Author: Jordan Welker

Jordan Welker

Final Reflective Essay

At the beginning of the semester I truly had no idea what this course would have to offer me and did not really think too much about the class before the semester started. I can remember the week before class started when I actually started to look at the syllabus for each class and remember being a little overwhelmed with this class in particular because I can remember seeing all the course texts and all of the things that seemed different about this class. I remember thinking to myself that it seemed like a much more involved class than others because it seemed like professor McCoy really cared about us reading over the brightspace before class started so we would be much more prepared going into this new semester with a new class that I seemingly had no real idea what it could be about. This reminds me a lot of the problems that occurred throughout the course texts including Parable of the Sower, King Lear,​ The Big Short, and A Mercy, that relate to the 2008 housing crisis and the many problems of trust leading to expulsion throughout these events and books. 

In the 2008 housing crisis pretty much all went bad due to the trust that the homeowners put into these people in charge of their mortgages. People acting in bad faith just to get money as quick as possible and at the expense of others caused the bubble’s tension to build until it could not take any more of this. However, it can be said that if these homeowners, who were to their credit mostly acting in good faith, could have been way more cautious of these things that led to their problems, but they were just not aware and did not have the knowledge or experience to know such things. This is very relevant to the way of life portrayed in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower because this novel shows a way of life that leads to the people depending on constant trust and people almost flushed away and not given the ability to live in one stable place for an extended period of time. We are also shown an extreme version of what can happen when all goes wrong in society. Which we saw in a certainly not as harsh way when it happened in 2008, causing so much more than just housing problems to occur. In Parable of the Sower people are forced to live in a state of constant worry and fear of what is to come next. Mrs. Sims is a good example of this. Someone who lived in good faith herself, was grossly used and taken advantage of by others leading to her mental demise and expulsion of her life. In the book it states “she decided to trade pain for eternal pain in the hereafter”(Butler, 24). Suicide is something very real and serious and is pretty much the ultimate self-expulsion. Mrs. Sims is a perfect example of how people preying in bad faith on those who act in good faith. The anarchy and no rule society shown in this novel directly leads to the downfall of Mrs. Sims. The book talks a lot about how religious she was and that she did in fact believe that suicide lead to hell. So this shows that she would rather burn forever instead of living in this gross society being preyed on for her innocence by bad faith acting people. These people can be seen as the companies and people trying to get as much money from the unfit homeowners of 2008 that preyed on their innocence and low knowledge. Many of these people being young homeowners with no experience buying homes. They were pretty much used just because they were and easy target, very similar to Mrs. Sims situation. Both scenarios where the problems stem from the top, the people who do know what they are doing and deciding to do it in bad faith anyway. 

I also think many of the principles that I have applied from the course readings and how they relate to the 2008 housing crisis can apply to something like me throughout this class this semester. This class has certainly interested me much more than a majority of the other classes from my time here, and made me actually think about my growth as a student and really learn about myself as a student. With saying earlier that I read the syllabus about a week before class and really noticed how much professor McCoy really seemed to care that we were all up to date on everything on brightspace prior to class. I certainly think this reflects on the themes learned from the course material because we constantly learned how not reading and understanding things leads to these horrible downfalls. So that really seems like a theme based off of what we learned in class itself, that problems occur when both parties are not on the same page. The fact that GLOBE says we need practice in the ability to “reflect upon changes in learning and outlook over time” shows that a course like this is important in a students overall growth. Most classes I have gone through with basically no real thought as to how I am learning or how it can all connect on a bigger and broader scale. For example, no other class has really ever tried to get me to connect thing together that are not simple, let alone something that seems to be complete opposites. Many of the books we read would appear at first to have no relation or connection to a financial crisis at all. But upon reading and really opening up a deeper thought process, I found myself really seeing things before they even happened. After the first mini collaboration, I really started to see the class themes unravelling throughout reading the course texts while and before even finishing the story. Even when reading King Lear, I found myself seeing how people acting in carelessness were doomed by people taking advantage of them just like in the housing crisis. And I can honestly say, without being forced to do such a thing and really being made to think about it, I would have never really opened my mind to this kind of learning. I am not one to really do anything extra in class or add to discussion normally. But during the mini collaborations I really found it helpful because we were all going through this learning experience for the first time together by comparing these things to something that seemed very different. Taking in the other students’ interpretations of their own comparisons and thoughts opened my mind as well. I believe this was because we were all acting in good faith to help each other come to a conclusion, however if there were someone in the group who did not do the reading or did not want to add anything in the discussion, that could be considered bad faith which could cause problems. In general, this course was very reliant on reading and being in the loop. However, professor McCoy acted in good faith and constantly told us this is what was needed so everyone knew. Going through the course it was clear that this was very important, and the one time I did forget to do the reading it had a chain effect and it made me feel the importance of reading the brightspace and being caught up. When we went into group work that day I was unable to really add anything of value which has its consequences, I didn’t really get to add to the discussion or do any critical thinking because of my lack of knowledge. While I did not act in bad faith by doing this, I saw how it affected me and those around me and how I should not let that happen again. In the 2008 housing crisis, if everyone was made aware of the importance of reading about your mortgages and making sure it was something reasonable, many people would not have gotten themselves into these things. This is very relevant in Parable of the Sower as well because Lauren knows how important the ability to read and write is and how it could improve and save so many people which is why she wants to teach more people. In many cases basically, reading and being aware can be two huge stepping stones to avoiding any kind of disaster or mess up.

Jordan Welker, Zachary Simons, Brenden Harrington, Sarah Lyons, Natalie Schuey, Joshua Irizarry

A Mercy by Toni Morrison is set in early colonial America in the late 17th century, a time when slavery was expanding and racial, gender, and class hierarchies were becoming more rigid. Throughout the novel, Florens tries to understand herself and the world around her, but she is constantly derailed by her lack of control over her circumstances. Floren’s journey throughout the novel was pretty much out of her control. While Florens repeatedly tried to do the right thing she was constantly knocked back by other characters acting in bad faith and expelling her to outside forces. In this regard, she is very similar to the people experiencing the housing crisis, along with others facing expulsion.

One of the biggest connections between Florens and the people experiencing the housing crisis is the concept of expulsion. Expulsion is forcing a person or thing from something, like a house (Mirriam-Webster). Throughout the novel, Florens is expelled repeatedly, from her mother, from society, and from the blacksmith she believes she “loves”. This expulsion is usually done by people of “higher standing”, for example: her mother, the townspeople, and the blacksmith. This is because Florens did not know any better, in the sense that she was not educated on how the world works. Thus, she would have no understanding of how to “protect” herself from the people in power. This relates to the people expelled from their homes during the 2008 housing crisis because they lacked the knowledge that the people expelling them had, and the majority of the people signing contracts for these homes they could not afford, did not know how to read the fine print of the contracts they were signing. 

Another connection between the Florens and the housing crisis is people acting in “bad faith” which can be defined as the “lack of honesty in dealing with other people” (Mirriam-Webster). In the novel, the D’Ortega family constantly acts in bad faith with other characters. The D’Ortega’s are a vicious slave-owning family who are always exploiting others for their gain. Since the D’Ortega’s were in debt to Jacob and had no means to repay the man they instead gave Jacob a human being. That human being happened to be Florens in this case who was then separated from her mother in doing so. Jacob also often acts in bad faith in the novel as well as he constantly avoids accepting responsibility for doing nothing with all the injustice and violence happening around him. For example, he relies on tradition and social norms to justify his behavior thereby deflecting any serious examination of his wrongdoing. During the housing crisis, many bankers and lenders also acted in “bad faith” while downplaying the risk involved with subprime mortgages. Credit ratings agencies were also ignoring systemic risk while giving AAA ratings to CDO’s even though the subprime loan was almost destined to fail. With all this going on the Government did almost nothing as policymakers and politicians downplayed and denied the role of financial downregulation in causing the housing crisis (Previous classes/readings). 

On the other hand, “good faith” is also prevalent in this novel, as it is in the housing crisis. To act in good faith is to act with honesty (Mirriam-Webster). Florence can relate to the unknowing homeowners who have good faith in their hearts but are being brought down by people with more power preying on their lack of knowledge. One example from the book would be when she is told “Your head is empty and your body is wild”(A Mercy, pg. 166). Florence shows signs of good faith, however, it appears very little as Florens is living in a world that does not like her. Despite this, Florens attempts to act in good faith wherever she goes. A key point in the novel that describes this is during her time with daughter Jane. Daughter Jane is the daughter of a widow, who is believed to be a demon, to prove this false her mother whips her legs to prove she can bleed. And, while either directly or indirectly, Florens acts in good faith by distracting the townspeople from Daughter Jane with her letter, as they are convinced she is a demon as well. In return Daughter Jane acts in good faith and helps her escape (A Mercy, pgs. 132-135). During the housing crisis, similar to Florens, the homeowners acted in good faith, signing mortgages and loans, not knowing how predatory they might have been. However, their good faith was returned with bad faith.

 In the end, many people “spotted” things that lead to the market crash and the housing crisis. However, like Florens, they were massively uneducated in these fields. Thus, when they tried to understand all it was, was Apophenia, or “the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)” (Mirriam-Webster). This means that they could draw all the conclusions they would like, but it would all be nonsense, just as the world was nonsense to Florens. These connections between two seemingly very different topics really makes you think of how people act when they have some form of power over another person or group of people. The continuous bad faith acts against these people who do not know any better and who are most of the time acting in good faith themselves, is a testament to how people act when they are met with the opportunity to gain off of someone else’s losses. Both examples show how the people of any country, in any situation, need to be more educated on important topics such as this.