Importance of reflection

When reflection becomes incredibly important to your own survival and well-being, it suddenly gets a huge priority boost. I won’t claim that without it I would literally have died, but for the period that I worked on the pearl farm, I might have come close.

I’ll explain where I was, and what I was doing, before giving the rationale behind my reflective process on the events.

My final exam had concluded on November 6th, and I was ready for a break. My plan was to work for the next 8 months then move to Canada to begin university, but at least for the next week I was going to kick back and chill. That all turned to shit unfortunately, when my good friends father offered me a job. The terms were as follows;

  1. At least 8 weeks, maybe more
  2. Work on a pearl farm, doing manual labor of one variety or another
  3. The work place is an isolated farm in the furthest reaches of the Northern Territory, in a bay 3 hours from the nearest town by boat in Arnhemland, called Gove (Nhullunbuy).

 

Of course, this would mean living there, without good phone service, for a period which included my 18th birthday (the legal drinking age in Australia, so an important one), Christmas, new year, Hannuka, and Australia Day.

My decision was made 3 years prior to this however, when I decided UBC was going to be my university, so I said yes. Dave, my friend’s dad, went into another room, and – in his usual manner—immediately booked a flight without telling me.

 

Cut to 50 hours later and I’m sitting in a dongle, sweating profusely in the North Australian wet heat, wondering how on earth I got there, writing in a journal. This is where my self-reflection suddenly became so incredibly important. What I’ll do now, I think, is give a brief account of a few points of reflection which I still have with me, and which I immediately put to use out on the farm.

  1. Be a 0. Don’t try, when you aren’t sure of your own ability, to be a +1, because inevitably, you will be a -1. Here is what happened to lead me to this conclusion. I was on the boat as it was pulling out of the harbor to make the 3 hour journey from Gove to camp. It’s a big ship. The ropes holding it to the wharf were as thick as a man’s thigh, and probably 25 meters long. The call was made to pull them in, and a woman covered in tattoos was dragging one up onto the boat. I was standing around like a limp scarecrow, and desperately wanted to prove myself. With that in mind, I rushed over to Kerry pulling in the rope, and also got a grip on it and tried to pull. It immediately stopped reeling in, so I pulled harder. Kerry told me to “fuck off”, and I suddenly realized that I was pulling the rope at an angle that caused it to jam up against the side of the ship, preventing it from moving. From then on, I stood back until I knew I could have a positive, +1 influence on a situation- which can only come about through this process of self-reflection.
  2. Never, ever mess with animals. This one is less of a personally reflective concept, but I think Mengzi might approve. Animals, in the outback of Australia, want you to die. It’s like the combination of heat, misery, desert, and hunger makes them furious, and almost always out to murder you. Here are a few cases where that turned out to be incredibly true. When I first arrive I was told, “watch out for cigarette snakes. They’re everywhere. We call ‘em that coz if you get bit by one, you just wanna si’down, roll up a ciggy, and ‘ave a smoke, coz… well, it’s the last thing you’ll ever bloody do.” It turns out that the anti-venom only lasts for about 2 weeks, and it’s very expensive- so they just don’t keep it on camp. The venom from these snakes takes about 25 minutes to paralyze a grown man, and with a helicopter, you still wouldn’t make it to hospital in time. I couldn’t believe it when, a few weeks later, I walked out of my dongle to see a 6 foot 4 Estonian bloke staring at a 3ft snake right in the eyes. It looked like he was in a trance, and frankly- so was I- until someone else saw him and screamed “get the fuck away from it! That thing’ll kill ya!”. So I was taught, both through practice and self-reflection, to stay well clear of anything in the bush or water that moves.

 

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Honoring Ideas

Over the course of history humanity has used literature to express the ideas of countless individuals so that those ideas could be passed down generation after generation. An interesting aspect of Mengzi is that despite being an influential voice in the philosophy of his time, he didn’t write his own book. At the time, books were far too cumbersome to transport and reproduce efficiently. Mengzi, near the time of his death, had a book written by his followers on his teachings, compiled from notes that they had saved. This wasn’t only culturally significant to China; many writings from all over the world follow this pattern, the most prolific being the Holy Bible. The Bible was written after Jesus Christ of Nazareth’s passing by his followers, and could easily be compared to Mengzi (despite its religious significance). Although this differs from our modern method of philosophical writing, there have been numerous examples of contemporary philosophers and writers receiving honoring texts and other works. A good example would be Franz Kafka, and how despite writing in his will that he wanted his works to be burned, his good friend Max Brod decided against this, publishing his larger stories and later compiling his notes and poems into other volumes. The idea of writing about someone after they’ve passed may seem strange in terms of the modern era; books have become so easy to produce that one can take their existence for granted without thinking of their impact on the spread of ideas. Books used to be much more difficult to produce, and could only be reproduced by hand for hundreds of years. Luckily, we’ve had countless individuals throughout history who’ve seen importance in the preservation ideas. Without them, the world would be a much different place.

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Mencius’ teachings now and then

Students nowadays complain about the abundance of books we must buy during the school year. I definitely wasn’t prepared to have to buy more than five hundred dollars worth of books for my first year of university. The only plus side I found besides getting to read new books were the fact that they were not ancient, bulky bamboo scrolls that I would have to lug around campus. In the time period where Mengzi (Mencius) was originally taught, Mencius the philosopher’s ideas were not presented through a book but through speech that later turned into writings on bamboo strips and much later into translated books like The Essential Mengzi that we have today. Mencius engaged with his students directly and his collection of anecdotes and conversations on political philosophy and moral were put together in later days by his followers to continue these beliefs onto later generations. His teachings were passed down successfully as he is someone we continue to read from all over the world due to followers who chose to translate and share his knowledge. Although the book The Essential Mengzi isn’t exactly how Mencius may have explained his teachings before the fourth century BC, his values and ideas were not lost in translation. His ideas on human nature, goodness, and social order are relatable to people in all generations and is what keeps his practices going. Thankfully, we are able to learn Mencius’ beliefs without having to carry around fourteen scrolls that would likely equal to this one short book with commentary that we are able to have in the palm of our hands.

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Being Good in the Eyes of Procedural Crime

You know that a text is on your mind when even when you’re watching or doing things other than reading the text, the text is still able to connect back to whatever you are doing. In this case, I happened to be catching up on NCIS‘ new season. The name of the episode that I was watching was called ‘Being Bad’, and the premise followed as such:

In the beginning, you see a high- school reunion going on. These two men, both very nerdy looking, are walking into the gym when a grade- A douchebag looking guy (you know the type: peaked in high-school, never grew out of it) approaches them and antagonizes them, just as he did back in the day. Neal, the nerd, isn’t really taking him on, that is until Bruno (the douchebag), throws a punch at him. Neal then grabs his arm and flips him over onto his back and delivers this line that made me jump in pride: “Hey, so what’d you end up doing after high-school? I joined special forces.” (1:38). I was like ooooohh my GOD! Yes!

A minute later, Bruno is dead. Poisoned. *Cue NCIS opening theme*

The episode takes a load of turns as the team finds out that Bruno had hidden a bomb in a locker, a bomb that had the ability to kill everyone in the gym. Obviously things aren’t looking good for our douchebag. Tries to beat up a nerd, commit mass murder, and then they find out that he was involved in a major theft ring that Metro PD had been trying to solve for years. He was the guy on the team who broke into the houses and stole the stuff. The latest thing he stole was a painting worth over a million dollars, but no one could find it. As the investigation continues, the team finds out who else was involved in the theft ring; a group of 5 people, Neal (our nerd), included. The other three also all went to the same high-school, and they came up with the idea for a massive theft ring when the five of them (from drastically different social backgrounds and classes), had a Saturday detention together.

It was like the Breakfast Club, just with less musical montage and more illegal activities.

Bruno is really looking like a bad guy here, but the thing is that one of the group members is insistent that Bruno would never want to kill people. Then another group member speaks up and says that he was a nice guy, and that he even staged the fight with Neal so that Neal could look good in front of the ladies. If you want to know what happened to Neal, he kills himself so that he doesn’t have to go to jail. Not before he confesses everything via video and a typed out document, though. Thanks, Neal.

Another bit of evidence turns up when it’s found that right before putting the bomb in the locker, Bruno had tampered with it and deactivated it, so that the ‘pretty girl’ (the mastermind behind the bomb idea) of the ring couldn’t detonate it. At this point, Abby, the forensic scientist, and Gibbs (the team leader), while talking say something that I think Mengzi would definitely agree with:

(This is after finding out about the bomb being deactivated)

Gibbs (about Bruno): Bad on the outside, good on the inside.

Abby: Maybe he got cold feet. Decided he didn’t want to be a depraved mass murderer after all. See, this is why I’m a people person. Because the good on the inside, it always-

Gibbs: Abbs… (and so the dialog continues)

(35:40-35:53)

Okay, so Gibbs interrupted Abby when she was JUST getting to the Mengzi part, but I think we can all conclude what she was about to say. That the good on the inside, it always shines through. That definitely relates to Mengzi’s innate goodness theory. When she started to say this, I got unreasonably excited as my brain instantly made the Mengzi connection.

As the episode comes to a close, we find out that Bruno’s landlord killed him to steal the painting for herself, the remaining members of the theft ring are arrested and sent to Metro, and one last piece of evidence for the case of Good Guy Bruno is shown: they found a laptop in Bruno’s car, on the laptop was an email that confessed everything and outed everyone. He never got the chance to send it. Agent Torres tells Gibbs of this development in this exchange:

Torres: … Guess he figured which version was the real him (about Bruno).

Gibbs: The good guy.

(40:40- 40:53)

Basically, I think that if Mengzi was here today he’d really like this episode of NCIS. It showed that even though this guy had stolen millions of dollars worth of items from peoples’ homes, and though the police themselves had absolutely no leads on who was behind it all, he still had a conscience. He showed his inherent goodness, and it shone through. He was literally being a good guy until his last breath, which is sad to think about. But at least in this case, Mengzi’s theory rings true: that we all have the capability to be good.

I believe it too, and I think Abby would also definitely agree.

 

Citation:

“Being Bad.” NCIS. CBS, WBBM-TV, Vancouver, 27 Sept. 2016

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Nature VS. Nurture: the Innateness of Human Qualities

Mengzi argued and believed that all humans are filled with an innate sense of compassion, deference, disdain for evil, and the ability to tell what is right from what is wrong. I too believe that humans are born with these qualities; however, I would argue that not all people stay this way for their entire lives. This is where the argument for nature versus nurture comes into play. Although humans are innately good they can be corrupted by how they are raised and what they are told to believe in. Take for example a boy who was raised in a home that was filled with love and respect which began to reinforce the aforementioned qualities, but due to circumstances beyond his control, he is placed into the care of another family. This family treats him cruelly and without love and slowly the good qualities he was born with and that were further nurtured by his original family begin to crumble. His sense of compassion, deference, disdain for evil and his ability to tell what was right from wrong begins to decay resulting in a sentient being Mengzi would refer to inhuman. In conclusion, when people are born they are innately good, but how they are raised is what decides whether that goodness lasts them their whole lives.

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The principles of Mengzi

Mengzi believes that human nature is inherently good and we can become more virtuous through the practice of Ren Yi Li Zhi. First, Mengzi points out that the quality of Ren is the attitude of being kind and always thinking of others. For example, a person demonstrates the quality of Ren when he wants to help an elder lady who falls on the street. Interestingly, Mengzi believes that having the intention to be kind is actually more important than the act of kindness itself, which means even if the person does not end up helping the lady, the virtue of Ren is being demonstrated in the person. Readers can notice Mengzi’s philosophy which places primary importance on what the Chinese refer to as the heart (or mind), that every action is measured by the place it comes from. Similarly, the quality of Yi, which refers to having a sense of justice, is also an element of the virtuous heart inside us. On the other hand, Li, which refers to custom or ritual, is something in our outside reality. For example, if the prime minister of a country wears pajama to visit the president of another country, such action is not in accordance with Li. In order to act according to Li, apart from having Ren and Yi, one also needs to develop the quality of Zhi, which refers to wisdom.  If the prime minister of a country wants to build up friendship with the president of another country privately, it is a good idea for him to wear pajama and have a chat over the dinner table together. Since doing so will make the other person feel more at ease, however, if they were to meet publicly, it is then only appropriate to wear something formal. Mengzi suggests that it is this quality of Zhi which allows an individual to determine what action is appropriate under different circumstances. Once upon a time, Mengzi traveled with his students and they were met by a farmer who took their horse away from them. A student then walked up to the farmer and kindly asked the farmer to return the horse; the farmer ignored the student and kept walking. The student then walked back to Mengzi to seek help, Mengzi laughed at the student and told him what he did was like singing a song to the deaf. Mengzi then sent the horseman to fetch the horse back. Upon meeting the horseman’s aggressive attitude, the farmer quickly returned the horse. After the incident, Mengzi gave a quick lecture to his students on developing the virtue of Zhi. According to Mengzi, we need to enhance the goodness that we are born with and the way to do that is through developing the principles of Ren Yi li Zhi. From the qualities of Ren and Yi we become virtuous inside and through the application of Zhi we are able to appropriately act according to the Li outside.

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Saussure’s Semiotics and Plato’s Ineffable Forms

In the early 20th century, Saussure’s theory of linguistics was published. It delineated the gap that lies between what we say and what is – that is, the relationship between language and the reality it attempts to describe. Saussure’s theory of signs divided words and meanings into two; the signifier (the word) and the signified (the meaning). The relationship between the two is arbitrary. The meaning, or signified, does not exist concretely within reality, but is rather a space in meaning that is defined by absence. For example, take the word door. When identifying an object such as a door, we tend to think we grasp its type through similarities common across all doors. However, if we deconstruct this process of reasoning it becomes more complicated. A door is usually wood, it usually has a handle, it opens from the side – yet this description is ambiguous, and applies to a number of other household objects, like dressers and armoires. A window, which is glass and also can open from the side, in this system of deduction may mistakenly be classified as a door, and vice versa. Instead, Saussure argues that words function through a negative system of definition. A door is a door because it is not a window, or a wall, or a cat or a dog or any other signified space of meaning. This methodology of defining by what is not allows us to categorize new and ambiguous objects with relative ease, and allows vastly disparate objects to be collected together despite their physical or abstract differences.

 

The dissimilarities between Saussure and Plato are extreme. However, Plato does, in places, prefigure Saussure in the Republic, recognising and addressing the separation of language and reality through his theory of the forms. Plato’s true forms and their direct connection to the words that describe them – beauty and goodness – are diametric opposites to Saussure’s theory of definition by absence, but both philosopher and linguist agree on a conceptual space of meaning that rests above language. This metaphysical realm that Plato attempts to reveal in the Republic is, by its nature, ineffable. As a result, the text remains incomplete, as the reader is led to the brink of a second, true reality and left hanging without resolution. Plato cannot take use any further. Language cannot convey the full truth of the form of the good, the form of the beautiful. It is our mind’s own challenge to transcend this language, to grasp the meaning of knowledge, and to understand ‘what is’. But as Saussure reveals, the question of what is isn’t quite as simple as a singular meaning.

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The effect of dialectics in the Republic

Dear Readers

After start reading Plato’s  Republic, the realization that Arts One is probably the most demanding first-year program at UBC became acute. Over the course of 12 days, I had to overcome a strong headache and an impulse  to go to sleep in order to maintain my focus on the book. The philosophical and political theories   included in the book are extremely complex that I don not expect to get a good grasp of them in a period of two weeks. In comparison, I am  more interested in the ways in which Plato explains his ideas to his reader. In other words, I am interested in Plato’s use of Philosophical discussions or dialectics.

Through the use of Dialectics, Plato surely made the book more appealing to his reader in more ways than one. Thought the book, Plato never existed as a character. Instead, he hides behind every character in his book. To me, it’s unclear why Plato would use the identity of his Mentor Socrates as well as his brother Glaucon and Adeimantus.  But there is no doubt that he did this intentionally and purposefully. In the first 4 books, it looks as though the conversations in the book are records of actual conversation that happened in ancient Greek.The characters seem incredibly real to me mainly because of  the tone of the language. For instance, in the beginning of book 2, Glaucon says

” Do you want to seem to have persuaded us , Socrates, that is better in every way to be just than unjust, or do you want to really persuade us of this……Well, then, you certainly are not doing what you want” (36)

From this quote, it’s pretty clear that Glaucon is not convinced by Socrates’s argument. On top of that, he is challenging  Socrates to provide a better explaining in order to truly persuade him. The tone of his language seems disrespectful and a little rude.  But this is possibly exactly what Plato want us to feel. He depicts Glaucon as a challenger to Socrates’s argument. later, as the conversation continues, Glaucon becomes uncertain of his own opinion of what justice is. The same thing happened to Adeimantus. But through these discussions which I am going to quote because I don’t have the time, Plato gradually explains how he arrived at his conclusion.  For readers,  this use of philosophical discussion/ dialectics made the text a lot easier and interesting to read. hand_monochrome_palm_widescreen_abstract_photography_desktop_1920x1200_free-wallpaper-3633

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The impossibility of a ‘Philosopher King’

In Plato Republic, he explains his famous cave analogy; which describes a process of education on particular individuals that will ultimately lead to them becoming ‘philosopher kings’ if they succeed. These philosopher kings are stated to have seen the sun at the end of the cave metaphor (they know and understand the real truth), and have the obligation to go back to the cave and lead the rest of the people in the best way possible. Thus, the cave analogy provides a metaphor in which it is possible to create philosopher kings who would best lead the city they have hypothesised (Kallipolis), because he would know the form of the good (the real truth). Therefore, the king would be deemed as omniscient and capable of leading the city they have formed in the best possible way.

This argument that Plato brings forward in his analogy is critically flawed in the sense that it is impossible to teach something to someone that you yourself don’t know. Socrates explains several times himself that they will never be able to reach the real truth through discussion: “You would no longer see an image of what we are describing, but the truth itself as it seems to me, at least” (Plato, 228). Through this statement it is shown that Socrates himself doesn’t know the full truth himself; hence, his assumption that he can teach people to know the real truth through a certain method of teaching that takes years and years of education is utterly ridiculous, and the sacrifices these people will have to make in order to attempt to become a philosopher king is much to great on its own.

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Kallipolis: Individual vs. Collective

Kallipolis, as described in Plato’s Republic appears to not allow for any societal growth. To understand this we must separate the longevity of The Republic as a whole from the longevity of Plato’s Kallipolis.  Though not intended to be an exact blueprint of an ideal city, Kallipolis is used as an example of a just society.

This society seeks to fulfill the individual’s basic needs but does not take into account the individual’s thoughts, desires, or humanly vices. Later, Aristotle would say that to develop character, you need to have certain traits. For example, to be human, there are certain traits, virtues, and vices. Plato leaves no room for uniqueness, where there is a combination of your roles as an authentic individual. In Kallipolis, there isn’t really any room for movement, everyone has a vocation. This is seen in the Myth of Metals, where everyone is divided up into gold, silver and bronze or guardians, warriors and producers.

In this division of Plato reduces us to a single role, and does not accept any potentiality. He argues that a person would do better work if he only practiced one craft (370b5, pg. 48). Arguably, humans do have strengths and weaknesses, but the citizens of the theoretical Kallipolis would not be given the chance to explore these things. The greater good mentality totally loses the individual. Plato’s utilitarian ideals focus too much on the aggregate good.

Because of this, he has not truly come up with an ideal society because it could not withstand the test of time. An ideal society would be dynamic and able to adapt to new technology, scientific discoveries, social movements. It would support both the individual and the community on equal levels.

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