System Examples

Nobody at Countrywide made a serious attempt to help the man who had limited knowledge of the English language and Parkinson's disease. Maybe they felt that if they let him off, other people would want this show of mercy from them and try to exploit this "weakness". Countrywide did attempt to help by offering a $350,000 loan, but it was not enough for the man who needed $500,000 to buy back his house. I believe that Countrywide acted legally, but I still disagree with their actions. I believe that no matter how powerful a person (or company) becomes, he/she (or it) must never lose touch with his/her humanity. Countrywide did nothing wrong from a business standpoint, but from a moral and ethical standpoint, they commited a horrible crime. It is understandable that Countrywide feels that giving the man back his house would be bad for business, as it would show a weakness, but I believe that he should be given back his house based on his history of paying all the bills that he was able to understand.

The Stanford Prison Experiment reveals the true nature of most systems. Those who became powerful (the guards) began abusing their power shortly after the beginning of the experiment, and conformed to the prison guard mentality. The prisoners became victimized and powerless, and conformed to the prisoner mentality. Systems give power to one group and in turn take power away from another. Normal people who received power soon began using it against the other group of normal people that had had their power taken away from them. Normal people began behaving badly because of the power shift; systems are all about those in power, and a normal person with a little bit of power over another person is quick to exploit this.

unethical systems

Most systems turn out to be self-serving and unethical because it is human nature to try to one-up each other; greed is what drives people. These systems may start out with good intentions, but competition with other systems causes the original systems to try to adapt to survive. Humans are self-serving and at many times are unethical. There is nothing that can be done to change this; it has been this way since the beginning of time, beginning with Cain and Abel. For example, many politicians get into politics because they want to “change the way things are going”. But often times, their original purpose is lost in the backstabbing and cheapshot world of politics. To get what they want, they have to strike deals with other politicians, compromising their own ethics. Also, take the utopian experiments in America in the 1800’s. Because these communes held fast to their beliefs and did not try to change and conform, they failed. The notion of free enterprise and capitalism caused these systems to collapse because they did not try to adapt; to appeal to the human side of their inhabitants. The concept of self-success became too enticing. Systems in place tend to be self-serving because in today’s world (and the world of the past), it has been the only sure way to guarantee survival of the system.

People confrom to systems because they believe that they can benefit from the conformity. Systems often end up harmful because people are deceived into believing that they are being provided for, when in many cases does not occur. Systems are started by a group that eventually becomes the elite. These elitists form the system in an attempt to survive competition with other elitists who also want to establish their own systems. Systems may also become "evil" as a result of oblivious participants who do not care about the different parts working together to complete the system. The participants cannot, or will not, acknowledge their participation in another part of the system even though they are responsible. The participants may also be selfish and self-serving, which only contributes to the selfishness and self-serving mentality of the system. The intention behind systems is to include everyone, but often times this does not happen; the rich and powerful hold the power while the masses are held in ignorance, believing that they are also being benefitted by this system. People join systems in order to feel "included", and many times they are; but in most cases, they are left with the illusion that they are included, when in fact they are not.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

1. The Parable of the Unmerciful servant is about a "servant" to a king, probably a high-ranking official. He owed the king a huge debt, and was ordered into slavery by the king. But he begged the king for time to pay off the debt, and the king, moved by pity, forgave the debt entirely. Later on, the "servant" called in a small debt of one of his underlings. His underling was unable to pay the debt; the official choked him and had him thrown in jail. The king is the main character because he is at the top of the pyramid. He controls his servants through fear; his servants rule their servants through fear, and so on. The king has been ruling this way so long that it has been imprinted into everyone in the pyramid. One instance of change in his iron-fisted ways will not radiate throughout the pyramid.

2. The king decides to forgive the debt because the sight of the begging "servant" was so pitiful, he felt sorry for him. It was so pitiful that instead of allowing the servant more time to pay the debt as requested, the king forgave the debt completely. Moved by sympathy, the king showed a glimpse of emotion.

3. The servant does not forgive the debt because the process of ruling by fear has been imprinted into him. The king has a small change of heart, but this does not affect the servant, who himself has been ruling by fear. Because the servant has been ruling this way for so long, the king's forgiveness does not rub off on him. He feels that he still has to keep his servants in line, even though it would make him a hypcrite.

4. We can relate this parable to the Kingdom of God by seeing how this parable condemns hypocrites. The king showed mercy to the servant for a large debt, but the servant does not show mercy to his own servant for a small debt. The king punishes the high-level servant for not showing mercy and making him look bad. The Kingdom of God endorses humanity, none of which was shown by the servant.

U.S. Involvement

1. Didn't the United Nations create the state of Israel? Why didn't it create a State of Palestine too? Why doesnt't it now?
The United Nations, given the region of Palestine by the British after WWII, partitioned 55% of the land to create a Jewish nation. The other 45% was set aside to later become a free Palestinian state. The Palestinian state never came into existence, partly because of the Palestinians' inability to form the state, and partly because of the six-day war. As a result of the outcome of the six-day war, Israel was recognized as an independent nation, getting all the attention in the UN, and the Palestinians (many had fled during the war and had become refugees) were effectively forgotten.

2. Why is Israel so often criticized in the UN? Aren't other countries just as guilty of human rights violations?
Israel is criticized in the UN for its alleged abuse of the human rights of the Palestinians. While other countries violate the rights of their own people, Israel violates the rights of a people protected by the Geneva convention as refugees. Many in the UN say that Israel violates international law with its treatment of the Palestinians, many of whom are under military occupation.

3. What is the role of the UN in the Middle East these days? Why isn't the UN in charge of the overall peace process?
The UN does not play much of a role in the Middle East today. The United States, undoubtably the most powerful nation in the UN, had constantly kept the UN out of the loop when it comes to Israel. Heeding the demands of the Israelis, the United States has ruled UN intervention obsolete and has kept it from doing anything in the Middle East. The U.S. is one of the five permanent members of the security council and has veto power, which it constantly uses in issues involving the condemnation of Israel. The UN is not in charge of the peace process because the United States has kept it out of issues concerning Israel.

NPR

Part 3 talks about the beginning of Israel. Britain gave control of Palestine over to the U.N. after repeated terrorist attacks by Jewish fundamentalists. The U.N. partitioned 55% of all of the land in Palestine to the Jews, who were fresh off the holocaust; many had nowhere else to go. Hostilities ensued; all of the surrounding Arab nations mobilized on the Israeli border. The Israelis sturck first and defeated them, taking more of Palestine. Many Palestinians fled their homes to avoid being caught up in the war.

Part 4 talks about the six-day war. The Soviet Union had misinformed the Syrian government that Israel was planning to invade Syria in 1967. Syria cut off all trade to Israel, and mobilized tanks on the border. The rest of the Arab nations went to the support of Syria, also mobilizing their militaries. After exhausting all diplomatic solutions, Israel decided to go on the offensive in order to defend itself. The Israeli military caught the Arabs off guard and ended up with numerous territories, most occupied by displaced Palestinians.

Part 5 covers the Yom Kippur War and Israel's peace agreement with Egypt. In 1973, Egypt and Syria, both defeated by Israel in the six day war, attacked Israel in an attempt to regain lands lost in the war. Egypt and Syria did not regain those territories, but they put Israel on the defensive. In 1979 Egypt and Israel reached a peace agreement; Egypt regained Sinai in return for formally recognizing Israel. The Palestinians were left out of the loop.

Part 6 covers the first Intifada and the Oslo peace agreement. In 1987, the Palestinians who had been living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, angered at the Israeli occupation, rioted. As the Infitada continued, more and more Israelis became willing to negotiate with the Palestinians. They finally reached it in the Oslo peace agreement in 1993, which was to help provide self-government to the Palestinians.

Part 7 talks about the death of the Oslo agreement. The Israeli Prime Minister responsible for the Oslo agreement was assasinated by a Jewish fundamentalist. Hamas began to carry out suicide bombings. A try at another peace agreement was not successful, and another Intifada broke out.

Parable of the Tenants

I think that the parable of the tenants is a sort of subliminal message to the crowd. Jesus uses the parable to indirectly express his feelings; if he had done so directly, he would have been arrested and probably killed. The parable illustrates Jesus's dissatisfaction with violence and lack of humanity. In the parable, the landowner did not show any humanity. He took land from the farmers and planted an unnecessary crop in grapes; the tenants could not survive by planting them, as the grapes would take four years to mature. The tenants also displayed a lack of humanity in their usage of violence, beating and killing some of the boss's collectors. Jesus used this parable as a means of "saying something without saying it". This put on display the maliciousness and wickedness of the Jewish priests; they were looking for any reason they could to put Jesus away. It showed the willingness of the upper class to stifle the lower class. The parable of the tenants has a lesson in it, and also teaches us a lesson based on the situation going on outside of the parable. Jesus preached nonviolence and humanity in the parable and discreetly showed the intentions of the powerful upper class.