After a considered amount of thought, Cuddly could no longer deal with the frustration. He was never a bear of violence but his ability to remained neutral wore thin. He wanted things to be civil and for people to express themselves respectfully. This was not the case for Rosita's parents. They acted like chimpanzees with each other. They scream, broke things and when they felt tired, they shush each other saying something about their lawyer. "Rosita was not property" cuddly said to himself after witnessing one more brawl. He felt Rosita was not a thing lawyer could discuss and tired of being quiet about the whole ordeal decided to put his war education to use. With his Molotov in hand he yell "lawyer me this!" to the S.W.A.T team. When the smog disperse everyone wanted nothing to do but cuddle.
My picture is from the stencil artist Banksy. Some "dude" from Britain. I think he represents Bakhtin well. His art is a kind of satire that makes us think about some social issues a different way. In the picture for example, the bear is a symbol of childhood and is placed next to the special police force. One cant help by feel two totally different emotions. They contradict each other and make us see things differently. It is not clear if Banksy is mocking our values as a society or he indeed is asking us if we truly know our values. If we want our children to lived in a safe place why do we approve of guns and violence?
I wonder how Descartes felt when he utter the famous declaration "I think therefore I am." Was the self born right there and then? Impossible! right but how did the thinkers before that time thought what they did? Did they believed their thoughts derived from god or the gods? and how did that affected their thinking process? To a 21st century individual, it is hard to comprehend anything that rejects individualism. We are raised to believe that we are who we are because of what we think, experience and question. This thought process reflect The Enlightenment in western Europe: Rationalism, Empiricism and Skepticism. This gave way to so many more schools of thought and the birth to the educational and political system we know about today. Alexander Pope gave rise to the "man" not in the hip hop sense but the creation of the individual through thought (criticism) and expression (art). So lets reconsider how much human reality change over the course of three centuries. Once the individual was born more questions began to be asked. If we are all individuals how do we learn? How did we experience things? When Immanuel Kant came with The Four Type of Knowledge he asked in a sense for people to have courage to use our own understanding. With the birth of individualism came the question that asked if knowledge was subjective or objective. It all depended on reason.
One of my friends said in his Facebook status update that finally we once again had a use for the semicolon. We can use it to wink at people on Facebook or tweeter or blogger, or whatever other social network we use. It's this the end of society? or genius insight? The Professor Kevin O'Neil gave us a clear look on what it was to be an Athenian ( male one.) He said that there was two things they did: gym and dialogue. This was one of the reason why Rhetoric was so important. They thought it was essential, the freedom to argue and debate. It is essential for us today too. Most of us believe we have the right to express ourselves in any way we want. And now we can more than ever. We have so many different outlets to express ourselves on. And we have a bigger audience too. The professor knows about this and spoke a little about it. He made me ponder how we use the Aristotelian devices. Do we think about it before clicking send or post? Most of us are not Rhetoric experts or writers but do we understand the implications. We just want to send a message right? I have had so many misunderstanding through text and I amuse myself when someone wants to argue through the device. Are we logical in our post (Logos)? Are we aware of who is going to read them(Ethos)? Do we know how to grasp emotion( Pathos)? Do we really think we can translate sarcasm through the computer? We seem to think so but as the professor said. those post will be saved forever or for a very very long time. I think I will erase those drunken pictures I was tag on tonight.
In this clip from the movie Leap of Faith, Steve Martin embodies Jonas a traveling minister who takes his church to rural United States. In this scene, Jonas is confronted by a police officer that questions his ability to bring God or truth to people. Jonas is the typical Sophist who is eccentric hence his silver jacket, who gives speeches for donations. The police officer is like Plato who urges his town to stop giving Jonas power for lies. According to him, Jonas is feeding them stories, which aren’t true or have no value. He like Plato say that man do not want to be lied, “no one chooses and wants to be deceived in the most important part of himself and about the most important things” (Plato 51). He tells his people how Jonas is not the man they thought he was. But as the scene goes, the people do not know what to do. They want to believe Jonas. He makes them have faith. He looks like he knows what he is saying. Jonas knows that and agrees with the police officer. He has lied but for the purpose of showing them “truth.” He is like then and has fund the light. Truth to Jonas or any sophist depends on the situation. When Gorgias was defending Helen he said that Helen was a victim of her circumstances, “Either she did what she did because of the will of fortune and the plan of the gods and the decree of necessity, or she was seized by force, or persuaded by words, <or capture by love>”(Gorgias 39). Jonas was able to keep his crowd by manipulating his way trough fancy music and speech. He acknowledges his bad behavior but excuse himself by saying that thanks to God he found his way. Plato warns his people regarding this type of behavior “that if the young men in our community hear this kind of thing and take it seriously, rather than regarding it as despicable and absurd, they’re hardly going to regard such behaviour as despicable in human beings like themselves and feel remorse when they also find themselves saying or doing these or similar things.” (Plato 54) but the people feel that they too have sin like he has.He used that as an excuse to say that he knew more regarding the world of sin because he has sin. He claimed he had no choice due to his circumstances but that he found God and his salvation. That was enough proof for the people. They all came back and to further proof his redemption he offered the money back for everyone to take. Jonas like Gorgias knew their art and how to control their audience “the power of an incantation enchants, persuades, and alters it through bewitchment” (Gorgias 40). The clip ends proving two points. One is that Plato understood the importance of truth and how lies and manipulation are dangerous. The other point is that even though Jonas or a sophist like Gorgia used rhetoric to his advantage persuasion is a powerful tool for people.
Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" made me think of television and my young cousins. Yes I know that children watch too much television these days. But it is true. One day I was conversing with my now 11 year old cousin about what she wanted to do when she grows up. She told me that she wanted to be a crime scene investigator because she liked the T.V show "Bones." My first reaction was, who in their right mind wants to see dead bodies in a estate of decomposition? Someone who watches reruns of Hannah Montana and never gets tired. My point is that i wonder truly if she has any idea the fowl smell of death. Sure she can watch Bones over and over but does she truly grasp her fixation on dead bodies. I in the other hand know how dead bodies look like, not human though but I was raised in a rural area and in my adventures I found dead animals often. I wish to explain to her the experience I had with dead and how it really is but she refused to listen. She as I type challenges me. She is so sure of her "reality." Now I am no one to kill her dream. She will do as she wishes or at least I hope she does. What I wonder is if she realizes the seriousness of her career. Television shows are entertainment or so they say but for many children like my cousin they are source of knowledge. She understand much of the world through what she sees on the box. She like the people watching the shadows understand the world different than someone who has witness the real thing. I try to explain it to her in a way she can understand but she trust 20th Century Fox more.
Hey Everyone! Welcome to My blog. I had wanted to create a blog prior to this class but I am happy to be able to do it now. The class is very interesting and many of you have very interesting things to say regarding theory. The only problem I have with this is that I might get confused once in a while. I felt like a total idiot for laughing at Yeast's poem. I apologize but just picturing a swan raping a woman is absurd. Or it sounded absurd at the moment. What I like about theory its not the lenses in which we can read literary work but also our own bias. For Example, I see birds as innocent feathery creatures and the thought of a God becoming one sounded stupid. Yet I thought about how the eagle, for example, is the symbol of the United States. This made me realize how my experience affects the way I see the world. This concept too help me understand Plato in some sense. I might not agree with him on his theory but I understand why he felt the sophist would manipulate the people of Athens. The experience he had in his time led him to question what was true and who had the power to control ideas. I cant wait for Aristotle.
