Blog #24: Research Proposal, Research Questions & Annotated Bibliography

RESEARCH PROPOSAL AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BNW

Research Proposal: In Brave New World, scientists talk about the perfection of mankind and improving society, but the citizens don’t have a choice on how they improve it. The scientists take away the freedom to choose, and shows that no one is sad or unhappy with the lifestyle they were designed to live. My topic will be about the different perspectives of freedom in the World State and the Savage Reservation, as well as their goals.

Reasearch Questions:

1.     How important is freedom of choice?

2.     What does it mean to be human? 

3.     What are the ultimate goals of human society?

 Peter Kociba

Nichole Wilson

English IVB

25 March 2015

To be Human and To Be Free

Segran, Elizabeth. "How To Intentionally Design A Happier Life." Fast Company. Fast Company &   Inc, 12 Feb. 2015. Web.

As we grow up into adulthood, you would think we would be able tell whether or not we’re happy, but to tell you the truth, judging our own happiness can be difficult. There is often a disconnection between what our brains tell us and what we actually feel. Paul Dolan says "We tell stories about the things we think should make us happy, but sometimes, when we look a bit closer, we’re not really that happy at all." Perhaps you think you’re happy because you’ve just gotten engaged and after a series of best wishes, it may not register to you that you’re anxious about moving in with your partner. Therefore, Dolan concludes that thoughtful, driven people spend so long reflecting about what makes a meaningful life, they sometimes lose sight of what actually feels good to them on a daily basis, and ties with my research question of what being human means.

Landau, Elizabeth. "Why Happiness Is Healthy - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network, 25 Dec. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.

Happiness -- you know it when you see it, but it's hard to put it into words. You might call it a sense of well-being, optimism, or even life satisfaction. But whatever happiness is, we know that we want it, and that is just somehow good. We also know that we don't always have control over our happiness. The author suggests that happiness makes peoples’ lives much better and gives us the optimism for each day. In a study of people older than 60 who enjoyed life less were more likely to develop a disability. In other words, how we feel about life and ourselves affects how happy we feel in the future.

Brooks, Arthur C. "Free People Are Happy People." City Journal. N.p., Spring 2008. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.

Brooks suggests that in order for us to be happy, we have to be free. The earliest American definition of liberty is about constraints on personal actions: if I don’t hurt anybody else, I should be free to pursue my own will. The idea is that The Founders believed that freedom was one of at least three fundamental rights from God, along with life and the pursuit of happiness. These three rights are connected: not only does liberty, of course, depend on life, but the pursuit of happiness depends on liberty. In a way the freedoms and laws we have were to keep us happy and keep our slates clean.

 

Biswas-Diener, Robert, and Todd B. Kashdan. "What Happy People Do Differently." Psychology Today. N.p., 19 June 2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.

According to Biswas-Diener and Kashdan, the secret of happiness is a concern of growing importance in the modern era. We are no longer hunter-gatherers, so to speak, concerned with where to find the next kill, but in truth, we worry instead about how to live our best lives. In a study of more than 10,000 participants from 48 countries, psychologists Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia discovered that people from every corner of the globe rated happiness as being more important than other highly desirable personal outcomes, such as having meaning in life, becoming rich, and getting into heaven. This information helps tie together my research question of what the ultimate goals of humans in society.

 

Keyes, Alan. "Freedom Means Having The Choice, Liberty Means Using It To Do Right." The Daily Caller. N.p., 26 Feb. 2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.

According to Keyes, is that humanity abuses the power of freedom throughout our lives. Our nation wants order, but we also need happiness to balance the order. In other words, even though a government passes a new law, we can’t force this change on people who have a different set of morals and choices. For the research question on the importance of freedom of choice, it is expressed that we are given this right to express ourselves, yet others take advantage and abuse the power before them. We aim to bring the world together in peace, but our morals, greed, and our own choices in life that prevent us from moving forward.