“Everything is imprinted for ever with what it once was” (Jeanette Winterson)

                           

 

“Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove… But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction.”

PART 1

When most of us think of time, we think of what merriam-webster.com defines as “the thing that is measured as seconds, minutes hours, days, years, etc. : a particular minute or hour shown on a clock”.  But what is time really?  merriam-webster.com continues, perhaps trying to capture this idea, that time is “a non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future”.  I think this idea of time being measured in terms of events that happen from then to now and what’s still to happen.

Jeanette Winterson, in her science-fiction novel The Stone Gods, discusses time on many levels (in a head-scratching, what is time? way).  (I am looking forward to reading this book a second time.)  Throughout the book Winterson is never clear about when this book takes place, what the time period is.  It is clear that it is futuristic (for most of the book – there is a brief stint that is clearly in the past on Easter Island), but how far into the future?  Winterson never makes it clear, but I deduced that Billie, the main character throughout the novel, is around 30 years old and was born in the latter quarter of the 20th century (so I figure around 1975).  So based on my deductions, this book takes place in the early 2000’s – which to us, right now, is the past.  But what is time anyway?  Time is a list of events.

Also during the book, especially further into the book, Winterson toys with the idea (not outwardly) of time travel.  Several characters in the book find the book The Stone Gods; leading you to wonder… “Who wrote this? Where did it come from?  Who left it behind?”  And of course, the end of the book ******SPOILER ALERT****** “At the bend in the track, I see what I know I will see: the compact seventeenth-century house, built on the sheer fall of the drop to the stream.  There’s a water-barrel by the front door, and a tin cup hung on a chain, and an apple tree at the beginning of the garden, where it meets the track… I have my hand on the gate, but I hesitate for a minute because when I go through I can’t come back” (206).  This section is describing what could be a time travel portal or something… there aren’t houses like that any more in the time where Billie is coming from (whether it be Tech City or Wreck City).  Even her living museum (farm) is gone at this point in the book.  So I wonder here… how far into the past is she going?  Seventeenth Century?  Or just to her own farm.  I think she is joining her birth mother – in Heaven?? Is it her mom whom she is talking to, who she says, “It’s you, and it’s me, and I knew it would end like this, and that you would be there, had always been there; it was just a matter of time” (206-7).  Time is what fills in the gaps I guess of what is going on in the world, in our own lives.  Maybe time isn’t even real.  Time is just an idea.  Which I guess, means that time doesn’t matter.  What we do with our lives and our love and our skills is what matters.  Not time.

PART 2

I felt that Winterson’s The Stone Gods brought up many issues that aren’t so far off track from what many people are thinking of and dealing with today.  For example, in these futuristic utopian/dystopian books, books, actual physical books, are (basically) obsolete.    Everything is digital.   Humans are becoming an unskilled race who can’t survive without technology. Government has collapsed and has been ‘taken over’ by THE large corporation (I pictured Wal-Mart as MORE), providing everyone with whatever it was they needed or wanted.  Robots are the norm.  And even Robo sapiens are being created in order to have a fully objective, intelligent figure making the “right” decision.

The humanities sort of is this scenario.  The humanities encompasses so much of what this book deals with.  Major questions about time and space and culture and how we as a population are growing, changing and governing.  Philosophy.  Education.  Text (in all forms).  How technology and literature (for example) fit together.

*side note*

I struggled with this blog.  I will probably write an “amendment” to it.  I don’t feel as though I wrapped it up at all – this is my fault for writing it over several sittings, for taking the “time” aspect of the assignment (when I probably should have taken the more general ‘humanities’ aspect) and because my ice pack exploded on my book and – essentially – ruined it.  But we’ll see if I can get this done.  Just know, that I’m sorry, I don’t feel this is my best.

Human?

                                                   

 

What does it mean to be human?  An impossible question to give an adequate answer.  But I enjoyed trying to answer this question for myself before reading Jeanette Winterson’s “The Stone Gods”, and then enjoyed continuing trying to answer it throughout my reading of this text.  

What does it mean to be human?  Well, to be human is to be a homo sapien.  So my dog is not human.  But what does it mean to BE human?  Yes, we are mammals… We are bipeds… We have language and use tools and have culture… Is it our culture and different types of culture across the globe that makes us human?  Is it the fact that we grow and change and think and philosophize and read and build and conquer that makes us human?  Honestly, I just don’t know.  

I will look at a conversation in “The Stone Gods” between Billie, the main character- a homo sapien woman- and Spike, a Robo sapiens (woman/robot with consciousness) to try to explain what it means to be human (do not expect any hard fast answers, because you won’t find any here).    

One point that Billie makes throughout their ‘debate’ about human versus Robo sapiens (robot) is “Your systems are neural, not limbic.  You can’t feel emotion.”  Spike’s response to this is “Human beings often display emotion they do not feel.  And they often feel emotion they do not display.” (62)  Spike isn’t wrong here.  Actually she couldn’t be more right.  All people do this; don’t express our true emotion.  But we are still feeling emotion, so is that what makes us human; the feeling of emotion?

Spike continues, “is human life biology or consciousness?  If I were to lop off your arms, your legs, your ears, your nose, put out your eyes, roll up your tongue, would you still be you?  You locate yourself in consciousness, and I, too, am a conscious being.” (63)  Again, I can’t disagree with the Robo sapiens here, and she raises a great question herself – “Is human life biology or consciousness?”  I have no answers for this.  My automatic response is that human-ness is biology.  But what do I know?  There are many people and texts that support Spike’s point here, that we locate ourselves in our consciousness, that we are what we think or assume we are… everything is in continuous movement and is constantly changing and evolving…  

Again, Spike has more to say.  “A human being now is not what a human being was even a hundred years ago.” (64)  So is the “robot” saying that since human beings are in a constant state of change, that is what makes us human?  Or is it that because we are constantly changing and adapting, that makes us less human?  More like her?  Or other species?  Our bones, muscles, blood cells, body cells are always replacing themselves, so physically – at a cellular level – we are a different being.  But our minds are the same… even like Spike said, if you cut off all of your appendages, are you still you?  I would say yes.  Changing your body doesn’t change who you are as a person.  (like I said, no hard fast answers here)

Billie and Spike’s conversation continues like this, with Spike making great thinking and talking points about being human or not.  And Billie returns to her main point again and again… emotion.  Robots cannot feel, they aren’t sad if your dog dies, they aren’t happy if you get a promotion at work.  Robots, even the highly advanced Robo sapiens, are truly and purely objective.  Humans, no matter how objective we try to be, are very much subjective in most aspects of our lives.  Every experience we have is seen through different lenses for each person based on our personal experiences, morals, and values (to name just a few examples).  

So what does is mean to be human?  I guess… To be human means that you are a being that thinks and reasons; that feels true emotions; is subjective; is capable of sympathy and empathy.  To be human means that you are made up of flesh and blood and bone, not wires and microchips and computers.  To be human means that you grow and change and adapt and you experience things in your own way.  

 

 

**side note** I am loving this book.  I couldn’t put it down long enough to even write my blog post when I finished with the first section.  I could easily and happily write about this extensively.  This text is making me think and dig deep.  I could happily continue to answer more of the guiding question (human’s relationship with text/environment/technology), but then this post would be waaaaaaaay too long and no one would want to read it.  So I’ll quit here 🙂 

“History is all we have”

Professor Bailyn defines history as “knowledge of what happened, the record or expression of what occurred” (7)

Carl Becker simply says history is “the memory of things said and done.”  This is a “necessarily imperfect and selective reconstruction” (Bailyn, 7).  

“History is progress through the transmission of acquired skills from one generation to another” (E.H. Carr, 9)

Personally, I like the short, simple and imperfect definitions of history that I quoted above.  Just because history is the long, convoluted past of every single second that ever existed, doesn’t mean that the definition needs to be the same.  History is just the story of the past.  And historians are the ones who construct and tell each story.  

I had never really thought about what historians do (other than write books and teach history) and how they construct these stories.  Historians build the stories that teach us with as little subjectivity and bias as possible.  They teach us “those adjustments and insights which help the adolescent to become adult, surely a worthy service in the education of youth” (Gaddis, 6).  This sounds a bit like what the humanities teach us as well; how to grow.  

So, how does one “do” history? I’m going to be frank. I don’t know.  But my interpretation of doing history after reading Bailyn and Gaddis, is having the passion for history.  Having the drive to meticulously dig through text upon text and write a coherent and hopefully enjoyable account of an event or series of events.  Doing history requires using your emotions and intuitions in order to give a worthy account of what happened, even though you didn’t live through it.  If you allow yourself the freedom to experience the texts and impose yourself on them, your account will be a more complete picture of what happened.  Gaddis says, “We’re supposed to be solid, dispassionate chroniclers of events, not give to allowing our emotions and our intuitions to affect what we do… I worry, though, that if we don’t allow for these things, and for the sense of excitement and wonder they bring to the doing of history, then we’re missing much of what the field is all about” (16).  The flip side of this however, is that if an historian projects too much of them self onto their work, then the account of the event won’t be objective (enough), making that account the historian’s history, not that of those who experienced it, or of those reading it.  

 

**I didn’t have a good segway to use this quote – so I will just insert it semi-randomly here. **

“We know the future only by the past we project into it.  History, in this sense, is all we have.  But the past, in another sense, is something we can never have” (Gaddis, 3).  

We don’t have a time machine.  We can’t travel back in time. We can never have the past. What is done is done.  But we don’t know the future yet, because it hasn’t happened.  All we have is now, the stories of the past, and the hopes of the future.  

Zappa Says…

                      

I think of Frank Zappa’s critique of Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind as more of his response to it, than a critique.  Much of what Bloom wrote about rock music and how it is destroying America’s youth, Zappa had a well-spoken, reasonable argument for.  But there were some things that Bloom commented on that Zappa agreed with.  I think this goes to show that Zappa is open-minded and well-rounded to consider what someone else has to say and then back up his own reasoning with logical thought.  

Blooms states, “… the history of music is a series of attempts to give form and beauty to the dark, chaotic, premonitory forces in the soul- to make them serve a higher purpose, and ideal, to give man’s duties a fullness.”  Zappa’s response to this is that if there are any “dark forces” in rock music, it’s the “mercantile forces.  We meet the darkness when we meet the orchestra committees, when we get in touch with funding organizations, when we deal with people who give grants and when we get into the world of commerce that greets us when we arrive with our piece of art.” It’s not the music that is ‘dark’, it’s the money. 

Bloom continues, “Rock music… has risen to its current heights in the education of the young on the ashes of classical music, and in an atmosphere in which there is no intellectual resistance to attempts to tap the rawest passions…”  (this passage continues to talk about the “cultivation of the soul” and classical composers intentions).  Zappa’s argument on this point describes why classical music was popular when it was, and how there are so many artists out there, that no one has ever heard of, and this isn’t because they didn’t write good music, it’s because they didn’t have a hit.  Zappa’s first reason explaining why classical music was popular was because they had “patrons who liked what they did and who therefore paid them money… If any of the compositions these men wrote had not been pleasing to a church, a duke or a king, they would have been out of work and their music would not have survived.”  Zappa continues that today we still have these roles of kings, dukes etc – but they are in the form of music execs, business men and radio station programmers.  Zappa’s other reason discusses classical greats popularity is because it is played over and over again because those in the orchestra already know the music, it’s cheaper to rehearse it and all of the composer are dead, so the orchestra pays no royalties.  (not much different that something we would find in today’s music business.)

I could go through page by page, paragraph by paragraph citing these examples, but I won’t.  Basically, Frank Zappa agrees with Allan Bloom that rock music (any music really) is a business, a nasty, dirty business that paints an image of rock music that is “wild and fun” but in reality is a “dismal business”.  But what Zappa says is, “The ugliness in this society is not a product of unrefined art, but of unrefined commerce, wild superstition and religious fanaticism.”  Zappa supports putting money into the school systems for music appreciation and for exposing youth to ALL different types of music… What has Bloom suggested we do, besides rid our youth of rock music?

The short of it is… Zappa thinks Bloom is full of crap and he tells us why.  

           

Because I wasn’t finished…

I felt like I had a little to say about each of the reading questions this week… but was having a hard time expressing what I thought about them.  So I thought I’d try this… 

Caliban in The Tempest… Do I think Shakespeare was sympathetic to him? Sure, I think Shakespeare was sympathetic to Caliban because of the way he wrote his part.  It is full of meaning and sadness.  His mother killed, his island taken from him, and being forced into slavery… I feel bad for him.  If Shakespeare was able to convey Caliban’s emotions to me, he must have an understanding, must have had sympathy for a character such as Caliban.  

Is Caliban a hero in Cesaire’s version, A Tempest? Again, sure.  Although Caliban was angry about his situation and Prospero in both versions of the play, he is far angrier and more agressive in Cesaire’s work.  In Cesaire’s version, Caliban stands up for himself against Prospero… He doesn’t take any of his crap. Well, he still does do the work of a servant because he doesn’t want to get beaten, but he does verbally abuse Prospero right back.  And at the end, Prospero doesn’t leave the island with others, he stays on the island with Caliban.  I felt like Prospero stayed to make peace with Caliban.  And at the end of the play, the last lines are of Caliban yelling, “FREEDOM HI HO!”

Ok, I am done now 🙂 

What is culture?

 

Reading Goldblatt’s Culture made me really think about what culture means and what it means to literature, a connection I hadn’t ever thought much about.  (I’m going to put it out there right now, I don’t necessarily agree with much of Greenblatt’s reasonable argument regarding today’s {the 80’s} culture.) 

Goldblatt introduces culture first, with anthropologist Edward B. Tylor’s understanding; “Culture or civilization taken in it’s wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (225).  Huh? So basically, culture is everything that has to do with us as human beings, members of society.  Ok. That’s vague.  Greenblatt even admits it!  Greenblatt states that culture is a “term that is repeatedly used without meaning much of anything at all, it’s a vague gesture toward a dimly perceived ethos” (225).  

Goldblatt made me think of culture as a set of rules people of a society, any society, follow.  And we follow them because we are part of this society that has these rules, these norms.  (of course, I speak generally)  Culture = our manners.  Culture affects our lives in every way, including art and literature.  History is part of art, culture and literature.  Shakespeare shows us this in many of his plays, for example, The Tempest reflects much of what was happening in society at that time.  Shakespeare uses arguments regarding the legitimacy of colonizing and civilizing (setting up their own civilization) “new worlds” in his plays to create interest in his plays (and even to give someone a little “jab”).  It’s like directors today using what is popular in the media to make movies about.  What will sell?     

English Majors Rule the World

As an English/Education/Humanities major I have had to take specifically Shakespeare courses and courses that just dabble in Shakespeare.  Why is Shakespeare required reading for these types of majors?  I had never really thought about it much before and have always just accepted it.  But now, I know.  

I don’t think there are too many texts that can be considered universal.  To me, a universal text is something that “everyone” has had some exposure to; from studying it thoroughly to grazing it to hearing about it and having the basic idea of what it is.  Shakespeare is one of these universal texts (I know Shakespeare is a person, not a text… but what I am referring to here is the generality of Shakespearean plays – not one specific text).  Shakespeare is universal partly because everyone has to study some Shakespearean work at one point or another (Romeo & Juliet in high school for instance- you don’t have to be an English major to have to read Shakespeare).

As we learned from Professor Raimon in our online lecture this week, the literary canon changes over time and is contextual.  This makes sense, right?  People today have different interests and goals in their teaching and learning than did the people a thousand years ago (yes, I know, some of it is the same).  So naturally, the literary canon is going to change with the times.  However, there are some texts that remain, they stand the test of time.  Shakespeare does this.  Despite his works originally being considered lowly because the theater wasn’t considered “high class”, his works became pieces of art that are cherished, preserved, studied and reprinted time and time again.  This is my understanding of a text being universal.  And this makes sense on why all English majors read Shakespeare.  He is timeless (if you can get past the Old English).    

Along with the literary canon changing over time, literary criticism changes as well, but in a different way.  One person can read the same text multiple times and come up with a different meaning every time.  Wikipedia says that literary criticism is “the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature.”  As the literary canon is contextual, so is literary criticism.  The way we interpret and understand a piece of literature depends on the glasses we are wearing at the time.  What is this text being read for, what is the purpose?  What am I looking for from this text?  Our own life experiences will also weigh in on our literary criticism. 

 

 

Questions, Questions, Questions

                  

 

Philosophy has always been interesting and puzzling to me.  I’ve never had much exposure to it, but I thought it’d be fun to “sit around and think and discuss all day”.  Well, I’m taking my first real bite out of philosophy and MAN! It’s harder than just thinking. 

According to Professor Ryan Fowler from our recent lecture, philosophy attempts to make the student of philosophy’s view consistent, therefore, not being irrational.  (paraphrase of what Fowler said).  

The online University of Southern Maine course catalogue describes their philosophy program as such; philosophy is a “systematic investigation of the key assumptions that underlie our thinking and which are often taken for granted… what is learned can be applied in virtually any endeavor… because it covers so many subjects, and the methods and forms of analysis are applicable in any field”. 

Questions. Questions. Questions.  

Philosophy is all about asking questions and then questioning the answer.  Historically, pre-Socratic philosophers (7th, 6th and 5th century BCE) included subjects like physics, mathematics and astronomy.  In modern day, philosophy focuses on the realm of ethics- morality, behavior and how humans are meant to be treated by other humans (paraphrase, Fowler).  The past subjects of philosophy have been specialized and separated.  

After reading Decartes’ Meditations, it’s crazy for me to believe that something as concrete as arithmetic and geometry were considered philosophy (I know, I know- it was all new theory to them at the time- but still).  To try to find philosophical, consistent, rational reasons and examples to prove you exist, that this isn’t all a dream; to prove God in this same fashion, is quite an undertaking (especially when you’re scared for your life because the church is prosecuting scientists- and you’re a scientist!). 

And then, there’s Socrates, the “corrupter of the youth”.  Question everything.  Use logic and reason in making all of your choices.  How is that corrupting the youth?  The Socratic Method’s goals are to be able to “reason for self, argue well, understand the difference between logically valid and logically invalid arguments and be able to distinguish between the logical form of an argument and the truth of its premises (Nussbaum, 35).  A far cry from father beating too!  

 

Socrates is a Liberal Arts Teacher…

 

In short, a Socratic education is one that teaches the student how to question (everything), reason logically, learn to think for oneself and create a rational argument.  (Not to sound repetitive but…) The goals of a Socratic education are to be able to reason for self, argue well, understand the difference between logically valid and logically invalid arguments and be able to distinguish between the logical form of an argument and the truth of its premises (Nussbaum, 15, 35).

The Socratic Method is over 2400 years old.  This method of teaching focuses on each individual and their learning style.  Socrates believed that lecture was not an effective way of teaching and learning for all students.  “According to Matt Copeland, Socrates valued the knowledge and understanding already present within people and thought that using this knowledge could potentially be beneficial in advancing their understanding. Copeland explains, ‘by helping students examine their premonitions and beliefs while at the same time accepting the limitations of human thought, Socrates believed students could improve their reasoning skills and ultimately move toward more rational thinking and ideas more easily supported with logic.'” (www.learnnc.org).  

The Socratic method has been under fire since Socrates himself was put in jail for “corrupting the young” (10) and “father beating”.  

Like anything new and different, there are opponents to the Socratic Method.  Socrates’ opponents favored lecture, rote memorization and believing in what you are told to believe in, because you were told to.  “The Old Education, in Aristophanes’ portrait, acculturated young citizens to traditional values.  They learned to internalize and to love their traditions, and they were discouraged from questioning them” (15).  Naturally, Aristophanes would see Socrates as the biggest threat to the Old Education.  Everything Socrates is teaching, is to question everything and find reason for everything, including your religious belief system.  And it seems Socrates has opponents on all sides.  He has those on the left and from the conservatives, “they suppose that argument is subversive of democratic values” (19).  But questioning is not disruptive to a democracy.  It is essential to a democracy to produce citizens who have the “Socratic capacity to reason about their beliefs… The failure to think critically produces a democracy in which people talk at one another but never have a genuine dialogue… we need argument, an essential tool of civic freedom” (19).  In today’s world, with humanities and philosophy programs being cut, fewer people are learning the essential skill of critical thinking and how to argue the right way, in a productive manner.  International relations are a big part of politics for example.  If national and world leaders could learn to communicate better, how to empathize and imagine walking in another’s shoes, we would likely be in a better situation.  

 

Classics

What are the “classics”?  We hear about reading and studying them all the time.  What does that mean?!  Well, thanks to Professor Uzzi’s recorded lecture, I now have a much clearer understanding of the classics are.  

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, classic is “used to say that something has come to be considered one of the best of its kind, used to say that something is an example of excellence and used to describe something that has been popular for a long time”.  The definition goes further to discuss different types of “classic”; literature, history, fashion and time periods.(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/classics)

The study of classics fit into the umbrella of the humanities.  So within the humanities, students will often study classics.  Classics are the study of ancient Greek and Latin.  At the very core, classics is a study of linguistics and a study of non-Christian – Pagan culture.  Studying classics, whether it be written texts, visual art, or archaeology, classicists are lover of words.  They are philologists and practice close reading. Close reading is very slow, careful and thoughtful reading of texts.  Classicists use etymology (the study of true/root meaning of words), philology (the love of words) and translation in their studies.  

Most people think of translation as a calculation… You punch in a word in one language and a neat and tidy word pops out in a different language.  WRONG! There is so much more to translation that just switching languages.  A true translation carries meaning across linguistic boundaries.  It is an art.  Language, time and space are all taken into account in a true translation. 

In Stephen Mitchell’s Gilgamesh: A New English Version, he conveys a true translation.  He took into account his audience, what he was trying to achieve in his version of the text, what the straightforward translations said and his own interpretation of those translations and created his own, very readable, version of the oldest story in the western world.  Mitchell knew what it meant to translate.  

What we call now a classical education was a typical education in ancient Greece and Rome.  Studying philosophy, physics and classics were considered a natural education.  Everyone studied ancient Greece and Rome.  Everyone studied the cultures that spoke or wrote Greek or Latin.  And everyone studied the different parts of the world that interacted with Greece and Rome.  The classics were the norm.  Now there are so few classicists.  This group of study is under the most attack to be cut.  It has the smallest number of majors.  Now people are fighting to teach what used to be taught all the time.   

It’s weird how classic texts like Gilgamesh, or The Odyssey, really stand the test of time and they hold true today… but their very root of creation is struggling to keep their place in education.