Author Archives: zhongq

The Balance

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Consumption and protection forms a kind of balance, which applies to the crucial object to people – water. And, how and in what level should the balance be kept? It is controversial when people face directly to the natural attributes they have. Born with necessary attribute of consuming water, people think to utilize water as many ways as they can: storing water in containers, building metal and wooden materials, putting out the fire…From the perspective of people, the actions can be reasonable, as what a person can react intuitionally when the person owns the need. But, the problems come out when people do not take necessary measures to restrict their usage, as the feedback that nature provides: water crises. It can be a widely-covered contamination of water in Flint, Michigan (Barry-Jester, What Went Wrong In Flint page 15) or a drought in Colorado caused by overuse (Owen, Where the Water Goes, page 2). So people should not only be users, but also protectors of water resource.

Either a policy or a quick fixing of one’s incorrect idea of using water can help people to reach the balance. But it can be true that sometimes a policy cannot work as soon as a mind-adjustment, or certain instructions on local water usage with numbers, because the latter ones are direct and convenient to find solutions. From my perspective, it may be efficient that people focus on figuring out pragmatic methods instead of propagandizing. As what Mulroy claims, “…If the lake goes that low, your water physically can’t get to you…Frame that water right…It’s useless.” (Owen, Where the Water Goes, page 3) It can be interesting when governors call for water advisory, listed with multiple goals but themselves doing the opposite, even if they know the purpose is to trying to reach the water balance. At the same moment, people can figure out the inappropriate actions to water they are doing and then correct them. Also, there are chances for people to go volunteering in local communities for water cleaning or education. Thus, the core point of balance can be: people focus on executing details mentioned in any water policy. And, when the micro actions are interacting with macro policies, people are approaching to the balance.

The similarities and differences between euthanasia and murder

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Having read The Deadly Choices at Memorial, I am shocked by the scenes that happened in a hospital under the circumstance of hurricane. When I read to the part of doctors and physicists giving euthanasia to some patients in the 3rd D.N.R. series, a question comes into my mind: the border between euthanasia and murder lies in what place? There are two points that the two actions share, which makes the border ambiguous. First, both euthanasia and murder are illegal in most of the places around the world. If one decides to carry out either of the actions, the person will understand that law will investigate the self until an appropriate decision is made to the “killer”. A person that has clear mind will react as what Richard said to Mulderick: “Euthanasia’s illegal…. There’s not any need to euthanize anyone. I don’t think we should be doing anything like that” (Fink, page 14) Second, the process and result of euthanasia and murder are almost the same: A person chooses to use an object for killing another person, and acts out till the person’s death. The two sharing points can lead to many wandering or complex law cases in reality, as the arresting to Pou in the article (Fink, page 26).

The two actions differ in their motivation: Due to a kind of humanistic characteristic of people – one should leave being tranquil and painless – the physicists have the power to treat the patients with euthanasia, and the power can be positive and reasonable. Adding the risk of being charged of law, the situation brings ethical dilemma for the executers, which can be proved by the action of Gremillion: crying and grabbing his arm, while saying “I can’t do this” (Fink, page 18-19). However, a murder in general often initiates because of hatred or disappointment, which are negative emotions of human kind. Although the killers with such mindset may hesitate before execution, the power keeps working to make them commit the guilty. Another difference can be the person’s purpose for taking the action. Because of the irreversible illness and the triage policy, it was almost certain that some patients in the Memorial Hospital is going to be treated to death. If the physicists act out euthanasia, the purpose will be reasonable, because they consider both the victims’ and the hospital’s situation, even facing with the law’s punishment. Therefore, it is different from murdering, whose purpose can be gaining something valuable from the victim to support the murderer’s self. Thus, one can know that the murderer does not consider either the feeling or benefit of the victim.

If people face complex cases as what happened in the article, the differences between euthanasia and murder can be the key points that help solve the problem.

The alert from technology

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The Shape of Water illustrates a story that a monster learned the action and emotion of human, while facing with many challenges and overcoming the challenges with a group of human. Among the challenges, many technology appears. Technology is anything that people build to use for extending the convenience in the life. In the Shape of Water, there is a theme of technology. some of the them are used for good aspects such as the bomb and the medicine, and some of them are used for bad aims such as the chain and the gun. And I was wondering that what does the technology, either good or bad, mean?

 

For profit the manager in the office locks the monster in a lab room. However, the servant Elsa and the scientist Dimitri recognized the ability of the monster to communicate with people. One scene is that Dimitri decided to put the bomb on a pipe in the garage to create a temporary light off to save time for the rescue for the monster. It can be interpreted as a positive usage of the technology, since it is human’s recognition and identity to the monster, which are corresponding to the positive characteristic of human. What the monster gives to the helpers is understanding and communication. On the other side, the governors use the chain used to lock the monster so that it can be controlled until death, which makes the monster as a tool for their profit in the real world. It could be a natural result that the manager in the office is killed by the claw attacking of the monster. From here, it can be an alert: based on what the technology is and how the technology is used, human can get obviously different result, in which the law of nature applies. However, it is often that human do not notice the goal that they use technology: if a weapon is used for killing people without limit, then the law makes the jurisdiction; otherwise, a weapon could be a tool that the police act for order and justice. Therefore, the tiny theme of technology in the movie could be a hint and an alert for our using of technology.

The seemingly contradictory relationship between human and sea

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In Sea Story by AS Byatt, I am much impressed by the fantastic experience of the main character, Harold, and the description of the bottle’s trip in the sea. So, I get a question: is the relationship between human and sea contradictory? From the experience of Harold, I could found that he lived in an environment sufficient of water: he was born near the sea, with his father working as an oceanographer and mother as an English teacher who read Harold a poem about sea; and he studied on the anthology of sea, which propelled him to express love to a woman, Laura. The good conditions created a great space for Harold to think about the sea. However, Harold did not expect that the bottle he sent out could reach Laura’s studying site, as it says in the article: “He did not know whether casting his love away into the sea was an attempt to drive his love from his life, or a hope for some improbable luck.” (Paragraph 19, which starts with “He signed”) This represents a person’s uncertain knowledge to the sea, and this can be contradictory when the person is exposed to the sea for a big part in his life.

 

However, when we focus on another main track of the story, the love from Harold conveying to Laura, we could find the rule of nature applies to the relationship between human and sea. When the bottle floated across ten different sites on the Earth, the bottle changed from the originally elaborated one to a bottle with decayed and much mixed content inside. Adding with the bottle’s successful reaching Laura, the article’s latter part builds a symbol that true love can stand in front of serious, suffering conditions. This is similar to the uncomfortable situation that Harold experienced when he knew that Laura was going to Caribbean for studying, but he changed his situation to a brave trial of love expression to Laura: “He wrote her loveletters in his mind, studded with quotations” (Paragraph 16, which starts with “He wrote”). It is the nature’s law that anything matters is hard, so it could be normal that Harold had good conditions without experiencing challenges from the sea, while those were foundations of his life. Hence the contradiction could be interpreted.

 

In all, Harold’s unmatched recognition to the low-level situation of the sea and his full exposure to the sea creates a literal contradiction between human and sea, but then the truth rooted in the challenges to Harold’s love breaks the contradiction and creates a stable, harmonic order of human and sea, and we can reach the conclusion that in the end there is no contradiction when we understand the progress.