Contemporary_Moral_Issues_Essay

Contemporary Moral Issues Final Essay Harold and Maude 1446 words total Issue 6 (630 words) In Harold and Maude the exact dialogue in the scene described to us in the question goes like this. “Harold- well, I really don’t smoke. Maude- It is alright it is organic. Harold- I am sure picking up on vices. Maude Vice' Virtue' It is best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality.” I do not believe that Maude intended this sequence of events to be an invitation to immorality. She does not live her life in that manor. This actually has a deeper meaning than what is shown on the surface. What she may be implying is who decides what is a vice or what is immoral' Other people decide things like that. In her line of thinking smoking is not immoral just because someone else said it is. She is saying that if you go by what other people say you should do than you are not experiencing everything that life has to offer. When Maude says that “you should aim above morality”, she is saying that you should not let these “immoral” barriers that other people set get in the way of experiencing life to the fullest. There are certain things that we are trained to stay away from or to assume are they are bad for us. Maude’s aim above morality philosophy on life basically is all about questioning why you can not do one thing or why it is immoral. She not only questions but she also goes with the flow and tries everything that she sees as “worth it” even if some people say that it is wrong. She also says there is a being too moral. This is also true in the same sense that if you think on this other extreme side where everything you do is based on morality than you will miss out on all of the simple pleasures in life because you are too focused on looking at whether or not something is considered moral to fully appreciate life. This also fits in with Blackburn’s ethical climate idea where Maude has learned to question modern ethics and the standard level of morality that society has put in front of her. In a way, Maude experiences differentiation of self. A truly differentiated person is able to sort through certain situations, while ignoring emotional urges, to come up with the best solution to a problem or the best course of action for a given situation. Maude’s ability to look beyond morality and see what is truly important in life is a prime example of differentiation of self. She displays this trait several times throughout the movie. One specific example of this is when she tells Harold that most of the sorrow in the world comes from people trying to be like every one else instead of trying to be their own selves. She is able to realize that instead of trying to blend into the norms set by society that we should be dare to be different and to go beyond the status quo. In conclusion, the main idea that the viewer should get out of this scene is to question morality. Who decides the who’s, what’s, or why’s of morality' The viewer can also gather from this scene that morality may also be a low standard and we should aim our quality of life to be higher than the bar that morality sets for us because if you follow morality to the dot than there is no point in living because you are cheated out of life. It is the little things that matter and only a truly differentiated person such as Maude from Harold and Maude can truly appreciate those things and take the next step above morality Issue 5: 803 words In class we were able to view and discuss many video clips that pertained too many of the issues that were being discussed at that point in time. There were two that specifically caught my attention and those two movies were Harold and Maude and the documentary, the Population Paradox. Since I have already written two essays on the former I believe it appropriate to organize my thoughts on the Population Paradox through this essay. In this documentary the very serious problem of the eventually drastic population shifting in the world is discussed. What is basically happening is that some societies such as Japan are going to decline in population by nearly fifty percent in the next fifty years while other countries such as Kenya will see a population increase of nearly two hundred percent. This is a problem because in Kenya their economy can not even support its people now and there is no way that it could support double its population. Not to mention that there is the HIV epidemic spreading throughout the country. It was predicted that in thirty years there will be an almost non-existent middle age population due to death from AIDS. First off, I will be using Kenya as an example to point out many things because it is the country that the documentary featured but it needs to be understood that most African countries are “in the same boat” as Kenya. This video can bring up many discussions from Blackburn’s book Being Good. I am not sure if my interpretation is correct but the way I have come to see it is one way to fix this AIDS problem in Kenya is through an ethical climate. An environment where measures are being taken to educate the native population on some of the basic principals of ethics would be the ideal situation. I understand that there are some programs that have been put into place but they are not of a large enough scale to affect the entire population. The reason Kenya and other countries like it are in the position that they are in is because the people have no idea what is right and what is wrong. In a sense they do not know what it means to be good. Aristotle came to the conclusion that human beings aren’t naturally going to be able to live a virtuous life. By virtuous he means a life lived by ethics and reason. He said that living like this is not going to happen over night. It is something that must be taught. Education is the key to the balancing out of the population and economy of troubled countries. We can also filter the causes and the effects of Kenya’s population problems through Bowman’s family systems theory. Kenya’s family structure is much different from ours. They have as many children as possible for many reasons. They have a very high infant mortality rate, they need more children to work, and many of them want a male to carry on the family name and help the family in the family’s latter years. So because of these reasons many families will have six children. This is where the HIV comes in. Many of these families are so poor that the women are forced to cell their bodies and they not only contract HIV but they spread it around. When the parents die off from disease all the children are left there with no one to take care of them. The whole process makes an hourglass population distribution where there are many elderly and children but few healthy, middle aged adults. This will throw their entire economy into disaster in the near future. We as Americans don’t seem to understand why they keep having children because our family structure or triangle is different than theirs. We need to look at their situation from their perspective and understand what they are going through. If society is able to understand what the people in countries such as Kenya are going through than that is the first step in helping them to stabilize their future. The only way to do this is through education. Before their education can take place we must first educate ourselves through such means as a Contemporary Moral Issues class. I know this is not necessary but I believe this class has been an important tool to helping me expand my thinking in issues such as this but also it has helped me in other classes where I never thought I would be able to thrive the way I am doing right now. Hopefully, I will be able to carry the lessons I learned in this class through out my lifetime and maybe help someone else look at life through a different lens such as this class has taught me.