Fluent Essays

The instruction is in the attachment, the other attachment includes the reading materials and links so that you are not able to open the hyperlinks. free_response.docx reading_materials_in_hyperlinks.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview PART ONE : Please pretend youre at a retirement banquet. This is a serious and formal occasion, not a roast. The person retiring is 65 years old and at the end of a long career. You know this person well--both inside and outside the workplace. Its your job to say a few truthful, descriptive words about them. What character or personality traits come to mind? Question for you to answer: Pretend the person retiring is you. In short, were asking you to project yourself into the future and to identify at least five descriptive words you hope others would say about you at a comparable event. By descriptive words we mean single words or very short phrases. Please number each descriptive word or phrase and rank them in priority order ( #1 = the most important to you). 5 words/phrases and rank in order PART TWO : Please read “The Trees of the Niu Mountain by Mengzi. Questions for you to answer: [a] Explain what the metaphor of the mountain means. 5 sentences [b] Does the author think human nature is basically good (cooperative and trustworthy) or bad (uncooperative and untrustworthy) or some other alternative? Do you agree? Explain your answer. 6-8 sentences [c] In ethical terms, what are some of the forces that can undermine a beautiful soul or character? Explain your answer. 6-8 sentences [d] Given the date and source of this reading, what can we conclude about the possibility that some core values are broadly shared among people in diverse cultures? How could such core values arise? 6-8 sentences PART THREE: Please review this Harvard University commencement speech by (then) Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan. Please focus on these four paragraphs. [a] I do not deny that many appear to have succeeded in a material way by cutting corners and manipulating associates, both in their professional and in their personal lives. But material success is possible in this world and far more satisfying when it comes without exploiting others. The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded . . . without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake. [b] I cannot speak for others whose psyches I may not be able to comprehend, but, in my working life, I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealings and strict adherence to the view that for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. Human relations--be they personal or professional--should not be zero sum games. [c] And beyond the personal sense of satisfaction, having a reputation for fair dealing is a profoundly practical virtue. We call it good will in business and add it to our balance sheets. [d] Trust is at the root of any economic system based on mutually beneficial exchange. In virtually all transactions, we rely on the word of those with whom we do business. Were this not the case, exchange of goods and services could not take place on any reasonable scale. Our commercial codes and contract law presume that only a tiny fraction of contracts, at most, need be adjudicated. If a significant number of businesspeople violated the trust upon which our interactions are based, our court system and our economy would be swamped into immobility. Two questions for you to answer: [1] Do you think Greenspan is being realistic about the possibility of business ethics? Cite specific language from his speech (in quotation marks) and explain your reasoning. [2] Identify the core ethical values you plan to follow in your career. 200 words minimum Additional background for reflection (Note: materials here and below labeled for reflection do not require written responses) Thought question: Dont soft terms like good-will or mutually beneficial exchange reflect ignorance about evolutionary anthropology? Shouldnt we accept the reality that human beings are self-interested primates engaged in a ruthless struggle for dominance? Only the strongest individuals survive, right? Actually, those kinds of statements are consistently refuted by direct observation of how social animals like primates live. Consider this observation by Yuval Noah Harari in his 2014 book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: “When [chimpanzees] . . . are contesting the alpha position, they usually do so by forming extensive coalitions of supporters, both male and female, from within the group. Ties between coalition members are based on intimate daily contact – hugging, touching, kissing, grooming and mutual favours. Just as human politicians on election campaigns go around shaking hands and kissing babies, so aspirants to the top position in a chimpanzee group spend much time hugging, back-slapping and kissing baby chimps. The alpha male usually wins his position not because he is physically stronger, but because he leads a large and stable coalition. These coalitions play a central part not only during overt struggles for the alpha position, but in almost all day-to-day activities. Members of a coalition spend more time together, share food, and help one another in times of trouble.” In short, while physical strength and assertiveness certainly matter (especially in competition with other groups) fostering the good will that maintains extensive coalitions of supporters turns out to be even more important. A leader who isnt trusted wont remain a leader for long. See this observation by a contemporary expert on (human) leadership skills: [e]ffective leadership is defined by how well a leader executes a mission, how they show empathy and inspire those who follow them. Thought question: How did a small country like Holland become a world economic power (the richest country in Europe for many years)? Hint: it may have had something to do with trust and the rule of law. Heres an economic perspective on the importance of social trust from Francis Fukuyama in his book Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (Free Press. 1995, pp.27-28): Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community . . . [P]eople who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced, sometimes by coercive means. This legal apparatus, serving as a substitute for trust, entails what economists call transaction costs. Widespread distrust in a society, in other words, imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay. PART FOUR: Please read and think about this quotation: The mind is fickle and flighty, it flies after fancies and whatever it likes; it is difficult indeed to restrain. But it is a great good to control the mind; a mind self-controlled is a source of great joy. --Buddhas Teachings (Penguin Classics, p. 8). Question for you to answer: Please read An interview conducted with Roberto Assagioli by Sam Keen. Identify and discuss at least two strategies Assagioli recommends to strengthen mental discipline or self-management. Include at least one direct quotation from the article. 5 sentences per strategy PART FIVE: Please read Book One of the Meditations of Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Question for you to answer. Please write a concise statement of gratitude identifying the ethical and intellectual debts you owe to family members, teachers, or friends. Fictitious names are permitted, but the statement of gratitude should be genuine. Additional background for reflection (a philosophical perspective on gratitude) Aware only of his own satisfactions and his own happiness, hoarding them as a miser hoards his coin . . . the egoist cannot be grateful. Ingratitude is not the incapacity to receive but the inability to give back--in the form of joy or love--a little of the joy that was received or experienced. This is why ingratitude is so pervasive a vice. [Ungrateful people] absorb joy as others absorb light, for egoism is a black hole. --Andre Comte-Sponville, Professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne (France) PART TEN First, without reviewing your previous answers to Part One, please answer the Part One question again (repeated below). This isnt a memory test. Even if you do remember much of what you previously wrote in Part One, youre free in this version to make any desired additions, modifications or changes in priority. Youre also free to retain your original answer without changes, if you prefer. Part One (repeated): Please pretend youre at a retirement banquet. This is a serious and formal occasion, not a roast. You know this person well--both inside and outside the workplace. Its your job to say a few truthful, descriptive words about them. What character or personality traits come to mind? Question for you to answer: (repeated): Pretend the person retiring is you. In short, were asking you to project yourself into the future and to identify at least five descriptive words you hope others would say about you at a comparable event. By descriptive words we mean single words or very short phrases. Please number each descriptive word or phrase and rank them in priority order ( #1 = the most important to you). Second, Please review your previous answers to Part One. Contrast them with your answers to this part. Two questions for you to answer now: [a] Briefly identify any notable differences between your previous answers to Part One and your answers to this concluding assignment. Notable differences would include a change in priority of answers. 6-8 sentences [b] Please identify any Seminar ideas, readings, or exercises that help account for those differences. How did they influence your thinking? 6-8 sentences Reading materials Part 2: “The Trees of Niu Mountain by Mengzi from humanistictexts.org: Mang tzu (370-286 BCE) [a founding Confucian scholar] known to the West as Mencius, was born in the principality of Tsau, located in what is now the province of Shantung. Mencius said: “The trees of the Niu mountain were once beautiful. Being situated, however, in the borders of a large State, they were cut down with axes . . . Could they still retain their beauty? And yet, through the regenerative powers of the vegetative life, day and night, and the nourishing influence of the rain and dew, the plants were not without buds and sprouts springing forth. But then came cattle and goats, and browsed upon them. To these things is owing the bare and stripped appearance of the mountain which, when people see it, they think it was never finely wooded. But is what they see the nature of the mountain?” “And so also of what properly belongs to man: shall it be said that the mind of any man was without benevolence and righteousness? The way in which a man loses his proper goodness of mind is like the way in which the trees are denuded by axes . . . Cut down day after day, can the mind retain its beauty? But there is a development of its life day and night, and in the calm air of the morning, just between night and day, the mind feels in a degree those desires and aversions which are proper to humanity; but the feeling is not strong, and it is shackled and destroyed by what takes place during the day. This destruction taking place again and again, the restorative influence of the night is not sufficient to preserve the proper goodness of the mind. And when this proves insufficient for that purpose, mans nature becomes not much different from that of the irrational animals. When they see this, people think that the mind never had those powers which I assert. But does this condition represent the feelings proper to humanity? Therefore, if it receive its proper nourishment, there is nothing which will not grow. If it lose its proper nourishment, there is nothing which will not decay away.” Part 3 https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/1999/199906102.htm Part 4 The Golden Mean of Roberto Assagioli An interview conducted with Roberto Assagioli by Sam Keen* Introductory note: Psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli (see below) explored several concepts associated with what is now called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). See this overview of CBT from the Mayo Clinic. Core principles of CBT can be seen in other philosophical and religious traditions (e.g. Buddhism, Stoicism, and Christianity). Heres an example from the Christian Bible: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things -- Philippians 4:8 An Invisible Glory The Renaissance oozes from every inch of Florence that is not covered by Fiats and tourists . . . Assagioli’s office is a small room in his apartment, which is above the headquarters of the Institute. Books line two of the walls: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Keyserling, Abraham Maslow and Carl Gustav Jung seem to be favorites . . . The desk is antique and covered with objects and papers (talismans of the shaman), fresh cut flowers . . .; a barometer; a clock; a kitchen timer; scales; a flag of the United Nations; a star globe; two word-cards—ENERGY and GOOD-WILL. The walls, once white, have now yellowed like old bones. A stuffed Victorian love seat squats in one corner of the room. Assagioli rises to greet me. He is old, fine-boned and frail, but the liveliness and delight in his face make his presence vigorous. His pointed goatee and salmon-colored-velvet smoking jacket lend an air of oldworld authority. Roberto Assagioli: I must ask you to write the questions that you would like to ask me because, as you know, I do not hear. Sam Keen: (This is going to be a strange conversation. I will have to carry on two separate dialogues: one with the tape recorder and one with Assagioli. In order to keep track of his answers I will have to read my written questions onto the tape. I will also have to record my elaborations, meta questions, doubts and occasional voices. It will be hard to capture nuances because he can only respond to specific questions. But, then, most people are deaf to the metaconversation, the thoughts beyond the words. There are four parties to every dialogue. Two are silent.) Keen: What was your relationship to Freud and Jung? Assagioli: I never met Freud personally but I corresponded with him and he wrote to Jung expressing the hope that I would further the cause of psychoanalysis in Italy. But I soon became a heretic. With Jung, I had a more cordial relationship. We met many times during the years and had delightful talks. Of all modern psychotherapists, Jung is the closest to [my practice of] psychosynthesis. Keen: What are the similarities and differences? Assagioli: In the practice of therapy we both agree in rejecting pathologism” that is, concentration upon morbid manifestations and symptoms of a supposed psychological disease. We regard man as a fundamentally, healthy organism in which there may be a temporary malfunctioning. Nature is always trying to re-establish harmony, and within the psyche the principle of synthesis is dominant. Irreconcilable opposites do not exist. The task of therapy is to aid the individual in transforming the personality, and integrating apparent contradictions. Both Jung and myself have stressed the need for a person to develop the higher psychic functions, the spiritual dimension . . . I believe the will is the Cinderella of modern psychology. It has been relegated to the kitchen. The Victorian notion that will power could overcome all obstacles was destroyed by Freuds discovery of unconscious motivation. But, unfortunately, this led modern psychology into a deterministic view of man as a bundle of competing forces with no center. This is contrary to every human beings direct experience of himself. At some point, perhaps in a crisis when danger threatens, an awakening occurs in which the individual discovers his will. This revelation that the self and the will are intimately connected can change a persons whole awareness of himself and the world. He sees that he is a living subject, an actor, endowed with the power to choose, to relate, to bring about changes in his own personality, in others, in circumstances. And this awareness leads to a feeling of wholeness, security and joy. Because modern psychology has neglected the centrality of will, it has denied that we have a direct experience of the self. With the certainty that one has a will comes the realization of the intimate connection between the will and the self. This is the existential experience of the direct awareness of pure self-consciousness. It is selfconsciousness that sets man apart from animals. Human beings are aware but also know that they are aware. We can express the importance of self consciousness, the unity of willing and being, by saying (as opposed to Descartes): l am aware of being and willing, or I am a willing self. Keen: (My God, he is trying to make us responsible for our identity!) Assagioli: I think most discussions about identity have gone wrong because academic psychologists dont take the trouble to experiment in appropriate ways. They run rats through mazes but they dont go into the inward laboratory and examine their own experience of the will. They might be compared, with some irreverence, to those theologians who refused to look through Galileos telescope because they were afraid of disturbing their world view. They neglect introspection, which is the best laboratory a psychologist has. Keen: Can you describe will further? Assagioli: No. It is indescribable. It is a matter of direct experience, just like the direct experience of red or blue. Can you tell me what it is like to experience blue? Keen: But that assumes there is a single will, a single directing force. From the time of St. Paul to Freud the experience of the split will has bedeviled mankind. The good I will I do not and the will to life is in opposition to the will to death. How do you unify the conflicting wills? Assagioli: It is certainly true—that there is a multiplicity within the self but the will is essentially the activity of the self which stands above the multiplicity. It directs, regulates and balances the other functions of the personality in a creative way. I dont believe there is any fundamental split, any irreconcilable conflict, within man. I dont think there is a will to death opposing the will to life. What is loosely called the split will can be recognized to be in reality the conflict between the central will and a multitude of drives, urges, desires and wishes. This is a universal experience. Conflicts are present in every normal individual. Without them there would be no need for psychoanalysis or psychosynthesis! Each choice involves some conflict whether to stay inside and read or go out for a walk—you cant do them both at once. In neurotic conflict there is a desperate attempt to have two incompatible things at the same time. But in the normal person the will can function to lessen or to eliminate the conflict by recognizing a hierarchy of needs and arranging for an appropriate satisfaction of all needs. The central will distributes the tasks to other parts of the personality. Let me use an analogy that is central to my thinking: The will is like the conductor of an orchestra. He is not self-assertive but is rather the humble servant of the composer and of the score. Keen: How does psychosynthesis train people to create this Olympian attitude of detached powerfulness? Assagioli: Techniques are always related to the individual situation, so it is hard to generalize. But I can discuss two basic techniques: disidentification and training of the will. I can begin with a fundamental psychological principle: ... Purchase answer to see full attachment