As a species, humans are wired and programmed to be narcissistic and self-involved in order to further their successes in life. This self-perpetuating kind of lifestyle can cause ignorant and egoistic behavior that promotes racism, sexism, and discrimination based on sexual orientation. All of these acts of prejudice stem from the idea that unless someone looks, acts, or thinks like you, they are considered different and often are treated poorly because of it. This inequality has encouraged movements for justice such as the civil rights movement headed by Dr. Martin Luther King and the recent LGBT movement in the hopes of the legalization of same sex marriage. Dr. Martin Luther King's speech, "The World House" is a specific historical example that points out the flaws in human nature involving the self-centered qualities that most people possess by describing this flaw in terms of racial discrimination with relation to the entire world. In David Wallace's "This Is Water", the author promotes the idea of being not only self-aware, but being mindful of the people and communities around oneself in order to improve as a person and a member of society. "The World House" and "This Is Water" constitute as two literary pieces that can work together with their use of symbolism, syntax, and emotional appeal in order to relay their messages regarding the problem with the human's narcissistic society.

David Wallace's speech, "This Is Water", was given at a graduation ceremony for college students who were about to embark on their journey into adulthood. Wallace hoped to shed a light on the issue of narcissism that seems to be apparent in almost every human that is a member of our current society. Wallace starts off his speech with a metaphor involving two fish who have no awareness of their environment, thus questioning the presence of water and what it is in relation to themselves. Wallace uses the fish to symbolize the average ignorant American who doesn't seem to question anything around them as long as things are going as they usually do. Wallace has water symbolize the average happenings in an everyday society that humans live in and the fact that most people just go through their days only thinking about what personally affects them and not having any concern what might be going on in other people's lives. When one hears or reads Wallace's speech, they will jump to the thought of, How can these fish not know what water is? They live in it everyday and could not possibly survive without it, how can they be so naive? Readers might then begin to think, If I was a fish, I would definitely know what water is because I'm smart and not foolish like those fish in the speech. Of course, with the common basis of human knowledge, humans' brains put into the heads of fish would recognize what water is and how important it is to the lives of marine animals. However, the fish do not have the slightest idea of what water is because they have never needed to worry about it and haven't been concerned with how something like that could affect them, metaphorically of course, who knows if fish even have these kinds of thought processes. Water itself is defined as, "a colorless, transparent, odorless, tasteless liquid that forms the seas, lakes, rivers, and rain and is the basis of the fluids of living organisms." The adjectives used in the definition of water represent what occurs in society as a whole because actions and events are not tangible things, they are happenings in society that affect certain people and don't affect others. The human race is constantly active, moving from one place to the next in order to get things done in their individual lives. Because of this ongoing movement, human minds do not have the time, nor do they have the kind of empathy to think about other people's problems or the "water" of our world. 

In MLK's "The World House" speech, the advocate for civil rights promotes the metaphor of our entire worldly society to be considered a "world house", relating to the essence of being, in a sense, a large family that looks out for each other. This kind of metaphor would help relate to people all around the country who members of a family, which was a large majority of the American population at the time in which this speech was delivered. While he does not specifically use the exact word, family, King declares that there is a need for a "world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation" that will cause an "all-embracing and unconditional love for all men."(King 298) King emphasizes the fact that love is one of the primary forces that can help Americans see past themselves in order to eradicate their ignorance and love thy neighbor. By using love, "the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality", the American society can in a sense become a larger family that looks out for one another instead of discriminating against each other for the benefit of themselves. In order to express the idea that love is needed to cure our narcissistic society, King gives examples of racial discrimination and the painful results of this kind of injustice including poverty in America for these minority races. This symbolization of the world coming together as a large family summarizes many of King's arguments for the solutions necessary in order to combat racism as a result of self-involvement among Americans at the time when his speech was delivered.

In his commencement address, David Wallace expertly utilizes syntax in order to get across his point that our current society should be considered ignorant until we start thinking about others the way we think about ourselves. The specific words chosen by Wallace to describe the fish in the beginning of his story bring into light the generational gap and how that contributes to narcissism in the country today. The two fish in the story that had no idea what water was, and therefore were classified by Wallace as ignorant, were described by the author as "young", while the seemingly more intelligent and aware fish who recognized what water was was described as "the wise old fish."(Wallace XII) These descriptions of the two types of fish give evidence of Wallace's opinion regarding the fact that he thinks the younger age group in society today is more self-involved than the generation preceding. This fact could be the result of many things including the new age of technology and social media in which one's profile is basically an advertisement of oneself for the outside world to see. Because of this, many younger teenage members of the world focus more on how their own profiles look to other people and inadvertently promoting their disregard for other members of society. While Wallace does not specifically accuse technology for being the reason for the younger generation's narcissistic attitudes, one can infer that this is one of the driving forces for the reason why younger people seem to be more insensitive to others.

In "World House", Martin Luther King uses an emotional appeal to relate to people in his audience to spread his messages to many people around the country. Throughout many of his famous speeches, including "I Have a Dream", MLK uses the literary device of pathos in order to promote his belief in racial equality for everyone. Specifically, in "World House", King uses emotion to declare his argument against military spending in our country instead of using the money the nation has as humanitarian aid to help other countries build themselves up. The specific examples he gives truly appeal to most Americans' softer sides to sway them into agreeing with King, especially when he talks about the, "burning [of] human beings with napalm, filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the beings of peoples normally humane, sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged."(King 297) Almost all of these examples put a visual into people's heads, causing them to feel empathy toward those who have experienced or been affected by these heinous acts. This feeling causes people to not just think about themselves and what's going on in their lives, but rather recognize that there are terrible problems going on throughout society that should be prevented, thus diminishing their ignorant thoughts about the outside world. 

In his address to the graduating college seniors, David Wallace uses an emotional appeal when describing a very possible, but hypothetical situation that could happen to an everyday individual in a grocery store. Wallace discusses how in a normal situation, when one is checking out of a grocery store after a long day at work, just wanting to get home, they would not normally think about other people's dilemmas who are at the store and what they might be dealing with. He brings up a woman who one could see yelling at her child who might "not usually [be] like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer."(Wallace XIV) Wallace's mention of cancer and the death of a spouse can cause a stir in the audience where he gives the speech as people begin to think about a loved one's recent or impending death. This point Wallace makes relays to people how ignorant our society is and that people all around us could have bigger, scarier problems than we do and by only thinking about ourselves, we classify their issues as less significant to ours when often, they are not.

Overall, both David Wallace and Martin Luther King prove the point that a common aspect of human nature involves ignorance. However, both authors also provide solutions to this narcissistic issue our society faces with Wallace evoking the idea of empathy and awareness of others and King stating that the driving force to help our country and world is love. These two works of literature are prime examples in history that state a problem with our current world while also providing us with solutions to try and fix it; the issue of ignorance is an ongoing struggle both in our nation and the world that must be dealt with in order for our society to prosper.

