English Blog!2

Link: http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2006/issue3/0306p29.htm
Title: Democracy creates stability in a society

Democracy creates stability in a society. I agree with this statement to a small extent as I believe this stability is largely dependent on the people’s reaction to decisions made, especially for the minority whose opinions are overridden due to how democracy works as stability in a society is affected by the cooperativeness of the people.

There are mainly two types of societies, democracies and autocracies. The former lets the people affect its laws, and the latter only has one sole leader that leads the society. For a society to be stable, it is not based on the amount of force the leader or government uses, but the consensus of the society, or the agreement of the people. In other words, if the general population agrees with the ways of the leaders, it does not matter whether the people have a say in it, the society can still be stable.

However, in terms of the number of people that one can please, democracies would be more stable. Direct democracy in particular, in which people get to vote directly on specific policies. However, this means that a bill will be passed only if the majority agrees to it, regardless of whether it is a good or bad one. This may have very severe implications to a country. The bill may also affect the country’s stability in a positive or negative sense. Because of this, I believe that indirect democracy may be a much better way compared to direct democracy in terms of stabilizing the country as the government that has been voted in should have the sense to know what law to and not to advocate.

Nonetheless, the nature of democracy is so that the minority is often neglected, making for a less stable society if the minority decide to riot against the government because they are not happy with the decisions made. Therefore, stability is often based on how well the government can adapt to both the majority and the minority’s needs, so that the population is satisfied, and thus the society is stable. This however implies that democracy is not needed for a stable society as long as the general population agrees with the leader or leaders.

In conclusion, democracy may or may not create stability in a society, as it depends on the mode of democracy, be it direct or indirect, as well as the expertise of the government. In addition, even though democracy can create stability in a society, it is not necessarily needed to create stability, because as long as the general population is agreeable with the leader or leaders, the society is stable.

English Blog!

Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Tech%2B%2526%2BScience/STIStory_208482.html
Title: Teens who watch wrestling take more health risks
The aforementioned article at the Straits Times website is about teens watching violent media, specifically wrestling. Researchers have found that teenage fans of wrestling are more prone to violence themselves, and take more health-related risks like smoking and engaging in unprotected sex. This "effect" on teenagers increase the more they watch wrestling. Is this due to the influence of media, of how they portray the consequences of such actions to not be as serious as they really are?

This article is written to increase awareness of the fact that the media may have negative influence, and might affect the teenager's perspective of what violence is or is not. Especially in wrestling, the extreme violence portrayed in wrestling might affect the teenager's perception of violence, for example, the teen engaging in violence might think that it is okay as wrestlers in the wrestling ring are much more violent. This article also goes into the fact that some of the programs have 'themes' that are negative like racism and degradation of women. This information can be misinterpreted to have some truth, and might affect the teen's view of the world around him.

An interesting point brought up by the article is the fact whether it is the media that makes the teenagers violent or the fact that the teenagers were actually already violent, that led to the fact that they like wrestling, and gravitate towards watching professional wrestling. In my opinion, both situations can be possible, however, for the teenager to like watching professional wrestling, there is a need for the teenager to have a love for violence, and for the media to affect the teenager's attitude towards life, he has to actually watch and enjoy it for a period of time before he is affected. Therefore, for the teenager to enjoy watching professional wrestling, his attitude has to tie in with the media, which in this case is professional wrestling.

There have been brief moments in life where I have been exposed to wrestling programmes. I have wondered why people actually enjoy watching two people in a square area trying to bring each other down using their limbs. I have puzzled about why people pay to watch two people fighting and hurting each other. I was disgusted by the fact that people could derive satisfaction from watching a wrestling programme.

One assumption made in this article was the fact that teen violence was directly linked to wrestling programmes. However, this might not be true. Couldn't there be other promoters like peer pressure, or trends? Peer pressure might actually be more of a promoter of violence than the media. For example, if most of the people around the teen were to smoke, he would be pressurized to smoke or risk being called 'a loser' or names synonymous or close to that. In this case, the media might just be a catalyst and not the main cause.

To a teenager, watching wrestling programmes on television might not be very serious. Apart from thinking that it might be a waste of time, as almost all television shows are, except for the occasional relaxation purpose, he might think that there is no other harm. Therefore, he gets his daily dose of violence, all the while thinking he is okay, while it is affecting him subconsciously, and soon enough, when he has watched enough of wrestling, he will view violence as an everyday thing, and this behavior will go on to include health problems such as smoking and unprotected sex.

This kind of behavior in a school where a lot of teenagers congregate would be a very dangerous thing. Fistfights would break out all the time over small matters, and the response would be to fight fire with fire, and imitate the wrestling moves as shown on television. However, there is one difference - professional wrestlers are professional, they know what they are doing, so that they do not hurt each other too much. The same cannot be said of students. Therefore, some parents over-react to information like this, and ban their children from watching violent movies or television programmes. However, I believe that moderation is the answer, and that children from young should be instilled with the notion that violence cannot solve everything. This also prevents further problems such as health problems caused by smoking and unprotected sex.

In conclusion, children should be taught at a young age that violence cannot and will not solve everything, and that every action has a consequence no matter how big or small it is.