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In terms of genetic modification technology, the Dalai Lama is calculative. He recognizes and emphasizes the gravity of how much power humans with this new technology hold, and how it could greatly change life on Earth. There are many benefits to genome alteration, including the ability to move beyond biochemical models of therapy to genetically based models and the ability to treat and predict genetic diseases. In addition to this, there is the possibility of therapeutic cloning, which is the…

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I agree with the Dalai Lama’s claim that “the higher the level of knowledge and power, the greater must be our sense of moral responsibility.” This basically means that with power, we must be careful. To add to the Dalai Lama’s claim, I think that it is human responsibility to know when we are too powerful. By having the ability to change genomes, potentially design babies, and predict illnesses it can lead to further discrimination in the future generations. Even…

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While Yoshino’s idea of the “New Civil Rights” being in the hands of ordinary people is true, the most important step to reach a society where everyone is equal is learning how to talk openly and be “voluntarily vulnerable,” as Hallward puts it.

I think you know you are free when you feel that you can be who you are with nothing standing in your way. Obviously there are more concrete objects to show freedom such as laws protecting our rights and not being in a jail cell. The abstract ways you can be free include being free from your own mind, being free from standards, norms, stereotypes, and microaggressions. While many places in the United States seem free in concrete terms, many…

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Everyone covers to hide a disfavored identity in order to better fit the mainstream culture. The biggest problem is that, despite Americans’ fervent efforts towards multiculturalism, people in society still feel the need to hide who they truly are to be accepted fully. For example, in Kenji Yoshino’s article he presents many famous people, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who covered. Yoshino states that “I doubt any of these people covered willingly. I suspect they were all bowing to an unjust…

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In her TedTalk How Telling Our Silenced Stories Can Change the World, Anne Hallward, MD, claims that it is the very things that we feel most ashamed by and judged for that can be the things that bring us together. From Hallward’s experience being a psychiatrist, she sees that shame is the root of depression, addiction, and suicide. Hallward claims that shame is the reason people feel so unaccepted. Whether it is sexuality, racism, mental illness, or past mistakes, people decide to…

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At some point in almost everyone’s lives they have experienced the feeling of being an outsider, whether it was moving to a new school, making new friends, coming out as part of the LGBTQ+ community, because of race, etc. It can be scary to actually let your “true self” out instead of hiding behind a “fake self,” which Kenji Yoshino calls “covering.” I agree with Yoshino’s claim that Civil Rights can’t really be fully mandated by our government, that it…

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In the introduction to They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed to help writers introduce opposing arguments, they say, and their own arguments, I say, to create a conversational and effective argument. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein argue that the types of writing templates they offer will improve writing and make it more creative, despite some people believing that templates take away from creativity. As the authors themselves put it “creativity and originality lie not…

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Yoshino argues that the idea of Civil Rights creates more division in society than equality. Civil Rights calls for equality for certain groups of people that may be experiencing discrimination, which actually causes people to identify solely with a group of people, creating more division.