Escaping the madness - Two exemplar TOK journal entries 

 
Colour code these different elements of the two journal entries below 
 
● A description of the real-life situation 
● Links to AOKs/WOKs 
● The question it prompts us to ask about how we know something (the ‘knowledge 
question’) 
● An evaluation of the importance of the real-life situation 
● How different perspectives might affect the way we answer the knowledge 
question 
 
Entry 1 
 
My first RLS is described in an article from ​The Guardian​, published on 29th May 2018. It 
is an article written by the historian Antony Beevor, about which war movies he rates 
highly, and which ones he dislikes. He discusses the inaccuracies within movies about the 
past, concluding that “the needs of history and the needs of the movie industry are 
fundamentally incompatible.” In other words, telling the truth about the past is rarely 
possible if you are making a movie. Beevor draws on many examples to support this 
argument, such as ​Saving Private Ryan​, ​Schindler’s List,​ and ​U571​ (all of which he is very 
critical about), and ​Downfall​ (which he’s much more positive about). 
 
The real life situation links to both history and the arts, and prompts me to ask the 
question, Can artistic representations provide us with useful information about the past? 
This is a very important question to consider, because many (possible ​most​) people base 
their understanding of the past on fictional sources such as movies, novels, and other 
artistic creations. This can lead to big misunderstandings of what actually happened, and 
mistaken assumptions of history. One example of this, as Beevor points out, is watching 
Schindler’s List​, and coming away with a feeling that there were significant numbers of 
survivors after the Holocaust (as this is how the movie ends), when of course, what the 
Jewish community in Europe suffered was virtually a complete eradication of their society. 
On the other hand, whilst Beevor is critical of much of ​Saving Private Ryan​, he 
acknowledges that its opening scene is very effective, and perhaps provides us with a 
useful source of information about what it must have felt like (linking to emotion) to be on 
the beaches of Normandy in 1944. 
 
Although I have occasionally based my understanding of the past on fictional sources 
(such as the film ​JFK​ about the assassination of Kennedy), as I have studied history more, 
I have learned to separate movies designed to entertain from movies designed to tell the 
truth. This indicates that our perspective as a knower - ranging from someone with little 
knowledge of history, to expert, academic historians (such as Beevor) - really shapes the 
way we watch and understand movies and other works of art.  
Entry 2 
 
My second article is an article from ​The Conversation​, and was published on 2nd May 
2018. It describes the writer’s experiences at the UK’s first ‘Flat Earth’ convention, where 
people who disbelieve the earth is spherical get together to discuss their ideas, and share 
their skepticism of scientific knowledge in general. The writer identifies one of the key 
reasons for their position as being the belief that knowledge is used by those in power to 
protect their position. Questioning even our most basic assumptions, and refusing to 
believe what the government tell us, is the key to freedom. The article writes, “Attendees 
were told that “hope changes everything”, and warned against blindly trusting what they 
were told.” 
 
This story obviously has strong links to the natural sciences, as it deals with the structure 
of the planet on which we live, and also our application of reason - what evidence we use 
to form our beliefs. It also links to sense perception, as the flat-earthers seem to base 
their belief about the earth on what they see and feel, and seem reluctant to go further 
than this. The earth looks and feels flat, therefore it ​is​ flat. This could also be said to be an 
intuitive judgement. 
 
All of this prompts me to ask the question, ‘How is our understanding of science 
influenced by our political and social perspectives?’ In some ways, people like the flat 
earthers have a point: empirical knowledge (seeing things for ourselves) should be the 
way in which we test knowledge. It’s also healthy to be skeptical of knowledge claims, 
and not just accept everything we are told. In this age of the Internet, questioning 
knowledge claims is a vital part of figuring out real from fake information online. However, 
given the overwhelming amount of evidence of the earth being spherical, from a multiple 
number of different sources, it is impossible to argue against this claim. We have to put 
our faith in scientists to some extent, because we can’t check the validity of every claim 
they make. Having a political perspective that prevents us from doing this means that we 
risk developing major misunderstandings about the natural world. Other examples of this 
may be the way we mistrust vaccinations, leading to the risk of epidemics, and the 
endangerment of our children. Of course, our perspectives should have no influence on 
our understanding of science, unlike, perhaps, in other areas of knowledge. As Neil 
DeGrasse Tyson said, “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you 
believe in it.”