Eng. 609 – Week 9 Blog 2

Aristotle’s topoi of “the good” is concerned with legislative bodies and thusly with what is good in regard to the public. Looking at David Seitz’s essay “Keeping Honest” (1998), “the good” came to mind with Seitz’s documentation of teen organizations. Seitz writes that “90% of these organizations judged effective by the teens involved are not organized around ethnic interests. Rather, they are built around youth-based projects, often in team athletics or arts troupes, that develops a “core of personal efficacy achieved as a member of a close and personally collected group” (75). In other words, these teens practice what most of us have been taught, which is to look past the skin and gender to the person underneath. This is the materialization of Aristotle’s “good” for the public concern. Taking this a step further, can we adults do this in everyday discourse? Can we get rid of labels of any sort and see the person as they are? Further, do we need to label someone? It seems labeling is simply an egocentric way of differentiating one from another, but from a larger perspective, we are all connected as brothers and sisters. This concept may not be acceptable in the postmodern academic world, especially since this is a place where intellect is valued over emotion or heart; however, the teens Seitz speaks about on page 75 have mastered the ability to look past differences. Can we adults do the same?