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By ZenMaintenance, 25 Nov 09 21:04

Hello, said Oscar, a small, inexplicable ant of no more magnificent proportions than another small, inexplicable ant; for, in the past four days of his life, there had been, or currently were (He never was very good at keeping track) thirty seven to eighty thousand small diamonds floating around his nest, each having smaller and even smaller images of himself played upon them, shouting one thing: That he had to give himself up, throw his life away, on the whim of Queen Argent; that he, the hardest worker in the colony (Voted so three years in a row), had to give up, or else resign from, his position as the head ruler and economist of the ant colony; that if he didn’t, he would be forced to do one of two things: To either throw away his robe and be exiled, or participate in seemingly crude acts; the first being very dishonorable, and the latter being very undesirable, so, he did what he felt he had to do; first, he went about, cleaning up his room, making sure that he had absolutely no dust on the floor, then, in an act of magnificent courage, went floating down out of his fifty three story room using the dust as a float, moving down past trees, brush, bushes, air molecules (Consisting of no less than seventy percent nitrogen!), bits of water vapor, and the gases pouring off from New York City, that he might be able to escape; that he, a worthless ant from the kingdom, might be able to save himself from a fate no worse than his uncle’s, his poor, poor uncle who had died but an hour earlier from the poorest food in the anthill, and had subsequently been buried in the hill’s walls as if they were savages; Oscar had cried and cried and cried over this fact of truth, until, one day, he realized that he had become an adult ant, that he had the power (The power!) to do whatever he wished with whomever he wished; and so, jumping out of his chair, he broke his back, looking up again at his nest; seeing, in the faces of thirty to eighty thousand small diamonds, his face, playing along, as if an image painted for the pleasure of the queen herself, with everything he did or said: Hello, they said to him, as he said it to them; hello, hello, hello, and as he drifted off into his poor, poor, poor death, he remembered a story from his life, a story which had been of great importance to him as he grew; a story about a young ant who had borne a great secret all his life, who had been forced to say nothing about the traitor living beside him every day in his life, until, at his last dying moment, he screamed out the secret, that his brother was a traitor; and so, as Oscar drifted down into his peaceful death, he, having no great secret, no great speech to tell, simply restated the only thing which played upon his memory, something to say to the faces glowing in front of him, only one thing to say before his unfortunate and untimely death: Hello.

~ZM~

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By ZenMaintenance, 12 Nov 09 21:37

There are many, many ideas in the realm of metaphysical reality and/or unreality (Depending on your views past physics).

And if we take any of these ideas, there are many which are seemingly interpreted past their original meaning, or seem to be misinterpreted, even to extremes. Some such arguments are: Capitalism versus socialism (And Communism), abortion versus choice, atheism versus Christianity, evolution versus God, etc.

Now, this is the one thing I hate about metaphysics: That two contradictory ideas can come to the exactly same conclusion through contradictory methods. I hate it because this means that there are several ways to reach the same conclusion. And they don’t make sense within the same universe.

Upon reading Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, I was able to sorely relate to a French philosopher by the name of Henry Poincare. He, according to the nonfiction account, believed that two ideas can be present as a means toward one end, as long as they are not used interchangeably. Here, I thought that, maybe, these ideas may work; they ma be able to be used in order to find a certain means.

But a balanced world would not be able to find this as a solution; crossed ideas would mean a forced compromise. But, as we know, there are always crossed ideas, and not always a possible solution to compromise, but oftentimes there isn’t even a practical one that is possible. So, I have come to the conclusion, for now, that Earth is chaotic in the realm of ideas. I’m really tired. Tell me what you’re thinking on this.
~ZM~

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By ZenMaintenance, 22 Oct 09 19:39

So, really, I believe that this country needs to get its epistemological roots back. There are people upon people upon people who get a free education and a home for the first eighteen years of their lives, and these people hate school.

I’m not saying that every person hates school, but that people need to learn that their education, while it may not be extremely important to them, expands the brain. It helps them to contemplate things which may be of a help to them; and even gives them better employment opportunities. So, why wouldn’t people just learn for the crapping of it, since they have to anyway? Boring stuff, maybe?

Hmmm… Interesting thought, ZenMaintenance. Very interesting, and I have to say that that is a problem among some.
So, let’s address another point: To those of you who have read the Aldous Huxley novel, Brave New World. I remember, form this novel, a specific point, in which the main characters are meeting with the World Controller, Mustafa Mond. In this meeting, the characters are told that modern humans are treated to have a predetermined intelligence for one reason: That if everybody were geniuses (Paraphrased, obviously), then there would be disaster.

I do not agree with this. I believe there would be arguments, but not disaster. Especially not if people were reasonable and logical enough to use the Socratic Method or to listen to each other reasonably, like humans begins should.

Ahhhhhhhhh……. Socrates. I knew nothing about him until last summer, when I was reading the nonfiction book Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig. He told us (The readers) that nobody had really tested the formerly accepted ideas of society and religion/metaphysical ideas before the Sophists. He said that these people were, basically, the first organized school of thought. Then, the Socratic and post-Socratic philosophers began to use thought. I really think that the most important influence on our government should be considered Socrates, not John Locke. Simply because of the Declaration of Independence. It states that we are all created equal, and he government is there to provide for use the freedoms we need and want, and that if the government becomes destructive to the aforesaid means, that we are to abolish it and start again. Socrates demonstrated this tenfold; he tried to have every person believe in equality, and, when persecuted for his beliefs, kept his stance, doing everything he could to change the government so that it wasn’t destructive to these means, and, when he failed, he accepted death. Although it is true that because he didn’t have a ridiculously large following, he wasn’t able to do a very large amount of persuasion, and he, being a peace monger, would not want to try and revolt.

Also by way of argument comes a piece of literature known as Catch 22, written by Joseph Heller. It’s a good book, according to most people, but some people don’t understand the humor, don’t like the humor, etc. I think people have to be able to understand the book more to be able to really enjoy it. The book, obviously anti war, was truly about the government’s conquest into different people, and the craziness of the subordination of some of those people, and the beliefs of those who, although they are not truly crazy, are labeled crazy by the government and treated as such. It uses humor (a lot of it pretty dark) in order to show the ridiculousness of the System. And, although it becomes gravely serious at different points, it really holds true to its comedy almost the entire time. But the reason it uses comedy is that the author is writing it so that he expresses the craziness not only in its characters and its form of logic, but also in the writing. The insanity of the whole situation is shown simply through the use of a cut storyline, jumping back and forth, with no real logical order to follow, until the storyline has been pieced together.

Another interesting work of political fiction is Orwell’s 1984. Very good. It’s a classic, well known piece about an oppressive government. It was written in 1948, and uses a very closed in mood and personality to achieve its main message: The impossibility of truly functioning in such a government. The governmental entity, known simply as Big Brother, is not even truly existing within the story. We never learn if he’s real. It’s a pretty good concept, though, the idea of only hearing the story through one point of view.

Solipsism- that’s one of the philosophies mentioned when the government is being explained. It is the idea that nothing exists outside the mind of every person. And it’s a very personal idea; if I can’t see you, you do not exist at the moment. This is close to subjective philosophy. It has the same basic idea, except that it was never developed metaphysically. It’s also close to existentialism; the study of the existence of man and his place within his universe. Most existentialists would argue that man is in charge of his own destiny and that the only thing he is sure to do on earth is to exist; whether it be one day or three hundred years. A good book on this is L’Etranger (The Stranger in English), about a man who commits a pointless murder and is condemned to death. The man believes throughout the novel that there is no force bringing humans together, and that it is absurd to even believe that. This branches out into absurdism; the very belief described in the last sentence through the idea of existentialism.

Another philosophy-Objectivism-was brought out through Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead. It shows the idea that things exist outside of the realm of thought.

Metaphysics. Can’t get enough.

So, if you were to ask me, people should remain to follow school, if only epistemologically, for the sake of learning,, through earlier years. I think that people should contemplate the metaphysics that they are aware of, in order to breach their understanding of the relam outside our own.

~ZM~

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By Malice, 11 May 09 7:15

All of which you are about to read is of my opinion.

In this modern world of humans who have little to no morals, and humans being annoying, the world is becoming/has become a place where people no longer take responsibility for their own actions, or keeping morals at a standard, people have become focused on things that should not be focused on at a later time. Some annoying qualities that people suffer from, and I remind you this is my opinion, are how an excuse can be found for it to not be their fault, no matter the situation, also, how some people always find a way to talk about themselves, and never tire from it. They can rant on about how “awesome” their weekend was, while you are dying of boredom, wondering how they don’t notice you are annoyed and don’t care, even though most of your responses are “Uh huh”, and you aren’t saying anything about it, not even commenting on it, or asking questions about it. People who talk about things as if they know what they are talking about, but have no idea what they are talking about are one of the worst things I’ve been around, in my opinion. Talking through ignorance is not okay. Not only is what you are talking about wrong, but the information that you are spreading around is also wrong. Next, promiscuity, especially in teenagers, is terrible. Even if it’s just with one person who they aren’t sure they are going to be with forever is wrong. It should not be with multitudes of people. It should be your job to make sure that the sexual organ you have acquired through being born is not shared among the populace. For females, in my opinion, it is gross for them to go around with multiple guys. I mean, sure you might like it at the time, but later in time, when you find someone that you want to be with, your vagina has been penetrated by hopefully you know how many other males, and is putrid and impure, and this isn’t even considering it might be loose, and you’ll know how experienced other people are, so then you may always be thinking about how “good” your life long partner is, compared to your one night stands or short term boyfriends or whatever they were. This isn’t fair to that person, or to you. For males, it isn’t as gross.. I mean your penis isn’t inside you, a place that’s hard to clean or anything, but still.. Getting vaginal liquids, or even just the thought, through a condom, is still gross if it’s from more than one female. I mean it’s not meant to made to go and loosen every girl you can, it’s meant to make children with the one you are going to be with forever. Think before you act, just because you can get a girl to, doesn’t mean you should. This is more antagonistic towards males though, it isn’t always their fault, girls do want it too, and some are willing to. Still, taking advantage isn’t right for males or females.

In the old world, things were better, in my opinion. People seemed more sincere to each other, and there were no divorces. People stuck together til the end, and everyone knew everyone else. When people would be married at a young age and never get divorced, and life was simple and nobody had a care in the world. It was easier to make a living and people helped each other out even though they were just neighbors or lived in the same neighborhood.

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By KDurch, 8 Jan 09 0:24

No Threat to Democracy

 Democracy as defined by Merriam and Webster’s dictionary is: a. government by the people and b. a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. At the 2007 National Communication Association convention, people claimed that Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show is a threat to today’s democracy. On the other side of the debate, people disagreed and stated that his show was pure comedy and therefore was not a threat to democracy.

 In watching the show and reading some scholarly articles, I can say, I disagree that John Stewart is a threat to democracy. I noticed how Jon Stewart has a hard time being serious. When he is presenting his “news” he is laughing between every other word and segment, showing me that it is not serious information. How can his laughing and making jokes be a threat to democracy?

Like any show on television, there is information that can be misleading but I think it depends on how informed you are with the goings on in society. Hart and Hartelius state that Jon Stewart is corrupting the minds of teenagers and young adults. By Jon Stewart having a website that they can go to, he can sell his shows on DVD’s that people can watch but also buy other collectibles. By them buying these, they are buying into his idea of cynicism, and that that is what they believe in the real world <!–[if supportFields]> CITATION Har07 \p 263-264 \l 1033 <![endif]–>(Hart and Hartelius 263-264)<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>. I do not find this all misleading though, I see it as someone enjoying comedy and showing their appreciation by buying his things. On the other side of the spectrum, as Lance Bennett brings to our attention, the majority of Jon Stewart’s audiences are people who are well informed in politics, and have scored higher on their civic knowledge (281-282). It also showed that these numbers were higher than any other comedic show, such as Leno and Letterman’s shows. With these numbers and figures, I do not think that Jon Stewart is misleading.

All of the articles claim that Jon Stewart is a cynic in some form. Hart and Hartelius, categorize him as a cynic who uses Diatribe and chreia. They say that his cynicism is a “sin against democracy” (263). Robert Hariman does agree that Jon Stewart is a cynic, but does not see him as a threat to democracy. He states “…Stewart is a cynic, and we should hope he is influential, because he would make a vital contribution to sustaining democracy at this time…” (274-275). He also that Jon Stewart’s cynicism is “homeopathic”, which he says is a form of counter-cynicism. Lastly, Bennett states that if we are going to be calling Jon Stewart a cynic, then one should question Steven Colbert and Bill Maher to their cynicism. Bennett and Hariman describe Jon Stewart as a comedian and argue that you should just laugh at his work.

A cynic or being cynical as termed by Merriam-Webster, is to be sarcastic, or denying the sincerity of people’s motives and actions. I do agree with the scholars that Jon Stewart can be cynical. He is not just targeting a single person, or subject, unlike Saturday Night Live (SNL), he brings in all aspects. His show is set up as a news cast, so he does a story on a political figure, a story that made national news, and then usually hosts an author of a book. The topics he presents are true issues that are happening, but when he presents them he turns them into something funny. There is no doubt that Jon Stewart is being sarcastic.

I do not believe that he is sinning or going against the “Church of Democracy”. He is not trying to make his show seem like it is real. His show is not broadcast on major news channels, but on a comedy channel. Another thing that makes me feel that he is not a threat to democracy is that his show is aired late at night, when those who follow or understand politics are awake. This way so that those who do stay up late can have a lightened mood, or just need a good late night laugh. So who is watching Jon Stewart? Not the people that find Jon Stewart a threat to democracy.

The first time I saw the show, I did not know that much about politics and what was really going on around me, but I saw the show as just something funny. The show being on Comedy Central was why I just saw it as being comedy, so I did not take it seriously. When I watched the show in an analytical sense, I still deemed the show humorous. I can see how some people see the show taken the wrong way and that it may mislead those who do not keep up with what is going on in the world; this being a threat to democracy. I see how it raises questions as to who watches the show and how it affects them and their decisions. Most people that I have talked to, either do not know about the show, or if they do know about the show, they are well informed as to politics and to what is going on around. They say they watch the show for laughs or because it is on.

When Hart and Hartelius, think of Jon Stewart as a threat to democracy, I believe they are only looking at it in the aspect of the younger generations. The younger generations are the pre-teens and the teenagers who, for one do not understand government and politics and who cannot vote. I believe that they are targeting these people because they are the most gullible and will “believe” anything they see on television or in the media. I know as a teenager, if I did not understand things, I would ask my parent about what was going on and if what I saw or read was true. Living in the younger generations, I know most teenagers and young adults do the same thing. As Bennett argues, Jon Stewart himself did a poll to see what his audience was composed of, the result: those who are knowledgeable in politics and government (281-282). This leads me to believe that Jon Stewart is not corrupting the minds of teenagers and posing a threat on democracy.

So what is Jon Stewart? Is he a sinner, a comedian, or a cynic? If you believe he is a sinner, what is his sin? The Apostle Paul wrote that “anybody who preaches against the truth let him be anathema (Galatians 1:9), Do not bring him into your house (John 2 1:10), and he should be known as a publican and a heathen (Matthew 18:17),” <!–[if supportFields]> CITATION Har07 \p 263 \l 1033 <![endif]–>(Hart and Hartelius 263)<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>, but what has Jon Stewart sinned against. Yes he is not giving us true news, but he is not supposed to be giving us true news. He is a comedian; he is used to making fun of the truth, to make light of the truth. Is this a true sin? Jon Stewart can be cynical, but again this is part of his job as a comedian. If you think Jon Stewart is the only cynic, then one needs to check out SNL or see the Colbert Show.

So whether you see Jon Stewart as being a cynic, a comedian or a sinner, I do not believe he is a threat to democracy. It has been documented in a poll that his majority of viewers are well informed in politics, and they watch the show for laughs. The show is aired on a comedy channel and at an hour that those who are not informed are either sleeping, or still think of the show as comedy, knowing that it is on Comedy Central. I do agree that Jon Stewart can be a cynic, but that it is not a threat to democracy for he is a comedian just making a parody of real life.

Works Cited

<!–[if supportFields]> BIBLIOGRAPHY <![endif]–>Bennett, W. Lance. “Relief in Hard Times: A Defense of Jon Stewart’s Comedy in an Age of Cynicism.” Critical Studies of Media Communication (2007): 278-283.

Hariman, Robert. “In Defense of Jon Stewart.” Critical Studies in Media Communication (2007): 273-277.

Hart, Roderick P and Johanna E Hartelius. “The Political Sins of Jon Stewart.” Critical Studies in Media Communication (2007): 263=272.

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