Blogging Around

The first blog I commented on way the wonderful Kali Croke's, who never ceases to amaze me. Her entry was titled iMedia: "Society" by Eddie Vedder. Kali spoke of the movie Into the Wild and one of the songs written by Eddie Vedder, in its soundtrack. The song, Society, comments on how our current world measures peoples worth on their material goods. Croke, voiced her opinion on how society should really be and my comment was as follows:

KALERS!

How are we so alike? I love this blog post because I agree completely with it! You put my thoughts into words! Not only is "Into the Wild" one of the best movies ever made, because it portrays such a powerful story, but Eddie Vedder's moving music fits it perfectly as well. I think part of the reason I love this song in particular so much is because I connect it with the movie, and everything it stands for.

This blog post really got me thinking, because what you are asking is simply, How do we escape something that is all we've ever known? Society is life (duh). It is hard to wrap your head around the idea of living in a way that really no one has ever lived before. We just don't know what that way is. I love that you suggest that we start "keeping score" in terms of mental, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and philosophical worth. I love that you're optimistic enough to even suggest that.
Call me a party pooper, but I just can't see a world like that.

People are naive. People are so naive that they can't fathom a society where material goods aren't important. For as long as we can tell, people have always measured, paid, and traded based on a good's worth. Personally, I'm like you Croke, I don't like it, but these days people really don't seem to care about people's intellectual worth. It's ridiculous to think a little piece of paper can be worth 20 or 100 dollars. Christopher McCandless probably thought just that; he felt it so strongly that he ran away. However, you can't pay for something by giving the cashier a few fun facts or proving that you're smart. 

These days life has got a price on it, and you're right Kalers, we have to stop measuring, because the true value of life is priceless.

The second blog I commented on was the sassy yet kind Nikki Grundy's post named 360 Degrees: Moral Questions. In this entry, Nikki battled with the question of whether it was right to steal an ear of corn from a farmer if her family is starving. 

Nikki,

This reminds me of some questions my math substitute asked my class in eighth grade. They were all on the topic of lying, and she asked us, "Is it wrong to lie about..." questions, progressing from horrible lies, to not as bad lies. The last question was, "Is it wrong to lie about taking a cookie from the cookie jar when you weren't supposed to?" You can imagine that a group of eighth graders of course answered with a resounding "no". It's only a cookie, there are a million more cookies in the world, and it's not like anyone is getting hurt.
Isn't that the same idea you had with the corn? Nobody is getting hurt, in fact, you are helping your family, and the farmer would probably never notice. But is it RIGHT?
Seriously, that question kills me. Right against wrong. We commit some wrongs, we're humans, we can't help it, but isn't the point to try to live a good life and do as little wrong as possible. But that cookie just looks so dang good, and you need the corn to live.
Sometimes, I think it's just a judgement call. Will my mom be disappointed when she finds out I lied to her? Yes. And is it worth that cookie? Probably not. But your situation, is more extreme and desperate. And in your case, I agree with you one hundred percent, life is worth much much more than trying not to hurt someones feelings because you took and ear of their corn.