Tuesday: 11:30-12:30: David, Averi, Ashley, and Thomas
Wednesday: 10:00-11:00: Nathan, Chelsea, Becca, Vivian
Wednesday, 11:30-12:30: Caitlin, Theresa, Inez, Phillip
Guidelines for conference feedback are here. Remember that your grade is based both on your posting comments, and your ability to contribute during the conference itself — simply saying “well, this is good, and I don’t have anything else to say” will affect your grade.
The writings of John Locke and Adam Smith explore beliefs about human nature. Greed is a common part of human instinct. Both men intend to justify this less than noble trait, while investigating the question, does money solve the problem of greed? Ultimately, it is beneficial that money does not solve the problem of greed nor initiate greed. Money as gold or wealth acts as an aid to get what you want.
Locke describes greed as the “desire of having more than man needed” (Locke). Locke comes to the understanding that the world is not ideal. However, there is still a need to support one’s self and family, which aids in the initiation of greed. To justify the means of taking more than one’s share of the land, there is an introduction of money. Perishable items could be traded away for money, therefore preventing the sin of food or other necessities spoiling. “Men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of” (Locke). Locke rationalizes that everyone tacitly agrees on money’s value, so all labor that a man decides to place effort in can be traded for over plus gold or silver. Gold and silver are not life-sustaining substances thus greed is important in the movement of the economy, to satisfy our needs for items that support life.
On the other hand, Smith describes the greed for wealth and the steps needed to strive towards this status. “If ever he hopes to distinguish himself, it must be by more important virtues” such as a family and funds from the “labour of his body, and the activity of his mind” (Smith). However, this greed originates from the desire for greatness through “ambition,” which supports the progression of the society. Smith bases this greed through the natural desire for value and the associated happiness due to the disposition to identify with the rich instead of broadcasting the sorrows associated with the poor. Money becomes an aid to achieve status and, in the end, happiness. A world without greed has the potential to slow the development of the society.
The Encarta Dictionary defines greed as “an overwhelming desire to have more of something, such as money, than is actually needed.” Locke justifies this definition by putting in hard work and supporting one’s family. Over time, Smith suggests that greed has become synonymous with wealth and human nature. The trading of both necessities and desires are aided by the creation of money. The economy needs greed as a driving factor, but still focuses on the trade of products rather than money.
Joseph Addison, in “A Vision of Public Credit”, uses the “virgin” as the main character and “dance” to show conflict and resolution. This account represents the strengths and weaknesses of public credits in accordance with stressors and caretakers. Addison makes sure to carefully depict the virgin’s health and her surroundings as time passes, for she is the symbol of public credit. Virgin is usually defined as somebody who has never had sexual intercourse; however the connotations and stereotypes that have collected over the years are important to recognize in order to truly understand the conflict and resolution.
Purity and delicacy are the classically used terms to depict virgins. The qualities of delicacy and timidity lead to being easily influenced by her surroundings. In addition, purity is linked with the term and the idea of value. Purity greatly increases the value of our most cherished items such as gold and diamonds, and gives her the right to sit on the throne because she is uncorrupted by others.
In Addison’s time, virgins were under the control of their fathers. In this case, her father would be the government, trying to protect and find the best suitor for her. This behooves the father to find the best suitor so families can combine and become stronger, but the men are only interested in a pure virgin. Therefore she is only good before she is used. It is in the best interest of the nation not to use her in a tainted way or she could fall into the hands of an immoral idea.
The virgin observes the “dances” of a variety of phantoms. Addison uses “dance” to describe how the incoming spectres and apparitions attempt to court the virgin. The intentions were to show the interaction between the phantoms or different beliefs that could hurt or help the health of public credit; increasing the complexity of the conflict. It is beneficial to the audience to see the direct change in her health as each phantom passes. Dance becomes a term to replace the flow of the economy.
“Virgin” and “dance” refer to the main idea and conflict, which helps the reader understand the action. In this particular text, the action is directly related to the variance of value through the resolution of the virgin’s health. Credit, money, labor and more are all correlated through the rises and falls, or dance, of the economy. Addison utilizes different parts of the community, as an underlying theme, to show the proper use of credit. Understanding these terms helps readers see large effectors on the economy that they come into contact with daily.
No blog post for Week 9!
Your blog post revisions need to be completed by Friday, August 19th, at 5 p.m.
All you need to do is tag the post with the original week’s tag (week5blog, etc.) and also with the tag “revision.”
Theresa Wang MP2RD
For the revised final, I plan on mostly smoothing out the connections between the quotations and the commentary, and perhaps reordering some of the content. (Let me know how the order feels now—I think some thoughts are a little disjointed.)
I’m still thinking about the conclusion (there are a couple general sentences), so if you have any ideas on how I can tie that bit together that would be helpful.
Auric Gold
Inez Tapia
August 12, 2011
English 200
Essay #2 RD
Why does Auric Goldfinger exist?
Auric Goldfinger owns gold deposits in several cities around the world and is extremely passionate in his methods of acquiring the precious commodity. Goldfinger shows the importance of gold through his appearance and the way he ascts. When Bond meets Goldfinger he says, “Bond’s first view of Mr. Goldfinger was startling. At the far corner of the roof, just below the cliff of the hotel, a man was lying on his back with his legs up on a steamer chair. He was wearing nothing but a yellow satin bikini slip, dark glasses and a pair of wide tin wings under his chin.” Goldfinger represents the average gold where money is backed and can be liberally transformed into gold. He gains independence from a system, changing, and the will to stop at nothing to increase his own value and wealth.
Goldfinger, The richest man in England is also the treasurer for the Soviet counter-intelligence agency SMERSH. SMERSH is the brutal Soviet-led anti spy network for which Goldfinger provides financial backing. The most important theme of Gold finger is wealth; he is obsessed with gold and has hoarded away enormous quantities of it. He is gold-obsessed and because of this he plans to detonate a nuclear bomb in Ft. Knox to destabilize the United States gold market, thereby significantly increasing the net worth of his own gold billion stockpiles.
SMERSH and its agent Goldfinger attack the wealth of nations. The smuggling and the assault on Fort Knox are meant to undermine Western economies and to bolster SMERSH’s own schemes. “The Russians were notoriously incompetent payers of their own men,” Bond notes. Goldfinger’s smuggling provides revenue for paying SMERSH’s assassins. The Financial backing can be converted into gold where a certain amount of money is diffused. There is a certain quantity of gold so it makes it hard when there are so many people. The gold is only for people that can obtain it and take care of it.
This is a system where there is control of the amount of money distribution because it is limited to the quantity of gold set aside. Setting gold aside is a good thing because then prices will be regulated which moderates the chance of prices to rise. The weakness of goldfinger is that there is only a restricted supply of gold therefore it becomes difficult to keep a gold average when the the community is growing tremondously.
In Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments he gives us the impression that to be wealthy is a good thing because the high class has money. Smith say’s “The fortunate and the proud wonder at the insolence of human wretchedness, that it should dare to present itself before them, and with the loathsome aspect of its misery presume to disturb the serenity of their happiness.” In this case the lower class such as the “poor” is inappreciable and looked down upon. As for the high class or “wealthy” they are presented to be unique because they are rich so therefore acknowledged and glorified. Due to this idea, in this text everyone wants to be prosperous.
Paper part deux
Here’s my rough draft, I haven’t added in citations yet though.
Draft 2
Sorry that this is a really, really rough draft. My ending is pretty sudden because I ran out of time, and decided to put in a paragraph of my kind of overall thought/idea as my conclusion but just know that I plan on fixing that. Any type of help, especially with ideas and organization would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
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