Journal Assignment #2 Gerardo Lemus Human/Nature Dr.

Becky Boesch October 23, 2013 First journal entry: The quote that I chose is the second one, where the boundaries that we create in our daily life are said to be just like a dream, fictional. This whole article talks about the type of line we draw and why, and one of the reasons it states is that its a survival mechanism. And when you say survival mechanism you kind of think of an animalistic creature so in that sense this reading started erasing the line we have drawn between us humans and animals. And then he also starts taking about different ways we draw line. We draw line in chunks of space, blocks of time, frames, and identity. And all of this ways we draw line we can see in most species of animals, so as the story went on the more the human/animal line started to disappear, actually all the lines we as humans draw I started to question. The chunks of space is the most common way we draw line- we separate states, countries, rooms, etc. - but we arent the only ones, animals do to for example hippopotamuses draw lines that mark their territory in the river and they will fight off anything that they believe doesnt belong I that territory, just like a sibling will fight off their brother from their room. We also divide time, we as human say what times we sleep and which we work, just like any animal decides when to sleep and when to hunt. The frames are a collaboration of how we divide space and time, like the example the class has been using that it would be acceptable to ask a stranger to dance with you in a party, but in the street you would probably end up getting

slapped, in this respect animals have times and places where they do certain stuff, they wouldnt socialize when they are out hunting. And finally there is identity lines, what Zerubavel says is that we as humans separate ourselves into groups, this is pretty obvious in animals too, we wouldnt see a gazelle in a pride of lions. Second entry: The way that I would define human nature is that human behave differently based on their cultural beliefs and life experiences. As Schwartz says in his story about is and ought our behavior is correlated with what we hold to be moral and whats immoral. And all of morality views are different from person to person because we all have different cultures and life experiences, the greatest example given in Ehrlichs example of the two identical twins who where physically stuck together with each other. Even though they where stuck together they had completely different behaviors and even though they had the same experiences and lived in the same environments the way they decided to view those things where different and as a result they had to completely opposite behavior. On regard to our genes dictating on how we behave I think that they contribute little if at all to our behavior and nature. There isnt such thing as a person killing because their genes craved it, they killed because of how they viewed their experiences and culture through life, as personal example my dad is a big fanatic of soccer, he doesnt miss a game and he get really passionate during the game, so you would expect me to be a big fan too not necessarily because of a gene but because I was raised in a soccer loving environment, but in fact Im not a fan of the sport, and thats because how I viewed this life event, I didnt see any purpose or entertainment of watching some people kicking a ball around even though the way my dad expressed himself every time he saw a game it made it seem as if it was the most entertaining and interesting thing to watch, but the things you gain from an

experience are all determined by how your brain views it, and the brain is where I think genes might have something to do on how you behave.