Augustus Johnson

Week 7 / October 4 2015

English 1A – Section 73017

Professor Karen Ogden

Part 1: Summary

     Mary Piper, first puts to bed that activist are subversive and out to undermine society by pointing out that Jesus was an activist. She states that healthy people, passive people become despondent and society stagnates. She describes what childhood events led to her passion led to her life as an activist. She mentions her unintentional killing of a garter snake, the teasing experienced by her and others in school, racism and the double standard of sex for her reason to battle for those who can’t fend for themselves. She describes being voiceless through high school, but once she enrolled in college she became active in student protests and civil rights marches. She settled down to marriage and raising children, but became active again once the children became more independent. She participated in politics and Human Rights commissions. She found her calling when she noticed through her work as a therapist that Women’s eating disorders appeared to be link to mixed messages posed by society. She wrote Hunger Pains to address the issues. She concludes by asserting the moral courage can be the result of character or thrust upon you accidentally.

Part 2: Outline

Thesis; Writer’s are activists who write with clarity and passion for the good

1. America has mixed emotions about it’s rebels
   1. We shy away from radicals and reformers
   2. We embrace non-controversial rebels who don’t challenge the status-quo
2. Jesus represents our ambivalence toward rebels
   1. We revere him for his compassionate spirit
   2. If he were alive today we would regard him as crazy or subversive
3. Society today considers well-adjusted if they are passive, compliant and inactive, but in reality “Healthy people act.” (54)
   1. Only crazy people work for social or political change
   2. Passivity leads to despair and stagnation
   3. Only activity can improve society
4. True rebels are not bitter, narcissistic, angry and immature people, they are well-adjusted, mature and just people who fight for what they believe in.
   1. True rebels or change agents are optimists who search for answers despite the enormity of the situation
   2. They are not saints but leaders who want to help
5. Passion makes people act
   1. Passion may evolve from events that occurred in our childhood
      1. Events can be tragic
      2. Events can be inspiring or happy
      3. The event could be a special relationship
   2. Mary Piper’s activism began with her love of animals
      1. Realized that killing animals was necessary
      2. Realized that waste of life was unconscionable
         1. Unintentionally drowned a baby garter snake on the mistaken belief that all snakes can swim
         2. Realized she had taken the snakes one and only life
         3. Realized that you can’t own another being’s life
            1. Not her snake
      3. Developed a sense humanity
         1. Realized saving one coyote pup’s life over the pub’s siblings made net feel like god and didn’t like it
      4. In elementary school developed compassion for those who could not fend for themselves
         1. She hated when she and other children were picked on in school because they were different
      5. In high school developed a sense of racial and religious acceptance and appreciation. (Tolerance is not the right as it implies you have to, she accepted people of different cultures because it was natural)
         1. Couldn’t understand why people disliked a group of people
            1. Saddened by anti-Semite remarks
            2. Felt father was wrong for not wanting her to dance with a black guy at her dance party
            3. Dislike the double standard about sex
      6. Mary felt passionate about protecting animals but remain basically inactive because she thought she had no voice
   3. Going to the University of Kansas moved her soul to act
      1. School exposed to life in the real world
         1. Attended hootenannies, foreign films, poetry readings and civil rights marches
         2. Learned about different cultures working at a dunking donuts shop in San Francisco in the Sixties!!!
      2. Transferred to Berkeley
         1. March for free speech, civil rights, peace and Women’s rights
      3. The semester she graduated the brutality of life became real
         1. Witness the killing of a man by the National Guard
         2. Tear gassed by the National Guard
         3. Realized how powerful the government was
         4. By graduation tired of the drama
         5. Saw a divided country
   4. Settled down in Nebraska
      1. Began Ph.D program in Psychology
      2. Got married and had kids
      3. Social activism all but disappeared
      4. Discovered the commonality of adults raising kids crossed political, religious and cultural boundaries
   5. As kids became more independent she became involved in local politics and served on the Human Rights commission but her activity didn’t complete
   6. Discovered writing was the answer to her need to do what only she could do
      1. She didn’t get off to a great start
      2. Encountered opposition
      3. Saw the world divided, again, between “brilliant, interesting people with great gifts and common people like me with great aspirations but no gifts” (61)
      4. At 43 signed up for a writing course whose teacher was a character but had great tips and was very encouraging
      5. Learned that external validation of our writing builds confidence
   7. Mary discovers a cause worth writing for
      1. In her practice she discovered many of her female patients had eating disorders
      2. Realized that these disorders were culturally induced
      3. Realized that media pushed contradictory messages to women
      4. Wrote Hunger Pains to address these issues
      5. Realized that her love of books and work as a therapist had combined to help make the world a better place
6. Writing a history of yourself will help you recall the significant events of your life
   1. “Wonderful or terrible events can inspire activism” (63)
7. “Growing our souls” (63) is the defined by “empathy, clarity and the passion for the good.” (63)
   1. It’s the growth in knowledge of self
   2. It’s the ability to make “distinctions” and “connections” (63)
   3. It’s the ability to “love and appreciate all living creatures.” (63)
8. There are two distant types of moral courage and there is no correlation between the two
   1. People are heroic “due to their character” (63)
   2. “People have greatness thrust upon them by accident” (63)
9. Moral awakening can be triggered by an event
   1. Samantha Powers, author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, wanted to become a sportscaster but the news of Tiananmen Square awoke her social consciousness and she became an “expert and advocate for Human Rights and the prevention of mass violence” (64)
   2.  

Part 3: Key Terminology definitions

Ambivalent- mixed emotions

Empathy- the ability to feel and share the feelings of another

“If your  message is life is sh-t spare the reader”- Complaints don’t inspire, action does

Tiananmen Square- The 1989 student demonstration over the death of liberal Chinese reformer Hu Yaobang which led to casualties of student protester by the Chinese military

The Weathermen- A underground militaristic faction on the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society which carried out terrorist acts during th sixties

Part 4: Discussion questions

How do you force yourself to write about painful events in the past?

Part 5: Analysis

.    Mary Piper’s essay is about activism and the need to help society. She describes the events that led to her become an activists and how those events led to her becoming a writer. I found her story very inspiring. I lived through many of the incidents she described, so I can relate. One thing she needed to emphasize is that looking at your past can be painful. I’ve got to read Mr. USA

Part 6: External references

None

Works cited

Pipher, Mary, “Growing Our Souls”, Writing to Change the World (2006)

Riverside Books