Veil of Fears

Genre: Persuasive Essay

Purpose: To look at the traditional Muslim practice of veiling woman from a perspective of tolerance in order to convince the Western world not to force feminist reforms onto people that may not want these reforms all at once.

Central Message: Forcing Western feminist values on the Middle Eastern Muslim population might prove more harmful than beneficial as veiling helps promote the ideal of family ties and honor in Muslim society.

World View and Assumptions: The author presents himself as a wise and educated person who can consider the other side of the argument on forced veiling. He realizes that different cultures have long lasting traditions and influences that cause societies to look upon certain ideas in different lights. Kurtz does no fall into the trap that many Americans tend to do, which is to be ignorant towards that fact that different peoples do not look upon values in a similar light and hold the same moral code. The author is non-judgmental of the Muslim tradition and one can tell that he keeps an open mind towards strange ideals instead of falling on the side of extremism and declaring his opinion before all facts are presented.

Use of Tools and Evidence: Kurtz uses a basic manner of logical reasoning to point out his argument against Western countries forcing their opinions on the Muslim world. At the beginning, he slyly uses phrases and sources given by Western feminists (Quoting an author who wrote the laughably slanted title Vagina Monologues) to point out to the average, moderate thinking American how ridiculously ignorant news media and members of the vocal extremists are towards the wearing of veils. The beginning of the essay proves how easily we are being manipulated to paint this Muslim value in black while we believe Western ideals are essentially white, or good. Kurtz’s following background information allows a refreshing departure from the “us versus them” philosophy that bombards us from vocal extremists and allows the reader to see veiling from the Muslim perspective. This background information not only gives useful information that feminist most likely ignore, but adds a little gray to the situation so the audience does not take blindly believe our ideals are inherently good while Muslim ideals are dark and evil. He finally is wise to include examples from history (U.S rebuilding of Japan) in which a “hands-off” approach towards societal values ended up creating a harmonious environment in which progress could be achieved. I personally appreciated the fact that Kurtz’s writing was similar to his argument; he did not force his opinion on his audience but merely reminded Americans that we are a people of tolerance and forcing our values on a fundamental society like the Muslim world would only result in backlash. 

That Took a While

Am I sad that our personal narrative assignment has come to a conclusion? I can't say I am, but at the same time, it was a boatload of fun to be able to write in a creative manner. My four years of high school consisted of not only eight hour school days that started before the sun came over the horizon, but also endless amounts of analytical papers dealing with subjects that were excessively bland. This assignment brought a refreshing change of pace to the monotony of my writing career and, even though I am quite glad to see that paper vanish from my sight, I will look upon the hours we spent together in a favorable light. It surprised me how much time careful revision actually took. I can remember in middle school that our writing teachers tried to organize the class into peer-editing groups before papers were due, but nobody had the skills to edit or place any useful input. I then proceeded to my normal "one-draft and turn that sucker in" method that easily carried me through all of my high school English classes. Now  realize how much refinement one can achieve through a careful revision. I must've spent twice as much time revising my paper than it took to slap it all down into writing, but I can say now that all the revision was well worth it... especially since I caught three misspelled words the hour before the assignment was due.

Personal Narrative

Hey sorry if this is a day late (my blog had a really weird thing happen and I could not post for the entire day, but magically it allowed me to post today... weird). I guess some of us are still having to work out some bugs. The personal narrative is going along well because I have a subject that requires a lot of detail and description (I could even be lacking in description) because of all the activities and experiences that happened in this one particular day, which was my first day in Russia. It could actually entail twenty pages if I really wanted to accurately depicted every single detail and person I remember from that day, but I believe I am adding the amount of detail necessary to facilitate my message (but I guess we will see right?) I was able to finish two pages yesterday and went to post about it before repeatedly getting booted off the blog homepage, but the two pages went pretty smooth and I am enjoying writing about Russian who don't smile, my initial impression of the city, and the once experience that changed my view on tolerance, prejudice, etc. (no spoilers on this page). Once again I apologize for the late post, but as always you need to blame technology. I am excited to finish my first draft and I know I will be able to fix some mistakes and add more detail in certain spots to really make it shine. Overall I have the main points I want to cover in my mind and that is the most important part I believe.

That One Death Story

I know the actual title, but it's fun to be course sometimes... it's my blog so lay off! (None of this counts for my 250 words). On Natural Death by Lewis Thomas, the New England educated neurologist, peeked my interest as I had just recently been thinking about the notion of death in the eternal perspective. (I'm not dark or am attracted to macabre settings and death so don't worry) Anyway, I began to realize just how ridiculous our society's fear of death is when taken into the scope of the gospel. Obviously we have a natural will to survive and carry out our mission here on Earth, if we didn't have this will then we would be doing irrational and dangerous acts that could potentially maim or kill us at any moment (oh wait, some of us do that regularly). In all seriousness, we as humans aren't waiting in lines at the mortuary, waiting for our moment to eventually die and also aren't committing suicide as soon as we are forced to endure something particularly nasty... like watching Mama Mia (though many people actually had to be talked down shortly after opening credits) side note: jk for all those who believe I am serious about this movie and its effects on suicidal thoughts, no offense implied. Anyway, I believe our fear of death is a little overblown at times and may be due to the increasing belief in... nothing. What I mean by this is that many members of society have chosen to believe in uncertainty after death purely for the sake of removing the concept of agency from their lives. They choose the path of agency without consequence, which then allows these unfortunate people to feel as though they can live their lives exactly how they please without eternal repercussion. However, what I implied from this man of science and reasoning is that death was made to be a natural part of life, insomuch that all living creatures' bodies know exactly how to die the right way when their time comes. I realize not all death is painless; there are many diseases that take their victims slowly and painfully, but nevertheless, we are naturally equipped with the knowledge of how to die. This concept brings me back to a story I read on how people should have the right to die over being kept alive and enduring further pain by means of modern medicine. A man in the story was constantly being kept alive through medicine and repeated resuscitations, even though he had pleaded to exercise his natural right to die. Eventually a nurse chose to allow the man to die and not exert further effort towards keeping his mortal body alive. Although modern medicine is a wonderful achievement of man and should be used in order to prolong life; there are some situations in which I feel like we might be holding an individual back from progressing to his next estate and exercising his natural ability to die painlessly. That is what I believe the author is trying to convey about death; that at the appointed time, nature will tell us how we are supposed to die with the least pain. This fact shows to me that we as framers of this mortal world understood the benefit of pain as an avoidance measure, but likewise knew that we will all would desire death and return to claim our estate. With this knowledge, we created a world that allowed for a painless death that would make the cycle of life and death a little more humane.

Love Story Fades to Black

I know what you’re thinking… and the answer is no, I do not believe in male superiority (because that the piece is written by a guy is not why I chose it... get the first sentence now?). This piece actually spoke to me the most because, despite what many women feel, men actually are intelligent life forms as well with the ability to conjure up these emotions. Believe me, I have had a somewhat similar experience concerning a friend this last summer. I had met a girl about a year and a half ago at some social gathering near my home in Cincinnati. She was friendly and I really did enjoy her company and attention, even though she was from xxx (location undefined for security purpose). True it wasn’t the same “deep” relationship that the novelist describes with the melodramatic, mushy love scene on the practice football field tower, but it was genuine attraction and friendship. After many months in which we kept regular contact, she was able to go on a “date” (if your definition of date is the interaction in the narrative) with me. Basically it was a walk around the BYU campus at eight in the morning… romantic. We talked normally and nothing terribly embarrassing happened, but it just felt wooden, fake. I kept trying to steer the date towards my predetermined vision, but I might as well have been directing a movie and trying to coax out emotion from the world’s most monotone actors. The narrator was just as unpleased and disillusioned with his “friend” in the story and what was, seemed like just that, was. There are differences in our stories however; his friend seems to have lost the spark that once existed and moved on to the preverbal “green pastures” while my friend and I never had that awkward past and spark in the first place. In my estimation, the guy is doomed and should scrap his “first draft” of life after a mission… clearly things have changed. There still is hope to salvage my friendship (knock on wood) as we both have not emotionally invested much into our long distance friendship, hopefully allowing it to survive long stretches of time without the awkwardness displayed in the story.

In my opinion, this narrative is essentially further evidence towards my thinking on long distance relationships and the principle of "out of sight, out of mind."  Personally, I do not have hope for this unfortunate missionary who fell into the traps that our mischievous female counterparts continually set in order to exert their wrath, but can only hope him the best in life. (This last part does not necessarily reflect the view of Jake Nelson... it is purely meant to be humorous.)

Me in 100 Words

Call me Ishmael… No not really, but Moby Dick was a good read (Cough). Call me Jake actually. I was born/raised in Cincinnati to goodly parents. I enjoy Cincinnati favorites like Skyline Chili, humidity, brown rivers, and losing sports teams. I like sports… Football, Hockey, Basketball, Bowling, Lacrosse… all kinds of ‘dem. I made the BYU Hockey squad and am actually in the university, imagine that. I enjoy reading when the lighting is right and eating in the Cannon Center. If you would desire to know more… (Ladies)…go to Helaman and ask for Jake. They’ll fit you into the schedule.