1984 Socratic Seminar #2 Reflection

      The seminar influenced the way I thought about the right for people to have privacy.  After having the seminar, I found myself asking many questions relating to this subject.  How much privacy is one allowed?  At one point does supervision become a violation of human rights?  These questions may have many different responses, and are not at all easy to answer.  One thing said in the seminar which I hadn’t thought of in depth before was how Big Brother could possibly not be a real person.  I thought this could be true, since it seems that nothing is directly carried out by him, but rather by his puppet ministry workers.

      The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that the Party limits sex and sexual pleasure to enforce devotion to the government.  I agree with this because if people cannot be attached to each other, and are only brought up to love the government, it will be almost impossible to start a rebellion.  The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the least is that Big Brother is obviously a real person.  I disagree with this statement because there is absolutely no proof to concur that he exists.  If I had the opportunity to say anything else in the seminar, I would have mentioned the fact that Winston must write articles to honor a nonexistent person, which may imply that other people, such a Big Brother, do not exist either.

      Some things that worked really well for the seminar were the increasing use of emotional appeals and good question-asking.  Compared to the last seminar, there were a lot more statements made in which references from the text helped appeal to emotion instead of logic.  I thought this was definitely an improvement, although many logical appeals still dominated the conversation.  The seminar also brought about very thought-provoking questions that were applicable to our society today, such as the issue of privacy, totalitarian governments, and the effect of violence on children.

      Some things that needed improvement in the seminar were the use of ethical appeals and participation.  Because more emotional appeals were used in the second seminar than in the first, I feel confident that more ethical appeals will be used in the third seminar.  However, I cannot say the same for participation because in my opinion, many less people contributed in the second seminar than in the first.  This may have been due to lack of preparation, given that the seminar preparations are extensive.  However, I hope to see more people participate in the third seminar so that more ideas can be shared and analyzed.