The Last Blog

This will be the last time I blog for this class, and maybe ever in my life. (I'm not sure I may start a log called Peoples Punisher to get 10000 followers to over throw the government.) I'm not really sure what to say in this blog other than that it has been a good semester. I can't praise the teacher because of his immunity, but I will say that I have learned in this class, I have become a more interesting person. Coming into this class I was kind of interesting, and I know a little bit about the literary world, but this class really broadened my preservatives really on everything that was taught. I guess that this was all done on my own because obviously praise has to be payed to those that will accept it. More than learning about the literary world, I have learned a ton about the physical world. These two world really are intertwined and I never really understood that before this class. I know know why there is so much misunderstanding in the physical world, very few people delve into the literary world anymore deciding that seeing something is enough to understand something. This class has also taught me to be compassionate... at least to characters in books, I need have to think about there circumstance to really understand where these different characters are coming from. After writing my last blog I may become less interesting of a person, but it will take a while for this to happen, so I guess it was worth my tuition to come into this class.

Repent

To everyone in the class I hurt, or made fun of I am truly sorry. My intentions were never to attack anyones personal thoughts or feelings, rather it was to make it so the class was more enjoyable and meaniful to everyone that participated in the clas including myself. In the end I kind of feel bad, because I know that the majority of the class hates me, and it doesn't bother me that much. I know that all of you are good people and I kind of suck. So after reading this blog try to into your hearts and find a way to forgive me. One of you guys could be my boss one day (this is shown in many storys, the bully is put into his place when hye is older) so I don't want any grudge being held over my head. To everyone in the class thanks a ton for going on this roller-coaster ride with me and maybe I'll see some of you in some other classes throughout my years at MSU.

What I learned in this class and why does it matter

We were given two topic to write about for our final paper. In the end I wrote about the Brothers K, but I kind of wanted to explore the other topic as well. What have you learned in this class, and how has it changed you. In first conemptlating the idea, nothing really occured to me. I don't know I just kind of thought that it was another class where I learned some vauluable skill that I would never really utilize. In take a more retrospective look I realized that this class as taught me something far more than reading or an in depth look into the world of liturature. ( I kind of knew these ideas already, although this class did give me a greater responsibilty for both topics.) What I really learn is that it is important to make friends in a class that will, feed of you and that you can feed off of. In all honestly the main reason I liked going to class was so that Garrett could feed off each other. I don't know if I really did anything for him, maybe prompted him to speak a little more... I doubt it. What he did for me was amazing though, he made me far more clever, far more willing to make a fool of myself, and most importantaly called me out when I would say stupid things. This class just taught me that it is extremelyy important to make friends and utilizer them so the best of both people show through. This is going to help me in life, I always need people that will push me through everything. In the end I don't know if this lesson is going to change the world, but I do know this if I becone a senator Garrett will for sure be one of me advisors.

Final Paper

Ivan’s Human Condition.

The idea of God haunts Dostoevsky’s classic novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Although this book is often read as a murder mystery novel, when read this way the majesty of the story is often missed. Dostoevsky wrote the story in this style to keep a captive audience while he allowed his characters to flush out religious and societal issues, including idea of theodicy, and justify a God who allows the torture of the innocents. Throughout the novel, readers might perceive these themes, but they take center stage in book five, Pro and Contra, where Ivan talks to Alexey about theodicy, the Church, and God. The conversations between these two men divulge some of the greatest arguments against the Church and God’s “world” that have ever been conceived. Oftentimes, these arguments are falsely thought to have come from extended hours of logical thought. In fact, Ivan’s arguments do not stem from deep contemplation, but rather from his “vicious mole of nature.” Ivan, along with Dmitri and Alexey, is infected by a raging sensuality that controls his every decision. Only in Ivan, however, does this sensualism take form in argument; in the other two brothers, actions are determined by this vice. Ivan’s thought process is never fully understood unless it is seen less as logic and more as a chain of passionate thought driven by the “Karamazov curse.”

            Ivan argues against God because he is in a war with him, a war in which he searches for the answers to the world and his life story. In Ivan’s eyes, God has abandoned him from the time he was a child. “At ten years old Ivan had realized that they were living not at their own home but rather on other peoples charity, and their father a man of whom was to disgraceful to speak” (8). From a very early age, Ivan realized he was different; he never accepted the loving care others bestowed upon him. Throughout his childhood, an image of an orphan plagued Ivan, stirring in him ideas involving God’s torment on the earth. Ivan struggles to justify his unhappy fortune of a parentless childhood. "Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end... but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature ... And to found that edifice on its unavenged tears.” (222)  In God’s creation of the world Ivan, and every other tortured child, was the sacrifice that had to be made in order to ensure the success of mandkind. This is not an idea yielded by hours of contemplation, but rather a burning pain that seared in Ivan throughout his life. Ivan feels God is not a creator but rather a torturer, and God chose Ivan out of all the children in the world to spitefully target. Ivan’s pure brilliance and raw hatred allow him to conceive an argument that justifies his loathing for the world. In refusing to accept his torturous fate, Ivan began to question not only God’s creations, but also every faction that man created for the worship of God.

            To Ivan, man is the reason God has failed; man is the great implementer of torment and injustice. "I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness." In man’s creation of entities that are pure evil, he is able to justify to himself and why mankind always must struggle to suppress the desire to do evil.  Ivan formulates this idea because Ivan, along with the rest of humanity, also must try to resist the impulse to do terrible things. “ The formula all is Lawful I won’t renounce” (244). Ivan supports the theory that everything any man does is lawful because he, too wants to take advantage of this principle. Ivan is governed solely by his emotions; this allows him to validate his actions and ward off remorse. Ivan’s emotional drive forces him to rationalize his dark thoughts, but this is not enough; he must also understand why the Church exists to taint this darker side of humanity.

To Ivan, the Church seems to refute all unjustified acts. This irks Ivan because he does not adhere to a higher moral standard; instead he follows a standard he sets for himself. Since the Church counters Ivan’s view of the world and morality, he must find a way to ruin the Church in order to prove his morality is more justified than that of the bible. “We shall show them that they are weak, that they are only pitiful children… They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear as chicks to the hen” (239-240). Ivan attempts to portray how the Church is based on power, and that its primary goal is to control all of humanity. In this, he confirms the Church is the most immoral of all entities. Ivan’s proxy preaches of how the Church would kill Jesus so they could keep the power in the hands of the Church. Jesus teaches people to take freedom, not bread, and therefore the church cannot have Jesus alive because they preach bread, not freedom (238). The Church wants to control the world in order to promote its own moral standard, but to do this the Church must enslave the world. Ivan cannot stand for this because he has to set and follow his own course; a course that will allow his sensualism to reign over every cell of his being. Ivan disproves the church’s morality in order to confirm that all humans, himself included, are the cruelest of all animals, and that anything created by humans must be equally cruel  (221).

The curse of being a Karamazov controls the entirety of Ivan’s thought process. Ivan most undergo mental gymnastics so he might find a way to prove this taint is not only bestowed upon him, but all members of humanity. He must demonstrate how even the most pure of all of humans creations are flawed. The world could have not been created by God, too much turmoil occurs on Earth. Ivan shows the world that only deep contemplation allows the justification of an inescapable inherent condition. Unfortunately, Ivan never can prove he is correct; he is not representative of the entire human population, he is only representative of himself. Ivan’s desperate validations do not validate a human condition, only a Karamazavian taint.

 

Archetypal Life

As I talked about in my last post I'm reading the novel Dune, and there a found an archetype that we didn't really ever talk about and I couldn't really find on the internet. What about the mystic group of protectors that are always trying to keep the system (whatever it may be, planet, town, culture) in balance. In Dune it is the Beni Jesorits, which have heighten sense of awareness that are almost turned into super human powers. This type of organization is almost in every story though. The Jedi, the order of the Phoenix, The elves in the LORT are some that I could think of off the top of my head. This is definitely an archetype, its everywhere I just can't find it any where. I did a little bit of research before writing this blog and did realize something as I was looking for archetypes and that is that every archetypal character is based off of some really character in the world. I mean in the list there was the beggar, the nun, the Diplomat, and all of these characters have district traits that everyone at least in western culture would know and understand. This makes me wonder do people become what they are because they fall into some archetypal category? If this is true our life is way more of a  story than I once thought, and know the stories and your place in them is a really powerful tool to possess. 

Reading is Weird

Recently I have been reading Dune. This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite books that I have ever read, and I keep thinking that part of the reason that I am enjoying it so much is because I have taken this class. I know that science fiction is always based of societies vices, and thats normally why I read it. This is different though for some reason, instead of thinking about how all of the different parts of Dune relate to different things in society I am thinking of Dune as one big picture. I guess that really I'm just reading it to enjoy the book, and to get something from it that I wouldn't have had before I read it. I'm not reading it to talk about it, or to learn anything and that is really strange to me. I can't really decide if it's the highlighted plot points, or just how i think that its so similar to so many other story that I can relate it to, but really I just like it. This class has done something weird to me, I have always read in the past to get something out of a book, but now I'm just reading to read. I still get something out of the book, and really its probably what I would have understood anyways, its just that now I'm not worried about how much a book can teach me I guess its just how much I enjoy it. This has to be at least one of the major lessons that this class is suppose to teach, to read for readings sake.  Anything that is published probably has some good ideas in it, and probably is at least decently written, so I guess now I just need to start reading things and not really worry to much about what they are trying to say, or what the deeper message is. I don't know why but I think that this is going to stay with me forever, and hopefully I get everything I'm suppose to get from books now. I have no idea, I really have no idea if anything I just said is true at all, I just hope that I'm not totally off track.

Beautiful

In class the other day Professor S said that more than anything he just hopes to our papers could be beautiful. What does it mean to be beautiful though? Is it pretty structure and grammar, gorgeous ideas, or just how the paper overall presents itself. It's hard to be beautiful because supposedly beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What I just said cannot be necessarily true though, if something is poorly written it obviously won't be the pretty. Its weird to think that a poem can be written in a way that seems to be poor yet can still be considered one of the most beautiful things ever written. This is why I still don't completely understand the english language or literature. It's like something that is so plain (such as the red wheel barrow) can be seen as being beautiful. It's not the last of complexity that confuses me but rather that the piece was published in the first place. I could write a poem right on. 

As I stared into the window 

Blackness

My own Face was looking back me. 

Yet that will never be published and really I wouldn't consider that worthy or "beautiful" enough to be so. I guess that there is just something that I still am really missing and that is will take multiple more english classes to understand, or maybe I will just never understand it. I will try my hardest and hopefully one day (probably without my knowledge) I will also create something that is beautiful.