Blog #1 - Christina Antypas - Period 9 - 2/4/2020

February 4th, 2020

Christina Antypas

Period 9

Aim: Why are the terms, “equality”, “rights” and “alike” important to society?

Notes: 

To start off the lesson today, our class participated in a discussion about why we believe the term “equality” has become a “hot topic” of discussion in society. After sharing our ideas in our group, we convened as a class and came to the conclusion that equality has become a “hot topic” because of our way of life. Many people brought up the fact that many people in today’s world are not seen as equal, as well as that it is very hard to achieve “total equality”. Although we have come very far from long ago, it was concluded that there are still changes that need to be made to make sure everyone has equal opportunity. 

In addition to the do now, we spent the rest of the class period with our groups discussing many questions on equality in today’s world. The questions, as well as my groups answers, can be seen below:

1. Agree/Disagree: Life in the USA would be perfect if everyone were totally equal.  Why?
1. We disagree because we feel economically and politically, it would be hard to have TRUE equality due to the fact that this could lead to zero growth. We also feel equal opportunities would essentially be considered equity, and that true equality would lead to people having similar thoughts. Again, this would lead to no growth in humanity.
2. You are designing a society in which everyone is equal. What are the laws?
1. no discrimination over external factors (race, gender, etc.)
2. there should be partiality (no bias) in any workplace 
3. people should be accepted and praised over meritocracy, rather than their outside traits 
3. What would you do to help people who were less capable mentally, physically, or socially to “catch up”?
1. give free programs to all so those people could catch up
2. offer classes for people with certain conditions so that they can catch up educationally 
3. offer therapy to those who need it so emotionally people could catch up
4. What problems can you foresee that might arise in a society with enforced “equality for all”?
1. people can see the opportunities given to people who are less fortunate and discriminating against their own accomplishments 
5. How would you handle those problems?
1. The most we could do is assure the people that this is for the better good, as well as use the education system to help them better understand that equality is good in the long run and that everyone needs equal opportunities 
6. Do you believe that total equality is possible, or would human nature assure that some people would eventually dominate others?
1. We don’t believe equality is possible, due to the fact that someone will always want to be a leader. We are essentially animals, and although we have very powerful minds, some people are inclined to use them to control people, even when everything is alright.

Reflection:

Today was one of the first times I've had an in-depth conversation about equality, which led me to learn many things I did not know about the people in my class and the world around us. After hearing my group’s responses to these questions, I realized that there is a difference between “total equality” and “equal opportunity”. Equal opportunity does not mean that everyone will be on the same playing field, but it does allow people to have the same resources needed to achieve their separate goals. Another important idea to note is that total equality is something that has been attempted in places with extreme governments (Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, etc.) that have, over the course of history, failed. People have tried to make sure that every citizen was thinking and going about life the same way, which led to zero human growth, or growth in the completely wrong direction. These ideas are going to be prevalent in our future lessons, due to the fact that we are learning about dystopian worlds through the books we will soon read. Dystopian novels are based on extreme ideas that are already seen in the world today, and most of the time encompass the idea of equality and what it could be like to not have it. We, as a class, have to keep the ideas brought up in our minds throughout the rest of the school year, so that we can use what we learned to apply it to the novels that will read in the near future. Overall, today’s lesson was extremely eye opening and showed me, and most likely many others, how important equality will be to our next lessons as well as the world around us.