Monthly Archives: October 2013

Hobbes: Make up your mind!

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I’m going to say it now, I have not finished the assigned chapters at the time of writing this post. But so far I believe I have a general idea.

Today’s lecture by Dr. Robert Crawford was very interesting, and brought  forward a lot of interesting points. One that struck me was (and this is paraphrasing from my personal lecture notes) when he spoke of one of Hobbes’ ideas as “Be a good ruler or you’re gonna wind up dead. Hobbes feels this is enough to keep them [rulers] in check.”

Now this is one point that has stuck with me. Hobbes views are shown to be very anti-rebellion. One does not question authority, and follows what those in higher positions say. Now, I do not agree with this, but this is what Hobbes believes. I’ll pretend to agree for all intents and purposes.

Here is where my issue lies. In our lecture and the reading, another idea is brought up. “Authoritarian states need to be aware of the natural punishment of going too far”. So, as Dr. Crawford explained, Hobbes believes that if the rulers are bad, people will kill them. That is a natural punishment. Even if rebellion is illegal, that will not stop an angry population.

So, what is Hobbes’ view on rebellion? It is wrong, and should never be done. But, he also says that rulers should be good enough that people will not rebel. Now this seems straightforward, but I still feel unsatisfied. Rebellion is wrong, but will happen if rulers are bad. Well then… wouldn’t that make it good? Or at the very least necessary?

I understand that if the people in charge follow what Hobbes says, he feels rebellion will not occur. But it still remains, if they don’t follow his beliefs, rebellion will happen. It will be needed.

I don’t know if anyone else sees it this way, but I feel a dissonance between ideas here. I’m curious to see what the class thinks in our seminars. Maybe I’ll change my mind!

~Ola

My views on the recent sexual assaults

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Now, this has nothing to do with Arts One. At all. But since Christina mentioned we should use this blog for other things, I thought it would be a good place to vent out my feelings.

It is not all my opinions, but just some I needed to get off my chest.

UBC and Rape Culture

So there have recently been 3 reported and 1 unreported sexual assaults on my university campus.

It has been a long week of debates and discussions, both positive and negative. It has been frustrating for me, listening to some of the misconceived notions of “feminism”, and hearing so many rape jokes being made. Even hearing people yelling “Don’t get raped” as a female walks at night have put me on edge.

In my opinion, UBC definitely needs some sexual assault education. Hearing some of the opinions swirling around, I feel sick to my stomach. So many people have turned this into something it is not.

Multiple female students have been assaulted. Luckily, none were raped. Keeping an extra eye out for females is fine, as they are this attacker’s victimology. Telling men “they will be fine” isn’t. Everyone should be aware of their surrounding when walking home at night, but not just simply women or simply because of rape. Just even for safety reasons, like robbery.

There does need to be a shift in culture from “Don’t get raped” to “Don’t rape”. This is so much more than putting the blame on men. Although a part of it is not blaming victims, a large part is the fact there is honestly not much I can do about not being raped. I can walk home with someone, I can be safe, but if someone really wants to attack me, they will. It needs to be known that anyone who attacks a student will be heavily pursued and captured. We need to have security patrolling and keeping an eye out. “Don’t rape” also means “Don’t blame a ‘victim’ for something they had no control over” and “Don’t make jokes about sexual assault”. It is not funny in any way.

Now I’m not even going to get into the Feminist arguments at play here, since I do not want to get riled up right now. All I’m going to say is feminism is not “Kill all men”, it is “Women and men are equal”. Stop propagating bullshit, and turning this into something it is not.

Lastly, we should all have the same goal here:

We want this assaulter caught, and we want campus to be a safer place. 

No matter what your or my opinions are on the above stated, in the end we should all be trying to attain this. We want UBC to be an awesome place, and we don’t need or want this fear around campus. This is our home, and we need to work together to protect it.

-Ola

Doctor Faustus: A Deal with the Devil

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Let me preface this by apologizing, for I am about to include one of my favourite tv shows in this blog post. I have two good reasons: 1) Because I can, and 2) Because it actually has something to do with the text.

So this week our assigned reading was Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. For those unfamiliar with the text, it is about a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for power and knowledge.

You may be thinking, What?! Why would someone do such a crazy and stupid thing?!

Well, in one of favourite shows, Supernatural, this theme is one that is brought up often. What must be going on in someone’s head to make a deal with the devil, especially as, historically speaking, the devil doesn’t seem like a very trust-worthy guy.

In Supernatural, the main character’s have often made deals with demons and devils alike, usually for a good reason. In their cases, they do it to save family members, or to try to right a wrong. Sometimes even, to save the world

Unlike them, Faustus does not seem to do it for others, or the greater good. His reasons are for him, and eventually lead to his demise (surprise, surprise!).

This question is one I have always been curious about: in our day and age, what would it take for someone to make a deal with the devil? Knowing full well it may not end nicely?

What would possess someone to do something so risky? Extreme poverty, sickness, depression?

It makes you wonder what we as humans are capable of doing if we really want something enough.

-Ola