SS#3 Reflection

     The seminar influenced the way I thought about the fictional society of Oceania as a whole. While talking about the three superstates, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, I developed a better since of the fictional world Winston lives in, and how it came to be. One thing said during the seminar which I hadn’t thought of in depth was a question concerning the possible nonexistence of Eurasia and Eastasia, meaning that Oceania would be the sole world power. I thought that this could be true since there is evidence to support this. For example, In Book Two, Julia says that she thinks the bombs dropped on Oceania are really bombs dropped by the Party to scare the citizens.
     The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that the world of the Hunger Games would be a better society to live in than Oceania. I agree with this statement because there is no constant surveillance of people in Panem, while in Oceania, the citizens are constantly watched. The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the least is therefore that the world of Oceania would be a better than Panem because in Panem, you have a chance of dying. I disagree with this statement because although there is a chance of dying in the games, this chance is very slight. If I had the opportunity to add anything to the seminar, I would have pointed out that it is ironic that we are watched and assessed during the seminars just as the citizens of Oceania are supervised by telescreens.
Some things that worked really well for the seminar were the use of emotional and logical appeals. When talking about the love between Winston and Julia, there was a strong emotional feeling in the room, especially during a debate concerning the legitimacy of their love. As always, logical appeals were also frequently used because they are by far the easiest of the three rhetorical devices.
     Some things that needed improvement were ethical appeals and participation. Unfortunately, my prediction that ethical appeals would be more frequent did not come true. Very few ethical appeals were made and in my opinion, these rhetorical appeals are not harder than emotional appeals. Another issue in the seminar was participation. Although most people participated, a select few clearly dominated the conversation while other were not left much time to contribute meaningfully.

SS #2 Reflection

     As per usual, the second Socratic seminar on 1984 helped me see the different perspectives that my classmates had about the book. It was incredibly interesting to see that although we all read the same section of the book, different people interpreted it in very different ways and took different things away from it than I had. For example, I had never anticipated the conversation about marijuana that took place in the seminar because when I first read the chapters, I had focused on the government's restrictions of privacy instead of their restriction of consumer goods. Hearing what my classmates had to say about what had taken place, especially the conversation about legalizing marijuana and other illicit substances compared to legalizing chocolate in the world of 1984, was illuminating.
     I agreed most with Victoria's statement that the government of Oceania used language to control the relationships between its citizens. I had also written about this in my preparation sheet, and had concluded that Big Brother wanted the Party members to be loyal to him above all others, even their spouses. For this reason they must call each other comrades, while Big Brother alone is given a familial, kindly name. During this Socratic seminar, I did not find any statements that I disagreed with as it seemed as though everyone was in agreement with each other, and most of the discussion was spent using historical examples and evidence from the text to back up the popularly held opinion. In fact, I think that something we should work on is ensuring that there are more "controversial" topics brought up during the seminar in order to provoke meaningful discussion where we can learn from each other, instead of reiterating the same information and points of view that everyone already agrees on. For example, I was hoping that some people would have differing opinions on my question about whether the government should be able to restrict privacy under certain circumstances, because I know that some people believe that in situations such as the war on terror it is a necessary evil to increase surveillance and government interference in the lives of their citizens, while others agree that there is no rational reason to restrict a person's freedom of privacy, no matter what. One thing that I think could have been discussed more during the seminar was the relationship between the government surveillance portrayed in the novel and the current scandals with the NSA and wiretapping going on today. The fact that this book is so relevant to the modern world, particularly the United States, in terms of the current measures of security being used definitely deserves a more detailed discussion so that we can relate Orwell's ideas of the future to the future that we are currently experiencing.
     I think that everyone always brings very interesting ideas to the table, but I was especially impressed by the depth and amount of thought-provoking questions that were discussed in the seminar. I thought that the questions that my classmates asked led to some very interesting conversation. For example, I thought that Laura's question about why the government of Big Brother promoted consorting with prostitutes but not Party members led to a very interesting discussion about the importance of interpersonal relationships in the novel. 
     One of the things that most needed improvement during the discussion was the fact that everyone agreed on most points. I really liked Lina's idea about having one person be a designated devil's advocate, so that the discussion is more than just everyone agreeing with each other. However, I think that the person who was chosen to disagree on some points would have to use appropriate, well-thought-out responses as opposed to just blurting out contradictions in order to move along the conversation. I also think that it is important that the person remains anonymous and is as subtle as possible, and that their overall goal is to create more interesting conversation and not just to make everyone else in the class laugh by throwing out absurd ideas about every topic.