Week 8 Day 1: Master and Slave Relationship

One of the things that really bothered me during our discussion this week was during the discussion of whether Masters had to think only for themselves, or whether they could think in terms of a group.  To say that a Slave alone thinks of the group as a whole, and it's needs and objectives, to me seems to be the opposite of what society should believe.  In today's society, we praise the self obsessed and the self indulgent.  Shows on television like "Keeping up with the Kardashians", "Honey Boo Boo", and "Housewives of (insert famous American town here)" praise the kind of people who really only think about themselves.  And we pay to watch these people!  People who could care less what goes on outside of their little lives with sportscars, big houses, and relationship drama.  It's one of the reasons I move away from television nowadays.  But there are some reasons that I still watch TV, and these mimic the thoughts of the Slave; the thoughts of the group.  One of my favorite TV shows I watch is Doctor Who, a science fiction adventure featuring a man in a time traveling blue police box who goes around saving the universe.  One of the reasons I like this show is that it shows us both the good and the bad side of humans.  One episode in particular really hit on an interesting point.  In the episode, the gang travels to the Kingdom of Great Britain far in the future, when the entire island of Great Britain is moved off the planet Earth and is flying through the stars looking for a new planet to colonize.  But there is a mystery aboard the ship, namely that it doesn't seem possible that it could move.  There are no engines, no wiring, nothing that would be seen aboard a spaceship.  And the government is keeping the secrets as to what makes the ship fly.  As it turns out, the last of a species known as Starwhales, came from the sky to Britain when the planet was going to explode, and the government captured it and built a spaceship around it.  They were essentially torturing the creature in order to make it fly through space for them.  Then the group was faced with an impossible decision.  Do they let the Starwhale go and kill everyone aboard the ship, or do they destroy the Starwhale's brain, making it feel no pain and save the people on it's back.  It's then up to one of the companions, Amy Pond, to realize that the Starwhale would fly for them even if they didn't torture it and that it had wanted to help them fly all along.  The episode both proposes that there is a conflict between thinking for oneself, and thinking of the many.  But it also shows that if everyone thinks for each other the best outcome may be reached.  And I think that that kind of philosophy is exactly what we as a species need to employ in our daily lives.  Do not think for yourself, but rather for everyone including yourself.