In the Giver, Jonas states that with color comes choice, something that the people are not allowed to have. They are told what their jobs will be, with whom they will live and provide rules to govern their lives.
Why is the community willing to sacrifice choice? What do they gain in exchange for simple freedoms?
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In a community of perfection, there can be little to no choice. If there was choice then things would not be perfect. At young ages the children of the community are observed in how they play with other kids and later where they spend their volunteer hours. Based on those observations they are given an assignment and if they do not like it they can apply for transfer or release.
Every child has a set of rules to live by, in the community the elders act as the overall parents and the people of the community are the children. The are raised to follow a certain set of rules and that is all they've ever known. Nobody acts out because they don't have the choice.
When Jonas is talking about color and choosing what he wants to wear with the giver, he expresses his yearning for choice. Then the giver tells him everything would be chaos if people people could make their own choices. Jonas realizes that the giver is correct and quickly agrees with him.
If you have no choice then you have been brainwashed into doing whatever they want you to do. They know no different therefore are no complaints. With the exception of Jonas.
We need choice in our everyday lives. Without choice and the freedom to decide, we might as well be vegetables hooked up to life-support. By sacrificing choice, they are said to be eliminating conflict and all other negative things that can come out of choice and opinion. Choice is a natural human occurence. We choose whether we want to scream, cry or smile as infants. With choice comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes the ability to do right on one's own.
the comunity does not want everyone to have choice because it creates divercity. the comunity wants everyone to be the same in order to subtract the ammount of oppinion, they think it causes problems. if everyone learned about the same thing in the same way no one would be able to tell you it was wrong, they would agree with every oppinion you have and you would agree with every oppinion they have. choice is a priblage, just as in the book when jonas said he wanted to be able to choose to wear a red tunic or a blue on, but none of the other children got the choice to choose
CHOICE is a huge part of my everyday life it sets me apart from everyone else, gives me my rights, lets me be myself. If i could not make my own decisions why would i even want to be around the joy in life comes from being able to be yourself and made hard decisions about life that make you a better person. In the novel Ther Giver this community never has a choice in anything not even how many kids they have it is all set up and made to be perfect. This world is not doing the right thing at all.
The community is willing to give up choice because it makes things easier. When someone’s choices are taken away from them they have no say over what they can and can’t do. So if you take everyone’s choices away in a community and make it so they all work within certain guide lines you will take conflict out of the picture. This is because everyone’s working together so they have nothing to fight about.
A persons choice is what makes them different from other people. It makes them independent. If someone make a choice for you, I like to think of it as someone blowing your nose for you. In a way its lazy, but people don't know that. Ya having the right to choose something yourself might bring chaos, but I think it's good for people to have their own choice because it makes them them. In The Giver, they don't get to choose their own jobs and I really don't think thats fair because it's something they have to do for the rest of their life until they either get released, or a newer generation takes their place, and if you don't like it and if it doesn't interest you, then you will have a crappy life because your basically depressed.
The reciever of memory told the elders about how coice was bad. If people were able to choose what job they wanted, they elders believe they could make the wrong choice. As well as choosing a spouse. They could choose wrong and divorce witch would turn out to be bad in a small community. If they picked their own jobs and choose a job they like, but werent good at, that would be bad for the community. They gain safety. Thats the only thing they gain that is worth anything.
We need choice because we need freedom and make decisions we want to. If we had no choice we would be living under strict rules, no freedom, no fun time. Without choices you are limited without doing and your creativity, your strengths, your goals will limited. In the book the kids get assigned a job maybe it’s something they are not willing to do or don’t know how or what it’s all about. You should have a job your happy with and then you get a choice you really like. Choice makes us people who we are you can’t take that away.
The community is willing to sacrifice choice because they think for some reason that if nobody has choice in life then there is more of an opportunity for perfectness and sameness. The community gets rid of choice so that there is no room for error or faults. By eliminating choice the community probably thinks that they are getting rid of conflict and drama and rule breaking. All of the people in the community of course have no clue that they have a right to chose how they live their lives. I don't really think that the community is gaining anything from giving up their simple freedoms. The only few things that I can think of is no war and no room for negativeness to happen, but we do need those things in life so we can learn from them.
In this community of sameness and perfection there is no room for choice. Eliminating choice helps the community stay away from negativity and other obstacles that would make it become imperfect. Without choice or personal opinions people become brainwashed and are pulled into whatever you want them to do. In the book The Giver, Jonas is given the memory of color and he begans to want to make choices such as picking out his tunic and what color they should be. These people dont know any better than to not have choice so its a normal thing for them. Just as i said before if no one can add their thoughts into anything than there will be no need for conflict but there will also be a bunch of brainwashed people who dont know any better.-jenn
The community is willing to sacrifice choice because it eliminates the possibility to make the wrong choice. Jonas views this as a good thing at first because if someone made a wrong choice about what job to chose it could be tragic, yet Jonas still feels the need to make a choice about what color of tunic to wear and what to eat. Without choice, the community never has anyone making a wrong choice because everything is chosen for them. If the committee of elders chooses wrong, which rarely happens, then it’s their fault. In Rosemary’s case they chose the wrong job for her, yet it was their fault and Rosemary didn’t have to live with a wrong choice that she made. In exchange for simple freedoms the community gets hard working people who will stay loyal to the rules. This is not worth taking away choices because in life, we learn from a bad decision. If we make a bad decision we can learn for it and not do it again. In the community they don’t get this freedom.
in this community they are not given choice they are assigned everything. they did this because they would not want someone to make a wrong choice because it might be a mistake. you need choice in your life. if you dont it will be extremely boring and plain. choice needs to be apart of your life. you need variety. Jonas doesnt realize this until he gets the memories from the giver. this community sounds boring.
In exchange for freedoms they are given the 'gift' of every one being the same, and no one willing to deal with the consequences of steppingout of that box. They were all brainwashed to believe that this life is all there is, and if you could not fit in, there were other 'communities' were they would, even though they were brought to 'release.' in this though, they avoid all murders and crimes in a normal society.
-danika-
In Jonas's community where everything is so set and perfect, really its not so perfect. By eliminating choice in there everyday lives, ya it makes it so they cant make bad choices. but once agin,. you learn from your mistakes, u never know right from wrong if you dont have a choice and everything was just a good choice anyways because you dont have choice to make a good or bad choice anyways. I think it would be a very boring way of living.
I think that choices are varry important in are every day lifes.If we didnt have choices what would the reson for us being here.In the book they have little choices.They cant marrid who they wont,they cant choose what jobs they get,they cant have as many kids as they wont that dousent seem like it would be a good life.they dont wont the people makeing choices becuse there afrid that bthey will make the wrong choice but the mistakes are what makes life worth liveing.
The community is willing to sacrifice choice because they want sameness. If a community is to be perfect you must take away the bad things in life (sorrow, grief, hunger, war etc.). Unfortunately to do this you must take away the good and the possibility of choice. In the book Jonas is frustrated because he wants to have choices in his life (like choosing a red or blue tunic). Then the giver brings up the possibility of making wrong choices and Jonas quickly agrees that choice would bring havoc into their community. By taking away choice you take away the good and bad things in the world and receive sameness and safety. If you can’t choose wrong then you don’t have to worry about getting hurt and will always be safe. Unfortunately you loose all the good that comes with good choices.
I think that the community is willing to sacrafice choice because with choice comes outcomes. Outcomes that can be unpredictable, that can lead to crime and suffering. By sacrificing choices the community isn't risking the negative outcomes that could effect how 'normal' their lives are. I don't agree with the fact that there must be suffering in the world but it's true. Without suffering then we wouldn't feel the true happiness of not suffering. You can't have one without the other, people couldn't understand how great their lives really are without knowing how horrible they could become in a split second.
I think that the community is willing to sacrafice choice because with choice comes outcomes. Outcomes that can be unpredictable, that can lead to crime and suffering. By sacrificing choices the community isn't risking the negative outcomes that could effect how 'normal' their lives are. The community gains a sense of 'Sameness' and equality. No person is better than the other. The people do have to worry about hate or descrimination.
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The community is willing to sacrifice choice. Because they don’t know choice. They never had a chance to make a choice; they don’t know what they’re missing. They pretty much just want to be taken care of. They gain security and comfort.
Pain and difficulty helps us mature. Develop character and have sympathy for others. We mature because pain and difficulty tells us that something is wrong. We develop character as we deal with pain and difficulty in our lives.
In the movie I Robot, people had the robots keeping them safe. Eventually the robots decided that people were no longer safe from themselves. So the robots made all the decisions. The people became prisoners of the robots. The master mind had to be destroyed to set the people free.
In the Giver, choice seems to have been bred out of the human conciousness to make the human mind as individual and content as a sheep in a herd. When Jonas expressed his wish for everyone to make their own descisions, I think this thought was created on a rash belief on how everything, as well as everyone, would be beautiful in so doing. This thought was created on a basis in which Jonas has no clue about the true reality of unrestricted individual choice.
I think the community is willing to sacrifice choice because they believe that choice leaves room for mistakes and mistakes are not accepted in the community. They give the people of the community no freedom of anything, and peopel live their lives the same every day and nothing is ever questioned. The elders of the community believe that their set up is perfect and if they were to give any of the peopole the choice of anything it would ruin their world and people would actually realize how much better life is outside of the community in which they live.
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