summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2003-02-21 11:59 am
summercomfort) wrote2003-02-21 11:59 am
Blah blah blah
Here I am, sitting the the Reynold's club first floor lounge, with about half an hour of free time before me. And no handy Schmitt book to pull out and read. So now it's time to think about stuff. Sometimes that's the problem, y'know? No time to think about stuff. I have to think up two paper questions for Nicky, after finally understanding him. But since he's more of a philosophical thinker than political, it'll be hard doing a comparison. I also have to think about my hum paper... About the Tempest. And Travel, With hum, everything will be a cinch once I come up with a good cohesive direction of argument. Being not a very argumentative person (anal, yes, but argumentative, no), taking a stance is always the hardest. Unless someone else takes a stance first and tells me to argue him/her. Soc papers are much harder, though, because the topic is really open, and the argument is important, yes, but even more important is that you need to understand the texts, perfectly. You need to know what they're trying to say, what is their argument, how they are proving this stuff, which parts don't makes sense, where are the holes, how they compare to other authors, and even extrapolate their opinions on topics they didn't discuss. That's when you try very hard to make a valid and interesting point.
This is what I'm doing this weekend. Plus reading 60 pages of Schmitt and doing Languages of the World homework. What's sad is that the day I turn in my papers, I'm gonna get two new ones. Go me!
Hmmm... I wish there were lj-cuts of lj-cuts, but there aren't. So I'm just going to do my hum paper thinking here, and y'all can just avert your eyes.
Caliban.
Caliban is enslaved by European culture through an unfair information exchange in his first encounter. He now thinks in purely European concepts. (Social status, cursing, etc.) Enslaved king.
However, on the island, he doesn't know examples of the rest of European heirarchy. No info about behavior besides "slave" and "king", so when Stephano and Trinculo come, assume their European superiority (and their superior knowledge), and subjugate himself. Stephano and Trinculo marvel, but Caliban does not. This conquering comes too quickly, Stepphano and Trinculo displaced by wine and power. (Aside: sees in Stephano courage, which he does not have and does not have to give away, unlike with Prospero, who has knowledge, and he gave away his).
Thought all heirarchies about knowledge (and courage), so use knowledge as way to gain favor and to overthrow Prospero. Even though behaves like slave, more of a contract between them.
But proves ineffective because with Stephano and Trinculo, wine is power. Wine is something carried over from lower European culture status. So Caliban, accostomed to the high society of Prospero, takes wine to be a new power (perhaps adding even to his own courage!), and behaves like princely-slave to these drunk servants.
Hmm... should I aim more towards the King/slave relationship, or the power exchange? Will think about it some more later.
Nicky:
Men of Resentment are philosophers diguised as priests, who are the sick doctors who guide the sick into a cycle of bad-conscience (through self-pain, guilt). However, this asceticism and Christian morality allows people to retain their will instead of fall into a no-will and anger directed at the world in general, so with the fall of Christianity and the rise of atheism, we can cast off the guilt and learn from the pain to achieve conscience.
Conscience is result of pain in individual. Bad-conscience a result of pain in society. Can conscience survive without society? Society just middle step before achieving conscience.
Both Nicky and Mill talk about society vs. individual. agree? disagree? genius vs. good man? Pressure of society? (majority vs. priests)
We now live in a mainly atheistic world. Increasing violence. Nicky right?
Nicky vs. Hobbes. Have similar state of nature. But create society differently, how change views?
Reinforcement of pain creates law. Law creates more pain. Where comes the first pain, and how does it progress to bad-conscience and asceticism?
Okay, these are all bad questions. Arg. Don't understand Nicky enough.
Time for lunch!
This is what I'm doing this weekend. Plus reading 60 pages of Schmitt and doing Languages of the World homework. What's sad is that the day I turn in my papers, I'm gonna get two new ones. Go me!
Hmmm... I wish there were lj-cuts of lj-cuts, but there aren't. So I'm just going to do my hum paper thinking here, and y'all can just avert your eyes.
Caliban.
Caliban is enslaved by European culture through an unfair information exchange in his first encounter. He now thinks in purely European concepts. (Social status, cursing, etc.) Enslaved king.
However, on the island, he doesn't know examples of the rest of European heirarchy. No info about behavior besides "slave" and "king", so when Stephano and Trinculo come, assume their European superiority (and their superior knowledge), and subjugate himself. Stephano and Trinculo marvel, but Caliban does not. This conquering comes too quickly, Stepphano and Trinculo displaced by wine and power. (Aside: sees in Stephano courage, which he does not have and does not have to give away, unlike with Prospero, who has knowledge, and he gave away his).
Thought all heirarchies about knowledge (and courage), so use knowledge as way to gain favor and to overthrow Prospero. Even though behaves like slave, more of a contract between them.
But proves ineffective because with Stephano and Trinculo, wine is power. Wine is something carried over from lower European culture status. So Caliban, accostomed to the high society of Prospero, takes wine to be a new power (perhaps adding even to his own courage!), and behaves like princely-slave to these drunk servants.
Hmm... should I aim more towards the King/slave relationship, or the power exchange? Will think about it some more later.
Nicky:
Men of Resentment are philosophers diguised as priests, who are the sick doctors who guide the sick into a cycle of bad-conscience (through self-pain, guilt). However, this asceticism and Christian morality allows people to retain their will instead of fall into a no-will and anger directed at the world in general, so with the fall of Christianity and the rise of atheism, we can cast off the guilt and learn from the pain to achieve conscience.
Conscience is result of pain in individual. Bad-conscience a result of pain in society. Can conscience survive without society? Society just middle step before achieving conscience.
Both Nicky and Mill talk about society vs. individual. agree? disagree? genius vs. good man? Pressure of society? (majority vs. priests)
We now live in a mainly atheistic world. Increasing violence. Nicky right?
Nicky vs. Hobbes. Have similar state of nature. But create society differently, how change views?
Reinforcement of pain creates law. Law creates more pain. Where comes the first pain, and how does it progress to bad-conscience and asceticism?
Okay, these are all bad questions. Arg. Don't understand Nicky enough.
Time for lunch!
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I find him amusing in that off-the-wall insane and incomprehensible way.