Lord of The Flies
The book...Post about it. Also these general questions that go with the readings: Based on your connections between the Krishnamurti essay, our discussions, and your understanding of the book, please select two of the following questions and respond in your freewriting journal: * What does it mean to be savage? * Can traditional education teach compassion? How does one learn the value of compassion? What happens if no one in a social group learns compassion? * What relationship does compassion have to our study of order and disorder? Or, how does compassion fit within gelding dialectical symbolism?
posted by sully4411 at Tuesday, March 15, 2005
7 Comments:
3/13/1/05
I wrote this just a few minutes ago but my internet explorer went stupid on me and so i'm forced to write it again, but it was long, so this time im not going into as much detail.
The beginning of this chapter started off with the man in the parachute coming down and getting caught up i think? and landing on the top of the mountain. And then as the wind came, his body would move in a sort of prayer like motion, bowing up and down. When Sam n Eric see the beastie thing, they react like how most would in the time of fear, and ran th hell away. When the community got word of them seeing the 'beastier', ralph handled it very well. Jack started up that they should go get the thing right then and there, but Ralph calmed them down and organized the group and took control of the situation while looking at it from a reasonable prospective. Hes getting smarter. When they do start going, Ralph is relieved at the chance to not have leadership responsability when they are walking cause it is given to Jack. When they get to the cove type place tho, Ralph immedialty takes control and offers himself to go out and explore. Then jack feels unimportant/ his job being taken away and underminded and goes out to join him to show the rest of the bigguns that he is brave also. But the point was already made that Ralph wasnt afraid (even tho he admitted it earlier in the chapter). Wehn the boys start rolling rocks, Raplh really takes control and forces them, as thier chosen leader, to follow him and to go up the mountain and to stop rolling rocks. This isnt to democratic now is it? The majority obviously wanted to roll rocks, but Ralph knew they wouldnt do crap if the did that, and forced them to go with him and be productive. Good man Ralph, good man.
7:30 PM
march 6th
So nobody else is posting on this so i can say whatever it is I want to 'cause...i can.
So this is a post about the Karl Marx essay. I skipped the first page because it started out as a bunch of crappy info on his life and such, so that left a page for me to read. Im not really sure what the qoute '...that the only thing that is ultimately real is the absolute idea, which is Mind, knowing itself as all reality' means. I take it to mean, with support from the previous sentences, that absolute idealism is ourselves knowing what is real and what is not real, or understanding what is and what isnt, in a sense. Kant says, following that passage, that 'we can only know things within a framework of our own creation, nameley the categories of time, space, and substance', but i would chose to disagree bcause we can make things up, we can imagine things that we then know in our minds/heads. This would be as he defines i guess a 'thing in itself', and to do away with the thing in itself and saying we know all that there is would be to give up the freedome to think and imagine, and you could go into that more explaining how it would make our society verh plain and stale and overall would eventually become the definition of hell, but we arnt gonna do that. Mooving on...They speak of 'Mind' as a conseptual gathering of alll of the 'finite' minds of the people on earth, and that that 'Mind' would figure out that everything in this world is a part of each individual and the large 'Mind/mind'. Interesting, but...unreasonable i believe. This owuld only be the case if people had not the ability to think on thier own, so unless this was taken away from them like previously stated as a 'thing in itself', the above thought could never come true because people would always have an imagination, which can never be 'proved wrong' in essence. So what I'm trying to get at is that this entire page can be sort of like, voided, by the thought that people and thier 'minds' have the ability, and always will, to think on thier own, and to make up stuff and to have creative and innovative thoughts. I WIN!
-Dan
(theres no need for me to put my name seeing as nobody else does this anymore..but then agian why would I be writing this? If I'm the only one thats gonna see it...hmm)
7:30 PM
Kristen Stole My Identity! said...
Alright, I've been meaning to post for ages, but have never gotten around to it. This post will be a jumble of many ideas, so I apologize to whoever has to read this. Our class today was scary at first, but it got the point across, and opened up my mind to new ideas. The strict stucture helped me think, no matter how ironic that may sound. Before, I went along with the whole idea that certain characters were microcosms for certain political, social, and economic systems, but in the past few classes that point has been strengthened in my mind. The Venn diagram still confuses me at some parts, as what many people discuss in class contradicts with what I think, but I am always open to new ideas. What Carey said in class today blew my mind. He made that point that when Mr. Shiers erased the middle of the Venn diagram last class to portray the two oligarchies turning into one "organism" (as Golding puts it so eloquently), you could place Simon in the middle, and once he was killed, the line between the two oligarchies broke. It just made perfect sense to me, but that may be due to the fact that I'm a visual learner. We never got to my question about Simon, and why he is still considered communism even though he has a private cave. It just seems contradictory to me, but maybe we are talking about a social system and I am thinking of the politcal system. In any case, I'd like to see what others have to say about that.
7:31 PM
Justin Said...
Did any one else want to kill shiers yesterday (Friday)? That quiz thing, when i realized it wasn't a quiz i was thinking about it. WHen he started to bounce the ball it got on my nerves and i realized something was up.
I guess this whole thing was supposed to teach us something, to teach us to relax and follow instructions. To be honest, i did not follow instructions, i started to read the passages and as soon as i saw one i liked i began to write about. Personally, during the "quiz", i felt like i was doing something wrong. Shiers kept looking at me with those crazy eyes that tell me, 'Justin you know nothing, you are inferiour to me!'That's when i got pissed, those damn crazy eyes of his. After i found out what was going on, i felt upset at myself. Firstly for allowing myself to be out witted by him. And secondly because i took something, in English class, for what it was. And at this point, it's pretty clear to everyone that nothing in Engish is what it appears.
I can't explain, in words, how exactly this "quiz" relates to the packet, but i think i understand why it does. I anything at all, this should turn out to be an interesting discussion in class.
-Justin Bulova
12:22 PM
This is in response to Rousseau's "The Social Contract":
First off Id like to say my nose is stuffy, so if the typing is poor, its due to a stuffy nose...
The first concept oh this article that i really liked was the part about 'the first man whoa, after fencing off a pieve of land, took it upon himself to say "this belongs to me" and found people simple-minded enought to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.' This is a sort of interesting prospect becuase there obviously was no 'first man', but fi you were to imagine a town lets say that is a very...well we all learned about the indians in america before the Europeans got here and how they didnt own land, it was the communities. So imagine a town like that, and a guy does just what is described. I think they go on in the article to describe perfectly what would happen. Cept at the beginning i think there would be abit of confusion. Becuase one man owns part of something, there would be some sort of a war over it, weather that be litteral of figurative war. It also goes on to say that the landowners would thus beocme the rich. The next quote that really got me was "where the savage 'lies within himselft,' the social man 'lives constantly outside himself and only knows how to live in the opinion of others ext.'" This is saying, or what i got oout of it atleast, that a person that 'lives within himself' or is self-confident, egotistical, ect, is a 'savage'--we were ttrying to define savage today were we not? We that would be what Rousseau thought it would be. Cocoa rice krispies break........Arite. So for the second part of the qoute, i take that to mean that the normal man, like we have stated and talked about before, lives off of how other people view him, and what his uh..i forget the word..his something is. The rest of his article is about the benifit of forming a government, but im eating cocoa krispies and have a stuffy nose therefore i dont think im capable of doin' that.
For anyone who reads all that crap i just said, i feel sorry for you, and would say that anything you read after this that has 'sully4411' on teh top, just skip it.
6:30 PM
Justin said....
In this space i would like to respond to the questions asked during our last class. Firstly, i would like to answer what i belive is Savage. In modern society, we define savage as one who does not use modern technology, or does not have proper manners. I think this is wrong. Today, i would like to redefine savage, i believe it is the inability to reason, or the complete disregard to use it. In addition i would go so far as to say it is the lack of compassion in one self.
Secondly, i would like to continue this train of thought by discussing weather or not compassion is taught in schools. Although i believe it should not have to be, it often is. Many books that are plugged into a childs brain represent ideas of compassion, and sorrow. This teaches a child compassion through example. I want to go even farther and say that books written specifically for a child, and the teaching process at this young age, shove ideas of a certain political group in to thier minds. (Counsidering it is I writting this response, it's pretty obvious which party i am refering to). I believe that this is outrageous. I believe that conpassion is not something a school should teach, but rather parents of these children who (sadly) frequently do not care enough to do so. Something should be done... and if i am elected i will change this among other things.
9:19 AM
Ill be responding to the questions and also Justin's replys to the questions. And oh, do i have something to say. Id like to start off by saying that google, with the help of other sites i guess, define savage as somebody who is uncivilized, a 'beast' (wink wink), or someone criticized harshly/fiercly. In there I dont really see that a savage is someone defined as a person that doesnt use modern technology. I mean you could of course be the above definition of a savage and not use technology, but its not required, and hardly the definition. A savage is, from a communal point of view, a person that doesnt belong. An outsider, if you will. Inability to reason..now thats sorta interesting. That makes me think of a steriotypical get-by person. Like a person who simply doesnt think..But in our society today its SO easy to get along in life without knowing much of anything, better yet actually THINKING to do it. Reasoning is, in my view, most definitly not needed now-a-days to get by because of how easy it is to just be a part of this world. Now we really havnt gotten to the real definition of compassion, so im goin to give a stab at that one now. I believe that compassion is the ability to be completly aware of and apt to helping people around you. Now this includes not only feeling sorry for a person when thier dad dies, or when they get a bad grade or something. Compassion is not only feeling this pain and sorrow, but litterally HELPING or attempting to solve other peoples pains. You cant be a compassionate person if you dont do anything to help people recover or get to a better state of mind. Now what we did cover in class is that compassion cannot be taught, it must be 'experienced' or 'learned thru real life examples'. Yet, you say that it is taught, or attempted to be taught, through books? I'd have to say im betting most of the class disagrees with you there, unlike normally...But books arnt 'plugged' into anyones brains, especially at a young age. I mean if your going to say something like that, your gonna need some examples, not just a statement that it does, period. Kids, especially at a young age, are in no way being influenced by Dr. Suess and the Little Engine that Could to think that democracy is the correct political idea. But even if it IS in books, and im hardly saying it is, that would still not be a school teaching it. I believe it is whole-heartedly taught by the parents of the kid, and by none other (or almost none other). Now i dont know what your parents brought you up thinking because you say they FREQUENTLY do not care, which is a pretty radical statement which i would compeltly disagree with. Parents do care, its sorta thier job. Their children are thier way of passing down part of themself, generation to generation. In doing this, they do teach us things such as what governmetn types they think are right and wrong. Sure, I could see a book hinting to a certain type of gov't as the right one, but deffinitly not at such a young age, and deffinitly not to the point that the kid says, 'after reading 'The Little Mirmaid' i'v become so much more communistic'. It just doesnt happen for pretty obvious reasons. Parents can, and most likely do, attempt to teach compassion thru example. Yeah...Im done.
-Dan
*My 27527 page posts make up for the classes i dont talk in..
2:17 PM
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