In PHL202, Foundations of Ethics, we have been slowly creeping through the rich landscape of Immanuel Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten in James Ellington's translation Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett: 1993).
I think now that we have been working on Kant for a few weeks, re-reading (or reading) Ellington's introduction may be a valuable exercise, as Ellington summarizes much of what I have been presenting in class with extended examples and explanations.
I believe it would be useful to prepare a glossary of the specialized terms Kant uses:
imperative
categorical imperative
hypothetical imperative
formulations of the moral law (categorical imperative)
duty
four cases of duty
respect
inclination versus interest
autonomy versus heteronomy
end versus means
end in itself
kingdom of ends
universality (unity)
plurality
totality
law
universal law
will
the good will
practical
practical law
practical necessity
maxim
morality
I recommend that you prepare a set of index cards, on each one of which is one of these terms; on the reverse write out the definition. You will find quickly that the terms link to each other in a variety of ways -- they are not linearly progressive, but are a network of ideas -- so having a set of such cards, you can arrange the cards in various ways while contemplating their relationships. I recognize this as something earnestly to be desired, but ideal.
Formulations of the Categorical Imperative:
Formula of the Universal Law: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" (30).
Formula of the Law of Nature: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature" (30).
Formula of the End in Itself: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means" (36).
Formula of Autonomy: Act as though "the will of every rational being [is] a will that legislates universal law" (38).
Formula of the Kingdom of Ends: Act as though a member of the (ideal) kingdom of ends (39).
Let's have all that again:
Universal Formula of the Categorical Imperative: "Act according to that maxim which can at the same time make itself a universal law" (42).
The Supreme Law of the Unconditionally Good Will: "Act always according to that maxim whose universality as a law you can at the same time will" (42).
"Act according to maxims which can at the same time have for their object themselves as universal laws of nature" (42).
"So act in regard to every rational being (yourself and others) that he [or she] may at the same time count in your maxim as an end in [her- or] himself"; "Act on a maxim which at the same time contains in itself its own universal validity for every rational being" (43).
"So act as if your maxims were to serve at the same time as a universal law (for all rational beings)" (43).
"Act in accordance with the maxims of a member legislating laws for a merely possible kingdom of ends" (43).
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
26.ii.08 Foundations of Verbal Communication
So, I'm waiting for You Tube to crank out Alanis Morissette's "Thank You" for my delectation while I grade the oral presentations and listening exercises, and I realized that I really missed a great opportunity here.
Now, I'm sure that students in FVC102.F3 will not be terribly disappointed that I neglected to add this component to the oral presentations, but in the future I will certainly want to:
Ensure that a bibliography of sources is included with the presentation.
Where did you folks get your information? Sure, it may be "common knowledge", which generally speaking does not require citation, but we're practicing here, and should take every possible opportunity to do so. And maybe, just maybe, in the process misattributions (like -- and not to pick on any one person, but just to give an example -- lines 40-53 of Twelfth Night II.3 presented as a sonnet) would not occur, or could be checked much more efficiently (I spent a quarter of an hour tracking that one down. If I charged the regular "professorial rate" that would be, let's see... $45?).
Now, I'm sure that students in FVC102.F3 will not be terribly disappointed that I neglected to add this component to the oral presentations, but in the future I will certainly want to:
Ensure that a bibliography of sources is included with the presentation.
Where did you folks get your information? Sure, it may be "common knowledge", which generally speaking does not require citation, but we're practicing here, and should take every possible opportunity to do so. And maybe, just maybe, in the process misattributions (like -- and not to pick on any one person, but just to give an example -- lines 40-53 of Twelfth Night II.3 presented as a sonnet) would not occur, or could be checked much more efficiently (I spent a quarter of an hour tracking that one down. If I charged the regular "professorial rate" that would be, let's see... $45?).
Monday, February 25, 2008
25.ii.08 Foundations of Verbal Communications
I'm reflecting upon our oral presentations of poetry, now several weeks in progress, and a few overall thoughts occur to me:
A prefatory and somewhat technical (some may even think "snide") remark: In the past two class sessions, several students, in discussing the diction of the poems recited, have used the phrase "old English". I suspect, since all the poems recited so far have been in Modern English (yes, even "The Ballad of Bonnie George Campbell", which as I noted merely attempts to present a Highland accent rather than a real dialectual variant on English) that by "old English" is meant merely "a vocabulary with which I am unfamiliar and which appears to be "older"", and if this is so, why, this may well be correct. But it does not really show outstanding scholarship. Most dictionaries will give information about the approximate age of words in their various meanings. Poets often use words which have passed out of everyday use for particular effects.
Very few people today use "hereafter" or "behold" or "withal" or "slay" (to give four examples) in everyday speech, but some poets even today might use these terms for effect. Today the intended effect would probably be comedic as much as anything else, but fifty years ago and more these terms, although again not commonplace, would have been used seriously to give a sense of connection to older tradition, and in a sense, as I talked about today in reference to Poe, to "legitimize" or "elevate" the poet's work, to give it a sense of age and therefore respectability.
But while these words may be "old" (and for great information on the age and history of words, see Online Etymological Dictionary, which was created right here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: you can take some vicarious pride in that, I think) -- they all go back at least to the 14th century in their current form -- they are not "Old English" in the sense of Old English, Middle English, Modern English. In Old English these words would have the forms heraefter, bihaldan, mid ealle , and slean, which you may agree are like the modern English words, but are certainly not the same.
1) one of my goals in establishing oral performances in poetry was to provide an opportunity for students who tend to rush in speaking, or to swallow their words, or to mumble (if that is distinct from swallowing words), to correct these patterns. I think this goal has been met in part. The struggle to memorize lines may dominate, but even to some degree that struggle has overshadowed the discomfort or distraction of public speaking. I notice that in the analytical portions of the presentation -- where the student is neither reciting nor reading, but is summarizing some question about her or his poem, speech tends to be clearer.
However, in responding to the problems of, for example, what may be the tone or the sound or the structure or the diction of the poem, students tend to be
a) exceedingly brief, and
b) necessarily (because of the above) vague and unspecific.
To counter these, I proposed that students give specific examples from their poems showing, rather than telling about, the presence of the various qualities.
Having said all of this, though, I do sense that as a general rule, some real progress has been made. I hope that the time spent as a class listening to one after another of your classmates' work "torn apart", and having to hear a poem or section of a poem repeated several times, has provided some real use.
2) I am very curious to explore why, out of the many many poems available in the world, people choose the ones they do. When one choses a poem to memorize and recite, it is a bit like choosing a significant other (a bit like): this poem is going to enter into your consciousness, become a part of you, and you should think carefully whether and why it is one you want to become so intimate with. And just as in interpersonal relationships, one must learn and perhaps learn by mistakes, so with poems.
3) In asking about structure, external form, alliteration, assonance, and so on, one might legitimately note (although no one has), "Well, we were not taught about these things in this class -- how are we supposed to comment on them?" I am working from the (perhaps faulty) assumption that rhyme schemes, metre, sound-patterns, have been presented in "English" classes over the past twelve years or so, and that it is more a matter of recalling information learned and then stowed away unused rather than encountering completely new information. I make similar assumptions about other mechanical or technical aspects of verbal communication. I assume, for example, that anyone who could be admitted into a college program understands that an English sentence must consist of two parts, a subject and a predicate; or that when one is uncertain of the meaning of a word, a dictionary is used to gain some higher degree of certainty; or that a paragraph should consist of, at very least, three sentences.
At a certain point, I simply have to move forward from these and other similar assumptions. I am perfectly happy to assist a person who is confused. At the same time, I have reached the point at which, while I desire not to embarrass a student who has apparently not a clue as to the meaning of an English word, when the assignment in which the word occurs has been standing for about a month and dictionaries are still readily available, even if the student does not own one her- or himself, and when the misunderstanding of that word may completely reverse the understanding of the passage in which it is found, that desire is overridden by the thought that this cluelessness and misunderstanding is inexcusable. Am I intolerant, or rude, to call a student on this by saying, "What does this word mean? You don't know? Well, I do, because I use a dictionary."
Before answering that question, consider, too, that I am not asking for private recitals here: the recitations of poems are given to the class as a whole, are the basis of listening exercises, and therefore are not merely personal. In a sense, without stating it in so many words, I am asking for each presenter to function as a teacher for ten minutes or so. We should all be learning something about poets and poetry here, as well as gaining experience as listeners and speakers.
The upcoming exercise in which students are to present results of their research should also meet the maxim "Simple in means, rich in ends". I am eager to learn about The Brat Pack's influence on music, the development of Celtic tree alphabets, martial art forms, foreign versus domestic adoptions, the effects of caffeine on human functioning, physical responses in love, and so on. I, for one, hope to gain some information and insight here, but I also hope to see and hear improved posture, presence, enunciation, pronunciation, and projection. The five/fours and the poetry recitations served their own purposes as well, but recognize that all of these exercises together build to something else.
4) Consider how technical knowledge, critical thinking, and understanding of the liberal arts are to be fostered. All of the examination of poetry which is the basis of this exercise (or should be the basic of this exercise) is technical. First, the process of analysis and memorization is technical: you used some sort of technique to figure out what the structure of the poem is, what the diction of the poem is, and so on. It may not have been a sophisticated technique, but in part that is why I ask of you the questions I do -- like, "what does this line mean?" or "what is the rhyme scheme in this stanza?" or "how can you find out the meaning of that word?"
Second, poetry itself is technical: one must employ techniques in forming a poem, whether it be division of lines, division of stanzas, inclusion (or non-inclusion) of specific words, of metres, of rhyme, of alliteration, of assonance, and so on. To be able to achieve a recognizable tone or theme, the poet must have a greater rather than lesser degree of technical control. My comments on Poe as a poet were largely technical: to be able to ask why he does not structure the alliteration or internal rhyme schemes of "The Raven", one must first grasp the techniques of alliteration and internal rhyme.
Remember LeGuin's definition of poetry: "patterned intensity of language". Poetry succeeds to the degree it is intense and patterned. The tension of poetry exists specifically in such points as the play between the internal rhyme and the end-rhyme (and the alliteration) of the stanza in "The Raven" and the tags at the end of each stanza: "only this, and nothing more"; "nameless here forevermore"; "this is it and nothing more"; "darkness there, and nothing more" and so on. Here we may have (depending on the critic's argument) a ghastly lack of imagination or vocabulary (really, Edgar, can you think of other rhymes than "or"?) or a brilliant grasp of the maxim expressed by Brian Eno as "repetition is a form of change". Certainly the repetition in "The Raven" is intense in a way. Perhaps intensely boring. At any rate, until one recognizes the presence of the repetition, which along with variation is the key to Poe's technique (and, to those who see "The Raven" as a triumph, to his success here), one cannot interpret the poem sensibly.
"Critical thinking" is a somewhat problematic term, because the term "critical" has become so strongly connected with "negative judgment" or "attack". It need not mean this, but I'll admit readily that the uses of "critic" to mean "opponent" and "critical" to mean "negatively judgmental" are common. "Analysis" or "analytical thought" and "judgment" or "discerning thought" have been suggested as alternatives. But "analysis" does not really replace "critical thought", because it has to do properly only with the process of dividing up a problem into its constituent parts and perhaps categorizing those parts, but not necessarily making a judgment about their relative values. And "judgment" does not necessarily imply analysis. But critical thinking involves both analysis and synthesis and judgment.
In the poetry presentations, I have asked for analysis in the process of examining the various components of a poem, the technical aspects: metre, diction, sound, and so on. In asking for the theme and the tone, I am calling for a synthesis (drawing together) of the components of the poem to see a single unified whole, and for a judgment of the most important features of the poem in forming that picture of the whole.
One of the frustrations I experience is that here is an exercise which, were it really followed through, could be a very rich experience in critical thought. I'm not convinced that it has been that. So I ask myself, "why has this not been a rich experience?"
I wish I could lay the answer at my own feet: "You made up a bad exercise for the students!"
Unhappily, I don't think that is the case. I sincerely believe that this is a case of motivation. The tools to carry out this exercise are readily available. PCA&D's library may be small physically, but the collection is excellent, and we have plenty of on-line resources. Furthermore, we have excellent staff and faculty who are more than happy to help students who ask for it.
No, I'm afraid the trouble is a lack of motivation at the student level. If students won't even investigate what a word means, or consider what the significance of a classical allusion may be, when the answers are virtually at the finger-tips in dictionary or encyclopedia, it would seem that a basic malaise needs to be addressed.
Do we need to be slipping caffeine into the drinking water supply? Should we provide some sort of negative reinforcement?
Perhaps the answer lies in a general attitude toward the liberal arts (some of the LA faculty are strongly of this opinion). Perhaps the LA staff are too complaisant, not sufficiently demanding. Perhaps we are not flamboyant enough to merit imitation. Perhaps students actually believe that it does not matter whether they know how to use scholarly (and only barely scholarly) tools like dictionaries or grammar-checks, or that they use them, "because I am an artist."
And I think part of this has to do with a misunderstanding of the liberal arts: what the liberal arts are, and what value they have to artists.
As an artist -- and by that I mean "artist" in a very broad sense, because I compose and perform music, I have acted on stage and in film, I have worked as an animator, I design type, and I write poems, essays, short stories, and novels, for example, as well as draw and paint -- I am convinced of the value of the liberal arts. Obviously, my writing is supported by understanding verbal communications, but I also benefit from my understanding of nature that comes through the life and physical sciences and mathematics, from my understanding of human beings that comes through the behavioral and social sciences and history, from my understanding of the deep workings of the mind and the soul that comes from the study of philosophy and religion. The liberal arts provide content to place into the form of the technical training provided in the studio or fine arts.
Why a model should stand in a certain way, wearing certain clothing, or no clothing, with or without props, or why the lighting should be arranged this way or that, or why I should use conte rather than charcoal rather than graphite rather than something else, or why this paper or that -- all of these decisions are not purely technical within the visual arts. The liberal arts provide the context, the framework, the means by which the technical judgments about perspective, pressure, stance, and so on are to be made.
It is possible that artists can act without the benefit of liberal arts experience or training. Their work tends to be naive. That can be fine; but it's not what PCA&D is aiming for.
I hope that students will earnestly consider the possibility that the liberal arts curriculum is not an appendage -- especially not a vestigial appendage -- not a mere burden, but a vital part of training in the visual arts.
I wish I knew what to do about what seems to be lack of student motivation to engage with the liberal arts. If I knew, I could think of a plan of action.
This is not to say that NO ONE did a good job, that no one investigated the poems presented, that no one used scholarly tools. There have been high points in each of the presentations.
Certainly I am impressed with the overall improvement in posture (well, okay, maybe not that), pronunciation, enunciation, and projection. This is great. I sense that most of the students in FVC 101/102 are far more comfortable now speaking in public -- at least in front of the class -- than six months ago. Some students have made really astonishing progress, and this is great.
I'll end on that note.
A prefatory and somewhat technical (some may even think "snide") remark: In the past two class sessions, several students, in discussing the diction of the poems recited, have used the phrase "old English". I suspect, since all the poems recited so far have been in Modern English (yes, even "The Ballad of Bonnie George Campbell", which as I noted merely attempts to present a Highland accent rather than a real dialectual variant on English) that by "old English" is meant merely "a vocabulary with which I am unfamiliar and which appears to be "older"", and if this is so, why, this may well be correct. But it does not really show outstanding scholarship. Most dictionaries will give information about the approximate age of words in their various meanings. Poets often use words which have passed out of everyday use for particular effects.
Very few people today use "hereafter" or "behold" or "withal" or "slay" (to give four examples) in everyday speech, but some poets even today might use these terms for effect. Today the intended effect would probably be comedic as much as anything else, but fifty years ago and more these terms, although again not commonplace, would have been used seriously to give a sense of connection to older tradition, and in a sense, as I talked about today in reference to Poe, to "legitimize" or "elevate" the poet's work, to give it a sense of age and therefore respectability.
But while these words may be "old" (and for great information on the age and history of words, see Online Etymological Dictionary, which was created right here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: you can take some vicarious pride in that, I think) -- they all go back at least to the 14th century in their current form -- they are not "Old English" in the sense of Old English, Middle English, Modern English. In Old English these words would have the forms heraefter, bihaldan, mid ealle , and slean, which you may agree are like the modern English words, but are certainly not the same.
1) one of my goals in establishing oral performances in poetry was to provide an opportunity for students who tend to rush in speaking, or to swallow their words, or to mumble (if that is distinct from swallowing words), to correct these patterns. I think this goal has been met in part. The struggle to memorize lines may dominate, but even to some degree that struggle has overshadowed the discomfort or distraction of public speaking. I notice that in the analytical portions of the presentation -- where the student is neither reciting nor reading, but is summarizing some question about her or his poem, speech tends to be clearer.
However, in responding to the problems of, for example, what may be the tone or the sound or the structure or the diction of the poem, students tend to be
a) exceedingly brief, and
b) necessarily (because of the above) vague and unspecific.
To counter these, I proposed that students give specific examples from their poems showing, rather than telling about, the presence of the various qualities.
Having said all of this, though, I do sense that as a general rule, some real progress has been made. I hope that the time spent as a class listening to one after another of your classmates' work "torn apart", and having to hear a poem or section of a poem repeated several times, has provided some real use.
2) I am very curious to explore why, out of the many many poems available in the world, people choose the ones they do. When one choses a poem to memorize and recite, it is a bit like choosing a significant other (a bit like): this poem is going to enter into your consciousness, become a part of you, and you should think carefully whether and why it is one you want to become so intimate with. And just as in interpersonal relationships, one must learn and perhaps learn by mistakes, so with poems.
3) In asking about structure, external form, alliteration, assonance, and so on, one might legitimately note (although no one has), "Well, we were not taught about these things in this class -- how are we supposed to comment on them?" I am working from the (perhaps faulty) assumption that rhyme schemes, metre, sound-patterns, have been presented in "English" classes over the past twelve years or so, and that it is more a matter of recalling information learned and then stowed away unused rather than encountering completely new information. I make similar assumptions about other mechanical or technical aspects of verbal communication. I assume, for example, that anyone who could be admitted into a college program understands that an English sentence must consist of two parts, a subject and a predicate; or that when one is uncertain of the meaning of a word, a dictionary is used to gain some higher degree of certainty; or that a paragraph should consist of, at very least, three sentences.
At a certain point, I simply have to move forward from these and other similar assumptions. I am perfectly happy to assist a person who is confused. At the same time, I have reached the point at which, while I desire not to embarrass a student who has apparently not a clue as to the meaning of an English word, when the assignment in which the word occurs has been standing for about a month and dictionaries are still readily available, even if the student does not own one her- or himself, and when the misunderstanding of that word may completely reverse the understanding of the passage in which it is found, that desire is overridden by the thought that this cluelessness and misunderstanding is inexcusable. Am I intolerant, or rude, to call a student on this by saying, "What does this word mean? You don't know? Well, I do, because I use a dictionary."
Before answering that question, consider, too, that I am not asking for private recitals here: the recitations of poems are given to the class as a whole, are the basis of listening exercises, and therefore are not merely personal. In a sense, without stating it in so many words, I am asking for each presenter to function as a teacher for ten minutes or so. We should all be learning something about poets and poetry here, as well as gaining experience as listeners and speakers.
The upcoming exercise in which students are to present results of their research should also meet the maxim "Simple in means, rich in ends". I am eager to learn about The Brat Pack's influence on music, the development of Celtic tree alphabets, martial art forms, foreign versus domestic adoptions, the effects of caffeine on human functioning, physical responses in love, and so on. I, for one, hope to gain some information and insight here, but I also hope to see and hear improved posture, presence, enunciation, pronunciation, and projection. The five/fours and the poetry recitations served their own purposes as well, but recognize that all of these exercises together build to something else.
4) Consider how technical knowledge, critical thinking, and understanding of the liberal arts are to be fostered. All of the examination of poetry which is the basis of this exercise (or should be the basic of this exercise) is technical. First, the process of analysis and memorization is technical: you used some sort of technique to figure out what the structure of the poem is, what the diction of the poem is, and so on. It may not have been a sophisticated technique, but in part that is why I ask of you the questions I do -- like, "what does this line mean?" or "what is the rhyme scheme in this stanza?" or "how can you find out the meaning of that word?"
Second, poetry itself is technical: one must employ techniques in forming a poem, whether it be division of lines, division of stanzas, inclusion (or non-inclusion) of specific words, of metres, of rhyme, of alliteration, of assonance, and so on. To be able to achieve a recognizable tone or theme, the poet must have a greater rather than lesser degree of technical control. My comments on Poe as a poet were largely technical: to be able to ask why he does not structure the alliteration or internal rhyme schemes of "The Raven", one must first grasp the techniques of alliteration and internal rhyme.
Remember LeGuin's definition of poetry: "patterned intensity of language". Poetry succeeds to the degree it is intense and patterned. The tension of poetry exists specifically in such points as the play between the internal rhyme and the end-rhyme (and the alliteration) of the stanza in "The Raven" and the tags at the end of each stanza: "only this, and nothing more"; "nameless here forevermore"; "this is it and nothing more"; "darkness there, and nothing more" and so on. Here we may have (depending on the critic's argument) a ghastly lack of imagination or vocabulary (really, Edgar, can you think of other rhymes than "or"?) or a brilliant grasp of the maxim expressed by Brian Eno as "repetition is a form of change". Certainly the repetition in "The Raven" is intense in a way. Perhaps intensely boring. At any rate, until one recognizes the presence of the repetition, which along with variation is the key to Poe's technique (and, to those who see "The Raven" as a triumph, to his success here), one cannot interpret the poem sensibly.
"Critical thinking" is a somewhat problematic term, because the term "critical" has become so strongly connected with "negative judgment" or "attack". It need not mean this, but I'll admit readily that the uses of "critic" to mean "opponent" and "critical" to mean "negatively judgmental" are common. "Analysis" or "analytical thought" and "judgment" or "discerning thought" have been suggested as alternatives. But "analysis" does not really replace "critical thought", because it has to do properly only with the process of dividing up a problem into its constituent parts and perhaps categorizing those parts, but not necessarily making a judgment about their relative values. And "judgment" does not necessarily imply analysis. But critical thinking involves both analysis and synthesis and judgment.
In the poetry presentations, I have asked for analysis in the process of examining the various components of a poem, the technical aspects: metre, diction, sound, and so on. In asking for the theme and the tone, I am calling for a synthesis (drawing together) of the components of the poem to see a single unified whole, and for a judgment of the most important features of the poem in forming that picture of the whole.
One of the frustrations I experience is that here is an exercise which, were it really followed through, could be a very rich experience in critical thought. I'm not convinced that it has been that. So I ask myself, "why has this not been a rich experience?"
I wish I could lay the answer at my own feet: "You made up a bad exercise for the students!"
Unhappily, I don't think that is the case. I sincerely believe that this is a case of motivation. The tools to carry out this exercise are readily available. PCA&D's library may be small physically, but the collection is excellent, and we have plenty of on-line resources. Furthermore, we have excellent staff and faculty who are more than happy to help students who ask for it.
No, I'm afraid the trouble is a lack of motivation at the student level. If students won't even investigate what a word means, or consider what the significance of a classical allusion may be, when the answers are virtually at the finger-tips in dictionary or encyclopedia, it would seem that a basic malaise needs to be addressed.
Do we need to be slipping caffeine into the drinking water supply? Should we provide some sort of negative reinforcement?
Perhaps the answer lies in a general attitude toward the liberal arts (some of the LA faculty are strongly of this opinion). Perhaps the LA staff are too complaisant, not sufficiently demanding. Perhaps we are not flamboyant enough to merit imitation. Perhaps students actually believe that it does not matter whether they know how to use scholarly (and only barely scholarly) tools like dictionaries or grammar-checks, or that they use them, "because I am an artist."
And I think part of this has to do with a misunderstanding of the liberal arts: what the liberal arts are, and what value they have to artists.
As an artist -- and by that I mean "artist" in a very broad sense, because I compose and perform music, I have acted on stage and in film, I have worked as an animator, I design type, and I write poems, essays, short stories, and novels, for example, as well as draw and paint -- I am convinced of the value of the liberal arts. Obviously, my writing is supported by understanding verbal communications, but I also benefit from my understanding of nature that comes through the life and physical sciences and mathematics, from my understanding of human beings that comes through the behavioral and social sciences and history, from my understanding of the deep workings of the mind and the soul that comes from the study of philosophy and religion. The liberal arts provide content to place into the form of the technical training provided in the studio or fine arts.
Why a model should stand in a certain way, wearing certain clothing, or no clothing, with or without props, or why the lighting should be arranged this way or that, or why I should use conte rather than charcoal rather than graphite rather than something else, or why this paper or that -- all of these decisions are not purely technical within the visual arts. The liberal arts provide the context, the framework, the means by which the technical judgments about perspective, pressure, stance, and so on are to be made.
It is possible that artists can act without the benefit of liberal arts experience or training. Their work tends to be naive. That can be fine; but it's not what PCA&D is aiming for.
I hope that students will earnestly consider the possibility that the liberal arts curriculum is not an appendage -- especially not a vestigial appendage -- not a mere burden, but a vital part of training in the visual arts.
I wish I knew what to do about what seems to be lack of student motivation to engage with the liberal arts. If I knew, I could think of a plan of action.
This is not to say that NO ONE did a good job, that no one investigated the poems presented, that no one used scholarly tools. There have been high points in each of the presentations.
Certainly I am impressed with the overall improvement in posture (well, okay, maybe not that), pronunciation, enunciation, and projection. This is great. I sense that most of the students in FVC 101/102 are far more comfortable now speaking in public -- at least in front of the class -- than six months ago. Some students have made really astonishing progress, and this is great.
I'll end on that note.
Monday, February 18, 2008
18.ii.08 Foundations of Verbal Communications
A bit of a slow day today; only two oral presentations due to my interference. A fine suggestion was made that I purchase a timer and limit my comments to the absolute essentials.
I found in examining the listening exercises that the responses were generally quite brief, which may in part be due to poor listening skills, but may also be a necessary reaction to limited analysis. I don't know how useful the model I presented in class may have been, but I summarize here in writing what I presented in class this morning orally.
In making the oral presentations of poetry, show the ways in which the biography of your chosen poet relates to the poem. Also, in showing the subject, the speaker, the setting, the tone, and so on, make direct reference to the poem, quoting pertinent passages, to defend your analysis.
So, for example, I may give a recitation of a poem by a local poet who was active in environmental organizations, worked for a time as a naturalist, and was familiar with the nearby nature preserve (owned by PPL) called Shenk's Ferry Wildflower Preserve. The poem is entitled "From Shenk's Ferry".
This hidden folding of the land
where foxes ran beneath the grape
here the leaves mouldering lay
from soil into sky turning back
shake the bells upon the tree
like the wind of hallowtide
when the silver treehall shines
with slanting golden beams
this narrow passage of the stream
where hartstongue shoots between the stones
and rabbits bite the grass then go
beneath tanglewood to stay unseen
rise up in mists when you have passed
exhaled from loam that holds your form
you cannot last although you roar
it fades into the cries of ants
The subject or situation is the place, Shenk's Ferry, but there is also a kind of advice or command given in the second stanza: "shake the bells..." and another in the last stanza: "rise up in mists..."
The speaker would appear to be the poet, and the setting, again, is Shenk's Ferry, apparently in autumn. My argument for this is that hallowtide, referenced in the poem, is the period between Halloween and winter solstice (around Christmas): this is the second half of the autumn season. Also, the "silver treehall shines/ with slanting golden beams" suggests late autumn (and indeed this is merely defining "hallowtide", for this is "when the silver treehall shines...") because at this point in the year the leaves have fallen from the trees. At Shenk's Ferry is a great stand of Beeches, trees with silver-grey bark, and it seems likely that the poet refers to this; the "slanting golden beams" are presumably sun-beams, and the angle of the sun in late autumn is low.
However, the poem also refers to "hartstongue", which is a kind of fern which I think is not evergreen, so the poem may not be describing any particular time of year but a single place in several seasons.
The overall tone of the poem I would say is mostly descriptive, but includes some interesting commands. The first stanza does nothing more than describe the place, and the third stanza does the same. "The bells upon the tree" may be a reference to a kind of bell-shaped pod on trees growing along the path at Shenk's Ferry. I don't know what the name of that tree may be, but an observant person walking there would see them, especially after the leaves have fallen. Grapes are mentioned, and foxes, hartstongue, grass, and rabbits. It seems like a straightforward snapshot of a forest.
In the second stanza, we have the rather odd command to "shake the bells upon the tree/like the wind of hallowtide". Why would a tree have bells on it? It almost suggests some sort of decoration. But the shaking is supposed to be like the wind of hallowtide -- and what would that be? Wind is often associated with the spirit or soul (in fact, in their origins, both these words meant "wind" as well as "breath"), and All Hallow's is the Day of the Dead, so the shaking of the bells may be done by or like the spirits of the departed... and the association of the bell with the spirit is maybe pretty common.
But in the fourth stanza, the tone changes, and in light of this change the whole poem takes on a different quality: here, the listener or reader is told to "rise up in mists", which echoes the "from soil into sky turning back" of the first stanza. "You cannot last although you roar" -- so even if you do wonderful things, it is natural to die, to decay, and whatever spirit you may have will "rise up in mists", while the "loam" or soil "holds your form". The direct address of "you" engages the reader. The tone, I would say, becomes maybe a bit melancholic, or maybe stoic: we are called to accept nature as it is. We gain a different view, perhaps, of the place of the foxes which "ran beneath the grape" and the rabbits which "go beneath tanglewood to stay unseen" -- unseen from the fox? -- predator and prey, the natural cycle. And there is a larger cycle of decay and renewal in the leaves "from soil into sky turning back" and the mists "exhaled from loam" -- essentially the leaves of the first stanza are like the "form" or body (presumably human body) of the last stanza: all beings collapse, degrade, and become something new. The poet might also have noted that the sky becomes the soil as the leaves take in chemicals and radiation from the sun, and then fall to the ground.
The diction of the poem, characteristic of this poet, is limited almost entirely to words deriving from the Germanic roots of English. Only "exhale" comes from another source: Latin, in this case. English has three main elements: the base in Anglo-Saxon, a language closely related to Dutch, Frisian, Icelandic, German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian; a strong influence of the Romance language French (which is closely allied to Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, all of which derive much from Latin -- hence "Roman-ish" or Romance); the third element of English is "other": words like moccasin, teepee, cannibal, tobacco, from native American languages, or algebra or alchemy, from Arabic, or geometry, logical, or synthesis, from Greek. And of course we have taken many words from Latin, like exhale or corrupt or degrade.
But this poem is mostly basic English words, although some are rare, like Hallowtide and Hartstongue, and one is a bit of poetic invention, tree-hall. Tanglewood is not particularly common, but all of these oddities are really pretty straightforward in their meaning (maybe Hallowtide not so much, and it may also be an invention of the poet, on the model of Christmastide or Eastertide).
I think "From soil into sky turning back" and "exhaled from loam that holds your form" are notable phrases, as is "it fades into the cries of ants" -- these peculiar phrases also are central to the purpose of the poem (as I understand it): things changing into others through decay. The most mysterious to me is the fading "into the cries of ants", because grammatically what is fading is either the "roar" or the "form" (strictly grammatically, it must be the form) -- since the cries of ants are pretty darn faint, that a roar would fade into them seems a sensible reduction, a deflation of ego... but for the form or body to fade into the cries of ants argues for a more complex process of change, especially since ant cries are basically chemical signals... I guess that the poet was aware of this and intended to say that the chemicals in a body break down and float around and are taken up into the ants and then sent out again in their communications -- a kind of reincarnation, I suppose one might say.
The poet uses the word "this" to introduce the first and third stanzas, which in effect divides the poem into two units. "This" also gives a precision and nearness to the poem. We may ask, as listeners or readers: "This? Which?" Since "this" is the first word, it must refer to something later, or outside of the poem -- either way we are drawn into the mystery: to what does "this" refer?
As for sound, the poem does not use rhyme, but an assonance structure based on the vowels of the final words in each line, with the pattern ABBA CDDC CEEC AFFA (this also is part of the structure of the poem, obviously). The poet has repeated sounds, not necessarily in any particular order, throughout:
this/hidden; folding/foxes; land/ran; folding/mouldering; leaves/lay; soil/sky; back/bells; bells/wind; bell/hallowtide/treehall; shake/shines; silver/slanting; wind/when/with, and so on.
A good bit of this is alliteration or "head rhyme", but again, it seems not to be in any strict pattern. It's not quite a tongue-twister, but "stream/ where hartstongue shoots between the stones" comes awfully close.
The rhythm of the piece is not strictly patterned, either, but seems just to be a natural flow, although there are some strong parallels (and here I pass over into the structure of the poem).
As for musicality, the rising and falling tones of the first line, for example "this hidden folding of the land" has a progression of rising tones in the accented syllables: this and hidden are essentially the same tone, but folding rises; the unstressed syllables are lower tones, and so the whole line together has a kind of rising and falling which creates an auditory picture of the folding land which is described.
"Narrow passage" also, because of the doubled consonants, expresses a kind of constriction (one could lengthen the words, too, but this would seem unnatural; try it both ways to confirm for yourself); here there is a quick rising and falling pattern which again suggests in a way a rocky valley with tall and close sides. Perhaps this is just my own impression of the poem, but I find that it describes not only in the meaning of the words, but in the sound of the words. I don't think it would be as effective in translation into, say, French:
Ce passage étroit du jet
où pousse la langue du cerf entre les pierres
et les lapins mordent l'herbe et alors vont
sous le bois embrouillé rester invisibles
Sure, it sounds "nice" (and French), but one could not readily force this into the structure of about seven syllables, with about four stressed syllables, per line, as in English. And of course, the assonance scheme is totally lost. And speaking of syllables, here is the way the structure of this poem breaks down.
Take x as an accented syllable and - as an unaccented syllable, and the poem has a form like this:
x x- x- - - x
x x- x -x - x
x - x x- x
- x -- x x- x
x - x -x - x
x - x - x- x
x - x- x- x
- x- x- x
x x- x- - - x
x x- x -x - x
- x- x - x - x
-x x-x - x x-
x x - x - x - x
-x - x - x - x
x x- x -x - x
- x -x - x - x
The first two lines of the first and third stanzas have identical rhythms. Other than that, the structure is not exact, but no line has more than five stressed syllables, and only one has fewer than four ("with slanting golden beams" has three, which then to keep pace with the rest of the stanza demands a lengthening of the vowels, which perhaps emphasizes the "slanting").
The overall structure of the poem is that it is has four stanzas, each of four lines, all fairly compact, ten of the sixteen lines having four stressed syllables, five having five, and one having three stressed syllables. There are 7 5/8 (7.625) syllables in each line, on average, which probably has no cosmic significance at all. But poets are sometimes peculiar about hidden messages. As noted above, the first and third stanzas are descriptive, the first including a predatory animal and the third including a prey animal; the second and fourth stanzas include commands. The assonance scheme of ABBA CDDC CEEC AFFA suggests an arc or an interlacing; it may be that a longer poem would continue with BCCB DEED DFFD BAAB, CDDC EFFE EAAE CBBC, and so on, something like a pantoum. But as it stands, we have only the four stanzas, so this is mere speculation on my part. This scheme is the invention of the poet, rather than an existing external form.
The theme of the poem, I would summarize in a single word as "recycling" or "reincarnation".
From Shenk's Ferry
This hidden folding of the land
where foxes ran beneath the grape
here the leaves mouldering lay
from soil into sky turning back
shake the bells upon the tree
like the wind of hallowtide
when the silver treehall shines
with slanting golden beams
this narrow passage of the stream
where hartstongue shoots between the stones
and rabbits bite the grass then go
beneath tanglewood to stay unseen
rise up in mists when you have passed
exhaled from loam that holds your form
you cannot last although you roar
it fades into the cries of ants
MEA.
I found in examining the listening exercises that the responses were generally quite brief, which may in part be due to poor listening skills, but may also be a necessary reaction to limited analysis. I don't know how useful the model I presented in class may have been, but I summarize here in writing what I presented in class this morning orally.
In making the oral presentations of poetry, show the ways in which the biography of your chosen poet relates to the poem. Also, in showing the subject, the speaker, the setting, the tone, and so on, make direct reference to the poem, quoting pertinent passages, to defend your analysis.
So, for example, I may give a recitation of a poem by a local poet who was active in environmental organizations, worked for a time as a naturalist, and was familiar with the nearby nature preserve (owned by PPL) called Shenk's Ferry Wildflower Preserve. The poem is entitled "From Shenk's Ferry".
This hidden folding of the land
where foxes ran beneath the grape
here the leaves mouldering lay
from soil into sky turning back
shake the bells upon the tree
like the wind of hallowtide
when the silver treehall shines
with slanting golden beams
this narrow passage of the stream
where hartstongue shoots between the stones
and rabbits bite the grass then go
beneath tanglewood to stay unseen
rise up in mists when you have passed
exhaled from loam that holds your form
you cannot last although you roar
it fades into the cries of ants
The subject or situation is the place, Shenk's Ferry, but there is also a kind of advice or command given in the second stanza: "shake the bells..." and another in the last stanza: "rise up in mists..."
The speaker would appear to be the poet, and the setting, again, is Shenk's Ferry, apparently in autumn. My argument for this is that hallowtide, referenced in the poem, is the period between Halloween and winter solstice (around Christmas): this is the second half of the autumn season. Also, the "silver treehall shines/ with slanting golden beams" suggests late autumn (and indeed this is merely defining "hallowtide", for this is "when the silver treehall shines...") because at this point in the year the leaves have fallen from the trees. At Shenk's Ferry is a great stand of Beeches, trees with silver-grey bark, and it seems likely that the poet refers to this; the "slanting golden beams" are presumably sun-beams, and the angle of the sun in late autumn is low.
However, the poem also refers to "hartstongue", which is a kind of fern which I think is not evergreen, so the poem may not be describing any particular time of year but a single place in several seasons.
The overall tone of the poem I would say is mostly descriptive, but includes some interesting commands. The first stanza does nothing more than describe the place, and the third stanza does the same. "The bells upon the tree" may be a reference to a kind of bell-shaped pod on trees growing along the path at Shenk's Ferry. I don't know what the name of that tree may be, but an observant person walking there would see them, especially after the leaves have fallen. Grapes are mentioned, and foxes, hartstongue, grass, and rabbits. It seems like a straightforward snapshot of a forest.
In the second stanza, we have the rather odd command to "shake the bells upon the tree/like the wind of hallowtide". Why would a tree have bells on it? It almost suggests some sort of decoration. But the shaking is supposed to be like the wind of hallowtide -- and what would that be? Wind is often associated with the spirit or soul (in fact, in their origins, both these words meant "wind" as well as "breath"), and All Hallow's is the Day of the Dead, so the shaking of the bells may be done by or like the spirits of the departed... and the association of the bell with the spirit is maybe pretty common.
But in the fourth stanza, the tone changes, and in light of this change the whole poem takes on a different quality: here, the listener or reader is told to "rise up in mists", which echoes the "from soil into sky turning back" of the first stanza. "You cannot last although you roar" -- so even if you do wonderful things, it is natural to die, to decay, and whatever spirit you may have will "rise up in mists", while the "loam" or soil "holds your form". The direct address of "you" engages the reader. The tone, I would say, becomes maybe a bit melancholic, or maybe stoic: we are called to accept nature as it is. We gain a different view, perhaps, of the place of the foxes which "ran beneath the grape" and the rabbits which "go beneath tanglewood to stay unseen" -- unseen from the fox? -- predator and prey, the natural cycle. And there is a larger cycle of decay and renewal in the leaves "from soil into sky turning back" and the mists "exhaled from loam" -- essentially the leaves of the first stanza are like the "form" or body (presumably human body) of the last stanza: all beings collapse, degrade, and become something new. The poet might also have noted that the sky becomes the soil as the leaves take in chemicals and radiation from the sun, and then fall to the ground.
The diction of the poem, characteristic of this poet, is limited almost entirely to words deriving from the Germanic roots of English. Only "exhale" comes from another source: Latin, in this case. English has three main elements: the base in Anglo-Saxon, a language closely related to Dutch, Frisian, Icelandic, German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian; a strong influence of the Romance language French (which is closely allied to Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, all of which derive much from Latin -- hence "Roman-ish" or Romance); the third element of English is "other": words like moccasin, teepee, cannibal, tobacco, from native American languages, or algebra or alchemy, from Arabic, or geometry, logical, or synthesis, from Greek. And of course we have taken many words from Latin, like exhale or corrupt or degrade.
But this poem is mostly basic English words, although some are rare, like Hallowtide and Hartstongue, and one is a bit of poetic invention, tree-hall. Tanglewood is not particularly common, but all of these oddities are really pretty straightforward in their meaning (maybe Hallowtide not so much, and it may also be an invention of the poet, on the model of Christmastide or Eastertide).
I think "From soil into sky turning back" and "exhaled from loam that holds your form" are notable phrases, as is "it fades into the cries of ants" -- these peculiar phrases also are central to the purpose of the poem (as I understand it): things changing into others through decay. The most mysterious to me is the fading "into the cries of ants", because grammatically what is fading is either the "roar" or the "form" (strictly grammatically, it must be the form) -- since the cries of ants are pretty darn faint, that a roar would fade into them seems a sensible reduction, a deflation of ego... but for the form or body to fade into the cries of ants argues for a more complex process of change, especially since ant cries are basically chemical signals... I guess that the poet was aware of this and intended to say that the chemicals in a body break down and float around and are taken up into the ants and then sent out again in their communications -- a kind of reincarnation, I suppose one might say.
The poet uses the word "this" to introduce the first and third stanzas, which in effect divides the poem into two units. "This" also gives a precision and nearness to the poem. We may ask, as listeners or readers: "This? Which?" Since "this" is the first word, it must refer to something later, or outside of the poem -- either way we are drawn into the mystery: to what does "this" refer?
As for sound, the poem does not use rhyme, but an assonance structure based on the vowels of the final words in each line, with the pattern ABBA CDDC CEEC AFFA (this also is part of the structure of the poem, obviously). The poet has repeated sounds, not necessarily in any particular order, throughout:
this/hidden; folding/foxes; land/ran; folding/mouldering; leaves/lay; soil/sky; back/bells; bells/wind; bell/hallowtide/treehall; shake/shines; silver/slanting; wind/when/with, and so on.
A good bit of this is alliteration or "head rhyme", but again, it seems not to be in any strict pattern. It's not quite a tongue-twister, but "stream/ where hartstongue shoots between the stones" comes awfully close.
The rhythm of the piece is not strictly patterned, either, but seems just to be a natural flow, although there are some strong parallels (and here I pass over into the structure of the poem).
As for musicality, the rising and falling tones of the first line, for example "this hidden folding of the land" has a progression of rising tones in the accented syllables: this and hidden are essentially the same tone, but folding rises; the unstressed syllables are lower tones, and so the whole line together has a kind of rising and falling which creates an auditory picture of the folding land which is described.
"Narrow passage" also, because of the doubled consonants, expresses a kind of constriction (one could lengthen the words, too, but this would seem unnatural; try it both ways to confirm for yourself); here there is a quick rising and falling pattern which again suggests in a way a rocky valley with tall and close sides. Perhaps this is just my own impression of the poem, but I find that it describes not only in the meaning of the words, but in the sound of the words. I don't think it would be as effective in translation into, say, French:
Ce passage étroit du jet
où pousse la langue du cerf entre les pierres
et les lapins mordent l'herbe et alors vont
sous le bois embrouillé rester invisibles
Sure, it sounds "nice" (and French), but one could not readily force this into the structure of about seven syllables, with about four stressed syllables, per line, as in English. And of course, the assonance scheme is totally lost. And speaking of syllables, here is the way the structure of this poem breaks down.
Take x as an accented syllable and - as an unaccented syllable, and the poem has a form like this:
x x- x- - - x
x x- x -x - x
x - x x- x
- x -- x x- x
x - x -x - x
x - x - x- x
x - x- x- x
- x- x- x
x x- x- - - x
x x- x -x - x
- x- x - x - x
-x x-x - x x-
x x - x - x - x
-x - x - x - x
x x- x -x - x
- x -x - x - x
The first two lines of the first and third stanzas have identical rhythms. Other than that, the structure is not exact, but no line has more than five stressed syllables, and only one has fewer than four ("with slanting golden beams" has three, which then to keep pace with the rest of the stanza demands a lengthening of the vowels, which perhaps emphasizes the "slanting").
The overall structure of the poem is that it is has four stanzas, each of four lines, all fairly compact, ten of the sixteen lines having four stressed syllables, five having five, and one having three stressed syllables. There are 7 5/8 (7.625) syllables in each line, on average, which probably has no cosmic significance at all. But poets are sometimes peculiar about hidden messages. As noted above, the first and third stanzas are descriptive, the first including a predatory animal and the third including a prey animal; the second and fourth stanzas include commands. The assonance scheme of ABBA CDDC CEEC AFFA suggests an arc or an interlacing; it may be that a longer poem would continue with BCCB DEED DFFD BAAB, CDDC EFFE EAAE CBBC, and so on, something like a pantoum. But as it stands, we have only the four stanzas, so this is mere speculation on my part. This scheme is the invention of the poet, rather than an existing external form.
The theme of the poem, I would summarize in a single word as "recycling" or "reincarnation".
From Shenk's Ferry
This hidden folding of the land
where foxes ran beneath the grape
here the leaves mouldering lay
from soil into sky turning back
shake the bells upon the tree
like the wind of hallowtide
when the silver treehall shines
with slanting golden beams
this narrow passage of the stream
where hartstongue shoots between the stones
and rabbits bite the grass then go
beneath tanglewood to stay unseen
rise up in mists when you have passed
exhaled from loam that holds your form
you cannot last although you roar
it fades into the cries of ants
MEA.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
14.ii.07 Ethics on SS Valentines' Day
Yes, SS Valentines': there were two Saints Valentine, both of whom were martyred. During the colonial period, the Mennonites in this area at least found a greater resonance with Valentines' Day than with Christmas, presumably in part because of the association with martyrdom ("The Martyrs' Mirror" being a key [and quite bulky] text in the Mennonite library).
So, we're back in the educational saddle again after the better part of two days off due to weather. On Monday I left the college with no suspicions of the weather predictions, and I took no work with me, in part because my back pain was acute and I knew I would not be able to concentrate, and in part because I was figuring on being in on Tuesday to read over the descriptive ethics projects. Tuesday morning I went to my medical clinic and met with a new doctor in the practice, who examined my back and suggested that I take an anti-inflammatory medication for two weeks, at the end of which time we will meet again and determine whether I need to undergo an MRI scan. Meanwhile, I am to use hot compresses as needed and ease back into gentle yoga; perhaps, she says, I should wait to start the weight-lifting program I was planning on, or just use lighter dumbbells with more reps.
After my appointment, I drove to my parents'; by this time the snow was beginning. While I was visiting with my parents (who were eager for me to try out some chairs which they thought would be better for my back than the wooden-seated windsors I have have at home, and also to have me use a full-body massaging heating pad [very noisy and weirdly jarring -- I'm used to a sticky yoga mat or a futon, or the ground]) I received the call that classes would be cancelled. By that time, about a quarter inch of snow and the same of ice was on the ground, and I could not safely back my van out of my parents' driveway, so I stayed the night there, driving directly home about mid-day Wednesday, so again, I did not pick up student work, thinking that I would get it when I came in for class. I had some difficulty driving up the lane, although the main roads were safe. They might even have been safe with the usual quantity of traffic, but I was glad that very few drivers were out. And I was glad, too, when I found that evening classes had been cancelled, because as I was bringing some items in from the car, I slipped twice on the ice. Since my landlord is in South Africa until later this month, if I had been hurt, I might have been stuck on the ice until I could crawl indoors, and I wasn't enthusiastic about that possibility.
This morning leaving to come to the college, the driveway at my house was even more slick than yesterday, but again, once I was out to the main road, everything was fine. I arrived and then attended a series of meetings until class-time, and so I still have a stack of descriptive ethics projects to review, but I will take them home with me this evening.
***
Because of the class cancellation Tuesday, the deadline for topic selection for the classical-school exercise is postponed until Tuesday the 19th. From the handout on ethical criteria (emotive-criteria, intuitive-criteria, extrinsic-criteria, intrinsic-criteria), or from other experience, select two schools of ethics you find intriguing. Present your selections with an explanation of what you find intriguing about those schools. About a paragraph for each school should be sufficient. You need not perform much research before making the selection, although you may: the next step is the annotated bibliography. For this, be certain to list not fewer than five sources in not fewer than three media. You are welcome to begin with a key-word search, or even with Wikipedia, but be sure to use this only as a starting point; look for bibliographic suggestions and follow up on them.
A brief overview of my talk today:
In the classical system project (comparing two classic schools of ethical thought), you are to articulate principles of the schools you examine. Therefore, you must grasp clearly the notion of principle as opposed to issue.
As examples, I spoke of the principles of Stoicism as shown in Epictetus and those of Hedonism.
In Stoicism, one of the basic principles is that Nature is a controlling and limiting factor: things are as they are, and there is nothing one can do about that.
Another is that the will is essentially free: one can choose to do whatever one can do. One can also choose to do what one cannot do, but in this case one will be disappointed, because simply to will something is not to be able to do it. I may wish to fly and put a lot of effort into trying to fly, but the fact is that humans are not capable of flight, and probably I will do a good deal of injury to my body if I persist in acting as though they are.
These two principles, the freedom of the will and the limits of nature, may seem to be at odds with each other. The reconciliation, for Stoics, comes in the idea that one should attune one's will to desire to act only the way one can. If one does not understand the way things are, and acts contrary to nature, one will be unhappy, but if one understands how things are and does not wish them to be otherwise, but is contented with things as they are, one will be happy.
This position proposes that goodness, that which is right, is found when one understands logic (the organization of thoughts, but also the organization of things and processes in nature) and physics (the limits of material reality, especially cause and effect) and acts in accord with them alone.
A different approach to goodness is found in Hedonism. The term Hedonism comes from the Greek word "hedone" meaning "pleasure". In Hedonism, the good is defined by that which is pleasant, or which brings pleasure: what is evil is that which limits pleasure or causes pain, or is pain, or privation of pleasure. This might seem unsophisticated and egocentric, and hedonism can be unsophisticated and egocentric, but this depends in part upon whether pleasure is viewed simply as a matter of quantity or as a matter of quality.
Some would argue that simply having much of something pleasurable is enough to increase pleasure, and therefore to have good. But others would understand that, for example, to play a song over and over, even if it is a perfectly good song, may not increase the pleasure from that song, or one's pleasure generally. It might be better to have one bar of Lindt chocolate than five Hershey bars (but of course this may be very largely or entirely a matter of taste: someone may find Hershey to be exquisite comparable to Lindt [it is conceivable]). The emphasis of quality over quantity characterizes the Epicurean school of hedonism.
Jeremy Bentham argued that any act could be judged as to its value using what he called an "hedonic calculus", measured based on seven essential factors. His godson J.S. Mill was less sanguine about exact quantitative measurement of pleasures, and furthermore Mill argued that pleasure was not merely individual: one should act to produce the greatest possible good (pleasure) for the greatest possible number of people. The usefulness or pleasure-production of any act, its utility, in Mill's terminology, was determined largely by its relationship to this basic principle of utility: to produce the greatest good for the greatest number.
Thus, in Mill's version of hedonism, one is guided to the higher pleasures of providing for social welfare with fine medicine, education, transportation, good government, an efficient and profitable economy, and so on.
Also, throughout the hedonistic schools, one finds the need to balance momentary pains with future pleasures. It may be that eating carefully now is a pain, but compared with the pleasure of a long life with a healthy body, these pains are worthwhile. It may be that guitar practice is a pain, but the pleasurable reward comes when one can play effortlessly (for those of us who achieve such a state).
So, under the general banner of hedonism, we can see the following principles:
1. The good = the pleasurable.
2. The end may justify the means (no pain, no gain).
3. Less of high quality is better than more of low quality (Epicurus).
4. Pleasure may be measured (Bentham).
5. The highest pleasure comes from altruism (Mill).
In none of these cases are specifics put forward; these are universal principles, applicable to any moral issues. It is the principles of the classical systems you examine which are to be the focus of your next project; only in the third project should you concentrate on issues.
So, we're back in the educational saddle again after the better part of two days off due to weather. On Monday I left the college with no suspicions of the weather predictions, and I took no work with me, in part because my back pain was acute and I knew I would not be able to concentrate, and in part because I was figuring on being in on Tuesday to read over the descriptive ethics projects. Tuesday morning I went to my medical clinic and met with a new doctor in the practice, who examined my back and suggested that I take an anti-inflammatory medication for two weeks, at the end of which time we will meet again and determine whether I need to undergo an MRI scan. Meanwhile, I am to use hot compresses as needed and ease back into gentle yoga; perhaps, she says, I should wait to start the weight-lifting program I was planning on, or just use lighter dumbbells with more reps.
After my appointment, I drove to my parents'; by this time the snow was beginning. While I was visiting with my parents (who were eager for me to try out some chairs which they thought would be better for my back than the wooden-seated windsors I have have at home, and also to have me use a full-body massaging heating pad [very noisy and weirdly jarring -- I'm used to a sticky yoga mat or a futon, or the ground]) I received the call that classes would be cancelled. By that time, about a quarter inch of snow and the same of ice was on the ground, and I could not safely back my van out of my parents' driveway, so I stayed the night there, driving directly home about mid-day Wednesday, so again, I did not pick up student work, thinking that I would get it when I came in for class. I had some difficulty driving up the lane, although the main roads were safe. They might even have been safe with the usual quantity of traffic, but I was glad that very few drivers were out. And I was glad, too, when I found that evening classes had been cancelled, because as I was bringing some items in from the car, I slipped twice on the ice. Since my landlord is in South Africa until later this month, if I had been hurt, I might have been stuck on the ice until I could crawl indoors, and I wasn't enthusiastic about that possibility.
This morning leaving to come to the college, the driveway at my house was even more slick than yesterday, but again, once I was out to the main road, everything was fine. I arrived and then attended a series of meetings until class-time, and so I still have a stack of descriptive ethics projects to review, but I will take them home with me this evening.
***
Because of the class cancellation Tuesday, the deadline for topic selection for the classical-school exercise is postponed until Tuesday the 19th. From the handout on ethical criteria (emotive-criteria, intuitive-criteria, extrinsic-criteria, intrinsic-criteria), or from other experience, select two schools of ethics you find intriguing. Present your selections with an explanation of what you find intriguing about those schools. About a paragraph for each school should be sufficient. You need not perform much research before making the selection, although you may: the next step is the annotated bibliography. For this, be certain to list not fewer than five sources in not fewer than three media. You are welcome to begin with a key-word search, or even with Wikipedia, but be sure to use this only as a starting point; look for bibliographic suggestions and follow up on them.
A brief overview of my talk today:
In the classical system project (comparing two classic schools of ethical thought), you are to articulate principles of the schools you examine. Therefore, you must grasp clearly the notion of principle as opposed to issue.
As examples, I spoke of the principles of Stoicism as shown in Epictetus and those of Hedonism.
In Stoicism, one of the basic principles is that Nature is a controlling and limiting factor: things are as they are, and there is nothing one can do about that.
Another is that the will is essentially free: one can choose to do whatever one can do. One can also choose to do what one cannot do, but in this case one will be disappointed, because simply to will something is not to be able to do it. I may wish to fly and put a lot of effort into trying to fly, but the fact is that humans are not capable of flight, and probably I will do a good deal of injury to my body if I persist in acting as though they are.
These two principles, the freedom of the will and the limits of nature, may seem to be at odds with each other. The reconciliation, for Stoics, comes in the idea that one should attune one's will to desire to act only the way one can. If one does not understand the way things are, and acts contrary to nature, one will be unhappy, but if one understands how things are and does not wish them to be otherwise, but is contented with things as they are, one will be happy.
This position proposes that goodness, that which is right, is found when one understands logic (the organization of thoughts, but also the organization of things and processes in nature) and physics (the limits of material reality, especially cause and effect) and acts in accord with them alone.
A different approach to goodness is found in Hedonism. The term Hedonism comes from the Greek word "hedone" meaning "pleasure". In Hedonism, the good is defined by that which is pleasant, or which brings pleasure: what is evil is that which limits pleasure or causes pain, or is pain, or privation of pleasure. This might seem unsophisticated and egocentric, and hedonism can be unsophisticated and egocentric, but this depends in part upon whether pleasure is viewed simply as a matter of quantity or as a matter of quality.
Some would argue that simply having much of something pleasurable is enough to increase pleasure, and therefore to have good. But others would understand that, for example, to play a song over and over, even if it is a perfectly good song, may not increase the pleasure from that song, or one's pleasure generally. It might be better to have one bar of Lindt chocolate than five Hershey bars (but of course this may be very largely or entirely a matter of taste: someone may find Hershey to be exquisite comparable to Lindt [it is conceivable]). The emphasis of quality over quantity characterizes the Epicurean school of hedonism.
Jeremy Bentham argued that any act could be judged as to its value using what he called an "hedonic calculus", measured based on seven essential factors. His godson J.S. Mill was less sanguine about exact quantitative measurement of pleasures, and furthermore Mill argued that pleasure was not merely individual: one should act to produce the greatest possible good (pleasure) for the greatest possible number of people. The usefulness or pleasure-production of any act, its utility, in Mill's terminology, was determined largely by its relationship to this basic principle of utility: to produce the greatest good for the greatest number.
Thus, in Mill's version of hedonism, one is guided to the higher pleasures of providing for social welfare with fine medicine, education, transportation, good government, an efficient and profitable economy, and so on.
Also, throughout the hedonistic schools, one finds the need to balance momentary pains with future pleasures. It may be that eating carefully now is a pain, but compared with the pleasure of a long life with a healthy body, these pains are worthwhile. It may be that guitar practice is a pain, but the pleasurable reward comes when one can play effortlessly (for those of us who achieve such a state).
So, under the general banner of hedonism, we can see the following principles:
1. The good = the pleasurable.
2. The end may justify the means (no pain, no gain).
3. Less of high quality is better than more of low quality (Epicurus).
4. Pleasure may be measured (Bentham).
5. The highest pleasure comes from altruism (Mill).
In none of these cases are specifics put forward; these are universal principles, applicable to any moral issues. It is the principles of the classical systems you examine which are to be the focus of your next project; only in the third project should you concentrate on issues.
Monday, February 11, 2008
11.ii.08 Ethics
In Ethics, we have been moving back and forth between discussion of individual student topics for the descriptive ethics project, presenting major criteria of ethical consideration, and examining Plato's Socratic dialogues.
The basic sense I have of these lessons is that they are a bit disjointed, and I imagine that the student experience may be the same. One of the points I hoped to avoid in the course was the problem of students acting without a clear notion of what they were to do, and to know what to do in respect to ethics requires that one have some notion of
1. the nature of ethical problems, or what sorts of acts and ideas about acts are given moral weight (that is, what sorts of acts or ideas about acts may be construed as having to do with right and wrong, with good and evil)
2. the nature of ethical principles, or what sorts of fundamental ideas govern thinking about moral problems, and
3. the nature of ethical method, or what way one can or should approach either discovering principles or interpreting problems of the moral variety.
My greatest concern at this point in the course is to find a way to achieve a clear and complete presentation of each of the matters listed above. In the future, I must consider ways to present more basic information sooner in the course, so that we have a common vocabulary and common information about ethics within the first three or four weeks of the course.
For now, I think the best approach is to continue to move back and forth between the presentation of criteria and the presentation on Plato.
Last class session I spent some time talking about the difference between fact and value which is worth summarizing.
"Persons committed to Buddhism are to engage in right livelihood, which argues against, for example, work as a butcher, or as a soldier, or as a sex-worker": this is a factual statement. It asserts something about the values of Buddhism. A committed Buddhist will generally declare that sex-work, for example, does not lead to the ultimate goal of the end of suffering, and may indeed lead the sex-worker and others to increased suffering. This, again, is a factual statement about Buddhists, but it points to ethical principles, which are values.
However, so long as the statement is about Buddhists or Buddhism, it is not a value-assertion, but a fact-assertion.
If I were to say "Sex-work is wrong because it may lead to suffering," I make a value-assertion. I am no longer proposing something which can be assessed both logically and empirically, that is, both by the rules of thought and the evidence of the senses.
In making a statement about Buddhists, I say something which can be tested by the senses: I can watch what Buddhists do, I can read what Buddhists write, I can hear what Buddhists say. I can judge by my senses whether what I learn about Buddhists has logical consistency and coherence. If it has, I can accept it as being logically valid and factually correct.
But I can only assess the logical validity of the statement "sex-work is wrong because it may lead to suffering". I might be able to judge whether I myself suffer because of sex-work, and I might extrapolate that this makes sex-work wrong -- but I cannot assess this conclusion as a fact: it would be value.
This is one of the important points made in Plato's dialogue "Euthyphro": it is on points of value that the gods differ, not on matters of fact. Therefore, on the very point to which one might wish to appeal to the gods for counsel -- moral problems -- the gods differ, and therefore if the gods define morality one is certain to give offense at some level.
The basic sense I have of these lessons is that they are a bit disjointed, and I imagine that the student experience may be the same. One of the points I hoped to avoid in the course was the problem of students acting without a clear notion of what they were to do, and to know what to do in respect to ethics requires that one have some notion of
1. the nature of ethical problems, or what sorts of acts and ideas about acts are given moral weight (that is, what sorts of acts or ideas about acts may be construed as having to do with right and wrong, with good and evil)
2. the nature of ethical principles, or what sorts of fundamental ideas govern thinking about moral problems, and
3. the nature of ethical method, or what way one can or should approach either discovering principles or interpreting problems of the moral variety.
My greatest concern at this point in the course is to find a way to achieve a clear and complete presentation of each of the matters listed above. In the future, I must consider ways to present more basic information sooner in the course, so that we have a common vocabulary and common information about ethics within the first three or four weeks of the course.
For now, I think the best approach is to continue to move back and forth between the presentation of criteria and the presentation on Plato.
Last class session I spent some time talking about the difference between fact and value which is worth summarizing.
"Persons committed to Buddhism are to engage in right livelihood, which argues against, for example, work as a butcher, or as a soldier, or as a sex-worker": this is a factual statement. It asserts something about the values of Buddhism. A committed Buddhist will generally declare that sex-work, for example, does not lead to the ultimate goal of the end of suffering, and may indeed lead the sex-worker and others to increased suffering. This, again, is a factual statement about Buddhists, but it points to ethical principles, which are values.
However, so long as the statement is about Buddhists or Buddhism, it is not a value-assertion, but a fact-assertion.
If I were to say "Sex-work is wrong because it may lead to suffering," I make a value-assertion. I am no longer proposing something which can be assessed both logically and empirically, that is, both by the rules of thought and the evidence of the senses.
In making a statement about Buddhists, I say something which can be tested by the senses: I can watch what Buddhists do, I can read what Buddhists write, I can hear what Buddhists say. I can judge by my senses whether what I learn about Buddhists has logical consistency and coherence. If it has, I can accept it as being logically valid and factually correct.
But I can only assess the logical validity of the statement "sex-work is wrong because it may lead to suffering". I might be able to judge whether I myself suffer because of sex-work, and I might extrapolate that this makes sex-work wrong -- but I cannot assess this conclusion as a fact: it would be value.
This is one of the important points made in Plato's dialogue "Euthyphro": it is on points of value that the gods differ, not on matters of fact. Therefore, on the very point to which one might wish to appeal to the gods for counsel -- moral problems -- the gods differ, and therefore if the gods define morality one is certain to give offense at some level.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Foundations of Verbal Communication Oral Performance Project
Our first oral performance project of this semester has been composing, memorizing, and reciting "Five/Fours", a poetic form devised by Ursula K. LeGuin and illustrated in her novel Always Coming Home.
Thoughts
Thinking of nothing.
Nothing at all.
Knowing there's something.
Preparing to fall.
-- Amanda Kelley
Thoughts
Thinking of nothing.
Nothing at all.
Knowing there's something.
Preparing to fall.
-- Amanda Kelley
Untitled
Gentle sway of heat
Kissing rosy cheeks
August's halo of
Light and blue above
-- Mairin-Taj Caya
[Notice the enjambment of the last two lines in Caya's piece. Kelley's is fully end-stopped; indeed, Kelley has emphasized the end-stops with periods.]
Gentle sway of heat
Kissing rosy cheeks
August's halo of
Light and blue above
-- Mairin-Taj Caya
[Notice the enjambment of the last two lines in Caya's piece. Kelley's is fully end-stopped; indeed, Kelley has emphasized the end-stops with periods.]
Procrastination
I did not do this
Until this morning
I am a slacker
Procrastination
-- Josh Yinger
[I particularly appreciate the echo of the stressed syllable of "slacker" in the stressed syllables of "procrastination". I also appreciate the use of a single word for an entire line.]
I did not do this
Until this morning
I am a slacker
Procrastination
-- Josh Yinger
[I particularly appreciate the echo of the stressed syllable of "slacker" in the stressed syllables of "procrastination". I also appreciate the use of a single word for an entire line.]
Anxiety
Constant sleepless nights
Killing me slowly
What if I could stop?
What would life be like?
-- Sara Warfel
Constant sleepless nights
Killing me slowly
What if I could stop?
What would life be like?
-- Sara Warfel
Design
Stitches here and there
Keep it together
Pull up, button, zip
It's a perfect fit
-- Megan Scallion
Stitches here and there
Keep it together
Pull up, button, zip
It's a perfect fit
-- Megan Scallion
Gone
I'm not here or there
I stay in the dark
No mind has control
No control of my mind
-- Sarah Solak
[As discussed in class, this is not quite a five/four as the last line has six syllables. A few alterations could be suggested; I would not change the phrases "no mind" / "no control", though, because the juxtaposition is one of the great strengths of the poem. Perhaps the reversal could be emphasized by replacing "of my" by "has"?]
I'm not here or there
I stay in the dark
No mind has control
No control of my mind
-- Sarah Solak
[As discussed in class, this is not quite a five/four as the last line has six syllables. A few alterations could be suggested; I would not change the phrases "no mind" / "no control", though, because the juxtaposition is one of the great strengths of the poem. Perhaps the reversal could be emphasized by replacing "of my" by "has"?]
Attack of the Bean Burrito
We sit in silence
No one is speaking
No pins are dropping
Then Emily farts
-- Kaitlin Sanders
[But perhaps it wasn't the burrito -- perhaps it was:]
We sit in silence
No one is speaking
No pins are dropping
Then Emily farts
-- Kaitlin Sanders
[But perhaps it wasn't the burrito -- perhaps it was:]
Haggis
Have you heard of it?
Cabbage, potatoes
Whiskey and mutton
Stuffed in sheep's stomach
-- Emily Atkins
Have you heard of it?
Cabbage, potatoes
Whiskey and mutton
Stuffed in sheep's stomach
-- Emily Atkins
Austin
You're a gift from God
Our little treasure
Sent by your mother
Now ours forever
-- Triscia Felty
You're a gift from God
Our little treasure
Sent by your mother
Now ours forever
-- Triscia Felty
Sick
Under the raincloud
Time passes slowly
Can't get out of bed
Another sick day
-- Samantha Emonds
Under the raincloud
Time passes slowly
Can't get out of bed
Another sick day
-- Samantha Emonds
Loss
He offers a hand
To those who need him
Takes them from this world
To live in Heaven
-- Madeline Mowery
He offers a hand
To those who need him
Takes them from this world
To live in Heaven
-- Madeline Mowery
Anger
I am so angry.
Do not piss me off.
I'm going to win.
I love you so much!
-- Kim Jackson
I am so angry.
Do not piss me off.
I'm going to win.
I love you so much!
-- Kim Jackson
At Dawn, Hear the Bells
The night strangles us,
Faces peer through mist.
Stars glimmer through trees.
At dawn, hear the bells.
-- Alyssa Cross
The night strangles us,
Faces peer through mist.
Stars glimmer through trees.
At dawn, hear the bells.
-- Alyssa Cross
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