Blog Entry # 6

1."Rules aren't always right, and they're never happy. Let's try to design a perfectly just society. It'll have people sticking to the skill they're best at, supplying each other's needs." I do agree with this quote in some parts, but in others disagree. I think that rules are made as a basis for what the right thing to do is. But in some situations the right thing, might not be what the rules are. While having people doing what their best at would seem to be a key factor in a thriving civilization to produce the best of the best. While this is definitely important, what's more important are how the people feel. If someone was doing something they hated but were awesome at, I think it's more important for them to be a lot happier with their work and the quality suffering a little, instead of the best of the best quality and unhappy citizens.

2. Justice to Plato was "whatever the strongest decide it is, and that the strong decide that whatever is in their best interest is just." Socrates proved this argument to be false, by proving that the strong rarely figure out what is in their best interest, and this can't be just since justice is a good thing. I do not agree with what Plato thinks Justice. I think that Justice is the right thing that helps the most amount of people possible and causes no intentional harm.

3. I think that Plato's ideal republic had many positive and negative qualities in it. The positive were that Plato's ideal republic real being aristocracy, they would always rule by the best, and try to produce as much productive work as possible. A negative I saw in this ideal republic was that a state may be be intemperate if any of the lower groups do not obey one of the higher groups. I don't really agree with that, I think that everyone and every group should be treated equally.

4. My vision of an ideal state or republic would be one that could stand the test of time for being so flawless. It would have one main leader, who is justified that is in Charge of being the ultimate decision maker. Not as if they could make any irrational choices. They would have a whole group of advisers and supporting government to make sure there wouldn't be any unjustified actions. People would all have the same rights. I'm a big believer in equality.

5. This means that sometimes we get so caught up in how we see things, or how we think things are, when we don't take the time to step back for a moment and realize that not everything works the way that we see it. After we do this we can reach the knowledge.

Sparta vs. Athens Blog Entry #5

1. I would rather live in Sparta if i was a young teenage girl of the citizen class because though women still had few rights, they were given more Independence than any other place in Greece. This, along with that in Sparta children were taught to respect elderly, woman, and warriors.In Sparta woman were educated in reading, writing and could play sports. Citizen women were free to move around and enjoy freedom, while in Athens women were kept at home, considered the property of their husbands. These things prove that as a woman I could be more respected and earn more rights then I would in Athens

2. I would rather live in Sparta if I was a slave. In Athens slaves had no rights and an owner could kill the slave. In Sparta Helots which were the equivalents of slaves but they got to use land (not own it) and all they had to do was give half of their produce to the Spartiate citizens who owned the actual land. I would much rather this than to be murdered one day if my owner is in a bad mood and decides to take it out on me.

3. If I was a boy of the citizen class I would rather live in Athens. In Sparta you could either be a Military professional and own land, a Helots and be the equivalent of slave, or a woman with few rights. In Athens freemen were all male citizens and in the middle rank small farmers. I would choose to be a small farmer over being a Helot any day. I would get more rights and not be treated as a slave.

4. If I was a young soldier I would rather live in Sparta. They considered Military professionals to be their highest social ranking earning a lot of respect from the people. And Sparta has a strong army with the best and most feared fighters on land, while Athens is more specialized in the Navy. Being a soldier in Sparta would give me the skills of warfare as well because at age seven all boys are taken from their parents to begin training in the art of warfare. I would much rather be a soldier in Sparta, because they give more respect to the position and that I would be more prepared in battle.

5. If I was a wealthy person of the citizen class, I would much rather live In Athens. While in Sparta the highest social ranking was Military professionals, in Athens it was an aristocrat who could own large estates and had voting rights. If I was wealthy and was going to pick a place to live out of the two it would definitely be Athens because I could use my wealth more to my advantage and use more of it for pleasure based purchases.

6. While both Athens and Sparta have their negative and positive aspects to them I would have to say that I would rather live in Sparta. The highly trained and fearful military system would make me feel safe and secure with my city-state while Athens marine system isn't quite as impressive. As a woman if I would want to leave the house in Athens it would only be if I was a prostitute which I'm not a big supporter of. But in Sparta I could get an education become physically healthy, and even own and control property. I wouldn't be able to do any of those things if I lived in Athens.

Blog Entry # 4 Changes

Many changes occurred during times of political, social and economical stress, because changes were necessary to make, in order for civilizations to continue thriving.If the whole political system is corrupt and stupid, causing it to fail, then the obvious solution would be to change the system and try to make things better. During economic stress, a change you could make would be to create more job opportunities, lower or raise the taxes depending on the situation, and change the price of merchandise. These changes that could be made would help making the current situation more solvable, instead of just sitting there doing nothing, keeping everything the way it is.

Blog Entry #3 Signifigant Changes

I agree that population growth was the most significant development of the Classical period to some extent. I think that it was more the consequences that were a result of the population growth. For example, there was deforestation in order to provide enough resources for the new population quantity. Also, more big cities were created to support the new population quantity as well. But, an advantage that was made was that with new population increases came the increase of collective learning as well. A few of the reasons behind the population surge were the use of farming and breeding animals to do things humans normally couldn't, or could but then would have time for other labor. As well as the invention of iron, which provided the iron plow, and weapons. And as well as better crops were produced that had more calories in it, and larger quantity of food was being grown. So no, I don't believe that population growth was the biggest change in the classical period. I believe it's because of the reasons behind it, and the consequences of it.

Blog Entry #2 Biggest Change

There were many huge changes during the classical period. The biggest change that occurred during the classical time period was the formation of large regional civilizations in China, India, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Model civilizations had important relationships with nomadic groups, mostly from central Asia, who traded with them and periodically attempted invasion. Another big change was that each of the civilizations had its own social structure, geographical location, political system, systems of science, and various arts, until now most civilizations were basically the same, but how they could choose how they express themselves creatively, politically, and spiritually. These traits made the civilizations stand out from one another and be unique. I would say these new expressions were the biggest change during the classical period.

1.Reflection On Yalis Question

I think that the reason why the Europeans conquered the world instead of any other country was because they were the most skilled in technology and were more greedy. I think the civilizations such as the Africans and Native Americans were happy with their current lives. They weren't the most technologically advanced cultures but they were happy with their daily lives and didn't see much point in fixing what isn't broken. But the Europeans were much more adventurous and curious about their world around them, and the differences in life.

Since they had so many different types of weapons, and armor it was so easy for them to conquer any nation they chose. Unfortunatly for some cultures, when they didn't have the technical advantages the europeans had back then, it was very difficult for them to be able to sufficiently protect themselves. Or the possibilty for why others cultures didn't conquer the world first might have been because they simply hadn't thought of that yet. The idea to take over innocent peoples land for a selfish reason isn't the most common thing a simple village person would think about.