Archives: Philosophy

the moral obligation of my human existence

Hello #ACAM350! In continuing the discussion about identity, though I don’t really call myself an Asian Canadian, I am… Let me explain. I was born in Canada then packed on a plane at 3 months old to be raised in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is not China. I have a Canadian passport. I also have a Hong Kong passport. Technically, yes, I’m a Chinese-Canadian, but:  Canadian identity  <<  Hong Kong identity. Complicated, as identity tends to be.

I feel like identity is something that’s fluid, as with all the facets that make up one identity, and that’s why it’s so hard to pinpoint. Anyway, that’s a little intro to me. Moving on!

While reading Voices Rising, I was intrigued by Tanaka’s idea of a moral obligation to community and that “the end of all art should be to bring about an understanding of the community’s being in the world”, while pitting it against the idea of “the artist in Western society” (Li 20). The two opposing concepts of individuality versus community is one that highlights the fundamental differences in Western societies and East Asian societies (cue epic music).

Confucian philosophy and ideologies shape community orient East Asian societies––a way of thinking that resurfaces as “moral obligation to community” in Tanaka’s argument. The difference between his proclamations and the “artist in Western society” then, becomes more than a simple opposition of perspective, but one rooted in the distinction of the differences in cultural perspectives. The argument to “develop a community consciousness” is invariably tied to the idea of an East Asian identity and culture, whether that is Japanese/Korean/Chinese (20).

Going back to the idea of an Asian Canadian identity, how do we reconcile the clashes in ideologies and cultures that make up who we are? What about the idea of “reconstructing” identities, where we unlearn cultural teachings and biases to create a new meaning for being Asian Canadian? I don’t know where I’m going with this but maybe I will at the end of this course (:

girls girls boys

I remember in psychology class back in high school, we learnt about the education of children and the way advertisements and commercials affect children and their perception of who they are and what is acceptable in society.

Why is this relevant? Wollstonecraft talks about the education system, or lack thereof, for women during the time which she wrote The Vindications. She talked about how women were constructed by men, in that their education stemmed from the desires of men essentially wanting trophy wives, disregarding women’s humanity and seeing them as objects. Nowadays, of course, this has radically changed as education throughout the majority of the world is seen as equal where men and women are allowed to undertake in whichever field they choose. However, as learning is a lifelong process, the education of children is significant in their development into adults.

The reason I am bringing psychology into this is because mainstream education in the form of schooling is not the only way in which girls can be objectified and disregarded. Humans take in their surroundings, and the objectification of females in advertisements shine a light on the fact that the inferiority of women has now shifted from mainstream education into an everyday sort of education. Ads of the perfect women (thin, toned, blemish free, etc) are found all around and simply seeing this every single day can have a negative effect on young girls. Needless to say, women still have a ways to go in order to truly become equal to men.

Now on the other side of the argument: males, boys in general, might be experiencing some difficulties in mainstream education. I’ve come across an interesting TEDtalk about re-engaging boys into learning because there has been a trend of boys dropping out of school in recent years. One interesting point that the speaker points out is the expectations for boys to behave like girls in a classroom setting, where boys are told to “be more like the girls” and sit quietly and listen to instructions. This seems like a reverse of what Wollstonecraft may be referring to in her time, when education was targeted to males. Now, early education seems to value girls more than boys simply for their characteristics (girls are quiet and calm while boys are loud and fidgety). I guess this empowers girls in someways, saying they are the model students in classroom settings simply because of their stereotyped nature of a calm demeanor as opposed to boys, but doesn’t this then disregard boys and their nature?

Oh, the balance of gender equality, so easily tipped to one side or the other.

 

Naming the unknown –– Antigone’s Claim by Judith Butler

What we have here is The Ambiguous Case of Antigone, where she is “unintelligible and unthinkable”. So… why do people even bother trying to understand her?

Here’s why I think so many people have attempted to define and classify Antigone as something, yet end up failing to some degree: because society and its people cannot deal with individual anomalies. They cannot deal with the appearance of something unknown, unable to be classified and put into order. In my opinion, it drives them insane like some kind of OCD for the whole of society, going along the lines of the exclamation “WHY WON’T YOU FIT?!”, similar to that of someone trying to complete a puzzle.

This form of anxiety and interest in the anomaly is greatly influenced by the idea that society fits together; everything is within society and has a place, name, and function in social structures. Because Antigone is such a far off point in the collation of humans in general, everyone looks at her like she’s some sort of rare extinct animal. I find that these specimens of humans or characters to be the ones who challenge what we or society believe as a whole. It’s interesting to think that in classifying Antigone, humanity might gain some understanding of what or who she is, and add her to the organized list of What To Name People.

But perhaps this isn’t the point of Antigone’s ambiguity, to be named, but rather to stay unnamed so as to always remain a mystery, an unidentifiable being that transcends society and social norms to give people something to fawn over and obsess about because she does not fit, and because she is special.

Ambiguity then, I think, is good for human kind. We do not know and we are uncertain.
But isn’t that the beauty of knowledge, that we might never know? I think so.

I believe you but you don’t know what you’re saying? — Gorgias by Plato

I am confused by a very simple point in Plato’s Gorgias.

If Gorgias claims that what oratory is is simply being able to persuade a person or crowd without knowledge that he is knowledgable in something he actually isn’t, then what does he use to persuade the crowd? I’m sure the lengthy style of speech Polus gives when trying to answer Socrates gives an idea of how he does it, but then this brings me to a similar conclusion to what Socrates said: he isn’t really answering the question, just making it sound nice and grand. In the end, it’s kind of like a bluff… no?

What kind of persuasion would it be if the basis of it is simply on the words of one person without knowledge? To a person lacking knowledge, it would sound perfectly fine and seem rational, I presume, as long as someone seems to knows what they’re talking about, but it does not provide any solid ground for a claim. This leads me to question how much we actually trust other people’s words, and how much we believe what we hear. People lacking knowledge seem to be blindingly trusting in what they hear from the orator, because he appears to be knowledgable, at least in how Plato portrays the unintelligent population. Does this not mean that whoever speaks persuasively can move those lacking knowledge, even if it may be completely false and inaccurate? I guess so, but I think this also downplays humanity’s intelligence and complexity in someways, as I do not think it is as simple as Socrates rationalizes that “a man who has learned what’s just [is] a just man too” (pg, 19, 460b)

Then again, maybe what Plato portrays is true. Words can move people, as demonstrated by many great historic speeches (Martin Luther King, Hitler, etc). But do people believe in these words simply because it aligns with their motivations and goals, or is it maybe because the speaker has a certain charisma? Successful speakers certainly seem to have both, however, what I’m trying to question is how much can we believe a person based on their words without knowledge or facts backing it up? Or, as Socrates describes, how much can people be swayed by “conviction – persuasion” as opposed to “teaching – persuasion”? Doesn’t providing evidence and teaching with facts and knowledge lead to a more solidified and grounded claim? Am I just veering towards rationalism in regards to knowledge? Maybe? Regardless, given our progress in technology and availability of information, it is hard to imagine an argument or persuasive speech without at least a hint of factual evidence to support an argument. Perhaps this is just my instilled process of thinking and therefore cannot understand a “conviction – persuasion” Socrates and Gorgias is referring to.

Either way, I would like to end this post by claiming this: I don’t really have anything to back up what I’m saying.