Alankar's Blogs

     This week in class we read, Show and Tell by Scott McCloud. I have never been a big enthusiast on comics or even books with pictures. Sure, there once was a time when I literally refused to even touch a book without any pictures, but as McCloud said, I had to “grow out of it” just like everybody else. After reading this piece, however, I started thinking about why I had to give up books with pictures, in particular, comics. The main objective of solely text-based books, which was slightly discussed in class, is to allow the reader to freely visualize the context with the descriptions fitted by the author. I don’t really have an issue with this, but sometimes authors just fill their books with complex sentences and situations, and diction which is hardly ever used by anyone just so they can express their sophistication. Just understanding the work by some of these authors is a challenge in itself, but then having to use my imagination to actually picture the context...

     At first glance, there may seem to be a large discrepancy between today’s America and our government, and those which Henry David Thoreau describes in Civil Disobedience . However, the chasm is not as large as one may think. Yes, Americans may be more outspoken today, either for better or worse, but that does not necessarily mean they are more free from government. Rather, it can be argued we are more chained to government than we would like to believe so. One sole question now persists, why is this the case? The short answer is because we let the government get too large.      Now for the lengthier, more complicated answer. There is only a limited amount of freedom that an individual can have. The most amount of freedom is in an anarchist society and the least is in a society engulfed by communism. In other words, the more control the government has, the less freedom the individuals have. So why don’t we live in an anarchist society? This society ...

     In my personal opinion, David Foster Wallace’s This is Water is the most relatable and overall useful piece we have read so far in class. The general concept Wallace spends about five pages explaining is how to look at the larger picture and not always imagine the world revolves around yourself. He mentions how we are all inherently self-centered and it is only natural human tendency to think about how others impact our lives specifically rather than thinking about how society runs as a whole and the different situations others may be in. “Basic self-centeredness… It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth” (Wallace 233). This idea in itself is not new, as even one of the most fundamental principles of economics is that all of mankind will act selfishly, but the way it is examined throughout the piece causes the audience to ponder over what they just read and recognize its truthfulness.      Later in the piece, he claims how tr...

            History should be told in a nonlinear rather than a linear narrative. The difference between an analysis of history and history itself must be identified. Similar to how people listen to the scientists, not the actual science, the general public listens to the historians not the actual history. When history is told through a historian’s analysis, there is going to be bias as the historian seeks to prove a point through telling the narrative. This leads to the misrepresentation and ignorance of facts but is acceptable as already established the historian’s intent was an analysis rather than a full account of history. Thus, linear narratives make sense in this case.             However, in the case which history is supposed to be told in its entirety, nonlinear narratives are appropriate. Man always attempts to establish a cause-and-effect relationship to understand...