week 4 dq 2 Katherine Brookshire 

I find your comments about conforming to the community pressure to be interesting. I have at times been forced to conform to the rigors of the community. Some of my times I have needed to do that have been good, and other times I did not like it and in effect rebelled against it virtually the entire time.

Although it is very interesting to work on, through, and within the application of “what ways do I need to in effect blend in and in what ways will the community allow me to rebel”. Most cultures have a three-step process. Group A actions are a demand, group B actions are negotiable (allowed the rebel), group C are things which are absolutely unacceptable actions no matter what.

What is the most interesting about those groupings is that they generally apply to everyone, but strong exceptions can and are made all the time. Example in the last aired season of “Orange is the New Black” the character of Nikki was under an extreme amount of pressure to the tune of 75 years in jail for her part in both the riot and the pharmacy robbery. In most other situations the DA would have thrown the book at her, but said charges were instead used as leverage to force her to testify against the other character of Red. So that the DA could charge the character of Red with contributing to first degree murder. The character accepted the plea deal because instead of spending the rest of her life in a max prison, she would testify and then be granted early release. It is all about who you are, what leverage you have, who your friends are, etc. Similar occurred to the main character in the story, she had a career ender leverage against the main guard (despite the fact that she has absolutely no idea she had his career and 20 to life in federal prison leverage over him), she brought him the evidence and he arranged to have her gain early release a few days later.

What we as humans accept versus what we do not accept is critically important. What types of bowing to community pressures do we accept versus what we reject outright. As it applies to obedience, it is an interesting dynamic that some people in a community are allowed to virtually get away with murder, and others are hammered if they put a single metaphorical toe nail out of line.

Another example of this is statistically speaking there is less than zero chance that Michelangelo actually painted the ceiling. Every single documented day of his life he presented not even the smallest level of being able to paint more than low end amateur level. However he was also a well-known homosexual. Leonardo Da Vinci who was more than 20 years older, possessed more than sufficient skills to perform that painting. But Leo had been an enemy of the Vatican since practically his first breath. Leo was the chief architect of the French invasion of Italy 1492-1497. A huge part of those events were written about by Dante in his great story, which the Vatican originally hated and tried innumerable times to have him killed. Decades after his death they reversed his excommunication and herald him as a great thinker for the church. Despite the facts they tried to have him killed on at least 6 occasions. Now put those pieces of evidence together, did Dante write about the invasion of Italy by the French forces as a rebellion against the Vatican which embarrassed them. Did Dante somewhere in his story bury the details that it was actually Leo who painted the ceiling. As punishment for his being an enemy of the state, Leo was denied the ability to put his name on it and the credit was forced upon Michael who hated having his name put on it as much as he could. But he had no choice in the matter. Almost the second the painting was done; Leo was exiled out of Italy. He was informed if he ever came back, he would be killed on the spot, despite the fact he was more than 60 years old. That is not the only evidence Leo painted the ceiling., the School of Athens by Raphael is also evidence of it. That is Leo in the position of Socrates.

Why did the above actions and events of individuals versus the community and their groupings occur the way they did?