How Well Can a Fish Climb a Tree?

Disclaimer: This post is not a result of me being aggrieved over the ACT I took this past weekend. This topic has been on my mind for quite a while and I thought this week would be a good week to post about it due to our discussions in class of what education is through Wallace's speech "This is Water".

As Leo Buscaglia once said, “The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be.” However, in current times, students in the United States are no longer valued for who they are; they are valued for how well they do on a leveled playing field. How far has education come to resort to the fact that students are no longer meausred by their own personal success but their success in comparison to others? Standardized testing may indeed set a benchmark and standards for the students around the nation; per contra, the tests fail to take into account the individuality of each student and is an inaccurate method of measuring student success and growth throughout their education. This topic speaks to me personally as I took my first official ACT this past Saturday. I thought it was a relatively difficult test, and the preparation I spent beforehand paid off. However, one section that really got me hard was the reading section. I had never fully grasped the concept of reading in an accelerated rate and then answering questions based on comprehension of the passage I had just rushed through. Then I thought, the reading section is not actually a measure of how well you can read, but a measure of how well you can practice and solidify the structure of the section. The only sure way to success in the ACT is to continously practice and practice the test until it becomes second nature. From my perspective, that is not an accurate measure of how well one student does in school, but rather how well they are able to memorize the structure of the ACT. The ACT fails to accomplish many things: foster the thoughts of students, teach them how to think individually, and measure the individuality of all the students. Different students possess their own unique skills, which are not always shown through standardized testing. For example, if a student excels at computer programming but has a very limited scope of understanding in determining the purpose or strategies an author utilizes in an essay, they will not succeed in the reading portion of these standardized tests. It is as esteemed physicist Albert Einstein once stated: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 

The Fear Appeal

In 11 AP English, we learned to identify three different types of appeals: emotional, rational, and ethical. Thomas Jefferson put these appeals to use in his Declaration of Independence, a masterful, time-enduring document which has shaped man's view of government and freedom for the past two centuries. However, the appeal which is often overlooked is the "Fear Appeal". A fear appeal is a type of persuasion which attempts to arouse fear in order to change behavior through the threat of impending danger or harm. Thomas Jefferson subtly utilizes fear appeal in his declaration as a final statement to the American people to take action against the British suppression, or else they will only fall into their inevitable doom. One of the most profound appeals towards fear is his statement that "mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable" under the rule of the British empire. This beseeches to the colonists that staying under the rule of Britain will only cause a continuation of their suffering. First, the risk of suffering is shown to the American people, and then a protective action is presented, in which they should "abolish" the government or sever their ties for their own well being. Fear is a powerful emotion to appeal to, as the state of fear is an extremely unpleasant emotional state which stimulates psychological arousal that prompts responses towards the reduction of threat or danger. By subtly playing towards this fear of colonists, Thomas Jefferson was able to craft his masterpiece, the Declaration of Independence, which would put finality on America's freedom from mother Britain and rally the popular belief of the nation behind their cause.

We Are All Liars

According to the research by Dr. Bella DePaulo from University of California, in which she collected hundreds of stories about people's lives and analyzed their versimilitude, lying is a part of everyday human life. Even though we look down upon it, everyone is guilty of lying to some degree every day. It's natural. The only variable is the severity of our lies which affect our daily lives.
In Miller's play The Crucible, the act of lying and deceit is what drives the plot of the story. Abigail utilizes her ability to manipulate others through her vivid acting and hyperbolic hysteria, spreading lies like wildfire in Salem. Her lies arise from both a desire to raise her social status as well as to save herself from any punishment she may receive from being caught dancing. Being a teenage girl, Abigail can only aspire to be a housemaid until she married, at best. However, as her position as the head of the accusers, Abigail has the status of the town savior, purifying the town of any sign of Satan. Abigail also lies in fear for what might happen to her if the town was to find out that Abigail attempted to kill Goody Proctor by drinking blood and dancing. Abigail portrays two faces of lying: the act of making oneself look better and the act of avoiding punishment.
Although Abigail takes lying to an extreme, she is a representation of how all humans act and their motives for lying. Lying is in human nature: it is man's way of raising his social status as well as avoiding any punishment that could be received.

The Road More Taken

Looking back upon history, the Salem Witch Trials appear to be a time of mass hysteria and paranoia which caused the mass persecution upon countless innocent lives. The trials seemed foolish and unprecedented, and that history would never repeat itself in the aspect of senseless accusation and punishment. The sad and harsh reality is that by the law of social axioms and how the human subconscious works, the Salem Witch Trials are an embodiment of how society never takes responsibility for their own problem and thus finds an unconventional excuse to place the blame on their own sufferings, while also exhibiting how individuals of society follow in the footsteps of the mainstream for their own safety.

The root of the Salem Witch Trials resulted from a multitude of factors: recent suffering from Indian attacks, increasing difficulty in acquiring land for farming, harsh winters, and the spread of smallpox. In order words, turbulent and intense societal and economic changes which caused a sudden and drastic change in life for the population. The people of Salem were ready to blame anything or anyone for the cause of their current failures and lifestyle; fortunately for them, they were able to find the perfect blame: witchcraft. As a result, the Salem Witch Trials occurred. Society was unable to cope with the harsh changes which society had faced, and thus blamed their sufferings on the superstition of witchcraft. The reason the trials were able to burn on through such a period was the fact that the individuals of society were willing to accept such supernatural causes of their own hardships. On the other side of the spectrum, individuals were also unwilling to present views opposite to society in fears of being persecuted, being perfectly content with following society's footsteps.  As a result of society's and the individual's innate behaviors, the prosecution of witches for the ills of society was able to continue for such a prolonged period of time. 

History repeated itself two and a half centuries later, this time in the form of Army-McCarthy Hearings. Senator McCarthy caught the attention of the nation with his persecution of those in the government in the Communist party and espionage. Many lives were ruined due to the exposition of their involvement with the Communist party. The causes for the hearings were the same as they were for the Witch Trials; society was fearful of the Soviet Union, and a deep sense of hysteria and paranoia was present in America due to tensions of the Cold War, and thus society found solace in blaming those in the government of being Communist spies. 

Both the Salem Witch Trials and the Army McCarthy Hearings illustrate that such hysteria does not occur because of a single event, but due to the inherent behaviors of society and individuals. Society is always more willing to search for an excuse for their hardships rather than take responsibility for their own hardships. Individuals often follow the popular views of society in order to feel safe. As a result, society as a whole will never be able to truly move forward from these witch trials. As long as individuals continue to follow the beliefs of society as a whole, individuals will remain slaves to popular opinion, and hysteria such as witch trials will only repeat itself in the future.