Journal 1-2 : Guns, Values... and Our Messed-Up Media

                           

Why is it so hard to put others before ourselves?

This question I posed in my last journal entry, and I might have found an answer to this difficult question: it's because its human nature to be greedy. As humans, we are always looking out for ourselves and our interests. To think about others is a second thought because as humans, we are so self-absorbed that its all me, me, me! So, there you go. Deep stuff.

For the past couple weeks, we have been studying Michael Moore and his rather oppinionated documentaries such as " The Awful Truth" and his Oscar- Award winning documentary " Bowling for Columbine". Both of these were.... interesting to say the least. It really opened my eyes about how skewed our media truly is. 

         Basically everybody in the media spends their whole time trying to get their personal agenda out, even if it means saying things that aren't accurate, but that's show business. This whole personal agenda concept really came out in Michael Moore's documentary "Bowling For Columbine". When you hear those words, you probably think something different than what the documentary is actually about: Michael Moore is out to blame the government for every single damn thing. He uses these victims of Columbine to try and condemn all guns together and then suddenly we're watching a montage about South American Dictators and then we're in Canada and its just some random jumbled-up mess and Michael Moore is the ringleader. The whole documentary, though very eye-opening and factual ( somewhat) is one weak analogy after another. 

I do understand where Michael's coming from though. He's trying to tie in the issue of guns and gun availability into these tragedies and these situations where it stemed from handing the wrong person an AK-47 and some 9 mm rounds. Yet, Michael doesn't allow people like Charlton Heston get a word out! He tries portraying all guns as being these evil and wretched things, and trying to make people like Charlton Heston appear to be the Devil. The funny thing is that had we not done the background info before we watched BFC, I would probably believe that Charlton was one heartless guy.  That just shows how skewed our media is. 

This story really ties into current media with the presidental election campaign aids with Obama saying bad things about Romney and vice versa. Obama's saying how Romney isn't there to help the middle class and Romney trashes Obama about his "ObamaCare", so which one is right? That's the problem. You never really know because there's so much bias in the media. As the American people, we never know the truth. 

But enough of crazy Michael and his anti-gun views. We've also been discussing value conflicts and basically what they are. There's a ton of them like individual responsibility vs. the well-being of the group and loyalty vs. honesty, just to name a few. These sorts of conflicts are really the basis of ethical thinking. They force you to choose and with each choice you have to think about the benefits but also consequences of both. Its really interesting to learn about these sorts of conflicts because you can so easily relate these back to our every-day lives. 

So, as this masterful entry in a never-ending journal comes to a conclusion, I want to leave you with two questions ( WE GOT A RULE BREAKER UP IN HERE!) because there are two very good points that have been made. With these last few words, I leave you this:

 1) Is it possibly to get a true news story?

 2) In a value conflict, is there a true right  answer?

 Beauchamp, Zack. "Google Images." Google Images. ThinkProgress.com, 24 July 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. <http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10>.

Brett, Joshua. "Google Images." Google Images. WordPress.com, 25 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. <http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en>.

"Google Images." Google Images. BET.com, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. <http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en>.

Websit

"Google Images." Google Images. Relationshiprealities.com, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. <http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10>.