Good Society

what is a good society?

In my classes and expereinces this semester, there are two reoccuring themes that I believe are characteristics of a good society.

1) members of the society should have balance in their lives. By balance I mean that those who function within a society do not allow one aspect of life to consume them to the point that they are unable to experience and contribute to other areas. I'm sure that we could find many areas necessary for balance, but the one point of balance that has become evident to me is between individuality and community.

Community is valuable because communicating with others molds and fashions thinking in a way that can produce a masterpiece. When people are in group settings, one friend’s ideas about a particular subject will influence the other’s opinions. It’s like shaping a piece of clay- you take some away here, add some there, and in the end produce a work of art. When people change their opinions it doesn’t show weakens, as some might say. Rather, it is good for personal growth.

Solitude is the solution to these problems that arise from interaction with other people. For example, balance in the above three situations may look like the following: A member of a group or club may achieve balance and avoid becoming a puppet of the organization by being aware of the effect the group has on his or her individuality, the student may achieve a balance through allowing academic material to help form his thoroughly thought through views and compliment his articulation of them, and in pairs there should be sufficient time spent in personal growth and development.

So, it becomes possible to achieve a balance between solitude and fellowship by acknowledging the group’s effect on the individual, allowing outside influence to assist in forming and compliment our personal beliefs, and making sure to set aside sufficient time for personal reflection and development.

2) The second point is a bit shorter, but by no means simpler than the first. In order to achieve these areas of balance, members must be actively seeking to achieve "Good Society." Without the desire and action, nothing can be accomplished. If people don't want a better society, then they definitley won't try for it. But, wanting a good society isn't enough. It takes action to accomplish the goals that are set.

Digesting some research

Well, I've been reading those scholarly articles for my research paper, so i figured I would do a little free write here on some of the things I've been learning.

My Paper topic is going to research the relationship of media with Christian evanglism and world missions. Since missions is a passion of mine -and I am going to Africa this summer- the subject carries some personal interest for me.

The article that has impacted me the most so far is one that looks at the effect of Christian Evangleism in the Media in Nigeria and Ghana. My initial expectations of this article is that it would talk about all the ways that Media is working in a positive way to spread the gospel to the people of these African countries. After reading, however, I found that the article was moreso a critique of Christian Evangelism in the media. The author's position was definitly not against the use of media in evangelism, but he did raise a needed flag of caution to the way it is presented in the culture. He aknowledges that media is a useful tool for reaching large groups of people quickly, that it stirs the human soul in a unique way, and that it can be particularly helpful for reaching young people. The author also points out, however, that using media requires a certain responsibility of those who produce and use it in these countries. In areas of these two countries in Africa where Christian Evanglism was flooding -and often bringing in before unused- forms of media, there were large objections. People tried to eliminate or compete with the christian media that was produced. Also, people in christian media gained power and influence because of their capablity to produce a form of media.

In the end the author came to the conclusion that media in evangelism can be a very usful tool, or harmful to spreading the gospel message. He said that everything hinges on whether or not the presentation is attatched to or recieved in unison with fellowship in a local community such as local churches, outreaches,or camp meetings.

I think this is a great point and ties in the ideas that my group came up with for defending media conglomerates in our in class debate. We thought of the point that recieving the massive amounts of information these conglomerates could provide could be a good thing, as long as we balanced that out with personal growth and reflection outside of the media context. The same this is at work in Africa with using media to evangelize.

Reflection on Hollywood Simulation

Wow, class last wednesday was ridiculous!

Before I begin, let me give you a little bit of an idea of what my background was with the way Hollywood operates. I knew some of the vocab that goes along with the whole Hollywood scene: actor/actress, agent, producer, writer. I also knew that a lot of time, energy and money goes into making a major motion picture. Going along with this idea, I knew that dispite all the money put into a film, it still has the ability to flop at the box office. I knew that this is one thing that film makers want to aviod.

I also knew that Hollywood and the people who work and live there could have a reputation for being a little messed up. ( in the way they deal with fashion, marriges, money, etc.)

So there I was in class; part of a major Hollywood film studio, looking to put together a movie that would be a guartenteed success. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I figured that since we were the biggest studio, we wouldn't have any problems getting people to sign with us. At first this assumption was correct. There were people rushing over to "Big Time Studios" as soon as the simulation began.

The problems started when we starting signing. We signed our script first: The cute love story. So all we needed now were actors and actresses, right? Well, this became an issue because there were only four actors/ actresses, and three movies being produced. We ran into problems trying to sign an actress because the girl we wanted didn't want to be in a romance movie. We had already signed a contract though. What now? Also, our actors kept driving up their prices, and being enticed by other studios. Then, once they signed our actors wanted to be in other movies so that they could make more money. We learned that this would cost our studio.

We got to a point where we figured that it would be easier if we bought out one of the smaller studios and produced two movies. Then we would have a bigger budget and be wouldn't loose money from having our actors in multipule films. This, however, didn't work out. Maybe if we'd had more time...

Then there were annoying script writers (cough Issac and Amy cough) who kept trying to get us to buy their script after we already told them no.

And the annoying agents who kept driving up prices.

Overall it was fun to be able to pretend like we were throwing around millions of dollars like it was nothing in order to produce a major motion picture, but we all knew it wasn't real. Even so, I still heard someone say while leaving "that brought out the worst in people." Many of the things that happened showed people looking out for their own profit only. And you kind of had too.

Thinking about our class simmulation and what I know about Hollywood gave me a little better picture of why the movie industry is the way it is, and why the stuff that happens there can be really crazy.