Another year of college has slipped past me. I’m taking a summer statistics course (one week left, let’s see if this English major can survive). In light of this (and of my laziness) I humbly submit a TED talk on statistics. Those who know and love TED will see the truth in this clip:
The TedPad is available (for free!) at this site.
The Lion King is known for being one of the greatest Disney films of all time. Until last night it had been quite a while since I’ve watched it — and this time I couldn’t help going through some analysis. So as not to ramble, I’ll begin by laying out the basic dialectical structure of the story.
Thesis = Mufasa. The start of Simba’s life is the start of his philosophical growth. In all honesty, there is not a lot we see of Mufasa. He tells Simba about the social structures of their kingdom, he gives a hunting lesson, and he dies. However, in this short time Mufasa makes himself out to be the most Heideggerian character in the movie. Yes, I am allowing the assumption that an anthropomorphic entity can be Dasein given the context of fiction. His whole “Circle of Life” spiel is essentially a leonine articulation of Bewandtnis (which Macquarrie & Robinson translate as “involvement”). Bewandtnis or Bewenden more crucially refer to the fact that the world is turning or that it is bent. All that equipment (for lions: gazelle, grass, weather, etc.) is tangled together. The understood state-of-mind (Befindlichkeit) Mufasa articulates is one of responsibility — the world matters to him. He has concern for it and solicitude for Others. We may also note that Mufasa ignores Zazu when he begins recounting gossip (idle-talk, a clear sign of the they-world). We will return to Mufasa later.
Antithesis = Timon and Pumbaa, the hippies. My sense of Hakuna Matata is a total immersion into the they-world. All is given over to ambiguity. The past is behind you, you merely flit from one grub to the next. Indeed, Timon and Pumbaa’s strong emphasis on eating (which almost gets Pumbaa killed) is a brilliant depiction of lust for the new. Simba learns from them how not to worry about anything. Maybe the lack of red meat in his diet is what causes his voice to be higher-pitched than all of the females in the film.
Synthesis = Rafiki. This half-senile, poo-flinging wizard effectively combines Timon and Pumbaa’s willful covering of the past with Mufasa’s Circle of Life business. Basically, the moral is “The past can hurt… but you can either hide from it or learn from it!” I’m pretty sure Mufasa would not disagree. Actually, I get the sense that Mufasa and Rafiki may not be in total philosophical agreement. When King Hamlet’s ghost… I mean, when Mufasa’s ghost appears to Simba, he tells his son to remember who he is as an individual. I would argue that the conversation between Simba and his ghost-dad represents a call of conscience in the Heideggerian sense. The content of the call is nothing, and it merely comes from Simba to Simba. It is a call from his Self to his Self — it goes over the they-self. Indeed, it pulls him out of the they. Timon and Pumbaa lament that their friend is “doomed” and they are very correct. The call of conscience reveals to us how we have been thrown into the world and the possibility of our Being as Being-towards-death. Because Simba realizes that he has the possibility of having no more possibilities as a Being in-the-world, he is confronted with the question of “What really matters?”
The synthesis, I would argue, is not necessarily what Simba takes. Rafiki’s emphasis on learning from the past doesn’t really have any further importance in the movie. Probably this is because Rafiki has crucially misunderstood what learning is… but that may be another story. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like Rafiki. The philosophical construct of “Asante sana, squash banana, wewe nugu, mimi hapana” is dazzling.
The following clip should exemplify some of the things I’ve been babbling about:
(My issue with Rafiki and learning is that he says, “It doesn’t matter, it’s in the past!” but then expects you to learn from something that doesn’t matter.)
Once, long ago, I promised to do a bit on my forays into Klingon language. Here it is! In preparation for a presentation on Klingon that I will be doing next week, I figured I better brush up on the syntactical structures. And what better way than to translate a classic text into Klingon? I pondered the books readily available to me (i.e. the one’s sitting next to me at my desk) and I made a decision. Kafka — The Metamorphosis. The work is slow, so I only have one sentence done. But I picked a doozy! The opening line: “As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
In my best Klingon:
wa’ po Qongvo’ vempu’ ghe’ghor SamSa najmeymo’ SujmoHpu’, tu”eghpu’ QongDajDaqDaq DolHom’e’ choHlu’pu’.
A literal, non-grammatically corrected, reading of my Klingon approximates:
One morning from sleep awoke Gregor Samsa because dreams caused him to become disturbed, he discovered himself in his bed into a diminutive entity something indefinite had changed him.
When corrected:
One morning, when Gregor Samsa awoke from sleep because dreams caused him to become disturbed, he discovered himself in his bed, changed into a diminutive entity by something indefinite.
A few notes:
1) I picked the word DolHom’e’ (diminutive entity) as the equivalent of monstrous vermin. Klingon does have a word for cockroach (vetlh) and bug (ghew), but I felt that neither of these words could live up to the hype of Kafka’s “ungeheueren Ungeziefer.” I know ungeheueren is supposed to be more like “huge,” but in terms of Klingon mentality, diminutive seemed more appropriate. I use the word “entity” because I want Gregor’s Being to be shrouded. I’ve italicized the retranslated phrase because of a wonderful Klingon construct. The ‘e’ at the end of the word signifies an added importance; thus I make that word the most important in the sentence even though it cannot grammatically have the most prominent part.
2) Something indefinite: this phrase is added purely because Klingon must designate the subject of each verb.
3) Klingon has no adjectives, so many English constructs present huge difficulties! This is the reason “his dreams disturbed him.” “Unsettling dreams” is impossible to convey as such.
4) Bed: I’ve cheated a bit in my literal translation… QongDajDaqDaq actually translates to “In his place of sleep.”
5) The name: The letters of “Gregor Samsa” just don’t work in Klingon. Therefore, I’ve approximated the sounds with “ghe’ghor SamSa.”
Visit the Klingon Language Institute for pronunciation and other stuff!
My recent visit to my beloved hometown, Rochester, MN, was wonderful. I took my bike for a phenomenological spin on some trails I had yet to explore. On one of them, a park bench had been attacked by graffiti. I apologize for the photo quality, I was using my cell phone. Nevertheless: Best graffiti ever!
A recent silliness I have encountered is the insistence on SMART Boards as the tool with which education must happen. Obviously, my Heideggerian sympathies prevent me from accepting this. The problem with SMART Boards is not that they are some kind of technology. The problem is that we have no idea what kind of technology they make us. More and more we become ensnared by screens. If it is through these screens that the sum of education happens, then the only world in which humans will be educated is in that screen-world.
As far as usefulness goes, I’m sure SMART Boards are fine. There are two lingering problems. First, the use of SMART Boards chains teachers ever more tightly to what I shall call the Escalation of Methods. The Escalation of Methods states: Novelty and expense are necessary for children to learn. To begin to integrate SMART Boards into the classroom is to bind yourself to the ready-to-hand equipmental technologies associated that come along with it. The second problem arises in the form of The PowerPoint Delusion. This complex is the irrational belief that PowerPoint (or any comparable screen-based information) works. The use of SMART Boards may avoid this to some extent, but any information presentation technology that involves vanishing information is a part of The PowerPoint Delusion.
What of aesthetics? I won’t address this — I’m taking a class on Heidegger’s Origin of the Work of Art next fall. I will say that other technologies have a greater capacity for beauty than SMART Boards seem to offer:
Time to write another post. Specifically, a post in which I gripe about edjumucation.
Allow me to share a quote from an edjumucator-in-training. This was his definition of intelligence:
“The ability to understand knowledge in a learning environment enhanced by internal and external factors.”
One might ask, why emphasize “in a learning environment?” A very simple reason. The speaker was talking about schools. Not “learning environments,” but schools. Humans are learning-creatures, we automatically learn. There is no reason environment needs to be factored in if we are approaching intelligence from such a broad perspective. Proximally and for the most part, all environments are learning environments. Yet the linguistic imperative of “learning environment” so often leans towards “school.”
So, I gave this guy’s definition more thought and decided to translate it into common parlance:
“The skill, based on being taught, to recall information in school.”
Notice how edjumucation does not address learning…
Last week, “The Simpsons” had a very funny episode involving curling. But the best part was when the Swedes were consulted. In dismal tones, the blonde and skeletal captain of the Swedish curling team stated: “Joy is but the shadow pain casts.”
I love it!
I really like Dune. So, I thought I would look specifically at the novel through a Heideggerian lens. This will be shorter than my first analysis of it.
Before I do that, I want to look at some things in terms of Nietzsche. I suspect that Nietzsche would despise the Bene Gesserit. Their goal seems to be to genetically create an Uebermensch, yet they de-emphasize fear. Indeed, they reassert the idea of fear as bad in the novel’s (most famous) line: “Fear is the mind killer” (8). On the other hand, Muad’Dib’s betrayal of the Bene Gesserit would please ol’ Friedrich. Indeed, the following statement could just as well have come from Thus Spake Zarathustra: “And always, he fought the temptations to choose a clear, safe course, warning ‘That path leads ever down into stagnation'” (218).
So what of Heidegger? He too, I would argue, would not express much pleasure with the Bene Gesserit. One of their proverbs reads:
“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.” (69)
I would argue that Heidegger would be disappointed with this proverb because it assumes a merely knowledge-based conception of the world. Being at the top of a mountain may prevent you from seeing the mountain in a purely visual sense. Therefore, you would not know how the mountain appears, but such an ontology is not our complete experience. Rather, we first come to understand the mountain. It is equipment of Nature — an environment. Indeed, the mountain may even be such a ready-to-hand that it appears as the woraufhin: the scene on which things appear, the scene that remains distinct from those things or any-thing. Such a view of the mountain would no longer even allow it to be equipmental. Instead, the mountain as woraufhin would be a world.
My central argument about Dune from a Heideggerian perspective is that place is more important that Herbert suggests. Herbert likes to focus on things like religion and militancy and economics — yet the language he uses betrays a different trope. It seems unintentional, but it permeates the novel. As I have explained, it is the idea of place, environment, and world that Heidegger would particularly notice; these are ideas with which Herbert spends little time, but they account for much of the representation of humanity.
We need look no farther than the function of the Kwisatz Haderach — whom we come to discover is Paul, Muad’Dib. The Reverend Mother states, “Yet, there’s a place where no Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look where we cannot — into both feminine and masculine pasts” (13). Two brilliant things become clear. One, the Reverend Mother again announces the Bene Gesserit obsession with thought only; the Kwisatz Haderach is meant merely to look. Secondly, we see quite overtly that the pasts of men and women, the multitudes, are measured by place. This connection between time and space magnifies and gives meaning to the abilities of the Kwisatz Haderach. Late in the book we see Muad’Dib grapple with the numerous possibilities — many of which even he cannot see. It is only because the world bends in a certain direction (involvement) that allows any possibility whatsoever. Because of the involvement of time and space, the bent world opens, always, the possibility of being aware of our being (as Dasein).
See, I made this one shorter.
It’s been a while since I read Frank Herbert’s masterpiece, Dune, so I decided to reread it last week. What struck me was how colonial/postcolonial the novel is. It really reminded me of Heart of Darkness in its ambiguities. Actually, both novels hold light and darkness as significant. I think examples from Heart of Darkness can go without saying, but Dune includes such gems as:
“To attempt an understanding of Muad’Dib without understanding his mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be.” (13)
Indeed, the basic structure of the Kwisatz Haderach is that of one who can look into the darkness:
“She focused on the psychokinesthetic extension of herself, looking within, and was confronted immediately with a cellular core, a pit of blackness from which she recoiled. That is the place where we cannot look, she thought.” (354)
We are even told of the possibility of becoming like Kurtz:
“His own eyes, he knew, had a touch of the color, but smugglers could get offworld food and there was a subtle caste implication in the tone of the eyes among them. They spoke of ‘the touch of the spicebrush’ to mean a man had gone too native. And there was always a hint of distrust in the idea.” (415)
Now, such similarities are all well and good, but one might ask, “So what?”
First of all, Dune is not the same as Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s novel allows one character to present his story, while Herbert allows many characters a passing chance to take a hand in the narration. The other issue at hand is in regards to genre. Dune is distinctly sci-fi; Conrad’s novel, not so much. These differences create several divisions — I shall highlight three here:
1) Herbert’s novel appears as a story, Conrad’s as an incident. This is an important distinction because of each author’s writing style. Both use language kind of weirdly. Conrad is boggling, this much is typically agreed. Herbert, in my opinion, shifts (often jarringly) between a journalistic tone and a transcendental/spiritual tone. In short, the two share a similarity that makes their novels strange to read. I argue that Herbert is less cunning in his use of analogies and allegories than Conrad. Herbert’s jarring writing actually makes us pay closer attention, while Conrad’s creepiness just confuses the heck out of us. As a side note, my favorite description in Heart of Darkness refers to the technology monitoring the steamboat, the technology an African is responsible for paying attention to. I love it because it links Western technology to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, yet it is phrased so oddly that it is almost impossible to slog through it properly. Conrad writes:
“He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge.” (37 [Norton Critical edition 2006])
2) Herbert revels in explaining, Conrad doesn’t give a damn. The journalistic tone Herbert parades is no anomaly. It is typical sci-fi. When you’re exposing readers to a world that isn’t the world in which your readers live, it is kind of important that they come to understand it. Journalistic methods involve explaining stuff briefly (which does not always happen in sci-fi, much to the dismay of our brains) and giving something with which we might feel at home on, say, Arrakis. It seems to me that Conrad is not at all concerned with science fictional truthiness. My view of Heart of Darkness is that the book presents the river — and all Africa — as a mythical otherworld/other-world. In other words, the Africa of Heart of Darkness is myth and mystery, the Arrakis of Dune is technological myth. Marlow approaches the Congo with little scientific bearing. Rather, he approaches as an explorer; it is the Unknown. Arrakis is likewise unknown, but it is an unknown to be prodded by the sciences of the Guild, the Mentats, the Bene Gesserit, the Empire, etc… Arrakis is an object to be obtained, though it does retain some mythos. We are told that “Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his [Muad’Dib’s] place” (3) even though he was born and raised on Caladan.
3) Herbert wants to avoid “going native,” Conrad doesn’t seem as sure. Paul certainly “goes native” — his name shifts to Usul, then to Muad’Dib. He comes to effectively rule the Fremen through a quasi-religion. However, he is not totally “native.” He spends a huge chunk of the novel trying to avoid the “jihad” he perceives the future may hold. He intentionally shifts the way Fremen society and religion work — indeed he shifts the science of the Bene Gesserit as well — to avoid “going native,” engaging in the religious crusade the Fremen seem to desire. Conrad, primarily because of his totally confusing (and awesome) use of language, questions the location of the heart of darkness. I think it can be argued that he shows how none of us are quite innocent; evil lurks, crouching in every heart, within humanity. Muad’Dib’s concern with preventing evil is certainly good, but I believe Herbert grants too much credit to Puritan concept that only the chosen few are okay as humans (Hell, the Bene Gesserit test people to decide if they are “human” or “animal”).
I really like both novels, as you might be able to see by the length of this post…
I finished Joseph Heller’s book, Good as Gold, last week.
Because the book is old and Heller hasn’t written anything for a few years (which will happen when you’re dead), I don’t want to review the book. I will however do two things:
1) I highly recommend this book. The humor is excellent — bleak, but excellent. The joke about Chaim Potok is worth reading the book.
2) A few comments can be made about Heller’s attacks on contemporary culture. Yes, contemporary even though the book is from the 70’s. Again and again Heller shows the absurdity of the mass consumption ideology. More education = more smartness, more smartness = more money, more money = more happiness. We can think of this in the terms Ivan Illich assigns: we are caught up, thinking that “escalation leads to success.” Heller effectively shows that more, while always more, is not essentially better. The main character, Bruce Gold (a college professor), rages constantly at his family for their stupidity. We see nothing but hatred for them from him, yet he is unable to cast them from his life. Indeed, the closer Gold gets to a government appointment, the more tightly he finds himself bound to his family. He cheats on his wife with several women, but, in every case, he cannot help but to weigh his mistresses against his domestic obligations.
Thus, we get an overall effect that it classic Heller. The things that are really valuable are not the things that the bulk of society tells us are valuable. Military action, government involvement, and money all splinter in comparison to something(s) else.
Just Another Literary Theory Blog 