Week One

http://www.helium.com/items/335552-conforming-to-society-the-cookie-cutter-theory

Posted: May 15, 2007   Viewed: October 17, 2011

Article Summary:

This article is basically about how society is slowing trying to make us conform and that, unfortunately, the cookie cutter theory is still alive and thriving in today’s society. If you take a cookie cutter and punch it into the dough, then again, and again, all the cookies end up being the exact same. So the cookie cutter theory refers to the idea that everyone and everything are becoming identical due to society. Piper uses many examples throughout the article to prove her point, such as newer housing development and how all of the houses look alike. She then goes on to tell us how it is society’s belief that, if pushed hard enough, what's considered to be the weak link will either conform or die, and the desired society of perfection can continue. In the end, Piper recommends that we “choose to live be our own rules and be successful.”

Vocabulary

Word 1: unattainable
a) However, in the society we live, it is a highly unattainable dream for those who wish for it.
b) Unattainable: impossible to achieve (http://www.ldoceonline.com/) It's an unattainable dream of Mr.Plonka's to have every, single student post two blogs a week for the year, even during winter break.

Word 2: emerge

a) We are supposed to allow them to run the house as soon as they emerge from the womb.

b) Emerge: 1. come forth into view or notice, as from concealment or obscurity 2. to rise or come forth from or as if from water or other liquid 3. to come up or arise, as a question or difficulty 4.to come into existence; develop 5. to rise, as from an inferior or unfortunate state or condition (http://dictionary.reference.com/)

c) The monkey emerged from the forest with the sole purpose of showing off its big, red buttocks.

Word 3: brainwash

a) After spending at least 20 years on brainwashing and education, you are considered to be knowledgeable enough to leave the nest.

b) Brainwash: intensive, forcible indoctrination, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/)

c) Woodstock doesn’t have to brainwash its students; they’re perfect already.

Response:

The article relates strongly to the idea of the combine that is present in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In the article, it talks about society and how it is trying to conform all of us into being the same people, like cookie cutters do to the dough. This is the main idea in the novel, the “combine”, and how everyone is being made to fit perfectly into this perfect society. If one doesn’t fit they are sent to a “factory for the combine” and fixed. Both the article and the novel even use the same example, saying that, when you look at the new housing development, all the houses look exactly the same or very similar. The book and the article also both end by saying or suggesting that you should stop living by what everyone else is doing and choose to live by your own rules. Chief Broom shows this by leaving the ward in the end and running away.