Blog Assignment for 2/13 and Misc.

Esteemed Students,

We are reaching a critical mass of texts thus far, many of them both dense and important, so I want to find a way for us to continue digesting them en masse and in their interconnections. For this week, read:

Frankl: 119-160
Sartre (Marino): 349-357
Shelley: 168-191

And on the blog, go to one of the giant quote comparison posts that you did not originally participate in and do the following (note, I've reproduced the entire set of quote comparisons at the bottom, for you to review):
Read over the entire thing, consider all the viewpoints, and try to find the missing perspective that can "cure" it of its conflict. That is, try to find the sentence or set of sentences that can synthesize all the conflict into a coherent statement- or even into nonsense that is less conflicted.

I'm calling this exercise: "knowledge through contradiction". Compare this to Frankl's logotherapy.

Finally, I want to try to cut down on the lag time at the beginning of class. In some cases, students have come in at the very tail-end of an two-part exercise, making the second half entirely useless. This is frustrating for everyone. Let's shoot for being seated and ready to dive in no later than 5 minutes after class starts for the rest of quarter. For those presenting, especially if you are using tech stuff, arrive early. That's all, see you Monday at lecture (be there).

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment” (Communist Manifesto, Part I)

“On the other hand, to be sure, it is clear from the whole nature of an essentially priestly aristocracy why antithetical valuations could in precisely this instance soon become dangerously deepened, sharpened, and internalized; and indeed they finally tore chasms between man and man that a very Achilles of a free spirit would not venture to leap without a shudder.” (On The Genealogy of Morals, First essay, section 6)

“(T)he major moral concept Schuld (guilt) has as its origin...the very material concept Schulden (debts)... And whence did this primeval, deeply rooted, perhaps by now ineradicable idea draw its power- this idea of an equivalence between injury and pain? I have already divulged it: in the contractual relationship between creditor and debtor, which is as old as the idea of “legal subjects” and in turn points back to the fundamental forms of buying, sellings, barter, trade and traffic.” (OGM, Second Essay, Section 4)

“The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared to the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.” (CM, Part I)

“(B)ut it is only fair to add that it was on the soil of this essentially dangerous form of human existence, the priestly form, that man first became an interesting animal, that only here did the human soul in a higher sense acquire depth and become evil...” (OGM, First Essay, Section 6)

“Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten, from Umuofia to Mbaino. He was callet the Cat because his back would never touch the earth. It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.” (Things Fall Apart, Chapter 1)

“To demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength.” (OGM, First Essay, Section 13)

“It were absurd to ask, what is the cause of natural inequality, seeing the bare definition of natural inequality answers the question: it would be more absurd still to inquire, if there might be some essential connection between the two species of inequality, as it would be asking, in other words, if those who command are necessarily better men than those who obey; and if strength of body or mind, wisdom or virtue are always to be found in individuals, in the same porportion with power, or riches: a question, fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the hearing of their masters, but unbecoming free and reasonable beings in quest of truth.” (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality)

“(E)verywhere ‘noble,’ ‘aristocratic’ in the social sense, is the basic concept from which ‘good’ in the sense of ‘with aristocratic soul,’ ‘noble,’ ‘with a soul of a high order,’ ‘with a privileged soul’ necessarily developed: a development which always runs parallel with that other in which ‘common,’ ‘plebian,’ ‘low’ are finally transformed into the concept ‘bad.’ (OGM)

“After the murder of Clerval, I returned to Switzerland, heart-broken and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted o horror: I abhorred myself. But when I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness; that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me, he sought his own onjoyment in feelings... from the indulgence of which I was forever barred, then impotent envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance.” (Frankenstein, Walton’s final letter).

Nietzsche, et al.



Dillon