MOVIE- KNOWLEDGE AT WORK
‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ is a 2006 American biographical drama film, directed by Gabriele Muccino and based on the true story of Chris Gardner. In ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’, Chris Gardner is a smart man who invests in a devise that is now finding trouble to find its place due to emergence of other technologies. Despite his valiant attempts to help keep the family afloat, the mother of his five-year-old son Christopher buckles under the financial pressure and leaves. Chris, now a single father, continues doggedly to pursue a better-paying job using every sales skill he knows. He lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm with no salary but only with hopes of a promising future. Due to the lack of money, Chris and his son are soon evicted from their apartment and forced to sleep in shelters, bus stations, bathrooms, or wherever they can find refuge for the night. Despite his troubles, Chris continues to be a loving and caring father, using the affection and trust his son has for him as a pushing force. Various knowledge issues can be seen in the film.
The knowledge issue dealt with here is the war between emotion and reason. Various emotions are involved when you are dealing with life. Chris goes through fear due to his financial troubles, jealousy of people with wonderful lives, sadness, love and then finally happiness. The movie in many forms is didactic. It teaches that that all hard work shall seek its rewards but in a theory of knowledge context, of how in the battle of reason and emotion, for happiness, reason should be a driving force. The root cause of all his troubles, the device known as the bone density scanner, was a judgement based on emotion. It was what everyone told him was the ‘in’ thing. Letting his emotions get the best of him, Chris did not reason out the evolution of life. Everything changes with time. Emotion led him to financial distress, reason leads him to happiness.
The way to reach knowledge is also one of the knowledge issues of the film. Experiences play a major role in informing Chris. Initially when emotion over rules him, all the knowledge Chris has is second hand through hearing what other people say. However as reason takes over him, he observes and talks to a stockbroker on the street and thus receives firsthand knowledge. First hand experiences of Chris develop him to be what he is even in his personal life.
‘I met my father for the first time when I was 28 years old. I made up my mind that when I had children, my children were going to know who their father was’.
His experiences with his father taught him to be there for his son. His son too became his source of determination through which Chris gained the strength to continue with the difficult task of living and surviving. The relationship that they share is built on understanding. Chris’ own experiences allow him to pass invaluable knowledge on to his son.
‘Christopher Gardner: Hey... Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?
Christopher: All right.
Christopher Gardner: You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period.’
Thus one can conclude that the major knowledge at work issue is the struggle to succeed economically and personally. Reason and emotion is a contrast on which the success depends on. However in the movie we can see that money being is shown as the only way to achieve happiness. This is a bias. We see Chris with his son all the time smiling and laughing. Although he is with his son he is saying he is not happy is not ethical as family and love is what leads to happiness. The movie does take for granted the importance of money, cars and a lifestyle for happiness. It does not explore simple living as a happy living. This granted fact leads to the movie have a very fairy tale appearance which at the end of the day is not reality. In the sense, an unhappy man due to his hard work, succeeds and becomes very happy. This is not the truth. Even though there is a clear bias of only money leading to happiness, in the movie we so see the importance of both being shown
The struggle to achieve success economically and personally is the desire of any human alive. However the role of reason and emotion is very important. The movie serves to remind people to think with reason rather than emotions. Something that is very much needed to be understood in our society.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
ARTICLE
KNOWLEDGE AT WORK
This article is a propaganda article that supports the Hindus. With the use of emotionally laden and manipulating language, the writer tries to push people into supporting an extremist Hindu political party RSS. The knowledge issue of the article is to be didactic of how being unswerving and strong is better. The reason for this didactic issue is to push into the minds of common people of how the other parties are bad because they do not stand firm unlike the RSS.
The article claims that that Dr. Syama Prasaad Mookerjee, who stood steadfast in joining a united Hindu movement and who managed to convert 90% of descendant Indian Muslims into Hindus, was an ideological firm icon. He never wavered from his decisions and wanted action rather than the appeasement that Mahatma Gandhi followed to mollify the Muslims. Blaming Jinnah as the root of many troubles, the article brings into light how Jinnah was following a direct action policy against the Hindus and hence the many massacres of, rapes of and attacks on them. They claim that Jinnah was not even a proper Muslim. He was very Anglican and did not even know how to speak Urdu. This was the man that was leading the Muslims to ‘their’ home. He was never steadfast in what he wanted, neither is BJP or Congress. They are never firm which shows their inefficiency.
The article claims may be justified to a level however after a while one understands that RSS approach is comparable to common zealots. One can understand their cause however the question to be asked is whether a hatred of the Muslims is valid after nearly 60 years of the partition. A new generation has come to India that looks beyond religious boundaries thus how valid is this article. The article is very biased against the Muslims and is obviously pro-Hindus even if it comes down to using violence. The person writing the article has taken for granted that all Muslims are in ways bad and only Hindus can live in India, the sacred holy land. This is not true. The bias shows in everything the writer is writing and thus many of the reasons have not been given any solid justification. The question to why are they patronizing a man Dr. Mookerjee who was in many ways leading a crusade and doing the same thing that they despised the Muslims for, was answered by the reason that he stood firm. That is no reason but a frail attempt to mould the minds of people. With the use of emotionally laden language, a fallacy of reasoning, common people are told about the valour of Dr. Mookerjee and the evils of Muslims in order to propagandise to people the betterment of following a particular party.
These bias run to deep to be eliminated yet one can find some reason in their argument. If Muslims have taken to deep measures to kill Hindus; why should the Hindus not retaliate? Thus in case the knowledge issue is true, one needs to see History and compare the brutality of both the sides during the partition and then perhaps decide. For me however the knowledge issue can in places be reasoned but can never be true. It is true overly fanatic for that.
This article is a propaganda article that supports the Hindus. With the use of emotionally laden and manipulating language, the writer tries to push people into supporting an extremist Hindu political party RSS. The knowledge issue of the article is to be didactic of how being unswerving and strong is better. The reason for this didactic issue is to push into the minds of common people of how the other parties are bad because they do not stand firm unlike the RSS.
The article claims that that Dr. Syama Prasaad Mookerjee, who stood steadfast in joining a united Hindu movement and who managed to convert 90% of descendant Indian Muslims into Hindus, was an ideological firm icon. He never wavered from his decisions and wanted action rather than the appeasement that Mahatma Gandhi followed to mollify the Muslims. Blaming Jinnah as the root of many troubles, the article brings into light how Jinnah was following a direct action policy against the Hindus and hence the many massacres of, rapes of and attacks on them. They claim that Jinnah was not even a proper Muslim. He was very Anglican and did not even know how to speak Urdu. This was the man that was leading the Muslims to ‘their’ home. He was never steadfast in what he wanted, neither is BJP or Congress. They are never firm which shows their inefficiency.
The article claims may be justified to a level however after a while one understands that RSS approach is comparable to common zealots. One can understand their cause however the question to be asked is whether a hatred of the Muslims is valid after nearly 60 years of the partition. A new generation has come to India that looks beyond religious boundaries thus how valid is this article. The article is very biased against the Muslims and is obviously pro-Hindus even if it comes down to using violence. The person writing the article has taken for granted that all Muslims are in ways bad and only Hindus can live in India, the sacred holy land. This is not true. The bias shows in everything the writer is writing and thus many of the reasons have not been given any solid justification. The question to why are they patronizing a man Dr. Mookerjee who was in many ways leading a crusade and doing the same thing that they despised the Muslims for, was answered by the reason that he stood firm. That is no reason but a frail attempt to mould the minds of people. With the use of emotionally laden language, a fallacy of reasoning, common people are told about the valour of Dr. Mookerjee and the evils of Muslims in order to propagandise to people the betterment of following a particular party.
These bias run to deep to be eliminated yet one can find some reason in their argument. If Muslims have taken to deep measures to kill Hindus; why should the Hindus not retaliate? Thus in case the knowledge issue is true, one needs to see History and compare the brutality of both the sides during the partition and then perhaps decide. For me however the knowledge issue can in places be reasoned but can never be true. It is true overly fanatic for that.
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