For Friday, let us attempt to turn last week's work on its head: a rationalization is an attempt to ascribe one's actions, opinions, etc. to causes that seem reasonable (that is, based on reason) but that are actually unrelated to the real (and often less reasonable) causes. In other words, this is an emotionally driven attempt to create knowledge via reason. Two questions, then: do you agree with this definition of rationalization (and please explain your answer)? What rationalization can you identify in the world around you and how do you account for its existence (why and how was it created)?
For Tuesday, now that you have had your EE feedback conference, share a moment of fresh perspective on some aspect of your essay and the way that the moment of knowledge changed for you.
For extra credit, watch this video and bring a flexahexagon to class on Tuesday.
I agree with this definition of rationalization, mostly because I don’t know any other definition and because it sounds correct. The facts are being explained with using emotion has some sort of evidence. An example of rationalization could be in English class when we started watching Shakespeare Behind Bars. There was a man named Sammie who was explaining is crime, but started with explaining his personal life before it. He was abused and raped when he was younger, and he was in a relationship with a woman who reminded him of that. Unfortunately he couldn’t handle being in this relationship and took an argument too far. He strangled he to death. This rationalization was created to explain why and how he committed his crime. My own emotions were mixed into his reasons because I felt bad for him. He’s been abused his whole life and one day just had enough.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this definition of rationalization that is an emotionally driven attempt to create knowledge via reason, because personally when I make rationalizations it comes from my own knowledge and my emotions are able to understand each situation or opinion. I feel that this is the most accurate way to create knowledge because when you choose to ignore your emotions, you limit the amount of knowledge you can receive. I feel that a rationalization that I can see in the world around me is abortion. Many people have many different beliefs and I don’t think that there is one right answer, however it is hard to make one general statement about women who do get abortions. The rationalization is there with this issue because some women get abortions for different reasons; some are raped, some are not physically ready to give birth, and other reasons. Emotion plays an important role, especially in the two cases that I have given, I feel that being able to understand the situation and gaining knowledge about it makes it easier to rationalize about certain choices regarding abortion.
ReplyDeleteI too, agree with this definition of rationalization because of the way I rationalize circumstances. My emotions enable me to create knowledge through reason pertaining to the circumstance so that I can help myself understand it better. An example of this can be seen through the crime of selling drugs. Although selling drugs is wrong, maybe the person does it because he needs cash fast in order to support his family who is in desperate need of money. Maybe he has other situations that cannot land him another job. Knowing this, I can understand his situation and sympathize with him more (although I do not condone selling drugs, kids!) Rationalizing enables me to look at a situation from a different perspective and try to do what's best although it is not always considered "right".
ReplyDeleteIs rationalization an emotionally driven attempt to create knowledge via reason? At first, I wanted to refute this statement. On one side because I just wanted to be able to have an opposing view in a sea of agreement; but on the other, because I had a legitimate example. Today in English class we watched a documentary on 'The Tempest' set in a medium security prison. One of the prisoners struck me much more than the others because he seemed to feel incessantly guilty for the crime he committed. The tears streamed down his face as he explained that he strangled his mistress. At first I thought, 'wow, how could one ever rationalize for that man?' He killed a woman. But then he described the abuse he endured as a child. I immediately tried to use that as an explanation for why he would commit a terrible crime. He didn't know how to control his emotions, his parents never taught him that. I tried to connect the abuse to the murder.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this definition of rationalization: "an emotionally driven attempt to create knowledge via reason," I thought: 'I am not necessarily emotionally connected to him, and this statement must therefore be false.' But then I caught myself. I was emotionally connected to him, as a human with human emotion and humane intentions. I made that connection as I imagined him crying with regret and remorse, and I connected with the man on the screen. I rationalized because I felt bad, because I felt as if he deserved the compassion that many would not offer him. I rationalized for him to give him the opportunity he deserved, and most probably wished he had. And although he doesn't know me, I discovered within myself that I have the ability to rationalize for anyone. Not because I am fully invested in a situation but because I can connect emotionally and sympathize causing my brain to create knowledge through reason.
When a lawyer is defending a criminal who obviously committed the crime that he/ she is being accused of committing, the lawyer may have to rationalize the client’s crime. “ Bill continued to taunt my client with his delayed rent payments, and eventually my client felt like he had to do something to make Bill stop. So he beat him.”
ReplyDeleteThis scenario almost fits into the definition presented for rationalization. The lawyer is trying to defend his client’s reckless actions by pointing out Superintendent Bill’s annoying reminders which his client did not like. Those reminders are definitely related to the cause of the client’s crime, which is where the presented definition of a rationalization differs from my idea of a rationalization. I agree that a rationalization tries to make one’s actions or opinions more reasonable, but I also believe that a rationalization can have some type of relation to the action
or opinion being defended.
“This event does not effect me, so I should not have to learn about it.”
This scary rationalization most likely came to be because of people’s boredom or lack of insight. For instance, in school, students must take a history course. History’s events are what shaped the country we live in today. Some historical events may be extremely traumatic to a specific group of people. For instance, the Rwandan genocide took its toll on the people of Rwanda more than anyone else in the world. However, an American student should never argue that this story is irrelevant because the genocide has no direct effect on them. Students sometimes cannot handle the horrors of history, which is why they may try to rationalize their detachment from the topic by pointing out that the event already happened. But, if the student digs deeper, he/she should find that any piece of knowledge and understanding is important to the world we live in today.
I agree with LolaTOK and my other classmates that the definition above is a sound definition. When I try to rationalize a decision, I take from my knowledge and then base my decision off of the emotions I feel about the knowledge. For example: I know I will have to go to bed later tonight if I decide to do my hair. Though it is bad for my hair to straighten it, it also keeps it out of my face more while I play soccer. I am rationalizing my choice and I will end up straightening my hair tonight.
ReplyDeleteAn example of rationalization is "why don't I just fail this assignment and do well on the next?" There is no reason to not try on something just because the next might be better. If you give 100% on both, you will grow more as a person and be rewarded with the fact that you gave your all no matter the outcome.
I see rationalization everywhere, particularly in my role as a student. I don’t believe it is necessary to view rationalization as cynically as I believe one is prone to do: in class, more often than not, a student is asked to explain her answer. She refers to her textbook, her prescribed work, or her own pre-established knowledge to rationalize her answer for her teacher and her classmates. This may be an example of overly artificial or prepared rationalization, as the student has drawn her answer from these sources and must simply outline the process backwards and out loud.
ReplyDeleteNow to examine what’s probably the context meant in this question:
In hindsight, it’s true, one can ascribe false motivations or untrue contexts to one’s actions or opinions. But often, especially in the case of opinion, rationalization (however cynically others may view it) may be seen as further development and discovery: in going through the process, one can realize a fair amount about one’s motivations and desires. And, of course, the rationalization need not be irrational.
I do agree, however, that making sense of one’s actions and opinions before others (or even oneself) can be necessary to acceptance of these actions and opinions internally: making sure that they and their roots can stand up against criticism or inspection is important in living with oneself. Mental fabrications, smudges, false memories, or any other such aides are vital to identity: one must be able to question. answer, and convince oneself of one’s consistent, unfailing ‘rightness,’ and rationalization is a central process in this. I do believe that humans must always believe they are to some degree infallible, mentally – even when they admit to themselves they have been in the wrong, a rationalization of this failure is of great importance to continued self-acceptance (= an emotional need).
Therefore, I agree with this definition of rationalization. I would challenge one word therein, however – ‘create’ knowledge. Besides asking whether this is possible, I ask whether the aim of rationalization is not simply to amass and order knowledge or information using reason. (The importance of this is dubious, I realize.)
I do agree with this definition of rationalization. Like Saskia, I too wanted to find some way to refute this definition, but after reading it several times over, I came to the same conclusion as everyone else. What really struck me was the part of the definition that stated that rationalization is " an emotionally driven attempt to create knowledge via reason." EMOTIONALLY driven attempt. In many cases, I find this to be exactly true. As human beings we find it difficult to not have an explanation for everything. We are frightened by the possibility of something that can never be given a proper reason. One can try to rationalize a situation or action but in the end, it is only done to satisfy us mentally. We can't accept non-rationalizaton.
ReplyDeleteSome people might defend others who cheat in school, because they are making the rationalization that the students had no choice or were under pressure. It was recently announced that nearly half of Harvard University's freshman class cheated on a final exam. Some people were appalled and disappointed by their actions, while others defended and rationalized what they had done. It was said that their cheating on the exam, is a clear message that students are under too much pressure, and therefore have no choice but to cheat. At first glance this seems like a fairly sound rationalization. But in the end, the freshman had done something that was morally wrong. If they were struggling that much, they could have gotten a tutor, talked to their professors, oh and ummm...maybe...STUDIED! You can rationalize their actions all you want, but in the end, the freshman class made a terrible and embarrassing academic mistake.
I agree with this definition of rationalization. Often times we as people are driven by our emotions and do not know ways to express them because others can’t necessarily feel our emotions. So reason becomes our play, since it is almost the only way one can understand others decisions making process. It’s infused in us to communicate with others and emotions are things that are not easily understood by everyone however, reason is. Going through the college application process, I can definitely understand how this process works. For example, I chose to apply to my brother’s college and when asked why I made the decision, I simply give the reason that I would have an easy ride home for breaks or some other practical reason but the truth is that I miss him. Rationalization, like I noted before is a way to explain our feelings to others with reasons. I did not want to be out and open about missing my brother because it seemed silly for a 17 years old girl to still feel attached to her brother. It is a way to protect ourselves from getting disapproving comments and have pride (I guess not anymore since I just blurted out to all viewers that I miss my brother).
ReplyDeleteI don't really agree with the definition of rationalization, because i believe that no matter what choices , actions or decisions we make in life they will always have a bias. So they will always be based on your principles and morals, thus one will always have feelings and emotions influencing them either a big or small scale.
ReplyDeleteOne example I think would describe rationalization for me was in history class when readying about the arab-Israeli conflict. When we learned that the British had promised the land to the Arabs, but ended up giving it to the Jews. I could relate to the Arabs in the sense that I understood what they meant when they said they felt betrayed. But soon after that, we also learn that the British had indeed also promised the land to the Jews, but I could not relate and still stood on the side of the Arabs, because I just rightly felt that the land belonged to the Arabs instead. Now, my opinion is kind of justified but it has emotions and feelings that made me do that choice. Because we know that the land rightly belonged to both the Jews and the Arabs, but what helps me pick one side is not reason but rather emotion.
Después de hablaba con Jess, pensé mucho para mi ensayo extendido. This meeting helped me think about what was actually important to the essay and what enhances the work. It also helped me start to really think about what will need to be edited in and what will need to come out. From here I will really be able to start to bring my paper into something that I am proud of instead of just something I have finished. For an example, there is a section of my paper devoted to the instruments of Cuba and the role they play in the music but it doesn't add much to the overall paper- the material is interesting and I really like it but it really doesn't need to be where it is. Therefore it will be taken out and points that are more relevant will be talked about more.
ReplyDeleteAfter anxiously waiting for a meeting with Taylor, she finally invited me to speak with her about my essay. Let it be known, I expected this to be a lengthy meeting. Although some of the meeting was spent talking about simple clerical errors in my extended essay, it mostly involved clarification on the set-up and flow. This was a huge relief to me, as I had not made abundant mistakes in the writing itself, just in my organization (something easily fixed). This reinforced my original joy in getting to write my extended essay in Biology, the actual questions that needed to be answered were relatively predetermined; I got to focus on myself and my writing. This resulted in less writing errors, making my abundantly happy. Overall, my knowledge on order of go in a Biology Lab flourished, but I was able to keep the confidence I had in my writing style.
ReplyDeleteAfter spending the summer working on my extended essay, it became difficult at one point to assess my essay. When you spend that much time with a piece of writing, it is hard to find errors. Your mind sees what it chooses to see. So when I had my meeting with Ms. Durrett, I was relieved to gain some fresh perspective.
ReplyDeleteThere wasn't one specific section that I gained new perspective on. As a whole I realized that each section of my paper (each one about a different story) needed to somehow be related to the other. For example, if I talked about Edna Pontellier in one section, I could briefly compare her to another leading character. By doing this, my paper will provide further analysis of Kate Chopin's work.
We also addressed the art of the closing sentence. My current one didn't quite bring the essay in for a landing. If I form a thought provoking and informative sentence it will make a huge difference in my conclusion. The closing sentence is not something that should be taken for granted.
A moment of fresh perspective that I had on my essay like Mary said was finding errors. While I was writing my essay over the summer there were some grammar mistakes that I made, that I knew I was making, but I didn’t know how to fix it. That was the most frustrating part about my essay. I knew I was doing things wrong, but I didn’t know why they were wrong or how to fix it. After my meeting with Karen she told me that I had a few grammar mistakes and pointed me in the right direction on how to fix them. That was very helpful feedback and it gave me a lot more confidence about my essay.
ReplyDeleteBefore and after meeting with Miriam, I knew what my main struggle in my Extended Essay was: Grammar. My grammar has a lot of work that can be done. From accents, to connecting de and les, to basic rules of object pronoun placement, I have a lot of learning and work to do. In French class, my main goal is always to get my point across before being grammatically correct. But, I have to learn to take that extra time to really pay attention to my grammar. I do not purposefully conjugate verbs incorrectly, or leave words lingering in a sentence. It is simply a weak point in my French skills. Point by point, Miriam offered me the many areas that I was constantly making blunders in grammar. But at the same time, she approved of my overall essay. She had little complaints about my topic and its execution, and she even gave me a high five after she read it! The meeting really helped me recognize that even though I had a lot to repair, courage and determination is all that is needed to overcome any fear. I was honestly doubting my ability to write French paper, but Miriam made it clear that anything is possible with hard work.
ReplyDeleteMy meeting with Miriam pretty much went the way I had figured; we both knew that I had a ton of revisions to make! A particular aspect of my extended essay which Miriam commented on was the direct translation of words from English to French using a dictionary, and how mostly everytime that never works. Miriam commented that my thoughts might have been clear and amazing in English, however sometimes in French, the phrasing is different or there are no words that mean the same thing. It made me feel better that Miriam told me that my writing from last year was much better than my unclear and incomplete thoughts in my EE. Although I have A LOT to revise, I am happy that I have the skills to attack this problem.
ReplyDeleteWell, I was supposed to meet with my adviser today; however, unfortunately it did not happen. Although I do intend to have a meeting with her before the end of this week, upon revisiting my own essay, I noticed that it could use a lot more work. An aspect of my essay that I looked at was my description of 9/11 relating to the Illuminati. I decided that I wanted to put more historical facts about the situation instead of just briefly stating what happened. This reshaped a moment of knowledge for me because I remembered that although I know what 9/11 is, others may not have taken as much of a focus on it as my teachers have had. This moment of knowledge changed for me because I am now reminding myself that many of the things I have learned in school, others have not- so my experiences in school/life living in NY when 9/11 happened is a reminder to clarify things for others. Overall, my paper is clear (for the most part) in the direction I am taking it, and I am proud of myself for actually writing a whole essay on this topic, as it seemed very difficult once I started.
ReplyDeleteAs my essay was more or less the product of a few weeks' crazed researching and writing (don't tell), and as I skilfully avoided any thought of it post-September 10, it was to be expected that delving back into my essay would provide me not only with Beth's fresh perspective, but with my own fresh perspective. And so it did.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Beth very kindly pointed out that my Environmental Systems and Societies essay was missing some Environmental Systems and Societies. The resulting moment of indignation (and automatic rationalization!) quickly resolved to a remembering and an immediately following questioning of the IB's need to divide so strictly the areas of knowledge. As Beth reminded me, Environmental Systems and Societies essays may not focus on human health and toxicology, policy and government, or any number of other topics. I question this strict divide, however. Yes, it is efficient and scientific and practical in all the right and wonderful and technical ways, but (I believe) only in theory. As I delved into my essay topic, I found it so difficult to separate these "non-ESS elements" that I included some of them. Apparently, too many.
I wouldn't have thought, though, to separate the effects on humans of the chemicals in my case studies from the effects on the fish. Of course I wanted to see whether these chemicals had been deemed illegal for their toxicity, or whether any realizations as to their potency were reached! Humans, after all, do live on the Earth; they affect it more than any other species, and the accidents I study were caused solely by human activity. How can one then extract the human aspect from the environmental in one's examination of the consequences?
Such were my rather muddled and indignant thoughts as a result of my Extended Essay meeting.
My meeting with my supervisor, Miriam, went better than I had expected. I was ready to hear about all the grammar mistakes I made however, her number one concern with my essay was citing. I of course had many grammar mistakes but not as much as she had expected and the ones that she caught were the misusage of words that sounded alike but describe different actions, for example, ce and se and s’est and c’est. I have always known I had trouble in this specific area and this essay is an opportunity for me to work on it. I guess something I learned through this meeting is that everyone makes mistakes (especially when it comes to French grammar) and that with enough motivation I can just work through them.
ReplyDeleteI got a lot of constructive feedback from my advisor. Some positive and some negative. What enlightened me the most was that she told me how to structure my essay better, so the skeleton of the essay. Thus this will make it easier for the reader as well as the grader to read. I had originally done introduction -procedure1- discussion for procedure- procedure 2- discussion for procedure 2- analysis of all result- conclusion. But she suggested to do it in this form instead: Introduction- procedure 1- procedure2- discussion for both procedure- analysis of all result- conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThis is something i would have never thought of aligning it this way, and it as well a very critical part of having a good science extended essay. And instantly made much more sense now that i look at it in the new way.