A Measure of Hope

(I put Mr. Morrison in my synthesis conversation with Raymo)

The piece we read recently by Chet Raymo, called “A Measure of Restraint,” centered on a worry that has plagued me for years: the worry that science may be used for ill, either intentionally or accidentally.  I have a lot of ideas that could eventually be made into reality, but some of them I’ve never even tried to produce, for fear of how they might be used.  I identify with a character of a series I read last summer, the first book of which was titled Above World, within which said character is instructed to build a weapon and refuses.  There is so much potential for wrongdoing when one constructs something powerful – or simply very different from anything existing – that it can seem it is best for the world to keep some ideas hidden.  Legend has it an ancient Greek inventor – was it Daedulus, perhaps? – had invented a death ray that focused sunlight to burn ships on the water, but realized the terror his invention would wreak upon the world, and destroyed or modified the blueprints to prevent such a weapon of mass destruction from ever being correctly constructed.  In the aforementioned series I read, however, the character who refuses to build a weapon for moral reasons later regrets his decision, realizing that whatever weapon he could have made would have been available for use for the greater good.  These two decisions – to create an idea and to withhold an idea – reflect the conundrum presented in “A Measure of Restraint”: the fact that an instrument of life can be also an “instrument of death” (Raymo, page 212 in The Bedford Reader).  How can one know what one’s idea will do?  Mr. Morrison, my awesome physics teacher (with whom I have discussed my uncertainty regarding morality of allowing ideas into the world), qualifies Raymo’s assertion by counseling a measure of hope, as he believes “There will always be more good people in the world than bad people.”  While this doesn’t address the complications that result from good people doing bad things on accident, it seems Raymo and Morrison would agree that we should advance with science, but with caution.

 

Belief is a powerful thing; we often fail to realize how important it is to focus on the positive in ourselves to overcome adverse external factors.  The first panel of page 28, Volume II of Maus is a wide view, focusing a lot on the surroundings of the mice, including the chimney out the window that inspires such terror.  Overwhelmed by his seemingly dire situation, Vladek begins to cry in the second panel; all he metaphorically sees (and all we literally see through the window above him) is darkness.  In the third, a priest arrives, notably blocking out the window through which the terrifying chimneys might otherwise have been seen; his concern temporarily distracts Vladek from his misery.  In the fourth, however, when Vladek responds angrily, trying to refocus on the cause of his misery (likely not to risk the psychological pain of gaining hope only to lose it), the darkness is once again visible through the window.  The priest persists, however, and in the fifth panel, the darkness is again shut out as Vladek begins to have hope again.  The priest inspects Vladek's number and provides him with several reasons the numbers mean Vladek will survive.  The priest could, I'm sure, have come up with positive ways to interpret the six digits on Vladek's arm no matter what each digit actually was, because this priest is determined to view things in a positive way.  The belief he spreads to Vladek allows Vladek to focus not on his surroundings, but on himself, which is paralleled by the fact that Vladek's arm enlarges in each of the three panels in which the priest proclaims the numbers' significance.  As Vladek focuses on what he views as positive, and doesn't allow his surroundings to defeat him, the window stays out of view: focusing in on something hopeful allows Vladek to escape the "panes" the window represents.

What?

            In class, we discussed the unusual word order of the father mouse, Vladek’s, speech in the present-day time stream in Maus, as Vladek remembers the Holocaust.  We suggested that the broken patterns of normal speech represent how Vladek is broken by the Holocaust, as his speech is only awkward in the present (after the horrific events he went through), not in the past events he speaks of (before he was “broken”).  I stretched things a little (or a lot, knowing that Art Spiegelman probably never considered this as he wrote) when I pointed out that the inversion of words is reminiscent of the word order used in communications of the deaf, perhaps symbolizing how people are often deaf to what Vladek and Spiegelman are trying to say.

            One key wording motif, the significance of which escaped me until recently, is Vladek’s persistent use of the word “what” in situations where normal English speakers would never think to place it.  For example, on page 62 of My Father Bleeds History, Vladek narrates “And thought all night different things what could happen to us” (Spiegelman 62).  I suggest that the continuous appearance of “what” in surprising places is meant to stand out to the reader as representing, on a very simplified level, Vladek’s reaction to all he’s lived through: “What?”

            I remember at the start of Toni Morrison’s book The Bluest Eye, which we read last semester, she explains how since Claudia finds the “why” too difficult to contemplate, “one must take refuge in how” (Morrison).  Toni Morrison is, to use a favorite word from our class dialect, “deep” – she makes the “how” seem deeper than many of the “whys” I’ve previously considered.  While Spiegelman doesn’t explicitly issue a statement about the levels of what, how, and why, he makes a point similar to Morrison’s about how living during a terrible event can leave a person struggling to grasp the more basic levels.  Spiegelman leaves the how and why up to his readers, and focuses on presenting the what, forming a basis of fundamental understanding that he hopes will lead to greater understanding.

            One other symbolic topic – while I was packing up after class to leave for sixth hour, one of my friends (obsessed with combat, wars, and weaponry) came in and saw the comic book Maus still on my desk.  He told me that Maus is the name of a German supertank – a fact that I doubt someone writing about the Holocaust and World War II wouldn’t know.  I think Art Spiegelman may have named his book as he did to represent how he wanted it to be a metaphoric super-weapon: to protect his people, to break through the walls of ignorance in peoples’ minds, and to be something that people must notice (I don’t have a supertank on hand, but I assume they’re hard to miss).

The Nacirema Effect

            The piece we read about the Nacirema and their bizarre ideas about their mouths blew my mind.  The whole time, even though I was noticing the clues as to the identity of the Nacirema, I’d just think “huh, that’s similar to (whatever aspect of our culture was in question).”  I didn’t realize the subject of the piece was our own culture until Richard mentioned something about the invention of the toothbrush.

            Why is it that my brain was able to find a multitude of similarities between our culture and that of the Nacirema, but still maintain an attitude of separation and surprise at the weird beliefs described?  At the mention of the mouth-related rite of ablution in children to improve “moral fiber,” the soap incident from the movie A Christmas Story came to my mind (Miner 318).  When the Miner’s piece discussed how the people of the mysterious tribe believed all sorts of miseries would befall them if they ceased obsessive dental hygiene – “their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed … their friends desert them” – I thought of how similar this was to our own societal beliefs about the mouth, but I still didn’t consciously make the full connection (318).  Am I unusually clueless?  Yes.  I don’t know how quickly the rest of the class realized the true identity of the Nacirema, but I’m fascinated by the fact that it took at least me so long to clue in.

            I think the root cause (unplanned tooth pun) of my feelings of distance from the people described is that we are raised to view other cultures as slightly weird.  The good thing is, we’re also trained to look for commonalities between ourselves and any other group of people, which is probably why I noticed all the connections between the Nacirema and my own culture.  The disturbing revelation is that even as we tell ourselves we accept all others, that differences are good, there’s still a part of us that says “That’s weird!”, and finds the weirdness distancing.  Weird is good, I think – we want to celebrate differences.  The trick I’m seeking is the one that would allow me to say “Weird Nacirema people!” without feeling so separate from them.  The point of the piece, I think is thus: We shouldn't distance ourselves from others just because we think the others are strange, because from an outsider’s view, we’re pretty weird ourselves.

Consider the Other (and look for fishy puns)

Humans are, in almost all cases, capable of empathy.  We have needed this ability to feel ourselves what others feel – it keeps us alive, helping one another, not only other humans but other animals.  Sometime millennia ago, a human felt empathy for the hunger of a wild canine, and tossed it a piece of meat.  This happened several times, each time canine and human learning to trust each other a little more, until eventually a bond^A was formed – each creature, that might (if empathy had not been present to turn the tide) have fallen prey to the other, now trusted the other.  The two relied upon each other, helping one another to stay afloat in a dangerous world.

This is why empathy is helpful – it’s purpose, boiled down, (as I sea it) is to unite two or more creatures to aid mutual survival.

Sometimes, however, humans decide to wave off empathy.  This can also be necessary for survival – if you feel empathy for your food, it’s more difficult to eat it.¹  Soldiers are trained, often, to shut off their empathy – it’s a lot easier to assail and destroy an evil “enemy” than another human.  I intended to write more on the topic, but I choose right now to feel empathy for whomever may read this blog post – you have things to do, I’m shore, so I’ll dock a few lengthy paragraphs and clam up (am I punishing you with puns? Does it make you crabby?  Am I flippant?  Does it affect the net worth of this post?  Should I seal this up?  Do you want to lob me, or stir things up? (I am still impressed you used the last two as etymology on the quiz, Lena)).  Okay, I’m almost dophinately done now – I’m verboaten.

Oh, weight – don’t be shellfish, support better treatment of animals, because your empathy should make doing otherwise unbearable.

^A Sea how many water-related puns you can find that seam to connect to our Lobster piece from this week.  I hope to Foster more puns, so come up with your own literary pearls, because I’m running out – I may have hit a Wall(ace). 

¹For waterver reason, I struggle to eat meat for breakfast, but am a happy omnivore the rest of the day – maybe I feel more empathy in the morning, before the world around me demands that I drown my empathy “for practical purposes” (Wallace 665).

 

Imperfection, Humans, Nature, Glow in the Dark Cats … Life and Death

            We all feel a need to be perfect; however, we often mistakenly pursue ideas of perfection warped by the perception of human society.  Nature provides a myriad of examples of human attempts to make perfect that which they see as imperfect.  Take the recent idea of glow-in-the-dark cats: humans thought something natural was imperfect, and so they decided to change it. 

I remember being struck years ago by a quote in a book called The Roar, when a character notes how “whenever humans tried to imitate nature,” they got it wrong.  Specifically, the character was contemplating a plate with a leaf shape repeating around the edge; the same leaf every time, perfectly symmetrical, without blemishes – the leaf represented not nature in its natural state, but nature influenced intentionally by humans.

While glowing cats seem strange to us for now, some attempts at human “perfection” have been accepted for so long that we don’t even consider them to be altering nature anymore.  For example, drugs allowing us to live longer lives past when we would otherwise die – not fully natural.  Eyeglasses, hearing aids, sleeping pills; none of these common objects were around before modern civilization started on a dangerous quest to eliminate imperfections.  Keeping everyone alive and well, doing our best to fight natural selection – thus interfering with adaptation and long-term evolution - we have been, by some theories, weakening our gene pool by allowing the weak to survive past what would have been their times to die. 

Why do we do this – fight death, alter life?

We humans often see death as imperfect, so we seek to correct it.  Septimus, however, when he jumps out the window in Mrs. Dalloway, thinks “It was their idea of tragedy, not his or Rezia’s” (Woolf 149).  Death is a tragedy in that it takes a loved one from us, ending that specific bit of beauty on earth – but, as Septimus sees when he achieves mental clarity, death is also natural.  As Richard tells Clarissa before his suicide in the movie The Hours, there is a time to “let go,” “so [we] can be free.”  When Virginia’s husband asks in The Hours why someone must die in the book, Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia is writing, she replies “So that the rest of us can value life more.”  It is life’s ephemeral (Ms. Valentino’s high-diction word for “passing”) nature that makes it so worth living.

                                                                                Time

            We all (hopefully) remembered to adjust our clocks for the recent time change.   Speaking on the phone with my Grandmother yesterday, we casually contemplated the meaning of time.  With all her clocks adjusted except for the clock in one room that self-adjusts, but had yet to do so, my grandmother said she felt like she changed time zones whenever she entered or left the room.  This seemed funny to me; what the clock says doesn’t actually affect what time it actually is.  I shall go eat cheese-filled meatballs for dinner – yum!  Now I’m here again.  And yet, if I hadn’t mentioned my leave for meatballs, would you have ever known?  What to me was a lengthy, delicious pause in writing might not have even existed to you. 

While I initially thought that what time my grandmother’s clock showed shouldn’t have had any effect on what time was to her, I realized today that I was wrong.  What we perceive the time of day to be, or that of the week, of the year, et cetera, has a large psychological impact on us, and thus what we think and do.  If you think you’re short on time, you hurry more.  If you find out it is Friday when you’ve been thinking it was Tuesday, you might be filled with hope for the weekend, and act much more energetic.  Knowing that it is Christmas season has been proven to make workers more efficient. 

We do not control the flow of time; we simply live as “the leaden circles dissolve.”  Since we cannot stop the circles, why do they matter to us?  I think it is because we control how we spend the time we have.  I think perhaps we give time meaning, just as we give things in literature meaning that the author maybe never tried to create.  I’d suggest that you contemplate the meaning of time, but who has the time?

NO ONE IS PERFECT AT GRAMMAR
MIT has this on the University's admissions page.  When speaking of English proficiency, MIT displays a very ironic lack thereof:
"For non-native English speakers:
You have two options: 1) take the tests required for native English speakers (see above), or 2) you may take the TOEFL and two SAT Subject Tests, one in math (level 1 or 2) and one in science (physics, chemistry, or biology e/m).
If you have been using English for less than 5 years or do not speak English at home and school, we strongly suggest that you take the TOEFL.  We do not accept IELTS in place of TOEFL".

Fewer than 5 years, MIT.:)

Stream of Weirdness

Ms. Valentino said stream of consciousness was an option, my mom just exclaimed "fish," if I stop or go back and edit, is it still stream of consciousness?  My sister just got a song stuck in my head and called me a liar, how rude of her, the cat pooped on the floor this morning, oops that is not a good thing to write probably Big Ben (cause I just thought of the text) but that makes me think of Ben because he's kind of big, or tall, that sounds more polite,

Mr. Morrison shouted woohoo very loudly at the buildOn thing last night his food was good all food is good no liver is not good; that awful cauliflower think my mom made once was so not good; ghost peppers are not good for me, I don't even like regular peppers; I just started thinking about the whole colored dress thing I saw gold and blue, combined the two options, I'm weird, apparently my night vision (according to Mr. Morrison after class) has two components, how quickly I can switch from cones to rods in my eyes and how good the rods are that is cool;

Also I learned from Michelle (spelling is questionable in English; sorry back to the point -> English had more conjugations in the past, the "thou" form was for informal "you", like "tú" en español.  Si escribo en Español, se lo enojará a Val?  Es Buena grammatica o not?  I speeled gramática incorrectly, and mispelled spelled, that's ironic.  Oh yeah, my sister has a book of Shakespearean insults, like "(hold on she's looking at her Shakespearean mug for an example): "O dolt! As ignorant as dirt!; foot-licker; not so much brain as earwax; veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth; anointed sovereign of sighs and groans" that's probably too many

I need to incorporate a textual quote I think I'll use one from Septimus's ruminations on beauty (hah cows ruminate so do deer) ooh good Segway no why did it auto-capitalize Segway ahh again darn that anyway (wait is the mall-cop think a Segway, that thingymabob with wheels?) sorry I got distracted, which is part of the fun of this style of writing, I guess, anyway, I saw a deer that was my Segway I saw a deer at the nature center today volunteering as a Maple Syrup tree-doer (me volunteering, not the deer) anyway this dear ran back and forth, and one of the old people scoffed about how people at the nature center get so excited about the dear, since it's common to him, since he sees them often.  This is like the this is water speech from first semester; the old fart failed to note the beauty in it (actually, he's a nice old dude, I shouldn't have called him a fart, but I'm trying not to censor my thoughts as I write this shoot thinking of that made me think of swear words, then sex, why people like either is beyond me, anyway the old guy thinks that because he's seen deer many times he shouldn't appreciate the joy and surprise of a deer running by anymore, but he's forgetting to see the water, silly old fish, actually that makes him the opposite of the old fish in the story.  The "favorite quote", one anyway, that I chose when we shared them in class was when Septimus, even as he contemplates his own doom, sees beauty in the everyday things around him.  "We welcome, the world seemed to say; we accept; we create"(Woolf 69): Septimus sees beauty in ordinary things, like flies and grass stalks, finding all the ordinary stuff about him "the truth" (Woolf 69)  As he says, beauty, that [is] the truth now: Beauty is everywhere (Woolf 69).

Picture credit to whoever took it so it was on http://m4.i.pbase.com/o6/22/137422/1/120649404.HWoaYlYe.IMGP8168copy6.jpg



Identity

            A person’s identity is strongly influenced by her or his culture, as we might assume.  What we often fail to take into account is that we all live in distinct cultures far more plethoric than those that can be put on a map or on a timeline.  Chinese, Egyptian, American, Mongolian – these are what most people think of as cultures.  I suggest, however, that a culture is any group that has characteristics that unite it.

            If you participate in clubs, sports, or really any activity as part of a group, you are a member of – and thus shaped by – that culture.  Religions, languages, and ethnicities influence individuals as well.  Geographic location, social class, government type; the list of realms of interpersonal representation and communication is endless.  Consequently, each individual belongs to innumerable cultures that struggle for dominance in the fight to control the individual’s identity; this chaotic battle is what makes attempts to follow the “be yourself” adage so convoluted.

            Meena Alexander contemplates the amalgam of cultures she finds within herself when she asks, “What might in mean to look at myself straight, see myself?  How many different gazes would that need?” (Alexander, in her autobiography Fault Lines)  Alexander feels the pull of so many disparate societal influences that she feels her identity is fractured, split into a piece for each culture she has been a part of.  It is arduous, if not theoretically impossible, to determine a singular and specific “gaze” that sees all that there is to see about a person.  Keep this in mind … the side of a person that you see is but one part of his or her identity.

Right in Wrong; Wrong in Right

We all have different definitions of the difference between right and wrong.  Family, friends, teachers, coaches, religious figures, and society as a whole constantly shape our perception.  From the time we are old enough to comprehend language, we are dragooned by a ceaseless barrage of stories meant to teach us lessons about how to live life.  Share, be humble, work hard; the moral teachings are relentless.  However, as we grow older, we learn that right and wrong are not two disparate lands separated by a barrier of unyielding steel.  Rather, the boundary appears quite malleable, and concrete definitions for right and wrong seem elusive.

            What’s the difference between cheating and using resources cleverly?  What’s the difference between lying and keeping a different perspective on the truth?  What’s the difference between stealing and taking something rightfully earned through skill and effort?  What’s the difference between murder and fighting for a cause?   Period. Exclamation mark!  (Parentheses)  Colon: There, now I don’t feel like I used a disproportionate amount of question marks.

            To relate to the piece we wrote our essays on this week in class (and to keep my post a length people are willing to read), I’ll focus on the concept of stealing.  The author defined sin as “what you took and didn’t give back.”  Interestingly enough, stealing is one moral issue that our society teaches is acceptable in some circumstances, glorifying it with the many tales of Robin Hood and his merry men.  They steal money and goods from those who have plenty and give to those who need it more, a lifestyle that is considered heroic and good.  But wait … isn’t stealing “wrong”?  If a hacker today takes money from billionaire bank accounts and gives it to those dying of starvation and thirst, or uses it to end fighting, or spends it to protect endangered animals – is the hacker sinning?  The hacker takes – but the hacker gives back. 

I suppose my view on morals in general, put succinctly, is thus: If you do good, that’s good.  Means and methods may be considered bad, but I believe that a person can do bad things, for a good reason, and be a good person.  I would imagine morals not as right and wrong, but right in wrong.  If there is right in something called “wrong,” it can be justified.  The problem is that this view means anything at all can be justified.  If I remove an incompetent leader to save a political state, that could be right.  If I cheat on test to get good grades to get a good job where I can do stuff to help the world, that could be right.  If I steal to give to a cause that helps people, that could be right.  If I give back, then that is the right in the wrongs I might do.

But … I don’t kidnap the idiots to put new people in charge.  I don’t cheat on tests.  I don’t illegally redistribute wealth to benefit other people.  Why?  Because I’ve been trained to do what is fairy-tale good, not real-world good; Justice System good, not God’s good.  As much as I know that in the long run, a choice in question may lead to greater good than another choice, I often choose the choice parents, teachers, and laws say is right, even if in my heart I suspect an alternative is truly best.  My hope is that God forgives my “right” decisions, and I pray for the strength to make the right decision in God’s view, however “wrong” it may be, when God wills it.

It’s probably right to stop editing now; have a fantastic day.

[Deleted by author]