Fallacy Essay

Fallacies are a part of human life. It is natural to have committed at least one fallacy in one’s lifetime, and to have witnessed countless others’ fallacies. In my opinion, fallacies are “bad;” they distract and confuse the true meaning and/or argument, and do not answer the questions they are asked.
One of the worst things about fallacies is that they can be very convincing. Sometimes they are convincing because you can’t argue with them, such as the Ad Ignorantiam fallacy. The Ad Ignorantiam fallacy claims something is true because it cannot be proved false. An example of this is: Ghosts are real, because you can’t prove that they’re not. This fallacy is impossible to argue; the opponent cannot make an argument to disprove the fallacy. However, this fallacy’s argument does not make any applicable point. It doesn’t show any valid evidence for the argument, in this case, that ghosts do exist. This argument may convince some people, usually those who do not care enough to come up with a quick response which cuts through this fallacy. Also, this fallacy often convinces people because of their trust. Adults will sometimes use this fallacy in an attempt to explain an issue to a child who does not understand an issue. Because the adult is the one speaking, the child show trust and assume knowledge by authority. Another convincing fallacy is the Equivocation fallacy. In this fallacy, one uses language ambiguously, using two different meanings for one word. This fallacy can be particularly convincing, and confusing. An example of this is: A hamburger is better than nothing, nothing is better than good health, therefore a hamburger is better than good health. The word here that has two different meaning is “nothing.” In the first part of the syllogism, the speaker is saying that eating a cheesburger is better than nothing to eat. In the second statement of the syllogism, the speaker is making an exagerration that nothing feels better than being in good health. To make the syllogism complete, on must put the two premises together to make a conclusion. However, because the word has two different meanings in the premises, the conclusion is nether valid or true. This is one reason why the Equivocation fallacy is so powerfully convincing: the syllogism should be an indicator that it is not a fallacy. However, it is not. Also, if confronted with using the Equivocation fallacy, one can claim that s/he was just using a synonm, which can further confuse the audience. In confusing the audience, the speaker than has the opportunity to explain further in his/her own terms that speak closer to what their conception of the equivocated word is, rather than a more innocent meaning.. One other convincing fallacy is the False Dilemma. In this fallacy, one assumes that only two alternatives exist, when in fact, there is a wider range of options. An example of this is: You are either a Republican or a Democrat. One reason why this argument is so convincing is its simplicity. In the case of this example, many Americans simply pick the party with whom they share most of the ideals. It is the simplest thing to do. Far fewer Americans choose to be part of the lesser know parties, such as the Green Party, or the Libertarian Party. Perhaps another reason why the False Dilemma is such a convincing argument it is so inclusive. In my example, the Democratic and Republican parties are the most popular and therefore the most likely to have groups of people with generally the same ideas and opinions. This is why they are part of the fallacy. Each party is so inclusive to a common type of person, that the need to differentiate between more than two main parties is lacking. In relation, sometimes people do not feel as if they have the time to enquire into more specific, less general parties, and so decide to belong one of the two major parties, because they do not know that there are other political parties to choose from, or they just feel that they belong with a general set of people. Either way, it is a False Dilemma, to assume that there are only two real political parties. The False Dilemma is very prominent in the information from the Enron mystery. In the Enron mystery, the fallacy of the False Dilemma is shown. The False Dilemma here is simple, “You are with us or you are against us.” Enron used this general fallacy to cover a few other fallacies, such as the binary thinking, and Post Hoc Ergo Prosper Hoc. Midway through the movie, the trips that Skilling went on with other employees of Enron, are talked about in such a way that presents binary thinking. Skilling liked to take a few of the high-ranking employees out on motor-biking trips, where they would ride their motorbikes around on the tracks, performing very dangerous stunts, stunts which could have possibly killed them if there was an accident. These kind of trips were common for Skilling, and if he invited you you basically had to go. If you didn’t go, you weren’t “cool,” (binary thinking) and if you didn’t want to go, not only were you not cool, you could be seen as “against the company” because you didn’t enjoy the company’s relaxation trips.You were also “against the company” if you did not put a lot of your money into the company’s stock. Employees of Enron evaluated each other, and saw this as a weak point to exploit in the peer reviews. They only saw the way an employee used his/her salary, in terms of for the company or against it, aka, the False Dilemma. The fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Prosper Hoc is also present in the Enron company. Both the Gladwell reading and the movie discuss the PRC or the Performance Review Committee. This was a group of people who reviewed their fellow employees and could collectively decide whether or not to fire the person they were reviewing. The Post Hoc Ergo Prosper Hoc fallacy they used stated that “if you were fired from the job, you must not have been doing a good job,” when in fact they were firing people so that they themselves could be promoted. Another way the Post Hoc Ergo Prosper Hoc fallacy was used, was in explaining the money Enron was supposedly making. They said “we must be doing well if our company is making money.” The only problem with this was that Enron wasn’t making the money they said they were. It was a projection of the money they thought they should have been making, with mark-to-market techniques (where they project the money the plan to make over the course of several years). To emphasize their projections, Enron also used the circular reasoning fallacy (assuming the truth of something the are trying to prove) , where they said “we must be doing well and making money because our stocks are going up.” Another popular fallacy Enron used was the Ad hominem fallacy, where they supported Jeff Skilling and his opinions rather than the facts. If anyone had a question, they were told to “go ask Jeff,” as presented to the audience in the Enron movie.Whatever Jeff said was the right thing, whether or not it was true. Even this sort-of positive fallacy cannot be justified.
In my opinion, fallacies cannot be justified. A the definition of a fallacy, from Dictionary.com is: 1.a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc. Therefore, it cannot be justified in my mind. For me, personally, it is always better to know the truth, then to be mislead. In the case of Enron, the Ad hominem fallacy, “Go ask Jeff,” created more problems than it solved. Jeff, himself, even says that he can’t answer a question specific to Enron’s finances because he is not an accountant. Therefore, the fallacy that Jeff knows everything and controls everything about Enron, makes it nearly impossible to learn about anything going on at Enron. Other fallacies cannot be justified either. Circular reasoning cannot be justified, because in this fallacy, one never makes a valid point in their argument. If a valid point cannot be made and used, then it has no purpose. The fallacy of the False Dilemma cannot be justified because the perspective has narrowed, and not all options have been considered. Without all the options, a proper choice cannot be made. The Ad ignoratiam fallacy, that something is true because it cannot be proved false is similar to the circular reasoning fallacy, where the point cannot be proved because there is no valid argument.
Everyone experiences fallacies in their own lives. One of the most recent examples of a fallacy that occurred in my own life was during the 2008 elections. One of John McCain’s aides, not-so-subtly used the Ad hominem fallacy, by putting emphasis on Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein. McCain promptly fired him because he wanted to attack Obama’s ideals and platforms rather than the man himself, which is the way it should be in politics. A more personal experience with a fallacy was with a discussion with one of my friends on the possibilities of aliens. I said that I wasn’t really sure if I believed in aliens, although I did see the potential for them on planets or in other solar system similar to our own, but did not see the prospect of humans discovering them within the next decade. My friend, a firm believer in extraterrestrials quickly exclaimed that I couldn’t claim that there were no such things as aliens because I could not prove that they did not exist. This is the Ad ignoratiam fallacy. I quickly pointed out to my friend that I had never said that aliens did not exist, I was merely skeptical that we would find any in the next few years. Our discussion moved on after that point. In conclusion, fallacies, which are present in everyone’s lives cannot be justified, at least in my opinion, nor than they can the be “good.” Those wishing to counter my claims may say that some fallacies may protect someone from being hurt. However, I would prefer to know the truth rather than be deceived, or confused on a topic which may be interesting to discuss at length, without the use of fallacies.

Enron #3

1. What does Gladwell mean when he says that, 'Puzzles are "transmitter-dependent"; they turn on what we are told. Mysteries are "receiver dependent"; they turn on the skills of the listener.'?

When Gladwell says, “Puzzles are ‘transmitter-dependant,’” he means that the information that is received is based solely on what you are told. The pieces of the puzzle do not have to be interpreted to be understood. “Mysteries are ‘receiver-dependent,” because the information given must be interpreted, what is understood depends on what the receiver hears.

 

2. Why didn't Enron have to pay taxes on their S.P.E.'s? What would be Enron's defense? Can you name the Illogical Fallacy present?

Enron didn’t have to pay taxes on their S.P.E.s because it was just an “accounting fiction,” because the IRS doesn’t  pay attention to mark-to-market accounting; they only tax you when you make money: “you pay tax on income when you actually receive that income.” Enron’s defense would be that they weren’t making the money, they were projecting that they would make money, and the IRS taxes actual income, not projected income. The Illogical fallacy present is circular reasoning: Enron’s claim that they are making money but cannot be taxed on it, but the IRS taxes income, but couldn’t tax Enron’s S.P.E.s because they weren’t actually making money, they were projecting the money they would make.

 

3. Did Enron try to hide the fact that they weren't paying taxes?

Enron did not try to hide the fact that they were not paying taxes. However, if anyone requested information on Enron’s S.P.E.s, the “paperwork for each one probably ran in excess of a thousand pages,” so it was hardly easy for anyone to discover that Enron was not paying taxes.

 

4. Why does Gladwell claim that, 'Woodward and Bernstein would never have broken the Enron story.' Why don't you think anyone asked about Enron's financial statements? Is there a fallacy at work here?

Gladwell claims that ‘Woodward and Bernstein would have never broken the Enron story’ because they did not have a source, a leak, as they did with Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal. I don’t think anyone asked about Enron’s finances because of the huge amounts of paperwork, and also that Enron’s stock was doing so well, and the company seemed to be thriving, so no one questioned it. The ad hominem fallacy is at play here, where Gladwell assumes that Woodward and Bernstein wouldn’t have broken the Enron story, because they wouldn’t have had a source. He does not look at their investigative abilities without the help of sources, but he attacks them, for having a source.

 

5. Gladwell claims that, 'Mysteries require that we revisit our list of culprits and be willing to spread the blame a little more broadly. Because if you can't find the truth in a mystery—even a mystery shrouded in propaganda—it's not just the fault of the propagandist. It's your fault as well.' Do you agree with the implications of this statement?

I agree that if you cannot find even a bit of truth in propaganda, it is your fault as well as the propagandist. Because propaganda is based in truth, and propaganda, is 2/3 Platonic truth: it is independent of one’s belief system, and it it is public, but it is not always justified.

 

6. What was the advice of the Cornell students to anyone who held Enron stock?

The advice of the Cornell students to anyone who held Enron stock was to sell. ‘The students' recommendation was on the first page, in boldfaced type: "Sell."’

EE Topic Research

Source Citation: "Hitler Organizes an Exhibition Denouncing Modern Art, July 19, 1937-November 30, 1937."DISCovering World History. Online Edition. Gale, 2003. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/History/ 

Document Number: CD2105240099

A display of modern art confiscated by the Nazis from German museums and labeled "degenerate" foreshadowed the later purging of artists by Adolf Hitler's regime

rincipal personages

Adolf Hitler (1889- 1945), the Nazi dictator who opposed modern art, from which he believed Germany needed to be cleansed

Joseph Goebbels (1897- 1945), the Nazi minister of propaganda who was responsible for overseeing German cultural life

Adolf Ziegler (1892-1959), the president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts and the organizer of the Degenerate Art Exhibition and the Great German Art Exhibition

Otto Dix (1891-1969), an artist and World War I veteran whose work was attacked by the Nazis

George Grosz (1893-1959), an artist who satirized German economic and political life during the Weimar Republic

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), an expressionist painter derided by the Nazis

Emil Nolde (Emil Hansen, 1867-1956), an expressionist painter whose Nazi Party membership did not protect his work from confiscation

ummary of event

The Degenerate Art Exhibition was opened in Munich on July 19, 1937, by Adolf Ziegler, the president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts, one day after Adolf Hitler had dedicated the city's House of German Art and the first of eight official "Great German Art Exhibitions." Speaking in the city where the Nazi movement was born and shortly before the height of his prewar success, Hitler described the House of German Art as a temple for an eternal German art that would not welcome modern art. Ziegler's speech, which summarized thoughts previously articulated by Hitler and his minions, condemned modern art as "the monstrous offspring of insanity, impudence, ineptitude, and sheer degeneracy." These complementary speeches and exhibits clarified the role of art in the Third Reich, establishing the parameters for what would be officially promoted as well as making clear what would be condemned, removed from public view, and then concealed or destroyed.

Visitors to the Degenerate Art Exhibition saw displayed in a calculatedly defamatory manner more than 650 modern paintings, prints, books, and sculptures that had been hastily removed from thirty-two public museums in Germany by Ziegler, with the authorization of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Some paintings were stripped of their frames, and the labels that provided information about each work, including its original purchase price, were often erroneous and simply tacked or pasted in place. Scattered haphazardly throughout the exhibit were phrases and slogans denigrating modern art, quotations by avant-garde artists taken out of context and selected so as to seem threatening or ridiculous, and passages about the nature of art and its place in Nazi Germany by Hitler and other party functionaries. The exhibition appeared crowded, jumbled, and claustrophobic--an effect the organizers wished to impress upon the viewer, for the event reflected a concept of modern art as both degenerate and the product of artistic incompetence. In the opinion of Hitler, the modern art that had flourished in Germany before World War I and then during the 1920's was a symptom not only of political and cultural decline but also of racial, physical, and mental pathology.

Art confiscated for the Degenerate Art Exhibition was arranged in nine loosely thematic groups. Visitors saw first Ludwig Gies'sCrucified Christ, a war memorial that had once hung in Lubeck Cathedral and that the Nazis branded a horror, and then Emil Nolde's multipaneled altarpiece The Life of Christ, both of which purportedly mocked Christianity. Next came paintings by Jewish artists such as Marc Chagall and Ludwig Meidner. The third room housed more than seventy pieces, among them nudes by Karl Hofer, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Otto Mueller headed "An Insult to German Womanhood," images of World War I labeled "Deliberate Sabotage of National Defense," and portrayals of peasants by Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff that were identified as "German Farmers--A Yiddish View." Singled out for ridicule was Dadaist art; on the so-called Dada wall, works by Kurt Schwitters and Paul Klee appeared beneath a quotation from George Grosz and against a backdrop copied from an abstract but hardly Dada painting by Wassily Kandinsky. Similar displays filled the remaining rooms. Prominent were townscapes by Lyonel Feininger, compositions by professors and teachers of art who allegedly were corrupting German youth, etchings by Otto Dix, and miscellaneous works by Klee, Schmidt-Rottluff Grosz, and Max Beckmann, among others. In the lobby stood Otto Freundlich's "The New Man," which was reproduced on the cover of the exhibition guide.

The names of the 112 artists exhibited testify to the dynamism of modern German art during the first third of the twentieth century; the artists listed represented movements as diverse as the Bauhaus style, cubism, Dadaism, expressionism, the New Objectivity, and abstractionism. Artists represented with ten or more works, excluding those named above, included Erich Heckel, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Pechstein, and Christian Rohlfs. The selection criteria, however, remain obscure. Despite the Nazi insistence that modern art was foreign, Jewish, or left-wing in inspiration, only six artists were Jewish, and non-German artists were rare. Troublesome was the inclusion of works by the expressionist Franz Marc, who had been killed in World War I; the German Officers' Federation protested the use of his work, and his Tower of Blue Horses was removed from the exhibit. Likewise controversial was the presence of works by Nolde, a Nazi Party member whose art had once found favor with such high officials as Goebbels. The case of the sculptor Rudolf Belling was particularly ironic; Belling had two works shown in the Degenerate Art Exhibition, while his bronze of the boxer Max Schmeling stood in the nearby Great German Art Exhibition.

More than two million people visited the Degenerate Art Exhibition, making it the most popular exhibit of modern art ever; fewer than a fifth as many viewers attended the Great German Art Exhibit. Between February, 1938, and April, 1941, the Degenerate Art Exhibition traveled to twelve cities in Germany and Austria, usually under the patronage of local branches of the Nazi Party. Though the traveling exhibition was changed and reduced in size from the Munich showing, it also attracted large audiences, with attendance in excess of 100,000 in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, and Vienna, and a total of more than one million additional viewers. Added in Dusseldorf was an exhibit of "degenerate music" that excoriated jazz, so-called Jewish music, and the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Kurt Weill, to name but a few. A catalog accompanied the touring exhibition, although none was available for the original in Munich. The catalog juxtaposed a programmatic statement and excerpts from Hitler's speeches with quotations from the exhibit's walls and photographs of exhibited works. Readers were invited, in one notorious instance, to view three drawings and guess which was by an inmate of an insane asylum and which were by a modern artist.

mpact of event

The Degenerate Art Exhibition and the Great German Art Exhibition cannot be understood apart from Hitler's ideas concerning art. According to his worldview, the Nazi movement stood at the forefront of a cultural revolution destined to usher in a creative new age, that of the thousand-year Reich, and the arts were to play a formative role in the revolution's genesis. Nazi doctrine held that artistic creativity and inspiration originated in the Volkgemeinschaft, the racial community, and that the duty of the artist was to express what Hitler called the essential character of that people or community; the artist's task was therefore not to create images for other artists to admire but rather to present an ideal for the people to emulate. Further, said Hitler, art should embody eternal values and be easily understood and appreciated by the average person. However specific their formulation by the Nazis, these ideas derived from racist concepts long in circulation and from an ongoing debate that had set in opposition so-called pure German art and modern art.

The brand of art favored by the Nazis was made evident at the Great German Art Exhibition. Displayed were almost nine hundred paintings and sculptures by Arno Breker, Josef Thorak, Ziegler, and other politically acceptable artists. Landscapes, idealized men and women, farmers and artisans, portraits of Nazi officials, and images of public buildings or works predominated. The large number of male and female nudes achieved what George L. Mosse has called "beauty without sensuality." Also shown was "In the Beginning Was the Word," an image by Hermann Otto Hoyer of Hitler speaking before his earliest followers. Notable by their absence were urban scenes and any art that raised questions or stimulated thought. In brief, the Great German Art Exhibition presented idealized images of Nazi ideology, just as the Degenerate Art Exhibition summarized, again with images, not only what the Nazi regime rejected as diseased but also what it intended to purge from German cultural life.

The Munich Degenerate Art Exhibition completed a series of attacks launched by Hitler and his government after 1933 upon artists, teachers, collectors, museum administrators, and critics connected with avant-garde movements. Such actions had been anticipated by a 1933 report by Goebbels that had proposed a five-point program for the purge of modern art and were in keeping with the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung, the goal of which was ideological and administrative control of all German associations, institutions, and aspects of individual life. Artists whose work was categorized as degenerate--including, for the most part, those even remotely associated with expressionism, the German defeat in World War I, the Weimar Republic, Jewishness, Marxism, or abstract art--were excluded from membership in the Reich Chamber of Culture and therefore forbidden to practice their profession. Likewise, the modern wing of the National Gallery in Berlin was closed in 1936, the same year that Goebbels banned art criticism.

Not content merely to silence modern artists and their advocates, the Nazis organized between 1933 and 1937 nearly a dozen exhibitions slandering modern art and gave the shows such titles as "The Chamber of Horrors" and "Images of Cultural Bolshevism." Indeed, the prototype for the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition may have been a Dresden exhibition of the same title organized in 1933 and shown at eight other locations, including the 1935 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg. Before long, though, ridicule gave way to a systematic purge. While the Degenerate Art Exhibition still hung in Munich, a committee appointed by Goebbels and headed by Ziegler undertook additional confiscations, and some sixteen thousand pieces of modern art by more than a thousand artists were seized and removed to Berlin for storage. A few hundred, including a self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh, were sold abroad at auctions or exchanged between 1939 and 1941. Approximately five thousand other works of art were reportedly burned at the central fire department in Berlin in March, 1939, while thousands more simply vanished.

The fate of the artists classified as degenerate by the Third Reich was similarly grim. Those who were able, including Beckmann, Feininger, or Grosz, left Germany. Others, including Kircher, committed suicide; Freundlich and others died in concentration camps. Many, including Nolde, retreated into silence after having lost their teaching or other public positions. Following the end of World War II, those who survived often resumed their work, taking on teaching and administrative positions both in the East and the West.

In the long term, of course, the Nazis failed. The Thousand Year Reich lasted but twelve years, and its creators succeeded neither in imposing their ideology and their concept of art on Germany and Europe nor in purging Germany of modern art. Museum visitors today are thus able to view paintings and sculptures by the expressionists, the New Objectivitists, the Surrealists, and the members of other schools attacked by the Nazis. In contrast, the officially sanctioned art of the Third Reich all but unknown. Nevertheless, the Degenerate Art Exhibition should be not forgotten ten, for it is an example of what is possible when a government manipulates for its own purposes the bewilderment or the discomfort felt by many in the presence of modern art.

MY EXTENDED ESSAY PROPOSED TOPIC IS: 

Your Name: _____Matilda Banker-Johnson_________

Topic: ___Art History: The effects of culture on art and art on culture 

Supervisor:______________________Ms. Cope, and Mr. Hyer______________________

Description: possibly focusing on WWII, Nazism and art in that time period)

Seniors vist

The one piece of advice that I am taking form the seniors is to really get most of my EE done this summer, as well as my college applications, and not to procrastinate on those. In order to follow this advice, I will set deadlines for myself (if my advisors do not), for both my EE and my college apps, so that by the time senior year starts, I will be a bit more relaxed, even with all of the IA's that I will have to do.

Mr. Andre's notes

Mr. Andre’s Notes

 Vocabulary:

·      pàq                                       “p implies q”

·      pßàq                         “p if and only if q”

·      (pàq) ^ (qàp)             “p implies q, and q implies q”

 

-       ^=and

-       v= or (inclusive)

-       A’= not A, or the compliment of A

 

Implication//conditional statement:

p	q	pàq
True	True	True
True	False	False
False	True	True
False	False	True

 

“I promise if I find $20, I will give you $10.

 

Equivalence//conditional statement:

p	q	Pßàq
True	True	True
True	False	False
False	True	False
False	False	True

 

“I promise if and only if I find $20, I will give you $10.

 

 

Which door would he tell me to go through?

Two doors: one to certain death, one to certain freedom

Two guards: one always lies, one always tells the truth

 

Two men are exploring

They see a wild animal

One rushes back, one goes back slowlyàboth to home base

The rusher dies

What happened?

They were scuba diving, and the one that rushed back died of the bends

 

Man gets back to a hotel, suddenly realizes he’s bankrupt.

What happened?

He’s playing Monopoly.

Enron #2

1. How does a Special-Purpose Entity (S.P.E.) work? Why does the "partnership" giving money to your company make a big difference?

An S.P.E. is a partnership between two or more companies (outside investors), and a bank will be much more likely to supply a large loan to parternerships rather than to a single company. The partnership then giving you all the money makes a big difference because it did not have to be recorded in the company's balance sheet and"a company could raise capital without increasing its indebtedness."

2. How did Enron pit "twists into the S.P.E. game?" What does it mean that Enron "didn't always put blue-chip assets into the partnerships"? What was problematic about Enron using its own executives to manage the S.P.E? What was Enron's guarantee?

Enron pit "twists into the SPE game by  "not always put[ting] blue-chip assets into the partnerships—like oil leases that would reliably generate income. It sometimes sold off less than sterling assets..." aka, Enron wasn't contributing its' equal share to the paretnership. Enron usuing it's own executives to manage the SPE was problematic because "the company would make the deals work—that is, get the partnerships and the banks to play along—by guaranteeing that, if whatever they had to sell declined in value, Enron would make up the difference with its own stock." The company effectively sold parts of itself to itself, which is a waste of time and money.

3. How did the world come to learn of Enron's use of S.P.E.'s? Is Gladwell correct in claiming that this is another example of a mystery? Explain. 

"The public became aware of the nature of these S.P.E.s through the reporting of several of Weil's colleagues at the Wall Street Journal..." Gladwell is correct in claiming that this is another example of mystery because it is not straightforward information, but information gleaned through slowly trying to untangle the tangled web that Skilling wove.

4. What is the difference between "scrounged up" and "downloaded?"

There is no difference. They mean the same thing in this context, and "scrounged up" is simply slang for "download."

5. Why does Gladwell claim that "It scarcely would have helped investors if Enron had made all three million pages public."? Explain what Gladwell means when he says, "But here the rules seem different." Who is Andrew Fastow?

Gladwell claims that it wouldn't have helped investors if Enron had made all 3 million pages public because it was so much paperwork that it would be unlikely that a team of individuals could read all the pages and understand everything on them, in a reasonable amount of time (relative to why they would need to read the pages). When he says "But here the rules seem different," he is showing how Enron is a mystery because as the more information in found and provided, the harder it becomes to narrow down a clear-cut conclusion. Andrew Fastow was "Enron's chief financial officer, [and he] didn't understand the full economic implications of the deals, either, and he was the one who put them together."

6. Why has the "Disclosure Paradigm" become an anachronism?

The "Disclosure Paradigm" has become an anachronism, in the case of Enron at least, because it seems to have become unnecessary for a company to inform the public about its business, at least as much as it used to.

  
7. Why did treating the German secret weapon as a mystery prove to be more useful? Specifically, how did the "propaganda analysts" (the batty geniuses) use reason to uncover the Nazi V-1 Rocket?

Treating the German secret weapon as a mystery was proved to be more useful because the individuals who cam up with the information were able to do so freely, by listening to open -air broadcasts, and using the information given to them instead of seeking out the information, which could have gotten them killed. The "batty" genii would listen specifically for plans the Nazi's had that they might accidentally reveal, to the unknowing public.

8. How has diagnosing Prostate Cancer transformed from a puzzle to a mystery?

diagnosing prostate cancer has transformed from a puzzle to a mystery, because, once upon a time, a doctor could do a simple exam to determine whether or not a patient had cancer. If the puzzle pieces fit, the patient would have prostate cancer. Now, instead of waiting for the signs of prostate cancer to appear, doctors take precautions, such as monitioring PSA ("a substance associated with prostate changes"), ultrasounding problematic concentrated areas of PSA, and sometimes doing a biopsy of the spot, However, none of the tests are definitive, and the only way to be sure is to have been tested for it directly, like when it was a puzzle.

9. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, how has "the situation facing the intelligence community has turned upside down?"

"The situation facing the intelligence community has turned upside down" because "now most of the world is open, not closed." Now, all the details are available for perusal, where as before the collapse of the U.S.S.R., general behavior was "predictable," but the details were not know.

10. How does Admiral Bobby R. Inman believe the U.S. should strengthen the U.S. intelligence system? Why was his answer seen as unusual?

 Admiral Inman believed that the US should strengthen their intelligence by "reviv[ing] the State Department," His answer was unusual because it was "the one part of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment that isn't considered to be in the intelligence business at all." 

11. Gladwell writes: In a post-Cold War world of "openly available information," Inman said, "what you need are observers with language ability, with understanding of the religions, cultures of the countries they're observing." Inman thought we needed fewer spies and more slightly batty geniuses. 

Does this curriculum sound familiar?

This curriculum does sound familar, in fact it sounds just like the IB. In the IB, students are taught to explore and expand their thoughts particularly on the subject of religion, and cultures in countries all over the world, which may be studied at any one time.

Enron #1

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.