On May 10th, 1933 the Nazis burned 25,000 books — including those written by Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who had predicted in 1820 that “where books are burned in the end people will burn,” – and eight years later the Holocaust began.

The connection is not too difficult to discern. Books are repositories of histories, of identities, of values. They are the soul of civilization. A society must abandon basic decencies in order to muster the immoral courage to burn books as a celebratory act. Once it starts burning the souls of civilization, human souls will not be left behind.

During TOK class we were discussing books, and literacy and if one is an outcast if they can't read, then I saw this on Palahnuik & Chocolate blog.. I found it quite interesting.

What else can you do?

The other day in chapel, our Chaplin for the day, Mr Chang, told us all the story of how is second child was born with only three toes on one of it's feet. I thought he would start saying how it didn't matter to him because he was gifted with his beautiful baby to call his child, but he actually said "why? why me? I always thought people who did bad would have these things happen to me. But I'm a good christian, I always follow the rules and I am devoted to God, yet this happened to me."

He said it was really difficult for his to get over this, and accept his child, and it's three toes, and love it for who it was.

Which got me thinking, how good do you have to be to be considered "A good person"?

Mr Chang does everything right, he devotes his time to teach children, he attends church regularly, he does charity work, he pretty much does everything that everyone else would classify as "good." Yet his child was not born, let's say, completely intact. I'm not saying he should abandon his child and that his child is no good, that would be horrible of me, but it doesn't make sense as to why everything in his life didn't turn out completely perfect, when he has done everything perfectly for everything and one else.

What is "good"? What defines "being good"? When parents tell their children to "be good" otherwise Santa won't bring them presents, how can they show they are "good"?

Is there a certain action that one can do, no matter who, that will then classify them as "good"? Or do you have to do many things to be apart of this category?

How can we define this?

To die would be an awfully big adventure

Is killing ever morally right? We have always been taught to not kill or hurt people, but then in law people can be sentenced to death, or a life in prison. But isn’t this sentencing the exact same as killing people in everyday life? What makes killing people through law better or more moral? What is the difference between the two?
For example if one person went on a rampage killing and destroying people and things, and then was arrested and sent to court where he was charged with murder and sentenced to death, where he was killed, what happens? What does this achieve? How can someone tell you not to kill, killing is wrong and then kill you? It doesn’t make sense, and it teaches people if you kill for the ‘right reasons’ it’s okay. But is it really okay? Or is it also murder? And should the person who killed the murderer be killed also as they had just killed someone? Does it just become a vicious cycle? When is it ever right or not right to kill someone?

I'm hit with mixed emotions

My friend and I were having a discussion about depression, what is it and why is it not classified as a regular emotion as 1 in 5 people have depression. And then that got me thinking about emotions in general, what is an emotion? How can one classify what an emotion is? It could be a feeling for just a split second, or is it an ongoing feeling that can last for years?

How do you define emotion?

Do you see what I see?

The other day in TOK class one of the student presentations was about perception, and it got me thinking. In years before now there was no such thing as 'editing' or 'photoshop' or 'graphic effects' and what people saw with their own eyes was real, and they believed it. But nowadays because these things are regular things used in everyday life, we never know if what we see if real or not.

How do we know that last picture of [insert someone] was real, or did someone use photoshop to edit what they looked like. Even in the news, how do we know that last video we saw wasn't edited, and there really wasn't an explosion in Lebanon.

How do we know that everything we see isn't fake?

This also reminded me of the movie 'The Truman Show." In this movie a man, called Truman, lives his every day life and believes what he sees is real, however he learns he is actually the main character on a TV show, and everything he has touched, seen, known for the last 40 years is fake and never existed. What if everything we knew and saw wasn't really there?

How do we know what we see and touch and feel is real?

Where in the World?

Something I find frustrating is the fact that Politicians in Australia get to have a lifetime worth of free travel. No matter if they are new, retired, or dismissed, no matter what age they are or who they are, they get this exception for their entire career.

The original reason for this was in case they had to travel somewhere for a meeting, or to do charity work, but recently it has gotten out of hand. Most of them use the privilege now for holidays with the family, or to take a 'break' from work. Why should politicians have this privilege? What have they done to deserve it, that other people haven't?

Politicians have recently become a lot more cocky, thinking they can get everything and anything for free just because they help run our country.

For example.

My father works at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, and at the moment Lady Gaga is performing there. He told me a story of how the Treasurer of NSW called up, a day before her performance mind you, and said "I want 5 tickets to her show." Not even a please, or asking if any were available. He assumed he would get them, because apparently it is part of his privileges as a politician. When the S.E.C said "sorry there aren't any available tickets," the treasurer got mad and complained. I bet the tickets weren't even for him, they were probably for his children and their friends. How rude can you get? Why should they get free tickets to shows and concerts, what the hell have they done for the music business? Nothing I assume. Stop being so greedy, you already get more than you should.