Callie E Walker English 1320 Comp II Assignment 2 Due Friday 19OCT2012 A Blue Pencil Affair As clearly as King Leonidas drew a line in the sand at Thermopylae a line is being drawn in the sand of America today A time will come in our not so distant future when every person will have to decide which side of the line they will commit To remain neutral will be to choose industry to go against the grain will be imminently harder This line parts us in a deeply cultural way not only involving politics and economics but calling into question our morals our values and threatening our dearest traditions America is plighted with issues of debt economic recession and a collapsing health care system Now more than ever we are asked to take side and acknowledge the issues lying just below the surface Aesop illustrates Cicero s position in a well known fable about wealth greed and the devastating results There was once a countryman who possessed the most wonderful goose you can imagine for every day when he visited the nest the goose had laid a beautiful glittering golden egg The countryman took the eggs to market and soon became rich It was not long before he grew impatient with the goose because she gave him only a single golden egg each day After he had finished counting his money the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the goose and cutting it open when the deed was done he did not find a single golden egg and his precious goose was dead Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have In this fable Aesop illustrates the idea of Cicero s maxim The enemy is within the gates it is with our own luxury our own folly our own criminality that we have to contend What is right is not always what is easy but putting aside our pride to correct our wrongs has never been more imperative Despite the fact that Cicero lived more than 2000 years ago his teachings still apply to Americans today Cicero addresses this directly in his maxim that we are infamous for our devotion to greed despite the effects on the rest of the society Webster states that an enemy is one seeking to injure overthrow or confound an opponent The first part of Cicero s maxim expresses an enemy within the gates implying someone or something that is recognized to us as trusted or within our confidence is veritably harmful to us Cicero goes on to say it is with our own luxury This condition of plentitude refers to the abundance not only in our financial state but our comfortable state of living which requires little input or as Cicero states our own folly and our own criminality that we have to contend The quote ends with the inference that our actions and our non actions have consequences Lack of judgement and prudence will ultimately end in criminal acts and we will have to answer to those actions in some way After dissecting Michael Pollan s arguments in The Omnivore s Dilemma there are relatively few conclusions that can be drawn in good conscience bearing Cicero s maxim One such conclusion is people are their own enemies any luxuries or mishaps that lead to criminal acts are crimes against themselves alone Predation is deeply woven into the fabric of nature and that fabric would quickly unravel 323 In this interpretation there isn t a concern for animal rights as we are simply playing our predatory role in the food chain Another quote by Cicero says The most evident difference between man and animals is this the beast it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future lives only for the present But man because he is endowed with reason by which he is able to perceive relationships sees the causes of things understands the reciprocal nature of cause and effect makes analogies easily surveys the whole course of his life and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct This quote conveys Cicero s point to us in the maxim about prudence in all matters of life Pollan points out that a human mortality based on individual rights makes for an awkward fit when applied to the natural world 325 The flip side of this is that of the animal rights activist Pollan makes a strong counter when he states tension has always existed between the capitalist imperative to maximize efficiency at any cost and the moral imperatives of culture which serves as a counterweight to the moral blindness of the market 318 Both arguments are valid in light of the maxim The principle both Cicero and Pollan propose is that indulgence and apathy are consuming the moral fiber of our society and driving us to a life of crime Our comfort with extravagance is deteriorating our ability to sort through what is given to us as conventional wisdom and make educated and informed decisions about important issues like food safety and vaccinations Pollan confirms this by stating It s easy to forget that there are still cultures out there that have been eating more or less the same way for generations relying on criteria such as taste and tradition to guide food selection 300 Our Stoicism is allowing Washington to absorb much of the power once held by the individual this is much more dangerous than any foreign enemy will ever be It seems as though our eating tends to grow more tortured as our culture s power to manage our relationship to food weakens 298 Sitting just under 5 of the population of the entire world America is the only first world country with consistent population growth Even so America consumes more natural resources than any other nation Pollan claims this effect on the environment cannot be sustained and our criminal actions against nature and those exploited by our material needs must be curtailed He proves this when he is preparing to forage in the woods and states Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim 281 Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher and rhetorician among other things his works have been preserved due to his status in the Ancient Roman church as a righteous pagan and the inherent truth he exuded He pointedly warns us of the true nature of our enemies and speaks of the things that blind us to our enemies through luxury like materialism wealth and ignorance Our follies are the nonsensical absurdities in our lives that we pay no mind George Santayana echos Cicero in his idea about the follies of mankind saying Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it