Blood the Thickest Bond?

Its often been said that 'blood is thicker than water,' that no matter what we will always love our family. There is no doubt that we usually have a stronger attachment to the people who raised us but not everyone one is raised by there blood relatives. As mentioned in class, cases that are often forgotten are children who have been adopted. They may never meet their biological parents but it does not mean that the people who raised them aren't just as good. In many cases I think it would be safe to say that children can have the same, if not stronger, attachment to their adopted parents as they could with their biological parents. There are also the cases in which children can end up despising their parents and have nothing to do with them., whether this hatred comes from abuse or another reason, would they truly love their 'blood' over other, kinder people? It does tend to be true that a child, in later life, will retain strong attachments or emotions towards, who ever raised them. After all children do spend nearly 15-20 years under their parents watch, regardless of blood.

Supporting the Troops

In class the idea of supporting the troops but not the war was brought up. I think it is a noble thought but needs some critiquing. If we talk about a war in which men were forced to sign up for a draft, or otherwise had no choice but to go, this idea is fairly valid. It was not their choice to go and fight and you can, almost justifiably, hope for their safety, regardless of their actions overseas. But in the case of the current and recent wars there has been no draft, no one forcing men and women to answer the call to fight. Of course, there a large incentive of money, or family pressure to join, but it is still ultimately the soldiers choice and even though they are following orders, it was there choice to do so in the first place. After considering that idea, perhaps those who who claim to support the troops and not the war may want to rethink what they say. Personally I support our troops finally being sent back home, so that they can stop killing, be safe, and be with their families again.

Meet In the Middle

After observing ideas from both sides of the argument, I believe that Hobson's and Soames' views on dreams could easily find a middle ground. I do not believe that everything the Freud said and theorized is false. There are, with out doubt, some very valid points and ideas in his works. As Hobson points out, they are some rather outdated in some cases unscientific but Hobson's claims that dreams are solely hallucinations. I would argue that dreams could very likely stem from memories, like Freud suggests, but that they do necessarily have to be repressed wishes from childhood. I would observe that dreams could very likely be a combination of both past and present wishes and memories of recent and past experiences. In retrospect Soames had a very valid idea of not simply throwing away Freud's theories but refining and improving them. 

Response: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

You can find the original post here http://lyndseyjohnson9330.blogspot.com/2012/03/dream-is-wish-your-heart-makes.html
I agree that in many cases it does make sense for dreams to be repressed wishes.  However, I question if nightmares "come out when a person is in a safe enough environment to have these thoughts occur." Instead I would argue that nightmares would be more likely to occur when you find yourself in an environment that you do not feel safe. When your brain/mind is caught up in thoughts that upset you, it may be harder for it to protect  you from your fears or to disguise your wishes. Therefore, the uneasiness and distraction coming from a place you do not feel safe in causes dreams to be less censored and become nightmares.

Response: Losing Sight of the Point

You can find the original post here: http://asfnhn2012s.blogspot.com/2012/03/losing-sight-of-point.html

I have also noticed this attitude in students and it seems to play a large hand in why students tend to cheat. They see nothing to gain from actually doing the work, only the goal of getting a good grade, so they find a way to get everything for nothing. We attend school not simply to become more educated but to learn to deal with problems and challenges that we may find in the world outside of the classroom.  So when a student cheats they completely ignore trying to solve the problem and possibly learn instead that they can cheat their way through life, just so that they could have more time to slack off. It's a bit of an ironic twist, by cheating to get a grade, you are cheating yourself out of the skills you could learn.

Influence on Dreams

On the topic of dreams I believe that Freud tends to ignore some of the key influences of our dreams. This is not to say that his theory is completely false, but rather that it lacks some information. Freud argues that our dreams all spawn from our repressed infantile wishes. From experience though I would argue otherwise. There is another very obvious influence on our dreams, our experiences right before I sleep. From personal experience: I had been waken up by a phone call and then fallen back to sleep, my right tone then preceded to experience my ring tone incorporated into my dream. Now it is obvious that this could be our unconscious pulling from information from our recent memories to disguise our repressed wishes. I simply believe that dreams can be much more nonsensical than Freud seems to claim. Instead of holding all this secret repressed information, they could simply be the random trails of our last thoughts before sleep.

Violence and Games

In class, the idea of violent actions and video games was briefly mentioned. It is a common idea that violent games, television and movies influence the people, usually youth, watching to be violent as well. However it truly depends on the age and mind set of the person playing or watching. If a person is mature enough they should be able to realize that the violence they act out in a game is purely fictional, that it is unacceptable in real life. That is piratically why violent games are so popular, because they allow consumers to do what is other wise forbidden in society. So if a player or viewer can comprehend that what they are seeing is purely fictional it should not lead to any excess of violence. Instead violent games have been said to act as a sort of therapy for some. When someone finds themselves in frustrating circumstances they can go home and take their anger out on a game instead of on another person.