Shepherd Fairy

1. What is your emotional response upon entering the exhibit? Please explain.

I did not have any overpowering emotional response that I can remember. Nothing about my emotions towards the paintings really stuck out to me when I thought about it afterward. What did stick out to me was not necessarily an emotion of any kind but a potent feeling of curiosity at the meaning of the paintings and an overwhelming desire to decipher them. the paintings quit honestly had more of an effect on the mind than the soul.

2. What is your emotional response upon leaving the exhibit? Please explain.

Once again it was not really an emotion I felt when I left the exhibit but something more of the mind. When I left I felt I had a sort of understanding of Fairy”s paintings and other works and that I had discovered what their meaning and their purpose was.

3. Does emotion interact with reason, sense, perception and language for you in this exhibit? If so, how?

Though I did not really feel any kind of emotion like happiness, sadness, or anger when I saw the exhibit I still believe emotions like these would very strongly interact with reason, sense, perception, and language. This is because I believe emotion is powerful enough to be very influential on these other aspects of gaining knowledge which we use just as frequently.

4. Is this an American culture exhibit? How might someone from a non-Western country respond to this exhibit? Why?

Someone from a non-Western country might respond very differently to this exhibit than Americans. They might not understand it quit as much because the exhibit seems to focus around some of the major issues in America like the ethical issues with advertisement and government campaigns. A foreigner might not understand these issues s well because their country could be facing different types of issues and they have not experienced these issues first hand in America.

5. Can one appreciate theatre, music and art using only the rational mind or must Emotion play a role? Explain.

Though emotion does not have to play a role in allowing a person to appreciate the arts it can contribute greatly to helping someone appreciate them. if someone does not understand a work of art they can still appreciate the emotion it stirs inside them and the reaction it gets out of them because they can appreciate that it had such an influential effect on them.

Enron

It is never appropriate for people to use informal fallacies in society. This is because these fallacies have no justification behind them, they are just simply wrong. Many people throughout history have used these fallacies despite the damage they cause and they and others have paid severely for it. The corporate company Enron is one example and they are not the only ones. Many people have fallen victim to using informal fallacies.
It easy to understand why informal fallacies can sometimes be plausible and convincing despite the fact that they are by definition false. A fallacy is a deceptive, misleading, or false notion or belief and people often make the mistake of believing them because of the affect they have on those people. Informal fallacies are commonly seen in human societies and it is fair to say that they have become an inevitable part of everyday life. This is why people often fall for them, because they are so common and they have therefore become almost popular in society. No one wants to be the outlier by calling someone out on a fallacy. They would rather make themselves believe it was true than risk being called insolent for questioning someone else’s belief. For example if someone said “I saw him right after the crime therefore he must be the criminal” (an example of the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc, or one event does not necessarily cause another even if they happen one right after the other), not many people would likely suggest that that person was mistaken and that just because they saw him does not necessarily mean he committed the crime. Or if someone said, “comets are like cats because they both have tails and they go wherever they please” (an example of the fallacy of false analogies), no one would point out that that is not necessarily accurate because it would make them seem conceited to other people. Most people allow themselves to believe these fallacies because they are popular and common in society and because they would not want to be considered an outcast for calling someone out on a false remark.
In the case of Enron, many informal fallacies can be found within the various comments and claims of the people involved in the scandal. The scandal was that the major corporate company Enron was lying to their clients and their employees about how much profit they were earning by using mark-to-market accounting to make it seem as though they were extremely successful, when in fact they had virtually no income and were severely in debt, while the owners of Enron pocketed the little money they did have. In the article entitled “Open Secrets”, by Malcolm Gladwell, the author points out many examples of fallacies that related to Enron’s cover-up. One example was the use of mark-to-market accounting by Enron that Gladwell explains in his article, saying that “when a company using mark-to-market accounting says it has made a profit of ten million dollars on revenues of a hundred million, then, it could mean one of two things. The company may actually have a hundred million dollars in its bank accounts, of which ten million will remain after it has paid its bills. Or it may be guessing that it will make ten million dollars on a deal where money may not actually change hands for years.” This type of fallacy is known as a false dilemma or when it is communicated that there are only two possible conclusions to a situation, because Enron was communicating that they either had their money or they were going to get their money by using mark-to-market accounting, when in fact they actually did not have the money and they were actually not going to get it. Another example from the Enron article was Enron’s involvement S.P.E.s when Gladwell explained how “Enron's use of mark-to-market accounting and S.P.E.s was an accounting game that made the company look as though it were earning far more money than it was. But the I.R.S. doesn't accept mark-to-market accounting; you pay tax on income when you actually receive that income. And, from the I.R.S.'s perspective, all of Enron's fantastically complex maneuvering around its S.P.E.s was, as Fleischer puts it, "a non-event": until the partnership actually sells the asset—and makes either a profit or a loss—an S.P.E. is just an accounting fiction. Enron wasn't paying any taxes because, in the eyes of the I.R.S., Enron wasn't making any money.” This fallacy is called equivocation or the use of ambiguous words to hide the truth of what is being conveyed, because Enron was using this method to maneuver around S.P.E.s and blind the I.R.S. form seeing what their income actually was. One more example that was given in the article on Enron was the maneuvering they preformed with their tax code or as Gladwell said, “If you looked at Enron from the perspective of the tax code, that is, you would have seen a very different picture of the company than if you had looked through the more traditional lens of the accounting profession. But in order to do that you would have to be trained in the tax code and be familiar with its particular conventions and intricacies, and know what questions to ask. ‘The fact of the gap between [Enron's] accounting income and taxable income was easily observed,’ Fleischer notes, but not the source of the gap. ‘The tax code requires special training.’” This is again the fallacy of equivocation because Enron was using the complication of the fallacy to make it extremely difficult for anyone to understand what the deal really was with their income so that they could put it in plain sight and not seem suspicious.
Some more examples of these fallacies were presented in the movie “Enron”, which was a documentary about the events of the Enron scandal. One such example from the movie a clip that was shown in the movie of Skilling addressing his employees in a meeting, some time after 911 when Enron was beginning to be questioned about its income, and stating that “just as the United States was under attack from terrorists, so was Enron under attack from the media”. This type of fallacy is a false analogy because Skilling was comparing Enron to the United States when the two had nothing really to do with each other to provoke pity for the company as though it were under attack by terrorists. Another fallacy that the movie presented was when it explained how Enron was claiming that no one could show that they were making profits, again when Enron was first being questioned about its income, and therefore the company must be making them. This fallacy is known as argument ad ignorantum or claiming that something is proven just because it has not been disproven, because the company was claiming that that it was proven that they were making the income because no one could prove that they were not, but the only reason no one could prove that was because no one had the skills to interpret the maneuvering they went through in their tax code. One other example the movie provided was the audio recording of Skilling the first time someone questioned his company about their income and it reveals how when Skilling was backed into a corner by his interrogator he lashed out to detract the attention from himself by calling the man an “asshole”. This fallacy is called an ad hominem attack, or rejecting an argument or question on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the person presenting the argument or question, because Skilling was rejecting his interrogators questions about the company’s income by saying that he was being insolent, despite how irrelevant it was, so that he could avoid answering the questions.
There are no circumstances under which these formal fallacies can be justified. Enron truly showed this with their malicious intent in using them. It is true that these fallacies can sometimes be used as a sort of survival technique by people with good intensions, for example campaigns aimed to make people donate money for a good cause sometimes communicate information that is a bit of a stretch from the truth in order to gain more sympathy. But this still does not justify these fallacies because it is still a form of lying and cheating. In his article Gladwell questions who is responsible when the use of these fallicies take a turn for the worst. He claims in the piece that “it is your fault as well”, meaning it is the fault of the person who did not see these fallacies happening and did not stop them and that is why they turned for the worst. A counterargument for this claim would be that it is impossible or at least very difficult to recognize these fallacies when they occur because as a part of their definition they are well concealed. But there us logic on both sides of these arguments because it is true that people should be aware of these fallacies when they occur and should try to prevent them from becoming worse but at the same time people should not be forced to take on this responsibility because there are no situations which justify thee fallacies and therefore people should have the common sense not to use them.
Despite the fact that fallacies cannot be justified it is still difficult for people not use them in their life for personal gain. I myself have used an indirect fallacy or two in my time to improve my own circumstances. The one I most commonly use is equivocation, because it helps me get out of trouble. For example one day when my mother asked me to do the dishes and I forgot I was able to avoid punishment by telling her that it wasn’t so much that I had forgotten to do them but that I was simply distracted by the quantity of homework which was necessary for me to complete. I was able to avoid trouble by using this fallacy. I suppose it is a part of the human error which drives people to do these things like using these fallacies, but that still does not justify them. Even though I myself have used them that does not mean that they are acceptable. All people, including myself, should always be working to prevent these fallacies from occurring because they are not justified.

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.'?

He means that the outcome of a puzzle depends on the missing puzzle piece whereas the outcome of a mystery depends on how the person interprets the missing information when they find it.

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?

It didn’t have to pay taxes on its income because it technically wasn’t making any income. Its defense would be that it was technically legal because they didn’t get the income until the partnership sold the asset. This fallacy here is circular reasoning.

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

No, because no one could understand all the maneuvering they went through in their tax code to do it unless they were specially trained.

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?

He claims this because he believes they would have only had the skills to put the information together to reach a conclusion but not to look more closely at the information they had to reach a conclusion. No one asked them because no one knew much about it and because no one wanted to be called out on asking it as though they were doing something wrong. The fallacy here is ad hominem attack.

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 do agree because I believe it is true that some of blame belongs to us if we do not realize the bad things that are going on right in front of our eyes.

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

To sell the stock because of the risky strategies Enron was following with their business model.

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?

It works by having a partnership that took leases from the company which will most likely have promising profits in the future, get lent from the bank, and then give that money to the company when they are in debt or when they are doing poorly. The partnership is so important because they lend the money to the company so the loan does not show up in the company balance sheet and it can raise capital without increasing it 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?

They did this by getting the banks and partnerships to play along so that no questions were asked. This means they were not always honest. The problem was they were making the deals work themselves. Their guarantee was thay could, if their value declined, make up the difference with its own stock.

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 world became aware through the reporting of several people from the Wall Street Journal. Gladwell is correct in claiming that this is another example of a mystery because it once again presents evidence that is misleading instead of straight forward.

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

The difference is that downloaded suggests it was easily accessed information whereas scrounged suggests he had to fight for it.

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?

He means the information would have been so extensive and complex it would be impossible to follow. He means that the more information there is the more complicated the problem gets. He is Enron’s chief financial officer.

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

It has become this because it is an error in chronology.

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?

It proved to be more useful because it showed that the solution to the problem could be found within the information that was already given and more information was unneeded. They looked more closely at the information they had to uncover the solution.

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

It has transformed because the solution used to be found through a simple procedure and conclusion but now it is more complicated and often times the more information there is about it the more complicated it becomes.

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

It is upside down because it used to be that the more information they had the easier they could solve the problem but now because they have too much information they only have more questions and that makes it harder to solve the problem

. 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?

He believed more geniuses and less spies would strengthen it. This was unusual because it meant that we needed to look closer at the information we had than try to obtain more.

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?

Yes because it suggests that we needed to look closer at the information we had than try to obtain more, which shows that it is a mystery because Gladwell said a mystery is when more information makes a situation worse not better.

Enron #1

1. How did Anne Beliveaux respond to Jeffrey Skilling's claim that he was "innocent of every one of these charges." What were the charges?

She told him he should be ashamed of himself. The charges were that he lied to investors and employees about various aspects of Enron’s business.

2. What was Daniel Petrocelli specifically asking Judge Lake to do? What was the response of the judge?

He asked the judge to reduce Skilling’s sentence by ten months. The judge answered no.

3. What is the difference between a Puzzle and a Mystery? Be as specific as possible! Please consider why Gladwell does not believe the difference to be "trivial."

A puzzle requires the piecing together of missing information and a mystery requires judgments and assessments of uncertainty. He says it is not trivial because depending on the definition of the situation (if it is a puzzle or a mystery) it can be determined how much and what sort of information will help solve it.

4. What does Gladwell mean when he states: "Puzzles come to satisfying conclusions. Mysteries often don't."

He means that puzzles are more straight forward in providing answers by process of elimination whereas mysteries are more of a gray area.

5. Initially, what did most people think of the Enron scandal? Did they think it was a Mystery or a Puzzle? Why would it matter? What does Gladwell think?

They thought it was a puzzle. This is important because of the amount of information they were missing and how that affect the situation, because it would have been much more difficult to solve if it were a mystery. Gladwell believes it was a mystery.

6. Please explain Mark-to-Market Accounting.

Mark-to-Market accounting is when companies predict future profits they may make and put them in their accounts at the time.

7. Gladwell claims that: "When a company using mark-to-market accounting says it has made a profit of ten million dollars on revenues of a hundred million, then, it could mean one of two things..." Please explain the two possibilities. What did Wall Street Journal report Jonathan Weil's source want him to find out?

One option is that that information is true and the company actually has the or the other option is that the company is only assuming it will make that amount of money but it doesn’t actually have it. Jonathan’s source wanted to find out how much of Enron’s money was money they actually had.

8. What is the connection between subprime loans and Mark-to-Market Accounting?

Some companies used Mark-to-Market accounting on subprime loans, or loans made to higher-credit-risk customers, and when the economy declined they realized that there estimated profits were far greater that their actual profits.

9. Why did Weil find Enron's financial statements "sobering?"

He found them sobering because they showed that one of the largest companies in the world had virtually no money.

10. Why was James Chanos interested in Enron?

He was interested because he was a short-seller who made money off of betting when companies’ profits would fall.

11. Who was Bethany McLean?

She was a reporter for Fortune.

12. Why does Gladwell believe Watergate to be a classic puzzle?

He believes this because it was solved with the revelation of certain secrets that were very straight forward.

13. Did Jonathan Weil have a Deep Throat?

No because he could not get straight forward answers.

14. Why was Weil concerned that the officials at Enron weren't concerned about who would win the 2000 election?

He was concerned because it showed that no matter what happened they could interpret anything as success even if it wasn’t.

15. After considering how Weil got his information, why does Gladwell believe Enron to be a mystery?

He believes this because Weil could not get clear information in a straight forward way that could be fit in neatly with the other information he had.