An Introduction to Ethics - Week 1

Journal 1-1

Since this was my first week of Ethics class, I do not have a question from previous weeks to answer.

This week in class, I learned about Heroic Imagination. During 9/11 many people exhibited heroic imagination and we learned the stories of Welles Crowther and of the city of Gander, Newfoundland. I also learned about loaded language, euphemisms, and power words and how these literary techniques are used in media and marketing. I also learned about informal logic, fuzzy logic, ambiguity, and vagueness.

In our discussions of logic this week, I learned about loaded language, power words and euphemisms. It made me think about how often I heard this type of language in my daily life and never realized it. I am now more aware of literary techniques used in the media to portray a certain message that might be not quite true or exaggerated. I already knew about vagueness and fuzzy logic, but informal logic and ambiguity were new concepts to me.

The lesson I enjoyed most this week was heroic imagination. When we were first asked to describe it, we had not seen the videos about Welles Crowther or Gander. But my definition was "ideas that have the power to change the world or someone's world." I think that was what Welles did. In the last hour of his life, amid the crisis of the Twin Towers being attacked, he led those he could to safety. He was a firefighter at heart, and he saved strangers that day just like other New York City firefighters did. The city of Gander also showed heroic imagination by the kindness and hospitality they showed to the thousands that showed up in their small town that day. The visitors had been passengers from international flights headed to the US, but all flights were rerouted following the hours after planes flew into the Twin Towers. Hundreds of those flights ended up in Gander, Canada, and thousands were without anyplace to stay. Although it was not as local, the story of Gander reminded me of the support showed to tsunami victims in 2004. It happened December 26, 2004  off the coast of Indonesia. St. Mathias, a church in my community that my family often visits, had fundraisers and sent money and supplies to the relief effort. I also remember how myself and fellow classmates from Robious Elementary school had a bake sale and lemonade stand to raise money for relief efforts.

After all the things I learned about this week, what I want to know most about is what happened to the other heroes during 9/11. I have heard that they paid a price for their heroism that day and the days that followed. The dust first responders and other volunteers were breathing is causing serious health issues, and I wonder how extensive the damage to their health is and who is being effected.