Blog 2: Philosophy (Society's Effect on development)

Today society is putting great emphasis on how we should act and behave. We see alot of commercials on how we should eat better do certain things to look good for the society. Most of perceive success as making large amounts of money, working for a large corporation, being famous and looking a certain way. Although these are not bad goals to have, success can also be measured on smaller levels. For example, someone who has graduated from school, raising a family, or being an active volunteer for a certain cause. Society overlooks this as being successful because these are more humble goals and do not have much monetary value to them. Its as if success is determined by how money hungry you are and what you are willing to do to get it. In the movie, "Thank You for Smoking", Nick Naylor is seen as a successful man with a dream job where he travels around the country, makes a large amount of money and gets to sleep with anyone he decides to. Most people would enjoy having Nick's job even though he is the spokesperson of an industry that is seen as taking lives of a good fraction of the population. If what Nick was the "good" then, according to Plato he would have shared it with others instead of being selfish and only thinking of himself. According to Locke, Nick was free to this however, he was not to interfere with others will by manipulation or otherwise which is what he was paid to do. Nick knew the ways of his society and he made his will in accordance to their wishes and so he knows what he is doing is not right, he continues to make a living truth spinning and manipulating weak minds to in his words "pay the mortgage". It is truly a shame that money is so important in our society that we can not even do what we enjoy and for some people, not even what they need without it. If money was less of an issue I feel that there would be less corruption, more trust amongst people, and everyone would go after what they truly desire to pursue their good and make society a better place.