Justifiable

Were Candide's punishments justified? Did he deserve everything that happened to him? Getting exiled from his own family's castle, his house, was kinda hardcore. I mean it wouldve been ideal in that time if Candide and Cunegonde got together, considering that they were related and in those times they liked to keep everything within the family. The fact that Candide was almost killed several times for just being himself at the wrong place and wrong time shows that his punishments are ridiculous.

I think that his punishments were absurd, but a punishment is a punishment. Honestly, his punishments were odd, as if everything was backwards. He gets exiled for getting with a girl. The only punishment that's on an ok level was the fact that his loved one dies after he killed many people. But I mean she does come back to life, with a whole new and complete story of what "actually" happened.

This philosophy about how all is for the good has slightly fillled in with Candide's life. Candide is a good man, but sometimes bad things happen to good people. So I believe his punishments, no matter what it was, were justified.

The Modern Gadfly...

The gadfly in Greek mythology is identified as a tormentor to one of Zeus's side lover, Io, because Zeus's wife, Hera, was jealous. At first Zeus turned Io into a heifer, a young female cow, to hide her away from his wife. His wife finds out about this so she sends a gadfly to torment Io forever.

The gadfly, as told by Plato, is exactly what Socrates was. Plato referred to Socrates as a social gadfly because Socrates would bug the heck out of higher government officials. A gadfly, in Plato's words, is somebody who upsets the status quo by asking questions that may upset the higher power. Socrates was this person.

To me, based on these two perspectives, it seems as if a gadfly is anything that seems to annoy another party, usually a more powerful or inspirational party. For example, there's always that one student who just likes to bug the teacher and students about how he knows more than them. Then there are some students who follow this one student and laugh along or agree with him, which could be referred to as his little clique. Of course, this student wouldn't be anybody that I would want to be around, unless we shared some opinions.

Honestly, it's very difficult to express who can be considered a modern gadfly. It depends on your own point of view. Like we see Socrates as such a powerful thinker and all that jazz, but we never stopped and wondered about what the other people, the government, was feeling. Maybe they thought that Socrates was just an a-hole. Maybe Socrates's little group thought of him as an  idol and looked up to him or maybe they, too, thought that Socrates may have crossed the line a couple of time. We don't really know for sure what's truly going on. Maybe one of Socrates's student was a gadfly towards Socrates himself; that'd be a total ironic event haha.

The Un-Examined Life...

Socrates talks about how the life of any individual should be lived to the fullest. He says that the 'unexamined life is not worth living.' To me I believe it meant that every person should check themselves before they wreck themselves. Like honestly, you have to constantly be aware of what you're doing and how you're acting. Socrates believed that every person needed to have the right principles. By this I believe he meant that every person needed to live morally correct in order to live good lives. But when I take this in I question it: what is morally correct? What does it really mean to have right morals? 

Nowadays with all the wars going on I sit and wonder, why? The first signs of war occurred because of religion. The thing that bugs me is that most of these religions talk about peace and how killing is a sin, but god forbid that somebody doesn't believe in what you believe. Only then is it 'morally correct' to kill...?

Another example would be the U.S. and how they feel as if they have the right to just walk into any country that they think has too much violence, as if they can prevent violence. The U.S. may not be the most violent country, but there sure is violence around the country. To tie it back, the U.S. government should 'examine their life.' Their life is the country. The U.S. should examine the country and it's people because you can't just present peace in other countries when your own country has people killing each other. I'm really uptight about hypocrisy so I will bash on anything that seems remotely hypocritical. Unfortunately, the U.S. happens to be very hypocritical and I hate it because I really do like me country. 

So to summarize it all up, I feel like Socrates just wants everybody to really think about what they're doing with their lives. He wants us, as people, to realize that there's always something wrong and that we can always correct it. In a way I feel that if you examine your life, it's sort of like a second chance in which you can decide whether to be a 'good person' or a 'bad person.' 

About Me...

Hello, my name is Erick Gonzalez and I go to Whitney Young High School. Most of ny school friends call me Raisin, while some old friends call me Rick, and really close friends just call me Erick. I go by anything, so feel free to call me any of those three. I always enjoyed going to school because I got to see my friends and learning always made me feel good. My strongest subject is math and my weakest subject was any social science class, thus leaving english as kind of my "ok" subject. When I was younger I had about four or five good friends, and then I had school friends (a lot), but I really just enjoyed being by myself. I used to play sudoku when I got bored, which led me to win some little tournament in my elementary school. I was relatively good in chess when I was about twelve, but right now I may be horrible at it. I was always good with card games, especially speed. I don't like change, so don't ask me what I want to major in just yet or which college I want to go to. I love playing soccer. I've been playing since I was 6. My dad taught me how to play and numerous other coaches synced some stuff into my brain about the game as well. I was originally right footed, but ny dad was left footed and I strived to play like him, so I practiced day and night in my backyard to use my left leg. Of course, my dad kept telling me to try abs use both legs because 2 is better than one. So today most people would think I'm a lefty, which is true because I prefer hitting it with my left, but I can use both of my feet exactly the same. I love watching movies. Movies is what gets my whole family together. The first movie I ever saw was Space Jam, with the Looney tunes cartoons and Michael Jordan. My parents took me to theaters to watch it when I want even a year old. Movies hero nee escape reality. Some people have music, I have movies. I also love super heroes. So the fact that super hero movies are the new thing right now, it gets me psyched out even thinking about it. My favorite super hero would have to be Spider-Man from the Marvel universe and Batman from the DC universe. I believe that's all I can think about myself for now.