good listener when I first meet someone that way they know I have a serious side to go along with my usual funny mood. It is hard to keep track of all of my moods and to know when to be serious and when to just kick back and enjoy life. For the most part, I think I am the same person with everybody. I am outgoing and I put myself out there as much as I think I should, given the situation.
Goffman compared a personality with a mask. This is my favorite metaphor of the year. “Personality= mask” highlights the transitional ability our moods have. Mood swings are just a changing of the mask because I believe Goffman is seeing personality as a mood. There is a mask for every mood and changing them is all dependent on the wearer. I would wear certain masks to certain events, like I have different moods for different situations. One thing this metaphor may hide is that your mood can be dictated by your surroundings and overall personality. If I’m having a bad day I can’t jut flip a switch and be in a good mood and at the same time, what puts me in a bad mood might not even effect someone else. It all depends on who you are and how you look at and interpret things. The metaphor would have fewer flaws for people who see personalities as an entire being like Eve’s doctors. I agree with Goffman about the personality being a mask and I diffidently agree with the fact that people shift their personalities for sake of best representing themselves to other because I do it when I meet new people.
Eve’s condition and my “disorder” are completely different to me. I feel in control of what I do with my moods, while Eve was helpless, well, Eve White was helpless. Eve Black was in control for a while. The real difference for me though is how the personality is viewed. I see my multiple personalities as simply different moods. Eve was thought to be three totally different people. I don’t have three different bins in my brain that I can throw my moods in and have three personalities. There is just me and how I’m feeling at the particular time based on who I am talking to. I wouldn’t trade who I am with my family, friends, or strangers for the world, like Eve would have with her “others”. To me there is still a difference between Eve and “normal” people.

Module #4: Assignment 2

As we have seen throughout this course, metaphors affect the way we think and new metaphors are constantly replacing old ones. This explains why two women can be in the same mental state, yet one is seen as possessed and the other as mentally ill bases solely on the time period in which the women lived. In “A True and Most Dreadful Discourse”, Margaret Cooper is said to be possessed with the devil. This story takes place in early modern England around the 1600’s when the church basically ruled the country. When something went wrong people called upon the church and so was the same in Margaret Copper’s story. After experiencing hallucinations, her family called upon God to help her because they assumed she was possessed with the Devil. Instead of being seen as mentally ill, Margaret underwent many rituals to get the demon spirit out of her. All of the blame for the mental happenings went on Margaret because she was thought of as a sinner that was being punished, when in reality, she probably had no control over her condition. Eve, in The Three Faces of Eve, also had hallucinations. Eve was living in the 1950’s and she was diagnosed as having multiple personalities disorder. Eve was treated as if she was ill and she was, mentally. The blame for the happenings went on the illness, not Eve. Her doctors believed that she could not control her hallucinations and did their best to treat her accordingly. Somewhere from the 1600’s to the 1950’s, the metaphor for hallucinations went from “strange actions= possession” to “strange actions= illness”. The difference in the two is how the patient is view and treated

Margaret Cooper was treated through spiritual rituals with her family and others present. Her treatment was group treatment. Eve was treated by a single psychiatrist in private sessions. Today if we see someone as mentally ill we think of that person as a lost cause. We aren’t professionals and could not treat that person so we go on about our day. If we have mentally ill relatives we keep quite and do whatever we can to make their treatment as less public as possible. Back then when someone was thought to be possessed everyone knew about it for miles. They came to help and witness the escaping of the demon. The families of these people believed they needed the help of others and the Lord to get their loved one well. Looking at strange actions as an illness people are treated through self-help and sheltered from the outside. If we are seeing those actions as the result of possession, then the whole community gets involved to help get the person well. There are consequences for looking at strange actions from both angles. On one hand, the possessed sole my not be getting the actual psychiatric help they need, and on the other, the ill person is missing out on great group therapy opportunities.

Ian Hackings would agree with the movie and it’s diagnosis of Eve. He understands that there are ways to treat a mental illness like Eve’s. Hackings would probably also agree that given the time frame, a possession did seem like the likely answer to Margaret Cooper’s hallucinations. The people did not know any better at the time, but our metaphor has come a long way and know we see strange actions as Hackings does, an illness. Seeing this mental condition as an illness opens up doors to the possibility of medical treatment that was once never thought possible to treat a possession. New metaphors seem to spring from new technologies, and that is clearly the case here. Once more was studied and learned about the strange actions of the mind, a new metaphor was born and therefore a new profession called psychiatry followed.

Module 6: assignment #2

10/05/06
Michelle Wilson

Assignment 2

If you read through the encyclopedia and dictionary entries, you will see
that there is a moment when we switched from talking about “sense impressions” to “sense data”: given the definitions of “data” from the O.E.D., its use as a term for bits of information stored on a computer, mightn't we have switched from thinking about minds as printing presses (impression) to minds as computers? If so, what would be the implications of that switch?

To answer that question, first ask yourself, what ideas about how humans
think are highlighted and hidden by the metaphor mind="printing press"?
What ideas are highlighted and hidden by mind="computer"? Now you can see
some differences in thinking about human minds, a change that has happened
historically in the way we conceive humans, just as the way we conceived
bats changed throughout history. What did the printing-press model or
metaphor help us understand better about human minds? what worse? Answer
the same question about the computer metaphor. You have now figured out
some of the implications of that historical switch!


The human mind is a complex medium. It is not know exactly how our brains
work and how we store and recall information. Like the metaphors about
bats’ ability so navigate with little to no sight, metaphors about the
mind has evolved as new technologies are presented. At first the mind is
considered a printing press, but as the definitions of impression and data
develop we see this metaphor leaning more toward “the mind= a computer”.
Impression has gone from the process of printing, to making an impression
on someone using no actual printing at all. Data has gone from scientific
data to information stored on a computer. Storing information is how we
now think of our minds. Our memories and ideas are now data that is stored
in a database. This switching of metaphors implies a lot about where our
society is now and where it was then.

Looking at the “mind= printing press” metaphor suggested by John Locke,
there are aspects of the mind highlighted and hidden. As we’ve learned
this is with any metaphor. This metaphor highlights the fact that then you
learn you are taking information from another source and it is being
“impressed” on you. The “impression” is there and you may use it later,
but how are you going to pull that material up? Your mind is not just one
big filing cabinet that holds every memory in the exact same condition
that you filed it. The metaphor “mind= printing press” hides that fact
that your memories are not concrete. I can’t just remember everything that
has made an impression on me verbatim; it takes a network of connections
for that information to come up.

If we look at the mind as a computer we can make more connections to how we think. A computer is given data and then stores it strategically in files with names. When you look something up on a computer one file leads you to another. This is a characteristic of how the mind works that is highlighted by the metaphor “mind=computer”. The capacity of the human
mind is also highlighted. Information can be absorbed by the mind in great
quantities. A computer cannot however, process and analyze information.
Our minds are capable of changing the "data" and using it progressively
with new knowledge to form better ideas. There is more to our minds then
just information, we have thoughts that can influence other ideas and
create new "data". A computer or a printing press just has information
with no analytical processing.

As far as our understanding of the human mind, both metaphors have
lead to new perceptions. The "mind= printing press" metaphor gave a
better understanding of how material makes an impression on us, but it
does not help us understand how we bring that material back to the
surface when we need it. Seeing the human mind as a computer allows
us to understand the links necessary to go back and retrieve old
information through a network of other files or ideas. This metaphor
lacks the understanding of the impression though. I'm not going to
say that one metaphor is better than the other because I don't like
either metaphor. The greatest part of the human mind is its ability
to change and comprehend information. While computers can "process"
information, it is nothing compared to the way the human brain
analyzes and interprets different ideas and concepts.

Module 3: Assignment #2

9/27/06
Module 3: Assignment 2

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard about are so-called “war on terrorism” since 9/11. The Bush administration is constantly bringing up new ways to show the American public that we are secure and winning the war. Where’s the war? Terrorism is not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is all over the world. Are we literally waging war with something as broad as terrorism? The metaphor that terrorism=war would make it seem this way. If you look at terrorism as a virus like Joe Klein does, then you may find a different approach to fighting terrorism. Seeing terrorism as a virus highlights the fact that terrorism was created over time and grew like a virus would in a person’s body. Like a virus, terrorism also slowly takes over the area in which it inhibits and causes negative effects. Terrorism is contagious and attacks people who are weak and innocent, but unlike a virus, I can’t just go to my doctor and pick-up a prescription to rid me of terrorism. Little is know about how to effectively treat terrorism, and while you may be able to say the same about certain viruses, for the most part we can treat them. Terrorism is unpredictable and unknown so comparing it to a virus hides these qualities.

Comparing terrorism to war hides parts of terrorism too. While terrorism does usually involve opposing forces using artillery to attack each other, there are just not the same ground rules as in traditional, state on state, war. The opposing forces in terrorism are not countries fighting for land or groups of people fighting for freedom. Terrorist are spread out all over the world and operate through their little cliques against powerful nations who they feel have wronged them or the world they live in. When fighting terrorism, there are no real fronts to attack, no land to seize and nothing to win. Terrorism is not like war at all. This could be because of our definition of war. Usually when we talk about war you think of one country battling another for dominance of land, money, or freedom. Phillip Agre sees the war on terrorism as boundless. There are no real boundaries and therefore the rules of war are constantly breached. In the times of the American War of Independence there were boundaries. By boundaries I mean that when the war was being fought it was between armies. Civilians were not attacked as part of the strategy. There was a legitimate plan of action for both sides to attack each other through military combat. Terrorism shows none of these qualities. Innocent civilians are killed all the time by terrorist and almost never actual military personnel. Using the old definition of what war used to be, terrorism is not war at all. It is a heinous crime for which the people responsible should be punished. To even begin to consider terrorism as war, our definition of war has to change. I don’t think that is necessary. I believe that terrorism=war is a metaphor and terrorism is a completely different game that needs to be dealt with like a virus as Klein states. Although certain aspects are hidden by this metaphor, it is more accurate. We need to find the vaccine.

One possible vaccine for terrorism is described by Rabbi Moshe Waldoks. He suggest we bomb Afghanistan with food, clothing, medicine, knowledge, and technology. The metaphor bomb refers to delivering supplies to the people of these terror-torn countries. Their people are living in fear of terrorism and need to be show the light. Waldoks suggests we use the money that is being spent on war to feed these people and bombard them with so much knowledge that they have to listen. Another metaphor comes to mind when I think about this method, “knowledge is power”. We need to educate people on how to break free from terrorism. The terrorism=war metaphor also hides the fact that terrorism can be fought with out weapons and violence. The vaccine that terrorism needs is help through aid, education, and technology. All can be achieved with out guns, bombs, or missiles. Like a vaccine, the infected area needs to be over loaded with the knowledge and aid that people need to counter terrorism. Don’t think of terrorism as war, think of it as an infectious disease that needs to be treated, just remember that there is uncertainty with this disease and the side effects of treatment are unknown.

Assignment 1- Metaphors Affect How We Think and Feel: Module 1

Michelle Wilson
09/18/2006
“A metaphor is one thing used or considered to represent another, a literary figure of speech that exists in writing.” Everyone has heard this same, vague terminology used by their seventh grade English teacher to describe what a metaphor is. This definition is just accepted as the truth and further consideration for what a metaphor could really be is thrown out the window. After all, the last thing a seventh grader wants to do is elaborate on the metaphor and how the metaphors in today’s society do or do not effect their daily lives. It was only after reading passages from George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s novel, “Metaphors We Live By”, that I began to consider metaphoric expressions outside of general text. For instance, most people in America will say that you fall in love. This is an obvious metaphoric expression that can be picked out of everyday conversation, but is love really like falling at all? In some ways it is, and in some ways it is not. A good metaphor uses a comparison that can apply to all aspects of the actual meaning. The metaphoric expression of “falling in love” sounds like a good metaphor, but there are some aspects of love that falling just can’t describe or even begin to cover.

Love is indeed like falling when you think of the emotions you experience when going through both. Have you ever felt the rush of jumping out of airplane with nothing to rely on but what’s on your back, feeling the wind blast against you as you graciously but uncontrollably zoom towards the ground below? Although that is nothing like the actual feeling of falling in love, there are many similarities. Something that I have found to hold true, is that when a person is falling in love, they have no power over the way they feel. Just as if they were actually falling, a person may attempt to alter their state, but despite all flailing, they will continue to fall. Love is uncontrollable, just like your body when you are free falling. There is a rush associated with flying through the sky that makes people want to risk their lives by jumping out of planes and bungee jumping off bridges that are 200 feet above a rocky ravine death-trap. The rush is unbelievable and closely related to the rush most love-struck teenagers feel when they first fall in love. Think about it, to fall you must first jump and to love you must first commit yourself and put your heart on the line. The first few exhilarating seconds of the jump are where the rush comes in and also in the first few dates. Now, you are totally committed and what happens is out of your control. You are just along for the ride on the love train. If you have planned ahead, and decided that jumping is the right choice for you, then when you finally see the ground in a jump, you can feel secure and pull the cord on your trusty parachute. To me this symbolizes marriage. You have to be in love with somebody and really commit and then after you have survived the long decent, the stability of marriage will be in sight. Here you have two choices, you can pull the cord and land safely or you can bail on the relationship and watch it crash and burn. Love is like falling when you are talking about the traditional dating game that leads eventually to marriage, but there are different kinds of love.

The love you have for your family is a little different and cannot be portrayed by falling. Your family will always be there, god willing, and you do not go through the same emotions that you do when you jump. In my family, I know no matter what I do, they will always pick me up when I am down and keep loving me. I guess somewhere along the line, I did have to “fall” in love with them, but it was not like a real fall at all. It was more like a marathon that lasted for years. Over time the love just grew with no real excitement, but with that security that it would always be there. The metaphoric expression of falling in love does not apply here and therefore, some of the true meanings of love are left out. Love is unconditional and can be forgiving but these principles are not associated with falling at all. There is no forgiveness when you are whipping through the air at one thousand feet. Metaphors can be tricky. You must be careful when using metaphors because they may not say exactly what you think they do. We think love is a huge commitment because we relate it to falling and being out of control, but in reality it can be easy, fulfilling and not scary at all. Our society is affected by metaphorical expressions like these because we take them too seriously and do not think about what else might be meant by them.

Assignment #2
Michelle Wilson

There are many ways in which one can view written language. The great Socrates saw written language as a learning crutch. Socrates believed that verbal language allowed people to actually learn and absorb information, while written language made it unnecessary for people to understand what they were learning. On the other hand, Jack Goody is all for the written language. Mr. Goody thinks that both languages are necessary, but the written language is a technology that allows cultures to advance in their societies. He does go on to point out some times when the spoken language is a better tool, but for the most part, he believes that the written language opens doors, not closes them like Socrates would have suggested. There are many options about language out there, and who really knows what’s best.

The word technology can be interpreted many ways. The dictionary defines technology as “the study, development, and application of devices, machines, and techniques for manufacturing and productive process”. Personally, I would include writing as a technology. My definition of technology would go a little something like this, “Technology defines any and all forms of advancement in a field to where something is being gained from the new concept”. I see writing as a tool that assist language. I think that there is more impact and understanding with the spoken language, and I agree with Socrates about the difference in learning when comparing the two forms of language. However, the accessibility of information when it is written down makes it an advancement worthy of being classified as a tool and technology. Imagine on day you are trying to decide which profession is right for you, but it is two o’clock in the morning. Thanks to the written technology, all you have to do it pull out a book about careers in the medical field, or whatever you are interested in, and begin doing some research. In this case, writing has just become as useful of a technology as the calculator for adding multiple number. I believe the definition of technology should be expanded to include writing and much more.