Tag: arts one

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Things Fall Apart, Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now

I know it doesn’t matter whether or not I write any more blogs posts since yesterday was the last lecture and Arts One is for the most part, over. However, I’ll take it upon myself that I admit writing these blogs have been a (bit – not entirely) a chore. However, I find a certain amount of freedom now that I don’t feel it is mandatory to write them. I wish to. And if I don’t stress the freedom I have on this blog, I might explode into a million little pieces.

I want to talk both about the book and the essay prompts that were given to us for the last in-class essay.

The end of Things Fall Apart, strongly addresses history and the production of history. In the beginning of the novel, we follow Okonkwo and his wives, the Igbo people… Essentially Achebe is giving agency to the Igbo people in a way that is not under the microscope of the lens of the “other” – the “other” being British/Western Imperialists. By the end of the novel we reach the death of Okonkwo. A death that has no significance, and yet all the more importance. When Okonkwo dies that becomes the full end of the Igbo people as we first knew them to be. The Igbo people no longer matter. Customs, tradition, etc., become nothing more but an opening to “primitive culture”. The District Commissioner reduces Okonkwo (actually, by this point Okonkwo doesn’t even have a name) into a few pages. Perhaps barely a paragraph. Agency and history (history being a way that we may understand our existence, identity, and our selves) is taken a way, and rewritten. I feel like I understand the question as to whether or not Joseph Conrad is a racist but I also feel like I have to challenge my perspective of what racism is. Racism isn’t just blatant eradication of a culture. It may not be obvious. Racism in the case of Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart, is the act of erasing people. It is the act of writing people how you wish them to be and allowing no other way of being or constituting their own self. This has all to do with history and the production of history. It has all to do about how we understand the world and the past in present context. It very much has to do with Trouillot and Hacking. 

In the lecture of Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, I admittedly was taken aback when I saw the quote about him saying that it was not a film. It was not a film about the Vietnam War. It was Vietnam. Vietnam’s identity becomes warfare, rape, and how the Americans saw it. Sure, I like Coppola’s films, but does he allow agency or room for the Vietnamese? No, I don’t believe he does. Are Vietnamese people seen as the other? Indeed.

And this leads to another question: Could we write history (and I mean this is present tense because the construction of history is in the present) that ignores the “Other”? Must the “Other” exist? I can only think that it is in some ways necessary, and yet I can only think about de Beauvoir and Fanon. I can only think about whether or not essence precedes existence or if it is the other way around. If existence precedes essence.

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to also talk about the essay prompts that were given for the last in-class essay. I prepared for it, but I was unfortunately not able to write about it. It was the question about (and I unfortunately can’t remember the whole prompt) Okonkwo and how he understands masculinity/femininity and if he succeeds in being a man. It was interesting because it not only addresses gender roles, masculinity/femininity, but also what it means to be human.

As must as we have been studying the idea of the “Other”, I find that it doesn’t provide a full picture. There is the idea of the “Expectation” (or, the “Ideal”) as well, I think. It’s like the idea of the Golden Age in which we should aspire towards, but pertains to the individual. It is who we should be, what is expected of us to be… (Side Note: There is a tension between the agency which history provides and the idea that we can understand history only within the context of the present). Okonkwo aspires to be what is expected of him, or the ideal of what it means to be a man. However, he fails because what he aspires to be (the “Expectation”, the “Ideal”) does not acknowledge short comings, consequences, failure, etc., The “Ideal” is the standalone. Anything that opposes it becomes its opposite – something that cannot be constituted as what is “Ideal”. This also is reflected in Okonkwo’s wife, Ekweifi when she fails to provide offspring. In order to be a woman, she must fulfil the “Idea” – to be a woman is to bear children.

So what does it mean to be human? Does it solely mean achieving what is expected of us? This reminds me of Judith Butler in Antigone’s Claim. 

Well, that’s all the rambling I have for now.

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A Note on Foucault and Sexuality

After reading a bit of Foucault, it made my mind do a bit of running. I will say though, it deserves a second read to understand it more clearly.

But, as I was saying… Reading Foucault made me really think about how we think about sexuality today. I don’t know how to think of it really. For one, you could say that we have progressed forward and more sexually liberated. More and more we are pushing towards equality and people who aren’t heterosexual are allowed to express themselves. When people who are attacked because they are homosexual, transsexual, etc., etc., we see that as hate crimes. Just recently on the Grammy’s (I believe it was the Grammy’s anyway) I believe 30 couples got married (and not all of them were heterosexual couples mind you). However, though we are allowed to express sexuality, you could argue that our image of sexuality is a bit too… risqué? Overly-sexualized perhaps? (And I’m speaking of Western culture because I think if we observe cultures in different countries, sex really is something not talked about, people cannot publicly express their sexual orientations, and women are prohibited in many ways). As a young woman, I cannot easily ignore the standards that are emplaced before me. There are adds that exploit sexuality, there are billboards of women parading in teenie-weenie undies, frolicking in a sexual euphoria, and pornography may set a wrong example of what sex is (at at least what I think sex is)

But is that liberating?

Sexual liberation seems to be a bit of a paradox. In one sense we are more free to express ourselves but on the other, there are standards and depictions of sexuality that are a bit ridiculous.

Haha, so what I’m really saying is that I shouldn’t be shunned for wearing my granny-panties.

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A Note on Freud

I think I’ll be mentioning this in seminar on Wednesday but I guess I’ll mention it right now here on my blog. In the beginning of Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, I believe on page 9, I find it funny that Freud quotes Goethe’s Faust. Though we only read Marlowe’s story of Doctor Faustus, from my understanding Doctor Faustus is a man looking for absolute knowledge (or perhaps absolute power?) and obtains it through the means of unnatural/supernatural entities (hello there, Lucifer and Mephistopheles!). But in the end, he ends up making a fool of himself by playing these stupid little pranks. However, not to say that we can’t learn anything from Doctor Faustus (and when I mean that, I mean if the opprotunity every presents itself, don’t be like him). So, what does that have to do with Dora and Freud? Well, I find that Freud is a mimicry of Faustus in the sense that, sure he may be a clever guy in his own special way, but he ends up looking ridiculous. I think (am I being too harsh?) that the most important thing we can learn from Faustus – I mean Freud (woops, I made a Freudian slip, darn subconscious), is not to follow his example of psychoanalysis. Sure, you can read Dora and roll your eyes in agony or let your jaw drop (and perhaps more than once… Yes, some of his things are that ridiculous!), but Freud is useful is some ways and that is to warn us to not follow his method.

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A Note on the Kingdom of This World

Well, I haven’t made an actual blog post in a very long time, but here it is. A Note on the Kingdom of This World.

I should have written this post in the beginning of last week but I have been thinking about it for a while now, and I think my opinion on it has changed a little. In the beginning, all I could think about was how the narrator of the story took a more omniscient point of view and I thought that the reason behind this was because Carpentier wanted the audience to judge for themselves whom to sympathize with (of if we should sympathize with any of the characters). Though I still somewhat hold that opinion,  I think it has shifted a little bit. And it’s due to this one thing I’ve found in the novel: that it can essentially be read backwards and the reader will still get the same story. A story on slavery, revolution, the notion of freedom… And judge whether or not it exists. The events that take place repeat itself and repeats for the same reason, provoked the same way but within different iterations. So, I have to ask… Who are the guilty ones? Because it seems as though no one is right and no one is wrong.

The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz-he dead
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellarShape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

– T.S. Eliot
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A Note

XVII. MEDITATION.

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

John Donne

 

I just wanted to share this. It looms my head from time to time.

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A Note on Silencing the Past

From reading Silencing the Past from Trouillot… I can’t help but feel a bit nervous about all the things in history that we don’t know about and the things that we might perhaps never know about. One question – and I can’t remember specifically what the question was, but the gist of it was why and how those in power (be it kings, queens, royals, leaders, etc.,) alter the past in attempts to make themselves look better in the future. That makes me nervous for some reason because I think why people would try to alter the past to make themselves look better for the future is because, I think we all fear death and we all want to be remembered once we do die. And I sometimes think that whatever we attempt to do is out of the fear of being forgotten.

On another note, I raised a question on the role of social media in the role of history. Since we are actively involved in history and the way we are involved has certainly changed (for example: facebook, twitter, pinterest, tumblr, this blog, wordpress blogs, etc.,)… could it possibly detrimental? Not to discredit social media, I believe that we get to be involved in current events more so than before where information was limited and where information was restricted. I believe we have access to a fuller picture and where we are allowed to form our opinions rather than have major networks to form out opinions and I much rather this than having out view restricted with limited lenses. But I don’t want to give social media too much credit either. Yes, the way information travels is much faster than how it did before, but with that said, the speed of false information travels rapidly as well. What I worry about is that we might trust it more and not view it as sceptically as we should.

 

I think I’ll end this post with a little poem…

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

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A Few Notes on Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality

I’ve been so behind on my blog posts, it’s terrible! This is a draft I had from last week but I never got around to publishing it. Terrible, I know!

Thinking back on Friday’s seminar there was a question that I found interesting and I’m still thinking about it here and there. The question was, why does inequality exist, how does it exist within today’s context, what can we do about inequality, and can we be equal?

And I’m thinking and thinking and thinking and… Why are we unequal? Well Rousseau believes in society there are two types of inequality, one being biological (some people are born more strong, more fast, more etc., etc., than others), and social (discrepancies between people through class structure, ownership of property, etc., etc.,). And I believe in Rousseau’s Discourse he focuses more on he social aspect of Inequality. Through repeated interaction we began to compare ourselves to one another, realizing we were lacking in some way or form and when we began owning property, we saw the “Have’s” and “Have-Nots”. However, prior to that there was marginal “in between” stage (the part right between Savage man and Nascent man) where people living together were happy because they did not yet compare themselves (Nascent Society, where Rousseau talks about it almost as the Golden Age of Humanity).  Then right after came the downfall which led to ownership, slavery, government, etc., etc.,

 

So how does it exist within today’s context? In a lot of different ways. There are disparities within our own country, on a global scale, etc., etc., and as terrible as it may sound, I don’t think that those disparities can fully disappear. Granted, there are things that we are actively involved in to close that gap (and that gap surely has grown quite a bit), and I think it’s good how we are actively involved in those efforts, but I think there will always be this level of inequality (and I believe I am talking more in an economic sense though not to undermine that there are social inequalities as well). And I say this because I want to look at the history of Russia during the communist revolution. If we look at communist as the ideology that the state was involved with the modes of production and that people were essentially equal, there was still a lot of inequality and furthermore, the equality that people were under… Well, it was quite poor. So might I then address how we see “equality” . . . I think when we think about equality in theory (and will a little added roses tinted glasses), we see a version of it where there is more than enough and people are happy and full and satisfied. But if we look at the attempts of equality through practice then the image is entirely different. Sure, you can say people were equal (to some extent), but they were equal on the lowest bar. So when I think we want to achieve equality, I don’t think we want to be equal, I think we want more (again, in an economic sense and less so on social equality).

 

But what I really wanted to get to for this blog post was about what I mentioned in my last blog post. I mentioned a little bit about the movie Midnight In Paris. If you don’t know what that movie is, it’s a film directed by Woody Allen a few years back about this guy named Gil Pender. He’s dissatisfied with his present life, romanticizes the past (wanting to go back to the 1920’s in Paris, the “Golden Age”), and he actually does go back to the 20’s where he meets Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and a love interest, Adriana. Well, some other crazy shinnanigans happens and Gil realizes that the present is the best time to live, that we look at the past so nostalgically because “[the present is] a little unsatisfying because life’s a little unsatisfying”… Okay, well that was a terrible movie summary. I suggest everyone to watch the movie because I did not do the movie justice with that summary. I think that Rousseau is a bit like Gil though. He longs for a past because he thinks it was better and people were better and the climate was better. But the trouble with that (and it’s mentioned in the movie) that if the past becomes our present, we’ll start longing for another past. And it’s true, we might never be satisfied, and I’ll admit, sometimes I’m not and I fear that I might not feel like how I think I should feel… But right now is the only time I know.

Life might not be the party we had hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance.

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Leviathan and Whatever Else

Woops, i’m a little late to the blogging party!

 

Well, I can’t say I agree with Hobbes but granted, what I think he is trying to do is interesting.

So what is he trying to do? Well for one, there is a point that if lets say, I’m disputing with you about… What is just. I have a definition of what justice means and you have a different view on what it is and therefore, if we’re disputing on something that we both have a different interpretation of, we really aren’t disputing at all.

OR ARE WE?

I understand what Hobbes is doing in terms of giving us a dictionary. He’s doing it (I think) in attempts to reform the mind. Like Crawford said in lecture, it’s almost as if he is trying to reform the bible and the origin of man. And if he is successful of reforming the way we think, and if we abide by that, it opens the potential for absolute power. If we all thought the same way, did the same things, etc., etc., etc., then why not live under absolute power? If everyone and everything were the same, wouldn’t that be peaceful?

But that’s not the way humans are. We can’t all be the same because we just can’t accept that. Even if we are, we try to find things that distinguishes us.

 

But then here is my question:

Lets say that we start from the very beginning. The whole world, the universe, the stars, and whatever whatnots. Lets say we start from a blank slate and for some weird unexplainable reason we go along with everything Hobbes is saying and we abide by his definitions. Would that be possible to sustain peace?

I don’t think so.

If there is anything I want to believe about humanity, it is that we’re struggling, we’ve had a lot of victories, but damn have we fallen as well. And we’ve got a long way to go.

And that whole thing about the law of nature being chaos? I don’t think there is any other alternative.

 

Give me a utopia – give anyone a utopia and they will find something wrong about it.

Hobbes, dude, you’re not really thinking, man. This isn’t going to bode well with humans. Like, I know what you’re trying to do but… No. And I’m saying no just to show you how unattainable this whole things is. Like… People don’t want to be the same and peace on Earth, yeah that sounds nice, but maybe in the next world.

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The Master and Margarita and Other Nonsensical Thoughts

Okay, bare with me because I’m very sleepy right now and I’m trying here, okay? And we all know that if I can’t get all my thoughts in one post I’ll make another post like I usually do  hahahaha

So today in Lecture, Miranda Burgess asked a question which really got my mind running, and I can’t remember the exact question but it was along the lines of: “In which ways does Bulgakov’s The Master and Maragrita respond to Stalinist Russia?”

“… if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order of things of earth?”

“Man governs it himself”

“Pardon me, but in order to govern one needs, after all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask you, then, how can man govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period – well, say, a thousand years – but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow? And in fact, imagine that you for some instance, start governing, giving orders to others and yourself, generally so to speak, acquire a taste for it, and suddenly you get . . . lung cancer . . . yes, cancer . . . and so your governing is over! You are no longer interested in anyone’s fate but your own. Your family starts lying to you. Feeling that something is wrong, you rush to learned doctors, then to quacks, and sometimes to fortune-tellers as well. Like the first, so the second and third are completely senseless as you understand. And it all ends tragically: a man who still recently thought he was governing something, suddenly winds up lying motionless in a wooden box, and the people around him, seeing that the man lying there is no longer good for anything, burn him in an oven . . . ” (Bulgakov, 13-14)

 

I really like this passage because there is lots to think about and be mindful of. First, concerning with the question as to how this passage might respond to Stalinist Russia, it poses the question of who governs us? Do we govern ourselves individually, do we have one person governing many others, or do we have a small group of people governing over the rest of the people? It’s an interesting question because during the time in Russia, like Miranda mentioned, that everyone around you could report what you do, where do you go, who you talk to, etc., etc.,

It also makes me think about the amount of control we have in our lives and what our role is. Perhaps we are subjects to fate or we could be subjects to a fate which someone else imposes on to us.

If I can remember correctly from History 12, the role of the Church and religion was lessened because Stalin wanted the focus to be less of fate and religion, and more of duty to ones country. And by Stalin being constantly involved in the public sphere, Stalin became almost like a comforting figure for fate. He replaced God.

So now I have to address this comment, does God govern us? Or does Man?

And in the case of Stalin, is he God or Man?

Now, I know this sounds ridiculous by question if Stalin is God but if we access Stalin’s role in Russia, it seems as if he is more than a political figure. He plays a larger role in which he is responsible to the well being and the future of the state.

But okay, how about this, what if we decide that Stalin is just a Man? And by following the passage in The Master and Margarita, could it then be concluded that, since Stalin is a Man, he could neither successfully govern himself nor Russia.

I’m too tired to write anything else but I think I will conclude with this poem.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear —
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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Doctor Faustus and Other Nonsensical Thoughts, An Edit

If you’re anything like me, actually seeing the play on the stage makes understanding the text very helpful. Here is the full play of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus performed at the Globe Theatre.

After watching the play I really have to say that I can’t help but scoff a little at Doctor Faustus (and I think a lot of people would agree). From my earlier blog post I mentioned how there are many stories that surround knowledge and the pursuit of it but in Fautus’ case, I found that the reason he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange of knowledge. . .  Very . . . . Unmotivated. Just all of a sudden he’s bored and wants to obtain all the knowledge there is in the world and he does nothing with it. So perhaps the problem isn’t knowledge itself but what one does with knowledge obtained. The first scene is Faustus in his study and he’s just… Sittin’ there being all unsatisfied and grumpy. . . And sure he’s a scholar and whatnot, but maybe if he got off his damn butt and applied his knowledge he’d be. . . . Useful.

 

Damn, if I was God, I’d send him to Hell too.

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