Tuesday, October 4, 2011

outline [not complete]

1 Research Question
 Why have Jews been discriminated against so much in Europe?

2 Thesis Statement
 the reasons why Jewish people were discriminated can be explained by
  A the difference Jews and most European people in religion
  B the fact that the Jews have been treated as scapegoat
  C the influence of Jews on economy in Europe

3, Introduction
  A  AG show some statistic date to make you know how horrible discrimination was
  B  BG the history of antisemitism in Europe
  C  thesis statement

4, body
  A  Jews are discriminated because of their religion
     a Jewdaism concept that they are chosen people are blamed by Westeners
     b some Christian believe that Jews killed Jesus Christ

  B  Jews were regard as scapegoat, or the Devil
     a  What is scapegoat
     b  in Middle Ages, Jews were considered to be responsible for Black Death.
     c  after World War 1, they are blamed for the Germany problems by Hitler.

  C  Jews has been s great impact on economy that are to be blamed for
     a  How Jews has a power on European like create a bank
     b  Jews lend a lot of money  and earn by charging interest, which is against Cathoric

5,  Conclusion
  It is quite difficult to choose only one cause for discrimination against Jews. Rather, it would be better to judge the reason for the discrimination from various perspective.

Monday, October 3, 2011

outline

1, Research Question
 Why are there less discrimination against Jewish people in Japan as compared to western countries?


2, thesis statement 
 The reasons why Japanese people have not discriminated Jews so much can be explained by  
    A  the difference between Japan and western countries in religion
    B  scapegoat problem
    C  the influence of Jewish people on economy


3, Introduction 
 Jewish people have been discriminated on a large scale for such a long time such as Holocaust or Pogrom.  On the other hand, in Japan,  such a horrible did not 
   A  statistic date shows how many Jews were killed
   B  Sugiwara Chiune is one of the good examples of how Japanese people think of Jews.


4, Body1
   A  religious difference
   B  scapegoat 
       a Jewish people are regarded as the cause of Black Death
       b Adlf Hitler blames jews for Germany problems before World War 1
       c Japan treated Chinese or Korean people as scapegooat when Kanto daishinsai 
       occured  in 1923.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

About my essay

1,What is the issue you plan to research and write about?
  Racial Discrimination of Jewish People.  In Japan, is there discrimination against them?  If there really is, why does that discrimination happen? If there is not, what is the reason for it?

2, Why is the issue important? what is the significance?
 By comparing racial communication in foreign countries and Japan, I would learn about the framework behind which racial discrimination in Japan occurs. Plus, I would learn what it is like to be discriminated on a global scale for such a long time.

3, Why are you interested in? What's the connection to YOU?
 when I studied world history in high school, I was shocked at how Jewish have been discriminated in history like Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Holocaust. since then, I have been interested in the reason for it. Although it is true that there is domestic racial discrimination in Japan, I have not paid attention to it, so ,by studying it, I want to think about racial discrimination.

4,Questions
 1 What is racial discrimination of Jewish people all about?
 2 What made a lot of people discriminate them?
 3 How was that discrimination solved in history?
 4 Is there any discrimination against them in Japan?
 5 If there really is, why does that discrimination happen? If there is not, what is the reason for it?
 6 What is the characteristic of Japanese racial discrimination?
 7 What made Japanese people discriminate ?

5 Sources
Websites
 http://aimee-larsen-stoddard.suite101.com/why-are-jews-persecuted--jewish-discrimination-a214753
 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014198798329892

Books
 "A special fate: Chiune Sugihara, hero of the Holocaust"; by Gold,Alison Leslie
 "Jews in the Japanese mind; the history and uses of a cultural stereotype"; by David G .Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa



Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I enjoyed reading Perception Of Self by Fisher more than the Six Stumbling Blocks. This is because it gave me a good idea of what is the characteristic of perception and what constitute perception. Although I have read and heard somewhere that people cannot see the world as it is but see the world in a biased way, Fisher tells me the structure of our perception more clearly.

I have found inferential perception the most instructive and interesting. As we watched the video in the class, even if a few letters are removed from the sentence, we still can understand what the sentence mean.  In other words, lack of information often lead us to inferential perception.

However, I think there is something else which make us infer the meaning of some object. I mean not only lack of detailed information cause inferential perception. we learned from last NP that we mistakenly read a sentence as it said that 長いものには巻かれろ, even though it actually said that 長いものにはは巻かれろ. In this case, there is no lack of letters but we still use inferential reasoning. that's probably because most Japanese people  have already known well the structure of the proverb. therefore, in my opinion, too much information or a kind of framework also force us to use inferential perception.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Reaction to Baner

   What kind of image do you have when you are asked what is the characteristic of Ibaraki? Mito-Koumon? Kashima-Antlers? From my experience after I graduated from high school and left Ibaraki, most people says "Ibaraki is famous for natoo. All the people from Ibaraki is a natoo-lover!" Whenever hearing of such a reply, I feel it is a kind of prejudiced images on Ibaraki.

 The stumbling block our group discussed was stereotype and preconception. Every member agrees that stereotype has always been with us anywhere, anytime even if we do not pay attention to it.  Moreover, in my opinion, even within the same country, people often have a biased image on other group of people. These kind of misunderstanding is mostly due to lack of knowledge, so the key to avoiding stereotyped thinking, which is also true of stereotype about foreign people, is to get enough knowledge about other group like history or language.


There is one more thing that I noticed about Baner. Although ,at first, it is convenient to study the six stumbling blocks separately, because one stumbling block can influence the other blocks, we also have to study how each stumbling block may be related with  each other. This would help us to protect our way of thinking from the six stumbling blocks.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Summer book report and reaction

I read “the Giver” by Lois Lowry because when I took a look at this book at the bookstore, I found it easy to read and got interested in the ending.
Jonas lives in the community where there are strict rules. Those rules prevent all the citizens from facing something dangerous. And if someone breaks them, he or she will be released to Elsewhere. Although Jonas enjoy life in such a community with his friend and family, suddenly, things change a lot after the Ceremony of December in which every twelve-year-old citizen is assigned their own job. While his friends get a normal job, he gets a special one, the next Receiver of Memory. The receiver has to inherit the memories of the whole world from the older previous Receiver in order to get wisdom and give advice to the committee of the community. He starts to receive memories, not only joyful ones but painful ones. As he receives the memories, he also gains a different perspective from other citizens’; he can tell what color is all about and access to true feelings that are strange to all the other members. At the same time, since he can not share his feelings with his friends or family, he begins to feel lonely and even become skeptical to both other people and the community itself. Besides, he gets frustrated because he cannot change the community for himself. At last he learns the secret of the release. Without being released from the community, those who have to be released are killed by lethal injection. Jonas is shocked at how the release is done and decides to leave the community with his family’s new child called Gabriel so that he can save him from the release.
What the most impressive theme is the balance between the freedom of choice and the security of the community. The community restricts so many choices people today would have. The citizens are not allowed to choose their own jobs and even to select their own mate. Instead of lack of choice, they live a secure life and do not have to experience pain as long as they follow the rules. On the other hand, Jonas acquires much wisdom and so gets many choices through the training of the Receiver of the Memories. However, just because he has the freedom of choice, it does not necessarily mean that he can make right judgment every time. This book makes me realize how difficult it is to choose only one from the freedom of choice and safety of the community.
Moreover, it seems to me that the theme I chose is like the battle between libertarianism and New liberalism. The community is the opposite of libertarianism and, in my opinion, is also a little bit different from New liberalism. It is based on a new concept about liberty in which much more emphases are placed on the group than on the individual. After reading the book, I found that it is true that it is not so good to put the individual first but thinking of the community as the most important is also dangerous. We should not choose either the individual or the community and think about how to connect two extreme sides.
   

Friday, September 9, 2011

1st assignment

 My summer was mostly good. I finished summer reading as soon as possible because I did not want assignment to disturb my precious summer vacation. After finishing it, I went back to my hometown and spend time with friends of mine. Plus, I went on a trip to U.K. via Thailand with my friends. Even though I was a ICU student, this is my first time that I have been abroad, so everything I heard and saw was new and interesting to me. Among them, Premier league was excellent!
 what was not good about my summer was that I was not able to travel to somewhere by bicycle because of bad weather. I felt all the unhappier  because I was really looking forward to it.

What I want to learn from this ARW is essay writing skill. Though I've found writing in English really interesting since i was at junior high school, writing in high school is quite different from that in university in terms of the length. Also, materials used in university deal with more academic topics. By making use of ARW, I want to be more persuasive writer.