Question

Week 8 assignment

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PART 1

Frist quote: “And third, supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they’re complicit. Those who ate the sugar or wore the cotton that the slaves grew simply didn’t think about what made those goods possible” (P.511). This quote talks about supporters of slavery during the 19th century. The reason why I chose this quote is because its shows how some people lack empathy and compassion towards humanity. For them not to feel guilty of their actions, they engage in “strategic ignorance.” This involves ignoring the fact that using any products from the plantation in which the slaves worked is supporting slavery. By eating sugar and wearing cotton, one was directing supporting slavery. However, the quote shows that the defenders wanted to justify their actions. The quote makes me feel emotional because this is what happens even in the modern capitalist society. Workers spend nearly 12 hours a day working for a company that pays them peanuts but records millions of dollars in net profit (The Guardian, 2019). Consumers know very well the companies exploit their workers but end up buying from them. The actions are no different to those defenders who used strategic ignorance to support plantation slavery. It is heartbreaking that slavery exists in 21st and people still use strategic ignorance to support it by purchasing products from companies that exploit workers for cheap labor.

Quote 2: “Nearly 2 million of America’s elderly are warehoused in nursing homes, out of sight and, to some extent, out of mind” (P. 512). This quote caught my attention because of the huge number of elderly people living in nursing homes. It shows that majority of Americans take their elderly to nursing home so that they can avoid the burden of taking care of them. It can be argued that people are busy and no one has that time to take care of their elderly. However, most of the elderly people in nursing homes have been neglected by their families and they are rarely checked up by their families making them feel isolated. It is not a good thing not to take care of our elderly parents who sacrificed all they had to take care of us. Those who cannot afford to take care of the elderly at their homes, they should make sure that they frequently visit their elderly ones in nursing homes nearly on daily basis.

PART 2

What inspires me about quotes from part 1 is about taking care of the elderly. The quote shows how modern American families have isolated their elderly loved ones. It is morally wrong to isolate people who at some point took care of us and meant everything. Majority of people who take their elderly relatives to housing homes claim that they are a burden to them and they do not have time to take care of them. In real sense, these elderly people at some point in life had to forgo their personal interests to take care and provide of their families, whom later take them to nursing homes. Old age is a very delegate period in life where an individual wants to feel compassion and love from people close to him. Despite the fact that elderly get everything they need at nursing homes, they lack emotional support from their families. Therefore, it is important for families not to isolate their elderly family members.

Reference

Seyler, U. D. and Brizee, A. Read, Reason, Write: An argument text and reader. Twelfth edition. McGraw Hill education.

The Guardian. (2019). Over 400,000 people living in ‘modern slavery’ in US, report finds. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/19/us-modern-slavery-report-global-slavery-index