Well… one thing I can say for certain about Columbus…. his log entries are boring… I think the captain’s log entries in Star Trek were far more interesting.  I have to admit though, my expectations were set too high for this particular reading.  I expected something rather fun, dynamic, full of history and information.  What I got was a well… a log, and a few letters of a controversial figure, all of which was historical, but required much interpretation and not a lot of dynamic.  There were some parts of it that were fun to read though, (surprisingly).

The first part of the 4 Voyages that I had to read through was the digest of the captain’s log.  This account by an unknown member of Columbus’s crew was written from a surprisingly aloof 3rd party perspective.  Admittedly, he tended to side with Columbus, but the way he explained things from a more neutral point of view allowed me to accept the information without much hassle and bother of questioning every word he was writing.  As I began reading the digest, there was quite a bit of information, that gave the appearance of mundane, but wasn’t so mundane after all.  Soon I found myself noticing every symbol of land, every threat of mutiny, while I knew they would get there, I couldn’t help but wonder what was life like on that fateful voyage across the seas, clinging on mere hopes.  It’s no wonder Columbus, when he finally sighted land, was overjoyed.  I was also taken aback by the scale of what Columbus was describing.  Latin America for the first time and yet, he seemed or tried to keep an open view, not calling the natives barbarians (which was what I expected him to do) and although he later descended into slavery, his first foray into the caribbean was almost like a child wandering through a lush forest.

Then came the denial… when he began to realize and wonder if he had made it to Asia.  This I found rather hilarious thanks to my hindsight information, but then again, I had to pity Columbus.  He sailed all the way across the Atlantic, hoping to find a route to Asia and make it big with Castille, only to find he had stumbled across something entirely new.  If only he had a satellite and GPS!

The letters for me, were the hardest.  Everything that Columbus wrote about how he conducted himself and about he situation, I was forced to think and doubt.  After all, the letters were defending his position.  He sounded quite convincing and it wasn’t easy.  In the end, I managed to take everything at face value, yet still manage to understand Columbus’s defense.

In the end, I didn’t enjoy reading the 4 voyages as a whole.  My ideal explorer is something more like the characters in Star Trek.  But there were some fun tidbits and juicy information that I learnt about this interesting early explorer and the challenges he faced on his voyage.

Signing out

Vincent

Wow, after the tragedy of Oedipus and the hell that was Plato, this was awesome.   On several occasions, I wanted to go put on my mail shirt, get my pattern-welded sword, holster my linden-wood shield and step right into my dragon boat.  Unfortunately I don’t have any of those items so all I could do was read onward.  I found Beowulf to be a really entertaining read, although there were some things that stood out to me in particular.

My expectations of Beowulf greatly influenced my reaction to it.  So the elements of religion in Beowulf poked out at me many times.  It contrasted greatly to what I knew about Viking mythology.  Before reading Beowulf I assumed that Beowulf was a Viking saga, and thus expected gods such as Thor or Odin.  However, what I saw instead were references to the Christian god.  This surprised me greatly and threw me off at occasions when I expected a reference to the god of war THor, instead I got a reference to God or Lord.

My assumptions on Beowulf’s Viking background made me think of a ruthless warrior and fighter.  Instead, what I saw was a loyal man, courteous and fair, who tends to rely on his own hands to get the job done.  Albeit, he seems to lack in strategy or cunning like Odysseus, but he makes up for it, by sheer unbreakable will and courage.  In a sense, I found him to be basically the earliest form of an archetypal hero.  In that sense, he is much different from Homer’s hero of Odysseus, who is a cunning hero, ruthless and a sly tongue.  Beowulf is from a much older stock of hero, more similar to the heroes of the pre-Homeric times and yet different.  Unlike a pre-Homeric hero who relies on Arete or prowess in Battle, part of what makes me think Beowulf as a great hero is his loyalty to his people and his comrades.

That being said, Beowulf is kind of a Gary Stu.  Which is a phrase used to describe overly perfect characters created by authors.  Not only is Beowulf somehow in possession of inhuman prowess in strength and combat, with all the fame that goes to his head and the sudden turn of events that led him to become king, it is shockingly surprising that he doesn’t become a corrupt ruler.  Either Hrothgar’s discourse on the dangers of power, were more shocking than I interpreted it, or Beowulf is seriously so hero-like that when the dragon comes along, he goes right out to meet it instead of sending someone else to kill it.

That’s my thoughts on Beowulf

Vincent

Oedipus Rex… was quite the tragedy.  Extraordinarily depressing, next to the blank word document that was my Plato Essay. Having read Antigone, I knew some of the background to Oedipus Rex, but reading the actual tragedy made me wonder… what do you do when the universe has already condemned you?

Oedipus was basically doomed from the start.   The prophet’s prophecy… basically led to Oedipus running from his fate for his entire lie.  An unenviable fate indeed, but one as he found out the hard way, he could not escape.  Of course, this brings up the question of whether his actions created his fate, or whether fate was predetermined for Oedipus.  To my opinion, it’s seems to vary from situation to situation within the text.  Oedipus killing his father… SEEMED like an accident.  It was Laius who struck out against Oedipus who chanced upon running into the king, but if Oedipus hadn’t run away in the first place, he might have never met Laius.  To me though, it seems that the gods and fate are more to blame than Oedipus’s actions.  If he hadn’t known and everything the prophecy predicted happened to him, then the answer would have been obvious, but Sophocles has written the play in such a way that in a sense, Oedipus’s attempt to know his destiny, led to his downfall.

Ignorance and whether ignorance is bliss is also a key factor in the play.  Oedipus, despite his mother/wife Jocasta’s warnings and pleadings, was determined to seek out the shepherd.  This eventually led to her killing herself, which can be seen as Oedipus driving his mother to death, though I’m more inclined to see Jocasta as being primarily responsible.  If Oedipus just ignored his urge to find out the truth of his heritage… that could have changed things greatly, but then again, given the strange nature of fate within the text, it may not have changed anything.  However, to my eyes, Oedipus’s confronting of the truth, eventually led to his downfall of blinding himself.  So in a sense, Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex warns us that the truth, may cause more harm than good and it also make s a commentary on the nature of fate and destiny.

Continuing to read Plato, was an interesting experience.  For one, his arguments are very well-founded and hard to refute.  So on some occasions I agreed with him and when I firmly disagreed with him, I couldn’t really argue with his logic.

There are a number of ideas and suggestions that Plato makes that I firmly agree with.  The idea of women ruling with men being one of them.  It may be one of the more redeeming qualities of Plato that he sees no difference between men and women.  However, the concept which I find myself most intrigued by is the allegory in the cave, in which humans are the ones continuously grasping at the shadows to try and seek the truth, when they can’t.  I wouldn’t say Plato has found the truth in his representation of the perfect kalliopis, but I have to say that his allegory of a cave is a very accurate representation of how we are striving to identify the shadows which seem to change and flicker.

My thoughts on Plato’s suggestions of a bad city state were mixed.  They were all… bad, but historical examples made me question Plato’s argument.  If one looks at the Roman Empire/Republic… there is a parallel to Plato’s argument in there.  There was a republic, that descended into a tyranny.  Yet, if one looks again at the Roman empire, some of the most successful inventions were during the Tyranny.  So… what Plato suggested is that the Roman Empire was a bad city-state… in a sense, it was, but in a sense it wasn’t since it did last for such a long period of time.  Still, I had to admire how Plato described the decay of the city-states as they were later proven by historical examples.

As for the philosopher kings, the auxiliaries and their training?  Well… In theory, they seemed to make sense.  In all practicality… humans don’t obey logic and have desires.  Plato knows that and he tries to address that ‘problem’ with censorship, conditioning and creating a societal role that would make it difficult, for the desires.  However, while I cannot say he’s wrong, I think that Plato is only trying to at the most, set aside the problem of human desire and not addressing the source.  All his limits, censorship and role-molding that he forces upon the philosopher kings would work… but without any sort of true passion for their jobs, the philospher kings would be in effect, screwed because their job is rather thankless.

Still, Plato’s attempt to grasp at the truth of a perfect government, is an attempt and a good attempt at trying to define the shadow of perfect government.

Signed,

Vincent Yam

I have never read Plato’s work personally, though I have heard of him and my IB Theory of Knowledge class did go over his Allegory of the Cave by discussion and by watching ‘The Matrix’ (Only the first one). So going into The Republic, I was rather unprepared for the amount of processing my poor brain had to do.  At this point though, I am enjoying the Republic, though I am becoming steadily uneasy at the content being presented within the dialogue as it does not conform to my views on government (not that I could possibly give a good judgement on).

Having been in IB Theory of Knowledge, we briefly went over Plato and Socrates in discussion, which I am quite used to.  However, the rhetoric and logic presented within The Republic astounded me and yet made sense.  The reasoning was sound and I found myself agreeing with what Socrates/Plato was arguing about.

As Book 1 ended though and Book 2 began, my interest only grew.  I mean, creating a perfect city in which to test their theory of justice and injustice would do that to your interest.  However, as the book began to progress, my eyes went O_O and a crinkle appeared on my brow.  I agreed with the points of a good polis or city such as it should not be so luxurious.  As roles began to be addressed, I still agreed with what they were suggesting.

It was when they reached what the Guardians should learn and not learn that I began to become increasingly worried.  I admit, my modern perspective is not allowing me to understand Plato’s view, but in my opinion, censorship of certain aspects is never a good thing.  The very reason I am able to write good essays was because my parents encouraged me and exposed me to a variety of works and a variety of views.  The training of the guardians, just reminded me of the Hitler Youth.  Basically training dogs of the state.   I also disagreed that the state would work because it was so logical.  My view (though unproven) is that humans do not always think logically and therefore, they do not always do logical things.  The city Plato is suggesting would work provided everybody was logical enough to understand his/her role, but humans who do not think logically would not be able to stand this city.  The only way this city would possibly work, is if the humans were replaced by Star Trek’s Vulcans who are supposed to always think logically.  Thus my admiration for Plato turned sour.

Yet, I also understood some of Plato’s points about the Guardians.  In real life, during the time of the Roman Empire, their was an Emperor called Marcus Aurelius (You may have heard of him in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator in which Maximus (Russell Crowe) announces himself as a general of Marcus Aurelius).  He was in fact, as most historians describe him, philosopher turned king and was one of the most successful Roman emperors.  Reading Plato actually made me realize that Marcus Aurelius’s reasons for suppressing the Christians may have possibly been the same reason why Plato is arguing for the suppression of Homeric texts (mega speculation here and going on a wild limb).  The populace, or the guardians should not get ahold of the wrong information and it must be censored or in the Christians case, wiped out.

For people wondering why I said Oh the Irony in my title.  Here is why.  For a piece of work to be called Republic, implying a government made up from elected members of a populace, Plato’s polis, is extraordinarily totalitarian and NOT a republic, and yet this work is called Plato’s Republic.  Oh the irony.

So all in all I found Plato’s Republic a very interesting read, though the content that was suggested furrowed my brow for a couple of hours.