Nothing should be idolized, just the same as we should idolize nothing and if you fear what is unclear, it is unclear what you fear...

I thought this reading was really interesting and a little more fun than any previous readings so far. Also, I think Marcus Aurelius had some very true thoughts and ones that make me really think. Personally, I really liked, "Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.". Inside all of us good and sometimes you may have to search for the good of people, but it is always there. At least that's how I take it.

Proto-philosophy of life exercise

For today's blogging suggestion, try writing three "meditations" (exhortations/memoranda) in the same style as Marcus Aurelius -- one sentence or multiple paragraphs. Think about the things in your life you have trouble dealing with, and write reminders to yourself of ways you can deal with them better. Keep in mind Marcus' disciplines of perception, action, and will. I'm excited to learn from your words of wisdom!

47.

"Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life."

This is my favorite of Aurelius' passages in "The Meditation". To me it means that life is constantly changes and effecting itself. It talks about the galaxy and it's movement. The galaxy is in constant ever changing motion just like life. The collision, combination, explosion and growth of stars is remarkable and spontaneous. Just like every instance of life, good or bad.

65

65. Take care that you don't treat inhumanity as it treats human beings.

The way this statement was worded was what made it shine more than the other meditations. It is saying something fairly simple, but important. We, as human beings, should not treat things that are not humans inhumanly. Whether it be nature or objects, human beings who hold morals and a brain capable of complex thought should reserve their aggression and cruelty towards things incapable of doing so.

ramblings about sir marcus aurelius.

i s'ppose i could go on about all of his meditations, but i feel i'd be regurgitating what you, the reader, already understand. so i'm not going to do that. (not to mention, it would make for a very long post. and bums go numb after a while, don't you know.) so, then, i'm only going to toodle about a few.

2. not so sure i agree with the first section of this section, for it seems to state that what happens outside the mind is completely irrelevant. i mean, is this simply your mind we're talking about? because that's completely silly. other ideas are really quite important to the growth of an individual if you ask me. and not to be a smartass, but everything happens in the mind, doesn't it? i don't think we'd be able to function without a mind.    the second section of this section, however, resonated quite well with me. ever'body gets the downs. but hey, it's not the end of the world. things still go on, with or without you. i think i wouldn't want to miss out.

12. disregarding the fact that he probably believes in nature over nurture, i'd say he's got a point with this one. no one but you is responsible for what you think. sure, it's hella easy to blame the other guy for your problems. but the problems exist in your head, and no one but you can fix 'em. i like this one quite a bit.

17a. this made me laugh. quite a bit, actually.

36. this one just made me angry with the world. basically what i got from this passage is that all most people ever do is focus on the negative. someone can work so hard for a very long time to get themselves to the "status of kings", but others will immediately shoot them down, either because of jealousy or their need to be cranky, for "if they're not happy, no one's happy". and this has made my respect for some go way down. BLAUGH. my feelings went on to be reflected in 38.

52. oh yes. this may very well be my favorite.

54. can't just treat someone bad because you're having a bad day. they don't know that!

 61. don't be a-floatin' through life like nothin', take notice of what's going on! you might miss somethin' if you be all dainty about it.

right-o. there ya go.

The Poetics of chick flicks

After reading what Aristotle said were the five traits of a tragedy I realized something: Aristotle also invented the chick flick. In most instances they serve as the perfect example of Aristotle's tragedies. A personal favorite of mine, The Notebook, seems to fit his definition particularly well. It's easy to but yourself in the main characters shoes, as you initially follow their summer romance. You feel pity and even fear when the young couple is torn apart by her parents. For the more tender-hearted you wonder if they will ever see each other again. The entire move is a display of human nature, it shows the desire to love and be loved, our sometimes impulsive and irrational thought processes and what the most important things in life boil down to. I would never want to ruin the ending for those who haven't seen this "classic" but I will say it has one of the most poetic and beautiful endings that leaves a viewer wonder in what the true power of love it. Cheesy and completely sappy, just have Aristotle had in mind, I'm sure.

A note from Oprah...

After our little exercise last week I realized once again how prevalent the writings of past philosophers are in todays culture. There's nothing like a little public embarrassment to get the gears turning! I thought it was interesting how easily a modern product like a snuggie could be marketed by using ethos, logos and pathos. I think the hardest part was finding a spokesperson with a positive reputation. Overall I think it was a good activity to really ingrain these principles.

John Q

The movie John Q, provides a great example of a Tragedy Film! John Q’s son is fighting for his life with a very weak heart condition. John’s health care insurance coverage requires an incredible $75,000 down payment to keep their sick son in the hospital with full attended care, or else he’ll be kicked out. The son’s condition requires a heart transplant. After being told that their health care insurance won’t be able to cover the heart transplant, John starts up a dramatic and emotional controversy in the emergency room pointing a gun at the cardiac surgeon to force him to find his son a heart. Aristotle’s idea of tragedy dramatizes what may happen and includes a cause-and-effect chain. Aristotle says that tragedy arouses pity and also fear. I felt a great amount of fear towards John’s intense character as he was willing to do anything and kill anyone that was not willing to save his son’s life. But I also felt a great deal of pity toward him, his wife and son as the corporate rules and regulations of health insurance should do the right thing and save a child’s life. John Q’s bold decisions provided an example of Aristotle’s “cause-and-effect chain” as his dramatic actions forced the hospital staff to take action and save his son’s life. Towards the end of the film I could see John Q’s excitement for his son’s care, yet sadness in his eyes as he was questioning if he made the right decision to use violence as his way to communicate and face going to jail.

25

"before long, nature, which controls it all, with alter everything you see and use it as a material for something else over and over again. So that the world is continually renewed." (25 from meditations Marcus Aurelius)
I like the idea that this passage suggests. Nature has the power to do whatever it wants and we as humans can't stop it, but I also look at it as humans are apart of this change and cause a great deal of it. The passage also says nature uses the old as material for something else and it reminds me of how artist learn from one another taking and modifying techniques.

"You don't get to tell me what to do ever again"

A movie that accurately depicts the true form of tragedy is Alan Ball's "American Beauty" (1999). What makes it a great example of classic tragedy is the successful combination of fear and pity. In the film we see the five characteristics of tragedy presented in different elements of the plot. The first characteristic is that the film imitates an action. This imitation in important because it gives viewers the opportunity to relate to the film. The familiarity presented in this piece is the simple suburban life of a seemingly simple family. Next is the arousal of pity and fear, this concept is displayed through Kevin Spacey's character Lester. We pity Lester because of his far to common situation of family trouble. We fear him because of his instability and stressed lifestyle; this fear of him lends to the pity of him also. The commonness of the situation, the same commonness that provides the film with it's pity, gives the film an interesting viewpoint on human nature. "American Beauty" is one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. But through the sadness is a beautiful and romanticized picture. The final characteristic is a beautiful ending. Although I don't want to give it away I can assure you it will surprise and sadden anyone. Conclusively this film is a perfect combination of the three elements that Aristotle marks as defining factors for good tragedy.

Creative Writing as Taught by Aristotle

As an inspiring writer, I found it amazing that Aristotle's opinions on poetry are still relevant to creative writing today. Essentially, plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song, are not so different that the elements of writing most modern fiction writers take into consideration in their writing: plot, character, dialogue, theme, conflict, and setting. Although Aristotle was writing specifically about tragic poetry because that was the main if not only form of serious fiction writing at the time, his ideas relate to fiction and (narrative) poetry in general. Spectacle and Song are obviously specific to tragic poetry as it was performed in those days. Writing dialogue that sounds right is part of having good diction, and writers today even in their exposition or narration must still have good diction. Thought, that is making sure your story makes sense, events are caused by other events, not randomly thrown in, things that couldn't happen within the setting or circumstances don't happen, is still very important in stories today. Aristotle did not include theme, but themes in stories are essentially the meaning that Aristotle believed should be conveyed through the wonder at the end. The themes he believed tragedies should deal with involved the nature of humans.

Suggestions for blog post

Since you mentioned in class last time it might help if I gave you suggestions on what to write about, I will offer one tonight: Choose a movie that you think fits into Aristotle's idea of a great tragedy, and explain why and how it serves as a good example. You can include links from YouTube as well. Again, this is just a suggestion, and you are free to write other things as you wish.

The Cave

Within the story of the Cave we learned about Metaphysics and epistemology, the nature of reality and knowledge. These two words relate to plato's "theory of forms". Within the story plato refers to the sun as being part of the visible world and good as part of the intellectual part of the world. After reading about Plato's "theory of forms" I see the difference between what plato thought of as the visible and the intellectual world. The visible world has copies of the forms orginally thought in the intellectual world. After reading this I understand the story, when looking at shadows one might think they are looking at a camel, but what do we mean when we say we are looking at a camel? When we look at a wall we could not possibly see a camel, we can only see what we think might relate to the form of a camel. But its the same when we look at the living camel, is what we are seeing the orginal form of a camel? no it is not, the camel in the visible world is only a form of the actual camel in our mind.

When the prisoners were looking at the cave they did not know what they were looking at except distorted pictures on the walls, and this was their reality. When the prisoners were released they were able to see the forms and understand the visible world.
My question is, did the prisoners see the shadows on the walls and match words with the shadows as we do forms? when we see a form such as a camel, what makes this a camel? To the prisoner the shadows were their forms in a way, did they give a name to their forms but not understand them? did they still have intellectual ideas of the forms?

When looking at our reality through the theory of forms I think about how our world is so focused on relating things to the forms. We constently name things with words like a chair, a shoe, somthing furry or soft. Our whole existence has to do with how we name things and what we consider the forms in the visible world to be. A goldfish could not be furry because the idea of the goldfish in our mind is not furry. But why do we call it furry in the first place? Why do we catergarize everything with a name or adjective?

Plato is narrowing down our world to this "theory of forms", our only excistence is the ideas that our found in our heads, how we relate what we see to. He makes it so everything we see around us is based on what we know in our mind. He also says that we know what everything looks like, but its not until we see the form in the visible world when we know what the orginal idea is in our mind. Could somthing ever exist in the intellectual world and not the visible world?

In class we talked about the sun being part of the visible world and the good being apart of the intellectual world. At the end you asked us if we considered the sun to be a good thing, most said yes, but you then asked why we thought this. Did plato consider the sun being the form of the good? If good is part of the intellectual world where we understand ideas, what comes across as good in the visible world? Knowing that nothing in our visible world is perfect or the orginal idea of the forms, this would mean that the sun is not perfect, but the good is perfect. I think plato wanted us to think of the sun being the form of the good.

Plato's Cave and Mass Media

Plato’s allegory of the cave reminds me of our relationship with mass media these days. Imagine we are the prisoners in the cave. A fire behind us is mass media and shadows on a wall are the information we get from the mass media. Not knowing whether the information is true or not, we have no choice but to believe because there is no way for us to ascertain its genuineness. Here is the example from my experiences. Before I came to this country, I used to picture America as one huge New York City with beautiful, well-dressed ladies busily walking on a street. Of course, I was wrong. In Tulsa where my family began a new life, no one was walking on a street at all. I realized what I heard or imagined were just false conceptions made from mass media, such as movies and TV shows that I had watched. Information we can get from the media is very limited and sometimes even biased. Even though shadows we see are animals’, we do not know how animals look like until we actually go outside the cave and see them.

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” uses a set of people chained to the wall of a cave that face a blank wall to deliver his feelings about nature and education. The people see shadows along the cave wall and try to understand what these forms actually are. Plato is using the shadows as the closest concept that these people will get to experiencing reality and gain knowledge.

It seems that these people are facing an extreme environment and way of life in order for Plato to explain what reality is all about. I feel the Allegory is similar to how a children’s family environment and upbringing here in the good old USA, impacts the child’s economic place and opportunities in our society. Kids don’t face the extreme situation of growing up in an actual cave, however some kids are raised in a sheltered cavelike environment. Some parents aren’t supportive and don’t have the finances to provide opportunities for their kids. Quite often it can be very difficult for a kid to rise above limited opportunities, and really build a life for themselves.

Kids I know from high school and college have been raised from what I’d call a “stable” home environment. Their parents have been pretty supportive over the years and these kids have been provided very solid opportunities. Most kids I know are very driven to succeed. I plan to keep working on my path in life and let people know what I’m all about by experiencing things with people and by just being me. Plato was just being himself as well even though he felt he had to enforce a difficult and usual lifestyle to deliver his message.

The Artist Role in Contemporary Society

When I think about an artist role in society there isn't just one thing I can put my finger on. There is not just one specific reason or role an artist has on society. For example, look at a cardiologist, that specific practice pertains to the heart. That doctor's role in society is to over see patients with heart problems. As for an artist it solely depends on the that individual to decide what their role will look like. That is the great thing about being an artist, your curiosity and what you do with that is very self directed. I believe it is artists responsibility to create a scene, not just in gallery spaces but in and around all parts of are society. We understand beauty unlike any other humans in fact we are hyper sensitive to beauty. We are also innovators, we push forward, we look to the past and create for the future. I believe artist should partner with all kinds of people in society, scientist, politicians, doctors, etc. I don't know exactly know what this would look like but I could only imagine the results and discoveries that we would come across.

When I hear about were the government places the arts on societies totem pole, i'm thrown back. I don't believe many people understand what it means to be an artist. We if any other people understand what it means to be more human. We understand how we are wired, we also understand that material can be manipulated into anything we desire. If we were to remove the artist from the circle, life would become mundane and very ordinary. It's as simple as that, we have to keep every part of the equation running, that's what makes the world go round.