Response to Katy's post

In this post, I will response to Katy's post about graffiti. In this post, Katy asks herself if this activity have to be considered a kind of artistic work or simply vandalism. I think that all depends of the kind of graffiti. “Graffitis” like this are obviously vandalism. They are ugly and they only serve to damage buildings and properties. However, in Graffiti world we can find art works like this. This kind of graffiti are beautiful and help to make more beautiful cities and towns too. Graffiti could be a perfect way of artistic expression, but in my opinion, this kind of work has to be always the authorization of properties of the wall or building.

Response to Gemma's post

This is a response to the post “Drugs” of Gemma's blog. In this post, Gemma did two interesting questions that I want to answer giving my opinion. The first of this questions is:

• Is it right to take illegal drugs if they relieve distressing pain?

In my opinion, this is completly right. I think that doctors have to claim to “make legal” this drugs in case of heavy pain. Some people say that this is wrong, but if they were suffering a great physical claim probably they would claim for any way to relieve it.

The second question is:

• Are illegal drugs as dangerous as the media make them out to be?

I think that we have not to joke about drugs. Drugs are a serious problem that can destroy your life and the life of your family. But I have to admitt that sometimes the media put marijuana or another soft drugs as something “very dangerous”. The fact is that if you are of those who drink a bottle of whisky every day it will have more dangerous effects than marijuana. However, the fact of marijuana and another drugs are illegal make that we see them as “evil things”, but legal drugs like alcohol or tobacco are not “so bad”.

Bad Comedians

The lesson of the last week was about comedians that make “bad humour”. I always found very interesting studying humour theories and of what kind of things make us laugh. I consider the study of humour one of the best ways to understand the human mind. What kind of things we laugh about? Is it difficult understand to so general question. Sometimes it depends of the culture (for example, English humour is sometimes not very well understood in another European countries). But in general terms we make jokes about defects of other people. However, we have to be careful if we do not want to offend people with jokes (certain jokes about nationalities, races or religions are inadmissible in our current society). But, if I have to choose the best kind of humour I probably would chosen satire. In satire we can make jokes about politicians and people of the circles of power. In this sense, I agrre completly with Mc Donald when he said that satire is a sympton of democratic health in a country. We can see some examples of satiric humour here.

Another Body Modifications

In tatooing lesson we could see how body modification was present in all cultures thorought time. Even these days body modification is still present. Who ever thought about having the perfect body or seem some years younger? If we modify our body using plastic surgery this is possible. But really plastic surgery is a solution to this kind of problems? As I said in an older post, it depends on the kind of surgery. You have to take care with your body modification or you can became something totally different than you are. However, body modification are inevitable (even rings in women or shaving in men) but you have to take care about it and not destroy your body with a lot modifications.

Tatooing and piercing

In our last lesson we talked about tatoo and body modification. I found this lesson interesting but I have to admitt that sometimes the pictures shown were a bit disgusting...well, we are in being bad lesson, and this is not so strange. In this lesson we could learn the ancient roots of tatooing and piercieng and their links with mystical experiences and religion. We could see how body modification was used as a way to control (especially sexual desires) or a way of beauty. Anyway in my opinion tatooing is not too bad but we have to take care about the risk of infection linked to this activity. As J. Follet said “Tatoos are an open window in your skin”. Then, if you decided to have a tatoo on your skin you have to realise that it requires certain attentions.

Response to Kamaljit's Post

I agree in part with Kamaljit's post “Is sex a sin?”.We can not consider sex as a sin. As Kamaljit says, sex is the most natural thing in the world and, I have to add, a biological need. As sexuated beings, we need it. In fact, I think that people that really do not have or enjoy sex became perverts and begin to see the “evil” or the “sin” in all our actions. However, I do not agree with this post in the part that says “For a woman sex provides her a child, and therefore this is the reason why they want sex. However, some women are like guys, they want sex because of the pleasure”. It is clear that men can not have children, but I think that sex can not be understoond only as “pleasure”. You can understand it as a way to demonstrate love. However, it depends on the guy and the situation. I also think that sex issues are omnipresent in our society and made that some people only think in living to fornicate. This is when sex lost its sense and became a vice. But never a sin, in spite of the fact that some cultures and religions considered it as a sinner act.

Infidelity

In our last lesson before Easter brake, we talked about infidelity. Probably, infidelity is one of the worst things that we talked about in this module. In fact, I think that we can consider infidelity (also called adultery or cheating) as an act of “being evil” and not of “being bad”. Many bad things like egoism, lie, untrust and hipocresy are linked to infidelity. We can talk about egoism because you do not care about the feelings of your partner, untrust because you become a lier to the eyes of others and hipocresy because you continue with you partner when you really love another person. I found very interesting the image that society has about infidel people depending on the fact of their genre. For example, infidel men are usually known as “great men” or “lady-killer”. Infidelity among men is not always seen as a bad thing. However, if a woman is infidel, the less that you can hear is that she is a bitch.... I considered very interesting too the way in which new technologies can affect to relationship between lovers.

Anyway, I think that infidelity is one of the worse ways of being really evil because you can destroy in an emotional way a person who really loves you. Its not a matter to joke, I think.

Response to Kimi's Post

I agree with Kimi's post about lying. When do you know whether its wrong to lie? Something is clear. Lying is bad, in general terms, but if you want to protect your interests or feelings of someone important to you, liying could be the best option. Rethorics and demagogy in discourse are built arroud “half-truths”. And these are the main arms in political arena. Even among certain philosophers. Is lying a bad action? We could conclude by saying that lying is relatively bad action.

Response to Marian's Post

I agree in part with Marian's post about plastic surgery. I also think that plastic surgery has become a fashion in the last years. Some people get addicted to plastic surgery and then look artificial. I also think that plastic surgery can be good in certain circumstances (after an accident or to correct extreme physical defects). Nevertheless, I think that the majority of people who do plastic surgery do it to feel better and look cool. It is probable that the fashion of cosmetic surgery is the most attractive issue of the matter as famous actors or actresses. But I think that most people would not need to recur to cosmetic surgery if they would accept their body as it is. Everybody has physical defects, but we have to learn to accept them. I do not understand why thirteen of fourteen year old girls consider the possibility of cosmetic surgery when their bodies are not completely developed. The worst thing is that some parents use surgery as a possbile present if they pass all their subjects. I can't also understand people who want to look much younger than they really are. In my opinion, people who continuously use cosmetic surgery to look younger or better, are people with a weak personality who can not assume their own defects or the pass of time.

Response to Amina's post

I agree completely with Amina's post about gambling. It usually appears to us as
an attractive hobby. In films, TV and books,. gamblers always win and become richer. But the reallity is different. In fact, as Amina says, hundreds of families were destroyed by this addiction. Because gambing begins as a hobby but in the majority of cases it ends as an uncontrolable necesity to the gambler. For me, gambling does not make any sense because you put your money at a risk with the intention of gaining more, because Casinos are built to earn money, not to give it to you....

Villains or heroes?

The last week we talked about bandits that remained as heroes in people's minds. We see some examples like Robin Hood or Jesse James. They were considered heroes because, when they robbed banks or properties of the rich, they usually shared their bounty with poor people. Apparently, this is the same origin of mafia organizations. Usually it is said these criminal organizations were born to protect people against the abuse from the authority. This is the reason why in some areas, mafias were supported by people. Some godfathers were considered as some kind of heroes among people they were helping out but, in the same way like all other villians are true criminals that have to be prosecuted by the law and police.

Experiments with drugs

In relation with the two last posts, I will show you a video that I found on youtube (click here to see). This is an experiment carried out by Dr. Peter Witt in the 60's. Dr. Witt gave different drugs to spiders and saw how the aracnids made different types of web deppending on the type of substance that the doctor gave them. The conclusions were that:

*The spider with LSD made an unfamiliar web (not very effective to trap flies, I presume)
*The web of spider with caffeine was not affected, but the aracnid became extremly nervous
*The spider with marijuana became lazy and did not build the web
*The spider with alcohol, built the web and tried to find a mate that rejected it (oh dear...)

This is a very interesting experiment. We can not extrapolate spider's results to humans (we have a very different organisms) but we can see how legal drugs (like caffeine or alcohol) affected the behaviour of the spider (but not their work).

Drugs and control

During our last lesson, we talked about drugs. I found this lesson very interesting, especially when we talked about the relationship between drugs and intellectuals at the beginning of the 20th century, like Aldous Huxley. In his most famous work Brave New World, in which society lives apparently an age of prosperity and stability (some kind of futuristic utopia) a drug called soma plays a fundamental role to avoid self-consciousness and guarrantee the eternal stability of the system. Soma is the perfect drug: It permits you to take holidays away from your stressful life and you never suffer any kind of hang-over, physical and psychological effects. Soma is so important in this society that workers earn it instead of money. With the control of people by this drug, the absolute government of the utopia does not have to worry about rebellious thoughts. In the lesson, we can see how governments tried to realise Huxley “utopia” (we can call it distopia, probably it is more correct) and tried to find the perfect drug to manipulate population (well, they do not find it at the end, but TV could be effective in the same way). We saw some experiments in british soldiers with LSD ( Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) and we could read about how some soldiers of Vietnam war claimed for drugs to endure that hell.

Legalization?

Should marijuana be legalized? It is a question that we have to be doing to our society during the last times, but we do not have a response yet. Usually, marijuana is related with hippie movement and the 60's. Some marijuana smokers claimed by the legalization of this drug because it is considered a soft drug like alcohol or tobbaco. In fact, certain types of high graduated alcohol could be more dangerous for us than smoke marijuana. For this reason, some countries like the Netherlands created certain cafés in which it is allowed to smoke this drug. Probably, the major problem to legalize marijuana is the social perception about it. In spite of the fact that some of legal drugs can be more dangerous than this, people do not perceive their risk. All the contrary happens with marijuana that is seen as a dangerous drug. Well, it is dangerous in the same way than tobacco or alcohol. If you abuse of them they can destroy you. The debate of legalization continues in our days. It is a tricky question without an easy answer.

Not bad cinema: Awful cinema

Last week our lesson took place in: The Lighthouse Building of Wolverhampton. This week, our topic for the lesson was “Bad Cinema”, and, with this purpose, we went to the Lightouse to enjoy a film about bad behaviour (sex, alcohol, robbery...you know). Someone told us that some critics thought that this film should be forbidden (interesting...you know that forbidding things are usually the best). But, at the end of the film, I was terrified. Not because of the topic of the film (it has a plot without any sense for me), not even because the “strong scenes” (where were they?). I became terrified about an awful film and how we can waste two ours of our life seeing that. Well, maybe I am not ready to see this kind of film (this kind of awful film) I do not know, but I think that a film, at least has to have a coherent plot in which some things ought to happen. The film “Kids” has a confusing plot and it sells the “rebel without reason”. Moreover it does not have very deep characters, all of them are flat and without personal marks.

Well, next time I visit the Lighthouse I hope to see a film, and not a serie of scenes of apparently bad people without any sense.

The worst of sins

In the last week's lesson, we talked about masturbation.We talked about the ancient roots of this act in Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies and how some myths about the creation of the world are related with this act. Moreover, we can see how especially during the victorian age, it was considered not only “the worst of the sins” (this meaning began to be used in middle ages) but also a sign of sickness or madness. Some authors especulated that this act can even cause death. We also see may devices created in order to avoid the “sin” (We can see an example in the picture of this post). We can understand how, after Dr. Freud's analysis the vision about masturbation changed a lot, however it continues to be considered as a taboo, and of course, a way of being bad, in our days.

Tell me the truth!

In our last lesson we talked about how to tell lies with integrity. It is probably the most interesting session of the whole semester because in my none of us can say that we never lied. In fact, we live surrounded by lies. From the most important politician to the less important member of society, all of us are liars. I found this lesson very interesting; we did not only talk about lies in the traditional sense of lies, as something bad and despicable, but also as something necessary. Sometimes, lies can be a necessity, for example they can be used to defend our interests. Sometimes we also lie in order to avoid harming the feelings of people we love. Moreover, I found it fascinating how the word of lies was described, defining lies as a mechanism of auto-defence. Thus, we can conclude by saying that sometimes, lies are necessary, but we have to make a distinction among the different types of lies.

Another thing that I found really fascinating was to see how our society is so hypocrite about lies. We could say that society lies about lying. The majority of people see lies as something bad and despicable, but the truth is that all of us tell lies sometime in our life. In fact, a lot of people are addicted to tell lies (as some films reflect); they are not able to tell the truth about their own life. Certain lies are necessary in certain contexts; could any of us imagine a world without lies? A world without lies could not probably be a world where we humans could exist. In fact, I think that lies are linked to human behaviour and is one of the characteristics of human intelligence.

Bad Behaviour

Last week we had a lesson about bad behaviour. We talked about prostitution, shop-lifting and stalking. At the first, we clarified what we understood for each one of these terms. For example, if we understand prostitution as the fact of selling our own body in exchange of money” we can not talk about prostitution in situations in which this term is false. That is, if you “sell your body” for free or if you received money without selling it, we can not consider it as prostitution. Prostitution is probably, one of the most ancient practises of human beings and, if the fact of prostitution is accepted by the prostitute we can not talk about something wich is really bad. In fact, we can find some websites that try to legalizate it The serious problem appears when prostitution is forced by circumpstances or other people.

Shoplifting....what a familiar thing to most of us is not it? Shoplifting is probably one of the most extended ways of bad-behaviour. Some people even began to do it when they where only children (those sweet candys that some children lift when the shopkeeper is out hehe). Shop-lifting can be considered as a kind of bad behaviour. Without any kind of doubts, shop-lifting is stealling, and we have to call it this way . Nevertheless, we have to admit that is a very small cuantity which is stolen and it can not be compared with, for example, the fact of stealling a bank. Moreover, people say that shoplifting is very addicitve. It should be true, because in some cases, people lift things that they really can buy without any problem. Really human being likes be bad? Searching in the web, you can found associations that fight against this vice.

We also talked about stalking. Stalking probably is one of the most terrible vices and one of the worse things that people can do. Invading the privacy of other people without their agreement must be considered a great offence. Despite of the despicable fact of this action, I am sure that many people continue to do it. Why? Only do they know.... In any case, we can find some interesting information about that here.

Put a price on it

These days, I have been reading some blogs with different proposals for week 12. I have seen some about drugs, the city of Amsterdan, incest or sadomasochism. But I want to propose a different thing: brive and corruption. I think it would very interesting to have a lesson in which we talk about thes ephenomena in many aspects of our life: sports, politics, bussiness...why do people become corrupt and accept brives knowing that these are bad? And why does the majority of the population accepts these phenomena as something normal and even,as some people say: “If I were him, I would probably do the same things”.

Have you a light, man?

“A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”

( http://thinkexist.com/quotation/a_cigarette_is_the_perfect_type_of_a_perfect/326682.html)

" Lung cancer is directly related to smoking. Over 40 carcinogens have been identified in cigarette smoke"
(http://www.chestx-ray.com/smoke/smoke.html)

Last week, our Being Bad lesson was about smoking. Nowadays, in spite of the fact that everybody knows that smoking is bad for our health, some people continue to do it. Is it only due to the additive effects of nicotine or do people really want be bad with themselves when they smoke?

This lesson helps some understand the role that smoking has on history. We can also discover that tobacco has not always had the bad image that it has today. Moreover, smoking is probably one of the most ancient and universal vices of humanity. We can find smokers in many cultures, from the American Indians to the Chinese. We can find them also in every stage of our history.

As we have seen in the lecture, smoking can be associated to religious issues, like in tribal societies. It can be related to politics (we can mention the indian's “pipe of peace”). In addition, we can find smoking associated to the most sexy actresses of Hollywood, the cowboy's freedom in the countryside or the secret agent in the city. In this sense, I found an interesting website (http://scenesmoking.com/) that makes a kind of list of films saying the way in which they use the smoking issues.

Smoking has ways been related to positive issues. Even cigarrettes can be seen as reivindicative in a women's mouth, as something that fights for the end of patriarchal society or it can also mean rebellion in a man that wants to rebell against the stablished order. We see different possitive connotations aimed to some smokers with the idea of being bad, even when this means goes against their own health. Nevertheless, we can choose between our health or being bad. Personally, I prefer my heatlh (I am not bad in this aspect) but I believe that some people prefer to be bad with their deligtfull cigarrette betwen their lips.

PS-The alarm fire sounded during the class...was anyone being very bad smoking in a forbidden place? Hehehehe.

Introduction

I found the first lesson of “Being Bad” very interesting. The teacher gave us a little introduction about the issues of the subject during this semester. I think that it is very interesting to know how people want be bad. In my opinion, society needs certain rules to run in the right way but people usually want to break these rules and be bad. For this reason, I think that the fact of being bad can be understood as a kind of freedom or liberation that breaks the “jail” that social rules has created. This does not justify all the bad actions, but I have no doubt that being bad is, in many cases, associated to this idea of rebellion and freedom.

Moreover, I found the attemps to exteriorize evil behaviour in external figures very interesting: Religion did so by creating the devil and some literary works create evil characters (like Sauron in "The Lord of the Rings") to exteriorize the most despicable acts of human behaviour. But everybody knows that bad and evil things are inside human beings and not in any external figures.

I hope to know more things about being bad in relation to the topics of this subject. It can be very interesting and it can also help us to understand our own mind in a better way.