Your Weekly Dose of Sawyer

Almost everything that we learn in life goes through a cycle. Most commonly these cycles will start with the simplest way of doing something and progress to the more mature and complex way. For example, learning to ride a bike, you go from training wheels to an adult bike or learning how to swim, you go from wearing floaties in the shallow end to treading in the deep end. Both of these examples are the standard way that many people learn how to do these things and we don't think twice about it because it's what we're expected to do. Similar to these cycles, reading is the same way. As we read in Scott McCloud's piece, "Show and Tell", the cycle of reading is starting with picture books until we eventually make it to chapter books. Once we make it to the long, imageless books, we stay there and don't think about reading books with pictures because we automatically believe that they are meant for kids. However, I completely disagree with this viewpoint becau...

What do you think is better, a Government who has full control or a Government with little control, in which most of the control goes to the people? Henry David Thoreau's piece, "Civil Disobedience", visits the topic of how a Government should really be. I agree with Thoreau when he says, "That Government is best which governs least." (Thoreau 382). This Laissez-Faire mentality gives full control to the people and allows for true freedom. By true freedom I mean that you have your own conscience and are not manipulated by the Government body. For example, many figures in the Government today are described as "not as men mainly, but as machines," (Thoreau 384). When someone fully gives into the way and the mentality of the Government, they lose their humanity and their true freedom, to the point where they are seen as machine-like. They lose their freedom of actions, thoughts, and voice. In the piece, Thoreau compares the Government to one big machine an...

A piece that really stood out to me in class this week was "This Is Water" by David Foster Wallace. This piece allows you to contemplate who you are as a person and if you have true, conscious control over your actions. Wallace uses multiple compelling examples in which he displays how we do not recognize the realities right in front of us. For example, he states "everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am" (Wallace 236). Wallace presents how in most situations that we find ourselves in we are only thinking of ourselves, or as he refers to it as our default-setting. Although changing our default-setting to thinking of others instead of just ourselves sounds easy, it is actually much harder said than done. The author truly unveils to his readers how much our unconscious actions affects the people around us. A common example of this in my life occurs when I am driving. Whether I'm in a hurry or not, I do not ...

What do you think truly represents history? Some believe in representing history through a linear Cenotaph (like the Vietnam war memorial) while others believe in representing history through the nonlinear narratives of the soldiers. They both do represent history, but in two completely different ways. A linear Cenotaph most commonly will commemorate the soldiers that died in war by making a monument that appropriately represents the war/event. On the other hand, nonlinear narratives display the stories of the war from the soldiers. These stories hold the true emotions that went into war and they also unveil how chaotic war is. Many people, especially veterans, describe Cenotaphs as "It looks back, not forward; there is no indication of that for which these sacrifices of the fighting men and others were made. It is as if the greatness of the theme made us inarticulate." (Whittick 7). They believe that Cenotaphs aren't able to truly represent history because Cenotaphs cann...