1. During the first seminar Kenja said something about how he was raised by some of the biggest anti-war “hippies” that he’s ever met, and wasn’t really even aloud to know what a gun was. But after all of that, what he does for a favorite sport is MMA, which as you is a pretty violent sport. What he was saying is that it doesn’t really matter how or where you grow up, humans are naturally violent. Then I think it was Kenny that added on to that talking about how in first grade or kindergarden he got into a fight pretty much before he knew what a fight was. These were things that stuck out to me the most.
2. Now just to let you know, I wasn’t actually in the discussion group that was arguing weather humans were naturally violent, but those statements caught my ear and stuck out to me. At first, I would’ve had to disagree with Kinja in the sense that I believe where and how you grow up influences how violent you are, but when I heard him say what he did it got me thinking. Now I partially agree with him, that sometimes people do turn out opposite of how they’re raised. Where I still disagree is that where you grow doesn’t affect how violent you are, because I believe a kid raised in North Vietnam or The Congo would be more violent, or more used to war then a kid from the UK or the USA. I did agree with Kenny though when he was talking about already knowing how to fight another person even before he knew what a fight was, because human’s are naturally violent.
3. The thing I’m being reminded of as I’m thinking about how where you’re raised affects how violent you are is the countless stories I’ve heard from men/women that have overseas in Iraq and places in the Middle East. A story that all of this especially reminds me of is when a young boy will walk up to a platoon or squadron of soldiers that have has a bomb strapped to him that his dad put there, but the soldiers don’t think to search him because he’s a young boy. Now I’m not saying that he decided to do this by choice, but it’s pretty common to see bombs and explosives over there, so he doesn’t think anything about it. Where this as to do with anything is that I believe that a young boy in the US or UK would be more likely to freak-out if someone tried to do this to him, because he’s learned that they aren’t good things and isn’t desensitized to seeing them. I’m not saying this happens a lot, but I think it serves as a pretty good example for what they were debating about.
4. From the categories listed I believe I was the strongest in was probably “clarification”. This was my first Socratic seminar so it was a big learning experience for me, but I think “clarification” is what I did the most. The category I would most like to improve on for the next seminar would defiantly be “new ideas”. I think to help me do this I need to think outside of the box more when it comes to the conversations we’re having. This was the biggest thing I think I need to improve on, but I still know I need to improve on them all greatly.
