Socrates & Why?

      The Trials of Socrates really makes you think. The conversations in this book between Socrates and others show us the highly inquisitive mind that Socrates possessed. A highly inquisitive mind that made people talk in circles and reevaluate what they held to be true until it was questioned. This text fits into the community section of the course because Socrates' methods influenced the community at the time and still influence people today. Questioning values, beliefs, and theories,  otherwise known as elenchus, is key throughout the text. Socrates makes people realize what they think they know they actually may not know anything about at all. This allows any reader to reevaluate what they grew up and learned, or self-developed, to be true. Socrates believed that philosophizing was so important to the human race that he rather die for it than ever deny it or give it up. He focused on moral education and reform which led to the questioning of the law, what is just and unjust, pious and unpious, and also led to the questioning of parenting and the knowledge parents give to their children. Socrates also held the belief that all we need in life to be virtuous and happy is knowledge. In his quest for knowledge, Socrates had roundabout discussions with a variety of people including Euthyphro, Crito, and Aristophanes. Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to fully define pious and unpious in relation to living and to pleasing the gods. Euthyphro prosecutes his father for an unjust act (murder) and describes his own definitions of pious and unpious. However, Socrates keeps pushing for proof for why Euthyphro defines things the way he does and evidence to back everything he says up. Socrates keeps a constant “why?” within every conversation to extract the most information. Since Plato wrote this section, we do not know if Socrates meant his use of “friend” and “dear” as sarcasm, or if he often used those terms when he spoke with Euthyphro. I see the use of these “pet names” in the conversation as a persistent reminder that Socrates believes no one really knows anything, that “true” means something different to each person, and that Socrates believes Euthyphro is ridiculous to think he possesses all this knowledge. I agree with Socrates throughout the text because when you actually question everything you know, you feel like you really do not know anything. The thoughts I had when I was reading concerned “truth” and “law.” We are brought up to believe what our parents, teachers and even friends tell us and teach us. But as we experience life and live through different hardships, we begin to define things as they affect us. So althought the law is meant to govern us as a people, the definitions of right and wrong can be polar opposites between individual people. Crito mentions the “majority opinion” as being something that defines right or wrong by whether or not the majority agrees upon it.  Another example would be religion, we grow up learning beliefs our parents pass on to us and through going to Church or other services. However, as we experience life and learn about different religions and cultures around the world, we begin to shape our own beliefs, which can either work towards what our parents have taught us or completely break us away from what we have grown up holding to be true (Aristophanes /son). Socrates can be confusing, and even Crito admits to him, “I can’t answer your question since I don’t understand it” (71), but if we question what we know and question what others know, we can ultimately build up a knowledge that may or may not be true, but has much more theories from which to build the bigger pictures.

The Borderlands of Life

Gloria Anzaldúa’s book Borderlands: La Frontera, The New Mestiza, raises many questions and thoughts in the reader. She discusses her life as being an outcast, as Chicano, a woman, and a lesbian. Anzaldúa combines rascism, sexism, homophobia, and issues concerning illegal immigrants throughout her story. She discusses psychological and spiritual borders alongside the physical borders that separate America from Mexico, the tejas-Mexican border. This is the border where, according to the author, people of all different backgrounds, races, and social classes “shrinks into intimacy.” An obvious connection seen in the beginning of Anzaldúa’s writing is with Las Casas’ An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies. The evidence for such a connection is seen with the author’s fact of how America was colonized and how the land’s first inhabitants were forced out or brutally murdered or lynched. She defines “legitimate inhabitants” as those “in power, the whites” and “the Gringo, locked into the fiction of white superiority” which led the way for the total control of the land and the “stripping of Indians and Mexicans of their land while their feet were still rooted in it” (29). Anzaldúa, much like Las Casas, includes numbers of murders to strengthen feelings of horror or concern for the awful treatment of her people.

I also connected this reading with Freud due to the strong feelings of difference between men and women, mainly women being seen as servile to men in Anzaldúa’s culture. There is also the bias present in her writing because she is seeing everything from a women’s viewpoint and from someone who has grown up with an inner resentment towards the cultures and/or people who have been seen as more powerful throughout her life. The bias can be connected with Freud because in Freud’s writing, he is writing from his own viewpoint as well, which could be seen as the absolute opposite perspective compared to Anzaldúa. This reading can fit in with the Self and Others unit because there is the constant comparison between self and others in every crevasse of this book, especially concerning Anzaldúa’s awareness of her own differences. Anzaldúa discusses The Coatlicue State, which “depicts the contradictory,” and which touches on the unconscious and on resistance (another connection with Freud). It describe the constant fear of, yet inevitability of, alienation. It is the wanting to fit in but being aware of the impossibility of the desire. Although Anzaldúa does preach of finding that oneness inside herself, there is too much evidence throughout her writing of a state of instability. One of her poems, entitled, En mi corazón se incuba (166), she speaks in Spanish of sadness invading her, strokes of loneliness that consume her, being immersed in fear, hiding pain, unconfessed dreams, and secret love. In my opinion, after translating the poem, I felt as though Anzaldúa will forever feel a sort of disconnect with her culture. She seems to almost boast of making “the choice to be queer” and the “ultimate rebellion against her native culture is through her sexual behavior,” but she cannot hide her obvious loneliness in her poems. Everyone, including Anzaldúa, seeks that special connection or mutual understanding with another.  I believe homophobia really is the “fear of going home,” not being accepted, being alone, or even being abandoned by a family or a culture that does not approve. I also believe that Anzaldúa wrote her story to allow herself an outlet of emotional struggle that herself and others in the same positions have had to live through and battle with each and every day of his or her life.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot, especially the massive amount of Spanish writing Anzaldúa included. I am a Spanish minor so it was great to read something with so many cultural aspects.  

(Last note: It almost seems unfair that immigrants have gotten such bad treatment, illegal or not, in this country. America is known as the “melting pot” because of the obvious fact that the population is so diverse and each person has ancestry from all over the world. So really, what is an American? I believe it is not easy, if possible, to find an American that traces his or her history back so far as to only be related to people strictly from America. Wouldn’t we all be considered immigrants in such sense, with families and ancestors from various other countries? Therefore, wouldn’t that make Native Americans the only true Americans? ….just some of my rambling thoughts on this topic). 

Freud, Psycho-Analysis, & Sex

      When I read the first portion of Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, I was intrigued by his theories concerning dreams, manifest content, and latent dream thoughts. I thought, "Wow, this guy has really discovered some incredible concepts!" However, as I read on through the next two portions I soon came to realize Freud's first and foremost reason for all neuroses and problems had their root in sex, sexuality, or sexual experiences in childhood. Freud seemed to me to start off with very intellectually stimulating points about wish-fullfillment through dreams and the latent dream content which he uses to try to seek out the real meaning of the dream. However, he later introduces resistance, repression, infantile sexuality, and the oedipus complex, with each topic being contrasted between the sexes. Since Freud is a man, he is only fully able to comprehend the world he is looking into, through a male's eyes. He cannot completely vouch for women, especially since he is mostly only discussing such issues with women who have money which enables them to have an excessive amount of free time, an ideal many domestic housewives did not even have the option of considering. It seems to me that Freud over-emphasizes gender roles and sexual intercourse, especially toward the end of his book. He explains repression, resistance, and censorship, each having to do with trying to forget or hide things that have occurred in the past or even things not deemed acceptable in society. The main and most prevalent problem is stated again and again as being the sexuality or sexual lives of the affected people. A denial of someone's erotic wishes can lead them to frustration that further leads to illness. Or an interest in types of sex or sexual activities deviating from the "norm" can cause people to feel so ashamed and to repress these desires so deeply that this too can lead to illness. Freud uses homosexuality, fetishists, sadists, masochists, and perverts as examples of such incidents. During the time period in which Freud wrote about such radical ideas, sex was rarely, if ever, talked about. It was, "something improper, something ought not to talk about," and in some cases, the "strange and abnormal" cases, "intensified to the point of being abominable" (380). When I thought Freud was going to stop at that, he introduces the sexual life of children. He explains how all children, "have a predisposition to all of them and carry them out to an extent corresponding to their immaturity ... that perverse sexuality is nothing else than a magnified infantile sexuality split up into its separate impulses" (385). In my opinion, this is absolutely ludicrous. Freud would explain that I refuse to believe his theories because of the educational world in which I have been raised. I strongly disagree. Childhood is free, it is a time when children BEGIN to explore the world, with no knowledge of how anything really works. How is it even probable that a child can really see his mother's breast as anything more than needed for food, for survival? It just doesn't seem the least bit sensible that "sensual sucking" exists for any infant. Freud cannot comprehend that children do not have a sexual life before puberty, but it only makes sense that a sexual life develops during puberty, since puberty is the time when a girl or boy is fully developing their sexual organs and maturing in order to be able to reproduce.

      My last point would be the emphasis on the contrast between women and men. Women, according to Freud, have more illness and frustration due to their sexual lives, while men, also according to Freud, desire to stand up to other male figures as if they were standing up to their father. It seems that since Freud does not have an accurate portrayal of women in this research and comes from a male viewpoint, these theories are completely inaccurate. He also discusses how little girls wish they had the penis they seem to "lack," meanwhile little boys cannot fathom life without a penis. In today's society, men and women have come a long way to be equal on every playing field. Therefore, many of Freud's theories would be seriously contradicted. The theory of psychological illnesses and issues stemming from repressed childhood experiences does still have a strong root in psychology. However, the sexual life of children is not something that is constantly included in research studies in our current society. Freud's lectures were radical at the time and even are partially radical today, but have opened doors to many other theories and discussions that have greatly improved psychological research and knowledge. Sex was rarely talked about in the 1950s/60s, and is now almost an obsession, constantly all over various types of media. We have definitely come a long way from rarely discussing a major topic in society to being comfortable advertising contraceptives and shows like "16 and pregnant" which can help dissuade young adults from having unprotected sex or having sex too early. Yet, there are other aspects like masturbation, among other topics, that have yet to move into the comfort zone of conversational matter. There doesn't seem to be a clear future time when we will arrive at a point where every sexually related aspect is appropriate to discuss in schools or the workplace. Nonetheless, Freud, and others like him, have made examples of how one person's radical views, once voiced, can really change our society and impact future research.

Las Casas' Destruction of Your Emotions

     I can honestly start by saying I did not enjoy reading An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de Las Casas. The readings did open my eyes to the brutality the Indians suffered when the Spaniards came to the new world. However, the depictions and details of every form of torture, murder, or destruction, that the “Christians” performed, is almost traumatizing. Putting that aside, Las Casas did an excellent job of getting his point across. He wanted people to know and to remember what he saw and lived through in the late 1400s and throughout the 1500s. The numbers of deaths may have been way off, and maybe the stories were stretched pretty far, but the cruelty that occurred needed to be known. I think this account needed to be written the way it was to show the “journey” that both the Christian Spaniards and the Indians lived through during that time period. It needed to be able to shock yet still have truth throughout it, in order for it to be remembered up until the present. 

     This account is about the Christian Spaniards tyranny over the Indian people when they came to the New World. The account consists of all the horrible, malicious, devastating acts that the Spaniards accomplished “in the name of Christianity and God.” The Spaniards, being Christians, believed it was a dire need for the Indians, a lesser people who worshipped unknown gods/idols, to be converted. Any instance, no matter how small, of resistance, would wage a war between the Indians and the Spaniards. The Indians are depicted on almost every other page, as innocence, harmless, “gentle sheep.” Las Casas could be neglecting to include any form of true violence the Indians brought onto the Spaniards to focus on and have a bias towards the cruel Christians. However, it is also possible that he is telling the truth about them. The main point that he is trying to get across, I believe, is just that the Christian Spaniards used their faith in God to justify the way they treated the Indians. (through the cutting of limbs, the burning of bodies, the torturous slave labor, etc.) For example, on page 10, the Spaniards bind thirteen Indians “in honour and reverence, of Our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles” and then burned the them alive. If you have a heart and are actually a sane human being, your jaw will immediately drop to the floor. The fact that something like this has happened in our past, and more than once, is absolutely disgusting. The fact that people justified a hierarchy based on religion, race, gender, or anything else is outrageous and what led to the massacres throughout our history. I would tie this account most closely with the Triangular Trade because of the slavery of the Indians by the Europeans which closely relates to the slavery of the African-Americans, and through the trickery of getting them onto ships which were disguised to be for good. This shows the theme of power throughout our history and how it can lead to destruction once it has corrupted morality. What I mean by this is that once a person or a selection of people, believes that they are better and have more power over those who they believe are lesser and beneath them, they justify incredibly immoral acts based upon what has brainwashed them

     Lastly, I would say this account is another part of the journey of people, (somewhat) learning from their mistakes throughout history. There is evidence of Christianity actually being an honest and good thing for the Indians in one part of the account. In Yucatán, when the friars of St. Francis promise the Indians that if they let them preach their word, they would make sure no malicious Spaniards would sweep in and murder their village/town. However, even when the Indians begin to see the bright side of the religion, the friars begin to sense suspicion and leave. The Indians beg of them to comeback once they realize the friars were truly only trying to inform and convert them without any violence. The friars then return and are welcomed back as “angels.” They do not stay for long though, because the friars come to the conclusion that no matter what good they continue to do, the Indians will one day learn to resent them for the massive amount of brutality the Spaniards brought to their lands. It shows us how we can come so far as to almost turn around the negative view of something brought on by the hate and murder of a group, but the tortured will still see a person from said group (no matter how good they try to be) as apart of what brought the destruction (and therefore attached to that stigma). It is almost like the present-day stereotypes and prejudices that will possibly exist in our society forever. 

What an EPIC!

     Who knew that the oldest epic of all time, (2000 BC) would be such a thrilling story? The Epic of Gilgamesh includes every essential theme: journey, tragedy, dreams, power, love, fate, sex, heros, action, adventure, and even the quest for immortality. Gilgamesh is a "wild bull on the rampage" and is hurting more than helping his town of Uruk. His people cry out to the gods, where in most ancient stories everyone seeks their salvation from, and the gods decide to send Enkidu to be his equal and end the chaos. Basically, a respected harlot by the name of Shamhat, helps to make Enkidu into a man. Enkidu battles Gilgamesh, they become brothers (but more on the lovers side) and the epic tells their journey. The journey consists of battling Humababa in the Forrest of Cedar, battling Ishtar's Bull of Heaven, defeating lions, and ends sadly. Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh mourns his lost as deeply as if he was the greatest and truest love of his life. Gilgamesh thens seeks immortality and battles to get to Uta-napishti. However, he cannot past one immortality test of staying awake for a week and is sent home. Gilgamesh runs into another dose of bad luck when the immortality plant he travels to the bottom of the sea for (Old Man Grown Young) is snatched away in a minute by a snake. In the end, Gilgamesh realizes he will never escape death.

     The one theme that is present throughout the epic and that I kept noticing is the connection the epic has with stories in the Bible. There are many incidences that have an obvious tie with biblical accounts. One, the creation of Enkidu in the forrest with the animals reminded me of the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When Enkidu "couples with" Shamhat and Shamhat is able to convince Enkidu to leave the life he knew and become a man, there is a connection with Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge. This connection can be seen through Enkidu no longer being seen as "pure" by his old friends the gazelles as Adam and Eve were no longer seen as "pure" when they ate the apple. Or the connection can also be seen through Enkidu eating the bread and drinking the ale, signifying him as a man. Many of the battles within the epic that can also relate to themes of journey, power, fate, and heros, can be connected with battles within the Bible as well, for example (Cain and Abel, David and Goaliath). The people in Uruk worship their gods, and the people within the Bible worship their God. Dreams are highly present through the Bible, as well as dream interpretation, which is a major theme throughout the Epic of Gilgamesh (involving Gilgamesh's dreams on the journey to the Forrest of Cedar, and Enkidu's dreams on the journey to his death).

     Last but certainly not least, the biggest and most obvious connection I found in the Epic of Gilgamesh that relates to the Bible, is the story of the Deluge. The Deluge reminded me most prominently of the story of the Flood in the Bible. Noah (Ur-shanabi) builds an ark (the boat) to include two of every animal and his loved ones ("everything he owned, all the living creatures he had, members of every skill and craft" page 91) and escapes the Flood that God sent to destroy the corrupted earth (that Adad the Storm God and other gods sent). When Ur-shanabi survives the Deluge and lands on Mount Nimush (an island) just as Noah had landed on an island after the flood, Ur-shanabi sends out birds to see if there is life, JUST AS Noah sent out a Dove who brought back an olive branch. A final small connection would be when Uta-napishti tries to test Gilgamesh to see if he deserves immortality by telling him to stay awake for seven nights which he fails to do. This can be connected with when Jesus asked his disciples to keep watch for him in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prays and they cannot stay awake. There is most likely a million other connections that can be made between Gilgamesh and the Bible but these are just a few that stood out prominently to me.

     The Epic of Gilgamesh involves all of the drama, battle, love, journey, power, and destiny that any story needs to stay an interesting piece of literature that will survive through the ages (as Gilgamesh's story so obviously has done). It has opened my eyes to how purely good writing can surpass time and always be "alive." This outlook has me thinking more and more about Literary Philadelphia and what other authors' pieces of literature have been included in society from the moment they had recognition. I hope to seek out just how I can get this point across with specific examples in the future.

Review - Horace Miner's Body Ritual among the Nacirema

"Wow," was all I could say when I finally realized that the Nacirema was not a crazy tribe in the middle of nowhere, but actually America spelled backwards. When I did realize this however, everything in the article came together and made perfect sense. Miner was able to specifically criticize many aspects of the society in America in the 50s by disguising it as a scholarly article in a major journal, American Anthropologist. I found it funny how accurate he was in depicting the many daily routines that Americans go about as barbaric rituals. For example, the obsession with the human body and the medicine men (or doctors/hospitals), the dental work rituals (tooth-brushing), and even hairdressers! Miner also refers to psychologists as "listeners" in this odd culture and the beginning of the madness began with the "chopping down of a cherry tree in which the Spirit of Truth resided," referring to George Washington.

I really enjoyed being able to figure out all of his ideas within the bigger picture of the article. It made me think hard about today's society and what could fit in with Miner's views. One obvious obsession that I could think of would definitely be related to technology. If Miner were to write about this topic, he would probably discuss the worship of "robots" that follow our commands, yet that we cannot go a single hour without using, checking, or updating. This includes: phones, ipods, computers, televisions, and even kitchen and other home appliances! If anyone were to really consider this, they could see that our "worship" of technology is ever present. The fact that I am currently typing this blog on my laptop and you are reading it is a blatant example of the obsession above mentioned.

About Me - Introduction

Welcome to my Honors Mosaics I with Dr. Lowe BLOG!

My name is Diana Crespo and I am currently a Sophomore at Temple University. I am from Bensalem, Pennsylvania, about a half an hour away from Philadelphia. I am one of those freaks who finds health and fitness to be über intriguing and therefore I decided to major in Kinesiology. Specifically, I am majoring in Exercise and Sport Science, Pre-Professional. I have a hard time making decisions so I have yet to decide what I would like to do with this choice. However, I would absolutely love to work for professional sports teams or get involved with exercise and sport science research. I'm also considering going to grad school for nutrition or dietetics and becoming a sports nutritionist.

I attended Saint Basil Academy in Jenkintown, PA and graduated in June 2011. SBA is a small, all girls private high school. I loved my time there but was very eager to attend Temple University with 36,000 other students. I love the diversity and getting to know people from around the world and from different cultures is very important to me. My father was born in Portugal and therefore I have visited Europe many times to see family and travel in general. I absolutely adore traveling to other countries and believe everyone should try to have the eye-opening experiences that accompany any out of the country trip. So far I have traveled to Portugal, Spain, England, and Greece. I also am looking forward for a chance to study abroad in Oveido, Spain this summer, which will help complete the requirements for my Spanish Minor.

Finally, I hope to achieve many things by participating in this course. One, that I am able to read and fully appreciate every text we will be working on this semester. Two, to gain better critical reading skills. And three, becoming a more knowledgable student through working with classmates, thoughtful writing approaches, and learning about the past, present, and future of literary Philadelphia and elsewhere!