Socratic Seminar Response

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

George Bernaw Shaw

The one overarching theme that I took away from the Socratic Seminar and the other various readings that we completed was the theme of shifting paradigms. This could be tied up or shown through almost every one of the articles we read. The majority of the articles somehow communicated a change that needed to be made in society in order to further seek equality in our nation, yet in our seminar, we questioned if equality was really what we sought after.

Martin Luther King Junior took inspiration from Gandhi when he fought and encouraged others to fight against the unfair treatment of African American people during the 1960's. I feel that his peaceful protest tactics not only got what he sought after, but additionally, they made his opponents in the fight look badly. For example, MLK would have African American people walk into a restaurant that was designated for only Caucasian people and have them sit down and ask to be served. They would always dress in their best clothes and be extremely polite.

Malcolm X fought for the same goal as Martin Luther King however; he believed that, "it's only fair to expect elements to do whatever is necessary to protect themselves" and that violence was acceptable in certain instances such as the one he was in. He advocated that the African American people of the 1960's in the south arm themselves for protection and that it was all right to resort to violence when it seemed necessary.

The articles, Necessary to Protect Ourselves and A Stride Towards Freedom talked about two opposite approaches that both were attempting to do the same thing for the same cause, fighting for justice and equality for the African American population of the 1960's. In fighting the commonly accepted rules and morals of the time Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were purposely attempting to shift the paradigm of the 1960's for what they felt was "right" for the people. In our Socratic Seminar, I discussed what my personal opinions were and the reasoning's behind them. I said that I was fully behind MLK and his peaceful protest actions, however, once I heard my classmate's opinions on how if it got personal, they may have changed their ways, I myself began to change my opinion. I thought about if it did become personal and suddenly I felt my ways begin to change to support Malcolm X instead.

While the majority of the articles that we read and discussed in the Socratic Seminar concerned the issues that were happening in the South in the 1960's with segregation and the poor treatment of African Americans, Harrison Bergeron describes a world where total equality has been achieved and every one is the same, but the futuristic world that's described does not sound appealing. This lead the discussion of our Socratic Seminar to question, do we truly want equality?

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home and Sidewalks, both supplied me with a basic understanding of what examples of paradigms were before reading the additional articles. They talked about examples of paradigms that we have in our society, which helped me when I went to read, and make connections between all of the articles that we read for class. The Egg Horror Story also was a preparatory article because it forced me to start placing myself in "someone else's shoes" in order to gain perspective.