David

READING: On The UN-Leaderly (Oct. 16)

 Posted by on Sun, 10/16 at 8:35pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 162016
 

A brief treatment of authority figures I will do. Do I loose credibility for breaking the standard Subject-Verb-Object syntactical convention of the English language? If so, I’d like to propose an alternative. What if we lived in a world where our leaders where WRONG? That is to say, what if the people who we’ve most recognized (at least those of us cognizant enough to do so sometime in our lives) as the primary guiders for our conduct and thinking were not the desirable? Hitler, ever discussed about in literature about leadership, had the turn of people’s whims like this. A misguided authority only tells us who assigned him such a position of our own follies. Sure, it’s been true and acknowledge far back as Biblical times and very much likely long before, that man is not the almighty. One person I have looked towards for some insight is world-renowned, U.S . political critic and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky; in an interview posted in democracynow.com, he admitted (along with some who shared his opinion) that he was wrong about Bernie Sanders (who I believe he Chomsky thought he wasn’t as different on his political stance as some thought he was [i.e. being a kind of democratic radical]). This was a kind of relief for me, because although I believed he had some issues in some of his arguments, it was a kind of “full-circle” moment to know he admitted one himself. Where I’d like to go is this: what would leadership be like if our leaders admitted to being more faulty than we think they are or that they present to themselves to be. Could “leadership” be possible in such a cognition awakened to the fact of human fallibility? (side note: it’s also interesting to think about why humans imagined themselves as being “right” [or wrong] at all).

Here is where some might point to Christ, as in, Jesus Christ, but was he the leader admitting fault in and of himself? Some would say although we cast light on the many errors that humans make, he was more a figurehead for the real leader than a leader in and of himself, and if I’m not mistaken (although I absolutely could be, I haven’t read or researched much on the Bible [though I should just google this uncertainty for an answer]) God never admitted fault of his ways or asked anyone for forgiveness or the like for errors made, no? As expect from short research, the answers aren’t clear. However, if we ask Niccolo Machiavelli, he would tell us to go f’ ourselves and further consolidate his power by punishing us; that’s a double whammy for mankind, maybe even a triple whammy for Machiavelli himself.

I have seen that much room is made for authorities who recognize their errors, except perhaps in science very quietly for the few in the masses who recognize error is part of the process for establishing truths. Someone once told me that the best authority is one for no authority. Is this like anarchy? Or like the Governor Veto/2016 Libertarian Presidential candidate, Gary Johnson? I’ve not come to a conclusion on these things, though I hope that bringing to light the component of humility and honesty in leaderly affairs might lead us to one day we can all be leader, and all are, which should simultaneously empower us to do more together….

Or would did this just encourage us to designate some as more leaderly than others, like today, and nothing changes? I don’t know. I will ponder the answers, as too the questions.

 

Sources read concerning God’s mistake making:

  1. https://gotquestions.org/does-God-make-mistakes.html
  2. https://lifehopeandtruth.com/god/who-is-god/genesis-6/
  3. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_mistakes_made_by_God

IDEAS: In the Air: Strawhats, Models, and Opponents (OG: 10/16; updated 10/23)

 Posted by on Thu, 10/13 at 7:40pm  artifact ideas, ideas, something else  No Responses »
Oct 132016
 

 

  1. Gol D. Roger’s strawhat
  2. Full Crew Cosplay: The idea of forming a crew
  3. Luffy vs. Strongest Other Person

Good old Monkey D. Luffy (MDL, for now on). Although he is as renowned in the manga One Piece (of which he is one of the main protagonists) just as much as his crew is, being that he holds the outstanding position of being the Captain of one of the most wanted pirate crews in the One Piece world currently (and as he might be supposedly destined to obtain the greatest treasure of the seas), he has consequently conjured some phenomena uniquely attributed for him. Notice I said for him and not to him, which I say because I don’t mean to imply it’s as directly and solely caused by him.

Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of people cosplaying, and amidst all the guns, cool-silver plating, go-go boots, pink and green spray painted hair, you may have seen perhaps a rather out place, common, Florida tourist-type looking-fellow with a small straw hat that has a red-band just above the brim. This hat is the hat that means all to the man MDL, and without it, it just wouldn’t be the same One Piece. It was passed down onto him by his hero, the pirate who most inspired him to become one, “Red-Haired” Shanks, who actually had the hat be passed down to him from the late Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. This hat has taken a life of its own, as various vloggers can be seen wearing it or having it in the background of their rooms, not only that, but many vloggers have themselves proposed various theories as to why Luffy received the hat in the first place (beyond just what we’re told in the manga), its function, the symbolism around it, and more. Effectively, it has taken a life of its own, yet inseparable from the idea of Luffy and his destiny to be great, such that many people interested in One Piece recognize it as such and have worked on its image such that it increases its significance.

The hat’s significance in One Piece can’t be overlooked, but, to return to the idea of cosplaying, you rarely see a group of cosplayers solely grouped up wearing a Luffy outfit with the hat. No, usually if you see the hat, it means that you will see a green-haired man with 3 swords, a long-nosed man with a sling, some one possibly dressed as a reindeer, and a few other distinctive folks One Piece fans with recognize. Who are they? None other than the Straw Hat Pirates, of course!! As a work of culture, full One Piece crews of Straw Hat Pirates cosplayers have inspired others to cosplay as rival pirates or allies. What is further interesting though is that these kind of images point to the idea of having a real life “crew” for some folks. Indeed, I have read a few forums that consider what it would taken to put together a crew just as cool and tightly-knit as the crews (more so the Straw Hat Pirates though) we find on One Piece. The “crews” we see people putting together in cosplay groups could be seen as working within the faction of people who would like to have camaraderie we see like that in the manga.

But on talk of elements of cooperation, now we find the work of competition. Luffy is no originator to this trend, indeed Batman, Superman, and others have long ran appearances on these “mediums’, but we that he is now getting a spot in the ever-illustrious renditions and conversation about “who would win in a fight between character 1 and character 2.” (typically it’s the strongest characters of a book, movie, manga, TV series, video game, etc.). Personally, it is so cool to see Luffy versed up against people like Goku and Superman, because I remember when I first saw these A vs. B matches come along for Goke and Superman, so in a way like watching a tradition build. Not only is Luffy pit against old school dudes like the Bats and the Man, but he is also pit against his contemporary, popular manga “rivals”, so to speak, Naruto (of the eponymous popular manga-turned-TV series) and Ichigo (also another popular character from the manga Bleach). Like the Straw Hat and One Piece pirates, these A vs. B matches mark down yet another that Luffy has not only been embraced by people, but has been “radiated out”, so to speak, in the culture by them too, and I bet by the time the series ends (we have been told by the One Piece creator that it won’t be for at least 10 years) there’ll be many more of these to be found around.

IDEAS: The Justice of Running Death [10; 4]

 Posted by on Tue, 10/4 at 11:07pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 042016
 

“The Weak don’t get to choose Anything, not even their Death.” – Trafalgar Law, the Surgeon of Death.

This was a quote that struck me the first time I heard it. Trafalgar Law, captain of the Heart Pirates in the manga One Piece, stated this to a fallen opponent, an opponent he fell. I wonder how leaders like him get to become the leaders they are? Given what I know what him in One Piece (which is relatively little thought), it does not seem he forced his constituents under his flag. I somewhat recall another character in the series mention Law is known as one of the most ruthless pirates in his domain. How do you come to lead being the person you are? and from this transitions over when you try to become a “good” (I’m saying this [“good”]with much caution) leader in modern times and space? (We’ll approximate in rural America).

One Piece has taught me to suspect that people don’t really follow you, they follow their own interests. If the person is interesting enough (for whatever reason) for you to follow, then you’ll follow them. Let’s assume that’s established: what makes you want to follow a person who is widely known as killing many others? Well, given this info, the decision could be based on fillers; if the person is wholesomely committed to killing downright unchangeably evil people in the world who brings more suffering to the next group of people than the last, then I might understand. I might even join. But, assuming this isn’t true, what would make you want to join this person? (This is a cliffhanger question meant to get you to think).

I have aspirations to help create a more just society, and when you consider the problems, even the problem of consider what is “just”, you realize sometimes you just have to act on a minor scale. Like, when you try to engladden a sad friend again, that might be considered just. But are there things you can provide for people that they can appreciate and consider “just” well done. This kind off drags towards Mill’s Utilitarianism, and, in a short sighted conjuring, we might say movie theaters are just in certain times, for certain people too… But minus the institution, how far could one go to create what’s Just? In a world of conflicting opinions, here we run into another problem of leading for your ideal. In a pithy but spot-on monologue, critical One Piece-antagonist warlord Doflamingo Donquixote shares his knowledge of opponents, history, ideals, influence, and power as they relate poignantly here.

“Pirates are evil? The Navy is righteous? Those views change as often as the tides! Kids who’ve never known peace have different values from those who’ve never know war. Those who stand at the top can decide the definition of “evil”. This place is the turning point. Justice will triumph, you say? Of course it will? Because the winners will become justice!”

This is simultaneously an inspiring and frightening  group of words to hear. I wonder, is there place where this doesn’t apply?

I will continue to search for leadership within One Piece and beyond for more insight and enlightenment to possibly discuss on my essays.

READING: Rants on the “Self” for Possible Insight [10; 4]

 Posted by on Tue, 10/4 at 6:50pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 042016
 

I’ll take time to touch up on the literary “subject” to compare this to the literary “self” later, but for now I’d like to discuss the latter. ‘Why?’ you ask? Well, imagine this… Or not. But to begin, Your Computer. Is it a “self”? (If you want to call it an AI, you may be ahead of me).

In a lit. theory summarizer (author Mary Klages), we are told that the ancients (Plato, Aristotle, Horace, etc.) all the way up to around the 1970s, thought of texts (books, literature, none in discriminate) as being able to communicate “universal truths” about human nature. Did texts have a God-complex? Do words know more about us than we, who made them, do? Should we aspire to less like Martin Luther King, Jr. and more like Martin, Luther, King, and Jr.? I don’t quite know the answer to these, but Klages tells us that Humanist Critics (the ones who made the aforementioned statement of texts) considered texts somewhat “intradermal”; “the text can speak to the inner truths of each of us because our individuality, our ‘self’, is something unique to each of us, something essential to our inner core,” much like Starbucks Coffee (Klages 47). This is a beautiful statement, but I’d like to go ahead and contemplate further about the relationship between the text and the “self”, because I’ve never felt a text speak out to me much, somewhat like God. I should pray to the text, you say? No. But, I wonder in entertainment of these ideas, if someone created a text, and it should connect with me somehow, but doesn’t, if I create a text, is there a possibility that it couldn’t either? Because it would seem to be that it would have to necessarily connect with me to meet some genesis for itself. Or do all texts, even those created of your own endeavor, have a dissociative character? Then how do we bind to them, and how to we learn “universal truths” from them? Surely we’ve learned little from dust bunnies under the dark crevices of a rusted-brown, beaten-down sofa chair in some abandoned halfway home in China, right? I’m bothered by this thought of texts. That they necessarily have something to say about you just by virtue of having a medium by which to connect with your “individuality”, “self”. And why aren’t you indivisible? Lobotomy experiments of the 1900s have proved many a times that you are divisible, and, moreover, when certain parts of you brain are removed from you, you cease to be the person you once were, or at least change strikingly. Did texts have a plan for that? If not, at what level do they cease to have substance? Vegetative-state by the would-be reader? And the medium, it still hasn’t been explained. Can you show me a “self”? If so, I’d like to meet the Real Slim Shady. Maybe I’m not so bothered by the fact that texts can say something because we’re human and some can have an understanding of them. But, I am bothered by some of the parts, particularly this proposed implicit connection without perception. What does a text have to say to a vegetable? It might have something to say about a vegetable, but not to it. I’m being rude and brash on experimental purpose, and I hope that this rant doesn’t upset too many people, nor do I advocate rudeness and brashness, but (as I hoped, from the title of this post) I’ve learned that I can get necessarily wordy, without ever being mad. I mean, whatever mood you thought I was in while writing this was probably null. I was pretty blank-faced (-_-) throughout the whole thing. Again, this was just experimental, but it’s given me some confidence in feeling I really can do much to play with the concept of the “self” for the upcoming revisals for the course essay(s), so thank you Reader for your attention as I (the text; no longer am I David Trebejo) endeavor to creep deeper and deeper into your impressionable mind   (: P)

 

Klages, Mary. Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. Text. 47.

READING: Some Gerede (Chatter) on One Piece (10; 2)

 Posted by on Sun, 10/2 at 11:36pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 022016
 

In preparation for my essay, I’ve been working on reading all sorts of writings about One Piece, Eiichiro Oda’s manga series about Monkey D. Luffy and his crew’s adventures towards becoming the Pirate King and finding the One Piece! (A Grand Treasure left behind by the former Pirate King, Gol D. Roger). I’m really surprised at the level of insight that I’m learning from the many commentators; I did not expect to much critical work in the One Piece audience (my unenlightened bias, of course), but some of it has been great, and many of the commentators seem very passionate about One Piece (which makes me all the more taken in and passionate about One Piece too!). I paste the link at the bottom of this post; take this: “Above all else, [Luffy] values freedom, and thus grants it to his friends. He feels no need to demand subservience and only occasionally calls for direct obedience.” (1) This quote refers to Luffy’s very easygoing, and at times even goofy, take on his role as the crew’s captain. I never once thought that the reason he grants others in crew the freedom do what they want is because he wants to do what he wants. This would, at face value, seem paradoxical and unwise, since choosing the wrong crew mates could me you might easily be couped, but then again this reveals more about Luffy’s mental powers too. He’s not just a goofball, as some commentators say, but he “in choosing incredibly skilled people to handle those positions, when they step up to take control of a situation, it reflects well on him, rather than making him look weak,” or dumb. As Luffy himself put it, “I know that I need others to help me if I want to keep on living,” again, showing his rather veiled wisdom. Here’s another one: “Luffy is not a good leader, but he is good at leading.” (2) This is a cool way to say, you don’t always be head honcho in charge, but if you can pull through amazingly alongside your crew when a challenge shows itself, then, given you aren’t a holy and titular “leader”,  you at least should get the title “good at leading”. All these points, all these ideas, are so new to me and I would’ve never thought about them (possibly) if I just sat and watched or read One Piece all on my own. So I guess this post really becomes an extension of my gratitude to all the redditors, bloggers, and vloggers who’ve spent their energy to write up about something many others may not care but to watch and give a little fellow at FAU a new look, a new take, a new breath of One Piece, one I’ve never had before, but because of this I think I will be a regular reader and writer of comments (maybe even a vlogger) myself. All in all, to close, I’d just like to say (if ever one of you readers fit the description), thanks you guys.

Ikuzo!

(1) http://onepiecepodcast.com/2015/02/11/carolines-column-monkey-d-luffys-treatise-on-leadership/

(2) https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/315gc4/does_luffy_become_a_better_leader/

IDEAS: Becoming a Pirate: Formal Analysis… Became Power Reflection (10; 2)

 Posted by on Sun, 10/2 at 10:59pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 022016
 

God! So how’s about I love the idea (I repeat, the IDEA) of becoming a Pirate! Hahaha, I’ve been too affected by One Piece (note my avatar, Straw Hat Pirates 1st Division Captain, Monkey D. Luffy) lately. This post, to the best of my abilities on expedient-mode, will give a try what I should consider given I was to be a pirate. Let’s go!

Physiological Needs: Food, Water.

Non-Physiological Wants: A Crew, a ship, superpowers (if obtainable), money. Oh, and clothes.

I’m a rather simple guy. I guess two things might be missing. One, I will be missing whatever my crew members want/need. Needs aren’t limited to my own, specially if I was to have a crew. I suppose the second missing object might be more “metaphysical” than the others. What is it? A goal. I love Monkey D. Luffy’s (here on referred to as MDL) to be the Pirate King, simply because HE WANTS TO BE FREE. It tells us something very insightful about him. It tells us he know that he will always have to bow to some power, limiting his whims so long as he is not the top rank dude in terms of people who have the ability to change your day. As Trafalgar D. Law (also a One Piece character) once said, “The weak don’t get to choose anything, not even their death.” This idea of wanting to overpower all the way is troublesome, though, whence pushed past certain limits. I’m not referring to pushing yourself and the crew all the way to the top edges of competitors, where that is inherently dangerous in a pirate world, but I’m referring to once you get to the very top, and you don’t want to STOP. So you’ve outdone all your human competitors; what’s next? Employ some of your subjects to empower you with the ability to become the weather? the earth? gravity? the sun? Back in the modern world, I’m surely not mistaken that we have (or are already making progress in) creating technologies that will affect the weather (for example) on a massive scale; beyond just your everyday infrared pot nursery, controlled atmosphere. Could a pirate seeking to reach the top one day employ enough of his resources (obtained through the grip of his power) that he could become a God-like being? I have over-stretched this topic, but I do consider these things sometimes when I consider whether I want to be a gun-owner and if, when taken to the perspective of military forces, for example, I would end up getting progressively more and more powerful weapons (wouldn’t someone argue that’s how the nuclear bomb came along?). Anyhow, I will have to a better directed post on my pirate aspirations in my following posts. Thank you for reading this. Sayonara!

READING: Benjamin Franklin, The Norse God of Thunder (9; 21)

 Posted by on Sun, 10/2 at 10:23pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 022016
 

For my American Lit to 1865 class taught by by Professor Hagood this semester, we have read some of a “Founding Father’s” epistles (Note to Professor Mason: my input here is in no away similar to anything we have done in my American Lit class; we don’t have any assignments asking us to write about these texts in it). Benjamin Franklin, the Norse God of Thunder, aye, was his name.

For citation purposes, the book we’re reading is: The Norton Anthology of American Literature by Nina Baym (editor), Package 1/Vol A (Beginnings to 1865), 8th ed, New York: W. W. Norton, 2012, pages 455-595 (for Franklin) and 659-676 (for Jefferson).

Mr. Franklin is an exceptionally inspiring individual, first I’d like to say. “Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears,” page 458, is bed-thrashing stuff! For the past, oh, year or so, I’ve been putting plenty of conscious effort into harnessing all of my energies to make the most of them, and waste none where feasible. In room-organizing, in grocery-shopping, in exercising, with girlfriends, etc., I’ve been trying to sharpen the dullness of my potential. Just this morning, I was able to get up just the rise of the sun as I’ve been planning for a long time to do (circa 6:30 AM). “He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night,” 458-59; now, I know this to be not true for all, but it has been a thought through my head on those afternoons I woke up around 12:30, 1, or something 2 PM-ish. It’s not a personally invigorating feelings. Franklin has taken a well-earned seat in part of my memory for his extraordinary history, little of which I have read thoroughly and largely enough of, but enough to hold some of my respect. He was a’-stepping quite a bit more than I travel to get to FAU (about 9 miles) after he ran away from his home and job, somewhere around 400 miles I think I read it took him to get to his destination. I don’t know why, but the idea of walking, and walking far, and a rugged and rough terrain like I imagine America in his times must’ve been, I find it very attractive in an adventurous sense. It is at this point you may be asking yourself, “Well, this is all great and dandy, but where’s the part about him being the ‘Norse God of Thunder’?”

To //IDEAS// CATEGORIES BOX: On The Fable of the “Community”

 Posted by on Sun, 9/18 at 12:22am  ideas  No Responses »
Sep 182016
 

To IDEAS CATEGORIES:

What do you think about when you consider the ideal “Community”?

Do you believe you live in one?

/tell me/

How did you know?

Over and over, people in our society (The U.S.) refer to what are called “communities”; how do they define these? At what point did the tribe or village not become the tribe and become “the community”? Is it just the particularities of classical societies, and their subsequent offspring, that create “communities? When would we cease to become “communities”? I see the root word “unity” finds itself inside community, but I’ve never felt any over unity about any of the neighborhoods I’ve been in my time in the U.S. (most of them circa middle-class types). Neighbors rarely say a word to each other, and many times I’ve found myself avoiding eye contact with a neighborhood as I stepped outside for whatever reason, and they would do the same. I’ve walked past so many people I somewhat recognize from neighborhoods at malls, groceries, entertainment venues and other places, but I’ve never felt a “unity” to them. Sure, we’re all human, we pay taxes (presumably), and have issues, but none of these similarities have ever brought to think I live in a community of people, unless of course I mean it in the most barren sense of the word. I should share my bias, though.

Some dumbass down the street gets by a car trying to do a wheelie on his unicycle again, and I know him. The girl at 4567 is bend-over-backwards-and-back-in-shock-type-hot but she’ll never talk to me again, because she knows me. Mr. Keynes and Dr. Nguyen hate each during the day, but know that come night they will settle their differences over a clam-cold-Corona during the night, just to fall back into an argument before the sun rises and hate each other again by 7 AM. But it’s all good, cuz’ this Saturday is Doña Douche down the street is throwing her French-Spanish-mix soiree-thing and everyone’s invited. I would continue with this story, but I’m sure the idea is settling in. This is isn’t restricted to residential areas neither. I pass so many people everyday (at the University or Walmart, for example), and I can’t recall more than two people (in my whole life) just casually saying something to me or someone nearby whenever we happened to be in close quarters or in the occasion when it might seem welcome/unbothersome to anyone. I’m bothered when the University President, or any public official, for example, talks about how “the community” depends on how we handle our day-to-day matters with each other. And when I think about things like this, I’m rather bitterly reminded that, in a sense, there is no overt and “come-alive” community when our day-to-day interactions are restricted to the workplace and yelling at each other on the road trying to get there and leave it. I understand the U.S. is a very larger and diverse place for people, and it’s never always known who’ll be a friend and who won’t, but I think the “community”, which might’ve been true and alive in earlier times, has outgrown itself and now it might be better to label our groups as a “network”, specially in the case of students in college.

Input, disagreements, other comments, anyone? What have a missed? (A lot, I recognize, but what do you think?)

Business-Works, the Times, the People, and Ethics

 Posted by on Tue, 9/13 at 2:58am  Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 132016
 
  • FOREWORD: I will be editing this for mistakes asap. I simply want to turn this in now in case any issues arise later and I can’t turn it in on time.

The topic of my concern for this summary is simple, yet complex: Business Ethics.

Perhaps not so much in pre-historical times, but, indeed, at the dawn of (written) history, alongside the pharaohs, the pillars and pyramids, the transactions of man begin to show themselves accounted for in great lengths in ancient civilizations such as those of the ever-enigmatic Ancient Egyptians and in Mesopotamia. The Law Code of Hammurabi, historically notorious for its eye-for-an-eye penal code, was the common law set by the Babylonian (Mesopotamian) ruler, Hammurabi, which, even upon a  brief skimming, one can see improper economic transactions (of slaves, damaged property, wives, etc.) often yielded a harsh punishment. “He shall be put to death,” is the mainstay punishment for most misdeeds. But what is to be done when all goes well in business? From those times of our ancients trading at distant bazaars, to Columbus “pitching” the Americas to his kingship, running forward onto today’s global capitalism, “money makes the world go round” is seems likely a phrase that may have a longer life-span than we may think.

It seems to be, though, that many would resist this idea; and why, exactly? The conversation is vast and largely endless. In a modern rendition of long-held critiques, YouTube video channel 8-Bit Philosophy presents us with the thought that money and monetary value, as critical as it can be society, should NOT replace society altogether; namely when anything and everything can have a value assigned to it. This can, and likely should be seen by many, be claimed to be WRONG. Alas, we have many individuals who have gone on the historical records as having ruthless business tactics in the days of modern American industrialization, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andre Carnegie, and, in more recent times, say, Starbucks. These individuals and companies have put others out of business; misfortunes like this are ever the reminder that the game of business can at times have a very cruel side to it: competition. For those who decry loses of their wealth at the hands of the “free market”, government-businesses also come into play (let us not forget that we pay the government for their services). In attempts to not destroy the business-class altogether in the realization of some possibly vexing loses, there are moderates like the late Harvard Professor John Rawls, who, in his book “A Theory of Justice” argue for governments to aid with the money they receive from citizens’ taxes to create a system that has competition between businesses, but also makes room for and encourages cooperation. When the morally troublesome problems of business are viewed from the broad scope of considering business but exchange-agreements between individuals, all sorts of things are left to say about it. Some see the corporation as a “legal entity” liable as a person in the eyes of the court; consumer protection laws have been established in the US and elsewhere, but that hasn’t stopped the relatively significant amount of misinformation one can hear and see regulation on marketing material; and, most controversial in this era, are all the endless amount of discourse on the subject of “buying power”; I’m talking about non-governmental business paying out to the government. But some organizations, for example, who fight to keep big businesses out of their locus, they can be said to harm those in the area in need of a job. The meat for this topic is big and inexpensive, and in so far as everyone can have their piece and pose their opinions on the rights and wrongs of business, I am inspired to do the same, by first listening to them all, with hopes that I’ll come out with something perhaps more enlightened than to say, “Business is bad, always has been, and always will be,” as it seems to be the sentiment of many people not playing in the big leagues (mostly my people) today.

The Net-Self/Self-Net; The Downplay of Thought to Writing

 Posted by on Fri, 9/9 at 1:56am  Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 092016
 

The Net-Self/Self-Net and The Overshadow of Thought by Writing

In the spirit of Ballenger, I shall question myself to a worthy essay. What was the most pressing news of this all? (Bellanger and Reid’s work). How did their locations influence their interests? In the modern days of keyboarding to different planes of thought and experience, does the internet replace location? (In the sense, simply, of the internet being an “environment” which can influence you). Did the original creators of the internet intend for this? I’ve read HTML is a systematic markup language; I have no idea what that means, but I’ve also heard that we (our “selves”) are inseparable from our language. Did a Derrida say something along the lines of, “There is nothing outside the text”? Then, has the internet—made of its own unique doing by programming language, markup language, and other digital languages—not effectively created a “language-world” incorporating our own language-created selves into it? What might we ask, then, what is to be made of the speculated relationships “between” these dimensions? (The Self and The Net). Being “made” by language, can the Net be said to have a Self of its own?

All the thinking and writing I’ve just done for this last paragraph reminds of something I’ve had a hunch about lately: Is writing overemphasized to the detriment of thought? As an English (Ed.) major, I understand writing as a core component of this academic program, yet it seems fair to me to make the following case for thinking, which I think isn’t “played around” with enough in English classes (sadly, as we have much room for it!). Please critique me to no end in my faults and misunderstandings, though; I attest I am not the Almighty. Now, for the following.

Language is a tool by which we can express our ideas. Writing is a manifestation of language. If we want to develop students’ writing skills, should not the emphasis and developmental-work go into thinking as much as it attemptedly goes into writing? When we “teach” writing, do we want to develop the tool, or our abilities to use it imaginatively beyond formal perscriptions? I’m mostly pressed to push this concern due one course I took my 3rd year in college. I’ve taken many English and Writing courses before, but the one course which changed my capacities as a writer, which I can claim with much conscious conviction, was a Philosophy course. To be extremely brief, the course made me think (Surprise! I don’t think I thought much before then, at least not as much as today I do). I thought of many topics, but the one I’d like to mention here is knowledge.

I thought so much about knowledge, that I became critically invested in anything having to do with it. As you can imagine, being at a University, there was much knowledge now dressed up for me to give a renewed look of scrutiny with my mind’s eye. Today, still an English Ed. major, I apply these critical faculties to what I learn in my classes. And again, simply to close short, I perceive that my emphasis on thinking has helped me to better take apart and go at writing formulations (amongst much else in the academic writing tradition) with the hunger to understand, not just to mime in hopes that I do well enough to pass a class. I feel empowered, actually, now that I see so many of the holes in the frameworks of the relatively shifty, “good” writing doctrines we are taught; I understand enough not only to see that they’re not God, however, they can be extremely helpful.

And all this writing of mine, what is of it? Thus far, a production of heavy, but highly satisfying thought. I would say there is a benefit to taking up my considerations here. I learned much from Bellanger and Reid concerning writing tips, as I’m sure you all did, but I’d like to present this as something of my own “different angle” from which we can still consider writing, as they have, but in relationship to the thinking which produces it.

;;- I thank thee for thou thoughts.

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