Conflict of Interest

I can recall a time when I encountered a situation where my personal beliefs came into question and I was led into a debate about it. I will not specifically say what the topic was about due to the fact that it is a controversial one, and it is not my intention to express all of my political opinions in an academic forum.  Without saying too much, I was at a happy hour at an undisclosed location (a few years back) with a group of friends, and we were having a “political” discussion between the four of us, when all of a sudden someone overheard a specific line in the conversation spoken by me and decided to call me out on it. At first I was kind of taken by the fact that this person had the nerve to enter into a conversation that didn’t concern them, but I quickly got passed that feeling; as the person was making a few valid points that others within the conversation had not previously mentioned.  So I engaged in this debate publically, I do after all live and die by what I say, so I’m not one to back down from a conflict to say the least; this is also to say that I can be stubborn at times. So anyway, I listened to what the person had to say for a little bit before I interrupted and gave my point of view. To make a long story short, I kind of won the argument, I say kind of because I don’t feel as if I were truly victorious in conveying my opinion; but more in frustrating my opponent to the point of submission. If I were able to do it all over again, I would have probably paid more attention to what was being said and murdered the person with their own words (I was right after all), instead I didn’t teach my opponent anything new in the process. It can be a productive thing to engage in the exchange of ideas with others; this is shown in interactive sessions known as “Think Tanks”- which are groups of people giving different perspectives on how to come up with solutions to problems. Before one can even get involved in this kind of activity, you must first be able to listen to and evaluate ideas and opinions other than your own; a general respect for others intellect must first be established. I didn’t give that respect in my situation, I was on a destroy mission because I didn’t appreciate the person butting in my conversation, and although I did “win” the debate; I would use more finesse and tones of persuasion to get my point across.

P.C.

In recent times we as a people have transformed our way of communicating honestly and effectively due to the incorporation of Political Correctness. Before its implementation, we as a people use to say what was on our minds with honesty; we use to call a spade a spade. Now that the general population has started to become more sensitive about what we say to each other and how we say it, one can’t help but to notice that we have ultimately become a society where individual ego has taken over, and deception has become our primary weapon. This all came about because of issues like racism and discrimination; it became unacceptable for one to voice their philosophies or opinions for the fact that it may hurt someone’s feelings and repercussions are sure to follow. It’s not that I can’t understand the notion of trying to protect the institution of respect for your fellow man (or woman), but how can we respect each other when we don’t truly know where each other is coming from. It has become incredibly difficult to discern between who is “real” and whose “fake”, and it was that way before the politically correct movement. Now that we’ve been censored, we have ushered in a new era where we are forced to lie to each other and smile, when in fact, what we really want to do is release the burden of biting our tongues, and give one another a piece of our minds. The landscape of America has changed as a result of everyone suddenly becoming “political”, it has caused a chain reaction of events that carries irreversible effects. The main effect is human relations, we will never be able to trust one another as much as we once may have; this has led to us being a “shadier” species over time, and we are steadily on the decline. There are already too many people walking around with a “snake in the grass” complex, the idea of being politically correct has only fueled this behavior. It is impossible to determine where all of this may lead us in the (not too distant) future, but if we consider where we are now, it’s kind of difficult to imagine how things could get any better while all that we have witnessed is failure. We are forced to be nice to each other while using language, but that doesn’t actually make our intentions good, nor does it make us feel any differently about a particular subject. I wish we could revert back to a time when we actually had free speech, I like to know who and what I’m dealing with at all times, and P.C. has made that knowledge virtually impossible to attain. I have respect for those who show the same respect to me that I would show to them, and while I understand that not everyone shares that same philosophy; I think that it worked better in our system of democracy to let the people express their feelings and ideologies freely.

I'm no Chekov, but I can still make you think

When it comes to writing, I would like to think of myself as a lifetime student in the art form. Usually when I sit down to write something I first have to go through a series of rituals to get myself in the correct mind state for conveying my thoughts on paper. After I’ve completed those rituals, I generally (in the event of writing creatively) like to sit down and give deep thought to what underlying message I want to give while simultaneously attempting to captivate the audience with the story or scenario for which I am about to create. To put it plainly, I like writing and I take it seriously. This is true also when it comes to our class assignments, I don’t want to put out any kind of bad material and have it be associated with my name. Of course, being that this class requires that we write a lot; I sometimes have been guilty of delivering less than what I am capable of in terms of what I call quality work, so I guess this means that I’m human after all. In terms of my writing style, I’d like to think that my tone comes across as intelligent with a hint of sarcasm. When I write something outside of the academic world (whether it be a a blog about a particular political issue, or just a spiel about whatever happens to tickle my fancy at that given moment), I tend to focus my efforts on reaching an audience who caters to my style of delivery. It’s safe to say that I try to reach the same type of demographic that a Howard Stern or a radio sports talk host would appeal to; chauvinistic men and the women who love them. These are the people who are the crust of our society, the masses if you will; I feel that I can speak clearly to the heart of the issues that people like us face, and I attempt to do it in a style that speaks to them while also intelligently forcing our opposition to at least respect our opinion about a particular matter. I believe that my writings have the ability to evoke thought and persuade, but on the other hand; I also know that they have the ability to offend as well. I have not yet found the happy medium or formula to conveying my messages universally, and that’s only because I’m in my infant stage of being a good writer; but what I can say for my style- is that it does spark a reaction whether good or bad, and I’ll take that for now. I don’t consider myself to be a persuasive writer just yet, but for those who weren’t as fortunate as some others growing up; I think that my current style (tone and language) is a proper fit. My major influence in writing is Anton Chekov, in his time he wrote some of the most communally aware short stories; he was also considered to be a controversial writer because of the reality he used in his language; it was a style that hadn’t been seen in writing before. I aspire to be the same, and hopefully have students studying my work as a template for a new genre of writing, but I’m not ready for that kind of consideration by any means.