Coming down to the final stretch of the school year. Getting assigned all your big projects or exams. Or in the PLP case getting assigned your blog posts. Our whole class has been stressing out about all are due dates and trying to reason, but you may as well talk to a brick wall. So instead of arguing I’m putting my head down and going hard at these.
In our class we have read the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. After reading the book we looked at a bunch of different concepts, varying from; Power and Authority, Humanity and Inhumanity, Violence and Destruction, Human nature, Civilization and Savagery, Innocence and Evil, Individualism and Community. We had big sheets with each of these concepts, and on the sheet was categories of Lord of the Flies, others texted we have learned throughout the year, history and current events, and other, and we had to relate parts from each category onto a concept. When we got our concept we had to think of a question and a historical or current event to relate to and write a paragraph.
The paragraph I have chosen was on the concept of civilization and savagery. Reading Lord of the Flies, you see these concepts everywhere. It was one that stuck out to me and had me most intrigued. For a current event I wrote about the “Notorious” Donald Trump and his recent decline of the Paris agreement. After seeing this on the news it made me want to look more into it, like what it’s about and why he would do that. It was very interesting doing this because I got to see more and learn more about what was going on in other countries in the world.
For this Learning Portfolio post we had to update and upgrade our paragraphs to not only relate our topic to a historical or current event, but also to Lord of the Flies, and Macbeth. So now they are not paragraphs anymore. Without further ado here is my upgraded concept paragraph:
What kind of person are you? Are you the type of person to be relaxed and civilized? Or are you the type to do anything crazy and bring your animal like side out? Each of these traits have positive and negative attributes. When it comes to a leadership role, is it better to have civilized or savage characteristics? Why? Being a leader is tough. You have to have a lot of different traits to be a leader, so that everyone can take you seriously, and also show you respect. Just like a president you have to have both civilized and savagery traits.
If a president didn’t show savagery traits, his or her country would be overruled or would be pushed around in certain scenarios. Donald Trump to me is less civilized than past presidents. Just recently he declined the Paris climate change agreement. A report on www.aljazeera.com explains the harm and a what is the agreement. The Paris climate change agreement is an agreement within the UNFCCC dealing with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance starting in the year 2020. The aim is to limit global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100. President Trump just announced the United States would withdraw from the accord. This seems very uncivilized and showing his savagery side a lot more, because climate change is terrifying. It could perhaps end this world and it’s quite savage to decline an agreement to support something that could extinct the human race. With all the countries involved trying to fix our future is amazing. But with the US withdrawing from this can cause a problem, with the US being a big powerhouse financially and economically, can really make a difference in saving this world from global warming. This just being one example of Trump’s savagery. Our Planet Earth is a beautiful place and should be taken care of. A leader should show both civilized and savage characteristics. If a war or the breaking of the rules were too happen, you need a leader that will show dominance and not be a push over. But you get some people who show too much savagery to the point where it’s very uncivilized. A leader needs many traits but when it comes to civilization and savagery a leader should have equal distribution.
In the Shakespeare play Macbeth, civilization and savagery are seen in every character in the play. You see this in both of the main characters. One of the characters is Lady Macbeth. She is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. When she is first seen in the play, she is already plotting King Duncan’s murder. She is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband Macbeth. Macbeth Macbeth is introduced in the play as a warrior hero, whose fame on the battlefield wins him great honour from the king. He is easily tempted into murder by his wife to fulfill his ambitions to the throne, and once he commits his first crime and is crowned King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth being the savagery side and Macbeth being the civilization makes for a leader having equal distribution of power. Macbeth proves himself better suited to the battlefield than to be a leader, because he lacks the skills necessary to rule without being a tyrant. His response to every problem is violence and murder. Showing how when Macbeth lost civilization, he lost his role in leadership.
A great examples of leadership traits is in the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. The book is based in battle during World War 2, when a bunch of young boys where escaping the war on a plane, and their plane had crashed. The boys were deserted on an island, and they had to survive, make rules, and live on their own. The boys elected a leader Ralph. Ralph is the primary representative of order, civilization, and productive leadership in the novel. While most of the other boys initially are concerned with playing, having fun, and avoiding work, Ralph sets about building huts and thinking of ways to maximize their chances of being rescued. The other main character of the book is a boy Jack. Jack represents savagery, violence, and the desire for power throughout the book. The desire for power turned jack to a savage, from going through the island hunting down Ralph to kill him, or almost killing a kid as a joke. Both of the characters were leaders, and both received failure. When both of them were working together the island was great. Until jacks thirst for power rose above him, and forced his savagery side out of him. When Ralph and Jack worked together, it was balancing the civilization and savagery making everyone happy and safe.
Leaders in any scenario of leadership is tough. You need a leader who shows many traits. But when it comes to civilization and savagery, a leader needs both. If a leader had more of savagery than civilization, or the other way around, they would get revoked of power. Maybe even get killed.
For this blog post we had to also submit a creative visual component representing our concept. I decided to make a little book that is kind of like a children’s book. I used characters from both Lord of the Flies and Macbeth to explain my point, because in both texts, civilization and savagery are seen in both. So what’s a better way than not to show a book. 👨🎨
I couldn’t figure out how to link it too iBooks so I could only get a video of the pages.
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