Untitled @kcrook1-blog - Tumblr Blog

“How do I live free in this body”

Both James Baldwin’s letter to his nephew and Ta-nehisi Coates Between the World and Me address the vulnerability of a black man’s body. While they acknowledge that this weakness is no fault of their own, the two writers prepare the two boys for this world that does not nurture black youth. Baldwin eloquently states, “what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.” He ensures his nephew of his self worth, despite the ignorance and bigotry surrounding him. On a larger scale, Baldwin is not only addressing his nephew, but also the repercussions of slavery and allowing race to be a social construct. As Jess mentions previously race does not exist. Baldwin says, “We cannot be free until they are free.” As Lizzie eloquently points out using scripture they are bigots because they are ignorant and we should forgive them for their stupidity. Side note: these two letters to these young black men happen in pretty much every minority household because of the world we live in. When will black parents not have to give talks and letters to tell their children how to protect their beautiful bodies and love themselves in a world that doesn't care about black people.

“I wonder why we take from our women,why we rape our women, do we hate our women?”- Tupac Shakur

Black women and women of color have always struggled to find a voice that expresses their trials and tribulations within our society. But I think what’s most disheartening, as a woman of color, is that men of color do not understand a woman’s struggle or are the root of their problems, especially when women of color are their biggest advocates.

Kimberle Crenshaw states, “within communities of color, efforts to stem the politicization of domestic violence are often grounded in attempts to maintain the integrity of the community” (Crenshaw, Domestic Violence and Anti-racist Politics). While it is true that powerful white men invented a narrative that depicts black or Latino men as rapists and scary figures, this folk tale does not dismiss the needs and concerns of women that face domestic violence and rape within these communities.

For years as a black community, we have neglected issues of domestic violence and equality for women. As early as the 18th century, abolitionists like Frederick Douglas abandoned women’s rights to focus on racial issues separately, as if these two issues do not intersect or do not have the same common places. Two decades ago when Anita Hill came forward with accusations of sexual assault against Clarence Thomas, a black supreme court justice nominee, a majority of the black community (bw included) bashed her because she was “bringing down a good black man.” Even today, black men and women alike make misogynistic comments about women that choose to have sex frequently, as well as make attacks on the validity and worth of transgender women. Instead of hiding the statistics and testimonies of domestic violence within the black community, we should use our energy to educate and eradicate the oppression of women in the black community.

Like Antonia, I am tired and I am frustrated that this is so normalized within our communities. Crenshaw hits it on the nail when she writes, “it is also clear that women of color need not await the ultimate triumph over racism before they can expect to live violence free lives.” Magali’s insight that without intersections identity politics will always exclude members within a social framework helps explain how disrespecting women is so detrimental to gaining total racial equality.

As we discussed in class, the tides are changing. Every day more people are becoming aware and addressing these social injustices. So until all men and women understand the ideas behind feminism and inherent equality of all human beings, keep ya head up.

#my title is a quote from pac bc im hip #staywoke

Pride is the downfall of all men

Just like Rem said in her post, I believe clear connections can be made between Socrates and Antigone. They were both righteous people that followed the divine law, rather than the man made government. I also find the contrast between Socrates and Creon very interesting. Literally everything Socrates has proven to be true about wisdom, Creon disagrees with. During the trial and Laches, Socrates makes it clear that the wisest men are always students. Haemon epitomize’s Socrates wisdom by saying, “don’t please, be quite so single-minded, self-involved, or assume the world is wrong and you are right” (Sophocles, 95). Like Lizzie mentioned in her post, Creon’s new established power is not allowing him to handle the situation well. Even when the oracle Tiresias tries to persuade him to change his mind by mentioning that humans are not perfect, Creon will not be convinced otherwise. Tiresias foreshadows Creon’s future by stating, “stubbornness brands you for stupidity” (Sophocles, 112). After sentencing Antigone to death, both his son and wife kill themselves shortly thereafter. This ultimately brings more pain than it would have if Creon would have allowed Antigone to bury her brother honorably. This last sentence by the chorus, “the mighty words of the proud are paid in full with mighty blows of fate, and at long last those blows will teach us wisdom,” truly speaks to how pride can negatively affect your life. In summary, most Greek tragedies, including Antigone, examine how pride is the downfall of all men.

#ripantigone riphaemon creonisagoofy

Antigone & MLK’s “dangerous unselfishness”

While I read Antigone and Dr. King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, I realized both Antigone and Dr. King embodied the attributes of courage. Much like Socrates, Antigone and Dr.King stood up for their beliefs, despite grave consequences. I agree with Lizzie and Jessica’s idea that Antigone and Dr.King gave themselves up as sacrificial lambs. Essentially foreshadowing his death, King says, “and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!” The cause, the issue of racism, is clearly more important to King than his life. Antigone also believes that burying her brother with death rites, despite Creon’s opposition, is the right thing to do and she “will suffer nothing as great as death without glory” (Sophocles, 64). Similar to David’s theory, I believe Antigone is more inclined to follow the divine’s ruling, rather than the Thebes government. However I believe that Dr.King’s speech is more focused on displaying how the United States government contradicts itself because of the open bigotry. He challenges America to “be true to what you said on paper.” This stems from King’s overall message that actions speak louder than words. He calls for unity among the civil rights protesters and the black community, in an economic sense. He acknowledges that the protests are important to spread the message of injustice; however they must use their economic power to evoke change.

Side note: King’s application of the Good Samaritan can definitely be applied to today’s political scene.

He eloquently explains that we must care for each other and be allies for others' rights.

Courage is more than the charge

“A Coward dies a thousand deaths, but a brave man only once.”

In Chapter 16, O’Brien directly voices his opinions on courage. Using ideology from Laches, he reasons that courage stems from temperament and wisdom. He cites courageous men he looks up to like Captain Johansen; however, this chapter seems to be devoted to, “those who are neither cowards nor heroes” (O’Brien, 147). O’Brien did not view the Alpha Company as courageous because they, “could not gaze straight at fear and dying, not, at least, while out in the field” (O’Brien, 141). While his friends and family see him as brave for surviving and enduring all the obstacles, O’Brien does not see himself as a courageous man because, “men must know what they do is courageous, they must know it is right, and that kind of knowledge is wisdom and nothing else” (O’Brien, 140). O’Brien remains alive; however he dies spiritually by participating in a war he doesn’t agree with, being scared in the heat of ambushes, and in many other ways. He shows qualities of a courageous man when he gives one of the old Vietnamese men being held captive water. These random acts of bravery and even creating this memoir to showcase the horrors of war and Vietnam were more than just charges of bravery. I respectfully disagree with Austin’s statement that O’Brien’s endurance is foolish. I believe that all of his actions were thought out well using intellect. The purpose of O’Brien’s character is to highlight the average person’s virtues and morality, in tough predicaments.

#laches Nam

If I Die In A Combat Zone

In Chapters 7 through 11, O’Brien describes the normalcy of the Vietnam War. The soldiers treat their time in Vietnam, as a vacation. They drink beer, make crude jokes, and even hire a stripper. The soldiers partake in these comforts to forget and cope with the fact that they kill people, who they don’t even have qualms with. I agree with Lizzie that O’Brien imagines his future and writes letters to Eric to help motivate him to go through the motions and survive.

O’Brien states that, “it did not occur to me that a man would die when I pulled the trigger of that rifle. I neither hated the man nor wanted him dead, but I feared him.” In my opinion, this dismantles the idea that O’Brien is courageous. He shoots the man because he fears death, not because of some noble cause. This particularly resonates with me because the man O’Brien killed was a civilian. He killed a father, a son, a provider with no consequences. The moral compass of the soldiers has completely shifted in order to survive Vietnam. As Ryan mentioned earlier, O’Brien describes the ambush as most successful, yet three people were killed.

O’Brien questions why Hemingway, “did not care to talk about the thoughts those men must have had” (O’Brien, 93). Hemingway and authors like him paint these beautiful war novels black and white, with a protagonist and an antagonist and no complexities. If I Die In A Combat Zone is often labeled as a book about the Vietnam War; however it is so much than that. It is a commentary on our humanity, morality, the definition of courage, as well as many other things.

Laches: What is Courage

In Plato’s Laches, Nicias,Socrates, and Laches’ conversation seems to remain in a constant loop because the three men debate what the true meaning of courage is. Laches defines courage as the “endurance of the soul”, while Nicias sees courage as “the knowledge of the grounds for fear and hope.” Socrates challenges both Nicias and Laches claims stating that their definitions do not include all cases of courage, which results in very abstract definitions. I think it is very ironic that these three supposed courageous men find it so difficult to define courage. I believe it is so hard for them to describe courage in words because they are men that take action. One of the most important messages from this discussion highlighted by Laches defining acts of courage is more important than the ideas behind them.

Socrates brings up a valid point about virtue by saying, “there is not one kind of knowledge by which we know how things have happened in the past, and another by which we know how they are happening at the present time, and still another by which we know how what has not yet happened might best come to be in the future, but that the knowledge is the same in each case“ (Plato 198 D). Socrates is indicating that all virtues, courage included, stems from wisdom and knowledge. I agree with Lizzie that this is the most fine tuned definition of courage. Socrates ideology is apparent in O’Brien and Eric’s coalition at boot camp. They use their intellectual conversations to resist authority and further dehumanization.

If Socrates had been alive in the 60′s and disagreed with the Vietnam War in any way, I firmly believed he would have dodged the draft. Socrates says, “So I think it is by knowledge that one ought to make decisions, if one is to make them well, and not by majority rule” (Plato 184e). Even in the Apology, he makes it clear that he will continue to live righteously, despite not following society’s rule. In this sense, O’Brien was not courageous because he was aware of the consequences and sacrifices of the Vietnam war, yet he still joined the army to appeal to the majority, to his prairie, to his family.

My thoughts on O’Brien

The soldier O’Brien can be seen as either cowardly or courageous depending on a person’s background and perspective. Pro military and Vietnam war people see O’Brien’s sacrificing his body in Vietnam as very brave, while pacifists and liberals might suggest O’Brien is stupid for giving up his life to a war he does not even agree with. Trying to reason with outside influences like his family, the chaplain, and other veterans, while remaining true to his own beliefs, causes clear internal turmoil. He ultimately decides that he cannot desert the army because of the emotional pain it will cause him and his family, in the future.

Aside from the courage v. coward argument, If I Die in a Combat Zone also touches on the topic of the dehumanization of soldiers, as a result of war. I agree with Kennon’s view that the military does not prepare it’s soldiers for the aftermath of war and how to become emotionally connected again. The drill sergeants stripped them of their individuality and emotional instincts to prepare them to neglect the evils of war and be essentially machinery in Vietnam. Deprogramming the soldier’s emotional capacity, allowed for casual racism and sexism in boot camp and Vietnam.

Equally important is Barney’s coping mechanism. He seems to push all negative thoughts about the war to the side and focus on the task at hand, stating in a calm and collected manner, “You just can’t let it get you down” (O’Brien, 2). He is fearless and takes risks in the eyes of his companion to survive, where as, O’Brien employs a healthy amount of fear to avoid death.

A Tale of Two Men: Socrates & Ivan

In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy fluidly describes the stark contrast between hollow and authentic lifestyles, during the 19th century Russian society. The Apology, written thousands of years before The Death of Ivan Ilyich in Ancient Greece, sends a very similar message about the ways to live a most fulfilling life; while Stanley Milgram’s Behavioral Study of Obedience gives further insights on why Ivan Ilyich and many others in his position blindly led a most boring and simple life. After Socrates is sentenced to death by the jury, he still does not show remorse for his actions and livelihood. During his monologue, Socrates states, “that a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods” (Plato, 41d). According to the Socratic Method, his death sentence will not negatively impact him because he considers himself a good man and has experienced a rich life. Given that same logic, Ivan Ilyich fears dying because he is not a good man and his life lacked substance. Unlike Socrates avoiding any actions that stray from his moral compass, Ivan continues to act without consulting any ethical code he used previously because he notices, “that such acts were also committed by highly placed people and were not considered bad, he, without really thinking them good, forgot all about them and was not troubled in the least by the memory of them” (Tolstoy, 48). In essence, Socrates is not devastated by his “punishment” due to his unwavering ability to stand up for his beliefs, while Ivan is very conflicted about the proximity of his death because he has lived his whole life without creating an original identity. I think Lizzie makes a very poignant about Socrates’ character. If it is easy to live like Socrates, our world would be in a much better condition. Unfortunately that is not the case, when individuals must rise to the occasion for the greater good of society, it is likely that he will do what is necessary for personal gain rather than society. It takes a certain kind of bravery, gumption, and morals to deflect natural human mechanisms like selfishness

What is wisdom?

I believe that I am the first person to post something about the connections between the Apology, Stanley Milgram’s experiment, and the Death of Ivan Ilyich. With that being said, I would like to use my post to apply Socrates’ philosophy to the Death of Ivan Ilyich and Milgram’s experiment. The Athenian society is much like the Russian bourgeois of the 19th century. Ivan is a carbon copy of the politicians, craftsmen, and other reputable men that Socrates describes in Apology. Socrates discovers, “that those who had the highest reputation were nearly the most deficient, while those who were thought to be inferior were more knowledgeable” (Plato, 26). Affluent men, like Ivan, are smart individuals in their fields; however, they lack the awareness and the intelligence of other equally important subjects, like spirituality. Men with Gerasim’s characteristics are often in tune with their morality and ethical code, despite their low status in society. Ivan wrestles with the concept of death for almost ten chapters, while Socrates sums up in one sentence that death should not be feared because we do not what happens next after life. Slight similarities can be drawn from the Sophists and student relationship to the relationship between the experimenter and the naive subject. The student seemingly needs to obey the sophist’s teaching to become a successful man in society, while many of the naive subjects are under duress during the experiment because they feel compelled to follow instructions, even if it means harming another individual. The structure of learning from a sophist to become a great orator and a master of persuasion can also be linked to Ivan’s set path to become an important man in Russia during the late 1800s.

The main point Socrates makes during the trial is that wisdom is not knowing every single idea, concept, or formula on this earth, but rather the ability to admit when you are ignorant and swiftly correct it.

Behavioral Obedience, Power, & Fear

Stanley Milgram’s Behavioral Study of Obedience begins with explaining how the Holocaust, an idea created by a single person, could have been avoided if more people decided to speak out against this terrible behavior. The subjects, who could have displayed control at any moment in the experiment, continue to listen to the experimenter out of fear and the subconscious rush of delegated power. I think psychologically speaking the combination of fear of failure and power is the reason Ivan Ilyich runs a rat race for most of his life. Although Ivan is blindly following the society, he gains power because he follows the rules. Obedience also allows for Ivan to not have any guilt or ethics. I believe Austin makes a great point about Ivan's brother being failure in the eyes of society but actually being his own person

The Death of Ivan Ilyich: The Rebirth of Ivan Ilyich

Ivan spent almost forty five years persistently building a seemingly perfect life that is in tune with the Russian bourgeoisie, only to realize three months before his death, the perfect life does not exist. Ivan's incurable illness forces him to face the truth for the first time in his life. He became conscious of the fact the he lived a very faux lifestyle, and he resents his wife for continuing to hide behind shallow facades of aristocracy. During chapter nine, Ivan revisits his past, in an almost Christmas Carol fashion, and finds that, "all those best moments of his pleasant life seemed now not at all as they had seemed then" (Tolstoy,84). His growing affluence, materialism, and lack of emotional ability carved him into a hollow man, and as he sits on his death he cannot even recognize the man he become. Ivan's inner struggles about the summary of his life is the reason he fears death so intensely and will not be thrown into the black sack yet. Ironically as Ivan is physically dying, his spiritual or emotional being has resurfaced, and Ivan is reborn in a metaphysical sense. I also really appreciate Antonia's image of death in her post. She closes the gap between the idea of death and the actual reality that we are all going to die, much like Tolstoy. Tolstoy personifies death and pain in Ivan's life to show the real effects of dying without fulfilling a purpose.

Ivan's relationship with Gerasim also clearly expresses the dichotomy between the upper class and peasants. During Ivan's last three months, Gerasim tends to his health and well-being, while showing Ivan the utmost respect and dignity. Unlike his family and the expensive doctors, Gerasim acknowledges that Ivan is dying, and even proclaims that, "We'll all die" (Tolstoy, 77). Gerasim's lack of fear and straightforwardness about death stems from his social background. Because Gerasim places a higher value on human interactions and mutual relationships than job titles and material wealth, he has had a more fulfilling life than Ivan. By creating the contrast between characters of different socioeconomic backgrounds, Tolstoy asserts the premise that peasants have more meaningful lives without the strain of power and materialism. David brings up a great point that Ivan is barely surviving even with all his wealth and privilege. Tolstoy romanticizes being poor throughout the novel, which I find very problematic. The character development of Gerasim is very unilateral. Although Gerasim does appear to be happy in life, he most likely faces many problems that are much larger than Ivan's dilemmas.

#gonebutneverforgotten #ripivan

My thoughts on Sections I & II

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a commentary on the power and ethical code associated with being a member of the Russian Bourgeoisie during the 19th century. Tolstoy also addresses problems within Ivan’s marriage that are similar to marital problems in today’s society.

The reader can begin to infer that Ivan’s associates are power hungry as early as the third paragraph, while each of his colleagues think about the promotions and transfers of power, as a result of his death. The structure of official positions and figurehead posts also displays the elitists need to sustain power. Power is clearly important to Ivan. His source of power and confidence stems from his work, more specifically his ability to, “destroy[ing] any man he wanted to destroy” (Tolstoy, 53.) Antonia brings up a good point that all his colleagues only attend his funeral because they feel obligated to keep up appearances. I think that Ivan’s personality and line of work is the reason he has so many so-called friends during his lifetime. Ivan’s friends appreciate the idea of him and his status, so when he dies it seems his closest comrades do not even know the real Ivan. After reading David’s post, I believe Ivan’s death is very similar to how hundreds of people gathered at Gatsby’s estate for social events and would boast to know the mysterious Gatsby; however few came to his funeral and of those few Nick was the only character that seemed to truly know Gatsby as a person.

While Ivan is very dominant in his career and social life, he is unable to exude the same amount of control in his marriage because his wife is a strong character. The lack of control in his marriage causes Ivan to create a separate spaces for his work and personal life, as his relationship with Praskovya is further strained. The loss of three children, contrasting opinions on their children’s education, as well as the locations of Ivan’s positions cause many quarrels in his marriage. Tolstoy writes, “There remained only rare periods of amorousness that came over the spouses, but they did not last long. These were islands that they would temporarily, but then they would put out again to the sea of concealed enmity that expressed itself in estrangement from each other.” (Tolstoy, 53.). This toxic cycle is present inside many relationships, while couples create a facade of happiness for external parties.

#ripivan

Novice or Veteran

My success in AP Literature and Composition, along with the many other rigorous English classes I have taken, signals that I can proficiently read and write English. I gained an extensive vocabulary, numerous punctuation skills, the importance of varying sentence structure, and the ability to tie outside references to the assignment. I also procured a sense of mood, tone, themes, and motifs displayed in a body of work. I consider myself a veteran in those regards; however, I am still a novice in several ways. I sometimes struggle with writing neat transitions, addressing all the ideas in my thesis without jumbling, or directly answering the prompt. I am constantly evolving as a person; therefore naturally, the topics I address in my writing and the way I convey my message are developing gradually, as well. During the course, I will focus on creating a more fine-tuned “writer’s sense,” as well as acquiring more writing tools to become a complete writer.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Untitled