Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Art MOL Final

The ideas that the meanings of our lives are controlled by what other people say and do have been around for a long time. In his book “Survivor”, Chuck Palahniuk explores a step further and creates a character that has, throughout his entire life, had his meaning of life created and controlled directly by other people. Through this character Palahniuk demonstrates how modern day culture is now doing this for all of us and the meaning of life has become something impersonal that is created by other people, thus they are meaning less. Although he shows this meaning of life in the story, he also shows that even though you are stuck this way, you have to enjoy the better things in life. He does this through a secondary character's outlook on the world in the story, the main character's life as a member of the so-called “Creedish Death Cult”, and through his life afterwards as the publicly promoted hero/sole surviving member of the “Creedish Death Cult.” He also shows that you need to enjoy the finer things in this meaningless life through the main characters love interest, Fertility.

The main character, Tender Branson, has always had everything in his life controlled by others, even the meaning of his life has always been dictated by other people and never by himself. This is first evident in his situation with the “Creedish Death Cult,” in which he was raised, named (even his name was dictated by what point in the family he was born. Because he was not a first-born, and because he was male, he was named Tender, just like every other second born male in the cult), taught beliefs, and sent to work. The leading members of the Creedish “cult” control all these things. “If you met someone from the church district colony, you could say: May you be of complete service in your lifetime. You could say: Praise and glory to the Lord for this day through which we labor. […] That was the limit. […] No hugging. No hand shaking. You would say one approved bit. She would say one. The two of you would of back and forth until each of you had said two lines. You kept your heads bowed, and you each went back to your task.” The Creedish Church controlled all his actions, interactions, jobs, and relationships, and by controlling all of these things, they controlled his meaning of life, which Palahniuk is using as a blatant example for how all of our life meanings are controlled by others. Because all these things were controlled, Tender Branson’s life was meaningless, but he still tried to enjoy life, this is seen through his love interest with Fertility. However, the Creedish Church forbids him to have sex, but he still tries to enjoy the companionship of a female. Though Tender fails this relationship in the end, it still shows the importance of enjoying life despite it being controlled/meaningless.

The idea that life is meaningless is explored in other means of art as well. The song zero sum also explores the idea that life is meaningless through the idea of the end of the world, and the lead singer talks about how life has been fairly meaningless up until that point in time. “Shame on us; doomed from the start; may god have mercy; on our dirty little hearts; shame on us; for all we have done; and all we ever were; just zeros and ones” This line talks about how up until now (the end of the world) everyone has wasted their lives, and because everyone’s lives have been wasted, and now that there’s no chance to make it up (due to the fact that it’s the end of the world) our lives are meaningless. This song does a good job of expressing ideas about the meaning of life in song form. Along with the aforementioned chorus other lyrics in the song bring out the idea that even though life is meaningless and has been wasted, it was still important to enjoy life all the same: “and i guess i just wanted to tell you; as the lights start to fade; that you are the reason; that i am not afraid; and i guess i just wanted to mention; as the heavens will fall we will be together soon if we; will be anything at all” What he is implying is that although the earth is ended, he is still glad that he was able to enjoy the time spent with the person he is talking too (presumably a lover). This expresses the idea that even though life is meaningless because you die in the end, it is still important to enjoy life without worrying about your inevitable fate.

The song Zero Sum is not the only piece of art that expresses the meaning of life in that sort of way. The movie The Seventh Seal expresses similar ideas to the song about death and enjoying life. Throughout the movie the main character is striving off death by playing chess with him. The movie expresses how death is inevitable, and that death always will make life meaningless in the end, but that even though life is meaningless in the face of death, you still have to enjoy the finer things in life. In the movie, this enjoyment is symbolized by the innocence of the traveling actor family, who share strawberries with the main character during the journey and all how him enjoy life. The innocence of their child and the main character's reaction to the child shows that life is meant to be enjoyed, and that one should not brood over death, because it will happen to all of us.

The enjoyment of life is a reoccurring theme in art about the meaning of life. The writing piece Rita Hayworth and the shawshank redemption covers ideas about enjoying life no matter what situation you are in. The main hero in the book, Andy, is said to enjoy life and not let the institution of prison get him down, which is the main theme of the story in relation to the meaning of life. The idea is that no matter what situation you are in (such as facing death as in the Seventh Seal) you still need to enjoy the finer things in life, this is shown in the shawshank redemption by the way Andy lives in prison and how he still retains who he is even though prison tries to break him down. Andy is an example of a person who enjoys (in a sense) life no matter what situation he is thrown into, much like all the other aforementioned pieces of art.

The idea that life needs to be enjoyed despite the situation is a recurring theme among the displayed art, but this is not the only message conveyed by art. Art has conveyed countless ideas about the meaning of life throughout time, and is one of the greatest forms of communication. As shown art can convey idea through the use of a main character (Andy), through the use of a friend (Fertility), through the use of symbolism in a movie (Seventh Seal), and through song (Zero Sum). It is clear that art can display many messages about the meaning of life and other things, and that is the main reason art is so important to our culture, because of its ability to convey complex ideas about complex questions, such as what is the meaning of life.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Scienetology Outline

OUTLINE: SCIENTOLOGY ESSAY

Introduction: Scientology, which means “the study of truth”, is a religion that was born out of a self-help program called Dianetics established by L. Ron Hubbard. He first published his ideas in a self-help book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This self-help program covers the three parts of man; the mind, the body, and the spirit and goes in depth into how to balance your life. Beliefs that relate to the meaning of life are The Dynamics, which are the eight areas in which human’s urge for survival breaks down to. There are also the two triangles, the ARC triangle, affinity + reality + communication = understanding, and the KRC triangle, knowledge, responsibility, and control.

First Paragraph: ARC triangle: Affinity + Reality + Communication. How ARC is used in conversations to make things more meaning full.

Second Paragraph: The dynamics: How they determine what is meaningful in what sort of context.

Third Paragraph: Operating Thetan level: Reaching the pinnical of scientology and the meaning of life.

Conclusion: Scientology’s views on the meaning of life focus more on each individual person and the bigger picture ideas are mostly just there to give framework on which each individual persons life can be given meaning. We understand that the ultimate goal of life is to reach the final level of Operating Thetan and to obtain a sort of enlightenment. To reach this Scientology has set down a number of doctrines that include ideas such as happiness and understanding to help a person live a more meaningful life and eventually reach the level of Operating Thetan.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Revised MoL Draft 2

A Meaning of life isn’t something that someone originally has, but it is something that people develop ideas of over time. Someone’s initial ideas on the meaning of life will almost certainly change with deeper thought and research. I know this from personal experience. Earlier in the year I formulated what I believed to be a fairly strong meaning of life based on what I believe in, but now, after thought and research, I am to revise my original perspective on the meaning of life into someone that does more for my everyday life. What I initial imagined was that the meaning of life was the bigger picture of someone’s life, what their final goal was, but now, after examining other peoples perspectives, religions, philosophers perspectives, and various forms of art, I have come to realize that the meaning of life is more about things you do in everyday daily life and not about what you do with your life as a whole. My new revised meaning of life follows the idea of enjoying life and not brooding over death/the future.

In my original thoughts about the meaning of life I talked more about my overall goal of life, and what I wanted to be thought of after death, things very far in the future; “The meaning of life also includes a final goal. This goal isn’t to be remembered personally by the world, but for the changes I made to be remembered by the world. An example of a change would be to help cure patients of a serious disease, or to have a revolution technology that affects the world.” While this original idea on the meaning of life is nice and idealistic, it realistically doesn’t have much effect on my current life. What I aimed for in revising my meaning of life is to make it more personal, to make it effect my every day life, and to avoid big overarching goals that are set far in the future. Thus I developed the idea that instead of worrying about the future and death, it is most important just to enjoy life in the present, do things that would make you enjoy life and not things that would make you worry about hindrances such as death.

This idea was not formulated solely out of my own ideas, but instead its draws on all the research I did on the meaning of life. When investigating what people in my life believed to be the meaning of life I became engaged in an interesting discussion with my friend Taylor, who deeply influenced my revision of the meaning of life. Taylor claimed that “life is insignificant in hindsight or foresight but in the living moment (the moment that is happening) life is incommunicably important”, an idea that I adapted into my own meaning of life. What he’s trying to express is that living life to enjoy the present is the most important thing, and that living life thinking about the future or the past will just make life less enjoyable, less “significant”, all ideas that were molded into my revised perspective on the meaning of life.

Along with Taylor’s opinion art also had a big influence on my meaning of life. Lots of art tells us about death, and death is something that people think about all the time. Because of this huge focus on death in our culture my original thoughts dealt a lot with death; “These are all things done to be remembered for after I have passed away.” But as my research progressed I came across a lot of art that changed my opinion on this. The main example would be the movie: “The Seventh Seal”. The movie brought out ideas about the meaning of life and death by applying a death situation to the main character (he has been marked for death but is playing chess with death to stall). His thoughts are preoccupied with death until he comes across the innocence of a young acting couple and their child, who represent the good things in life. The movie shows how death is inevitable (he dies in the end) but that you should enjoy the finer things in life (life a bowl of strawberries). This brought my focus on the meaning of life away from death and more towards how to enjoy life. Much like Taylor’s opinion it talks about living in the present and not thinking about the future (death in the case of the movie), ideas I adapted for my meaning of life.

Some may say that my ideas on the meaning of life regressed in terms of maturity level, due to the fact that I chose to worry less about the future and instead try to enjoy the present, but I believe that is not always for the worst. Sometimes a lower maturity level is better for certain people. When interviewed Rabbi Alder claimed that he believed the idea that god is a father in the sky who rewards all our good deeds is a childish, immature idea of god, but its still an idea that has helped many religious people live better lives. In this case I believe that my new view on the meaning of life may be childish/immature, but that it would still help me, and possibly even other people, lead better lives (better of course is based on opinion.)

Having drawn from the perspectives of close friends and art, I have reformed my original idea of the meaning of life into something that is more important to my everyday life. I have concluded that my meaning of life is to enjoy life in the present, and do not brood over problems in the future. While I am certain that this is the right style of meaning of life for me, I will always have questions. It is clear that I have completely disregarded ideas about bigger pictures in the reforming of my meaning and that is something that can and will be worked on, because creating a meaning of life is an ever changing process which doesn’t end till you die (something not to brood over.)

Other Peoples perspectives: ORIGINAL SAVED OUTLINE

Into: What do these people in our lives think about life and its meaning? Throughout the research many patterns arose, it seems that most people view what is most important to them as the meaning of life, such as family and personal happiness. Results from the survey cross into the casual conversations and interviews, all sharing common thoughts about happiness, friends, family, or about basic human instinct and human evolution. There were also responses beyond those a personal happiness and family that contrasted what it seemed the majority thought.

Body Paragraphs:

1) survey

2) Mom interview

3) Taylor interview

4) kyle interview

Conclusion: In conclusion, while the amount of sources may be slim, it is still clear that being happy and having friends and family is one of the most popular beliefs about how to live a meaningful life.

Revised MoL Draft 1 :OUTLINE:

A Meaning of life isn’t something that someone originally has, but it is something that people develop ideas of over time. Someone’s initial ideas on the meaning of life will almost certainly change with deeper thought and research. I know this from personal experience. Earlier in the year I formulated what I believed to be a fairly strong meaning of life based on what I believe in, but now, after thought and research, I am to revise my original perspective on the meaning of life into someone that does more for my everyday life. My new revised meaning of life follows the idea of enjoying life and not brooding over death/the future.

---------------------------------------Orignial ---> Current Change-------------------------------------



---------------------------------------Example One (book/movie?)----------------------------------------



---------------------------------------Example two (other person?)----------------------------------------



---------------------------------------Example three (wthdqem?)------------------------------------------

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Art MoL Essay Draft One

The ideas that the meanings of our lives are controlled by what other people say and do have been around for a long time. In his book “Survivor”, Chuck Palahniuk explores a step further and creates a character that has, throughout his entire life, had his meaning of life created and controlled directly by other people. Through this character Palahniuk demonstrates how modern day culture is now doing this for all of us and the meaning of life has become something impersonal that is created by other people. He does this through a secondary characters outlook on the world in the story, the main characters life as a member of the so-called “Creedish Death Cult”, and through his life afterwards as the publicly promoted hero/sole surviving member of the “Creedish Death Cult.”

The main character, Tender Branson, has always had everything in his life controlled by others, even the meaning of his life has always been dictated by other people and never by himself. This is first evident in his situation with the “Creedish Death Cult,” in which he was raised, named (even his name was dictated by what point in the family he was born. Because he was not a first-born, and because he was male, he was named Tender, just like every other second born male in the cult), taught beliefs, and sent to work. All these things are controlled by the leading members of the Creedish “cult”. “If you met someone form the church district colony, you could say: May you be of complete service in your lifetime. You could say: Praise and glory to the Lord for this day through which we labor. […] That was the limit. […] No hugging. No hand shaking. You would say one approved bit. She would say one. The two of you would of back and forth until each of you had said two lines. You kept your heads bowed, and you each went back to your task.” All his actions, interactions, jobs, and relationships were controlled by the Creedish Church, and by controlling all of these things they controlled his meaning of life, which Palahniuk is using as a blatant example for how all of our life meanings are controlled by others.

Palahniuk further expands this example by highlighting Tender Branson’s life after the entire Creedish Church (which was a suicide cult) has died and he is the sole surviving member. His life meaning then becomes controlled by the people who want to use him as a publicity stunt and make money off of him. “In the shadows, the agent and the writers give each other silent high fives. The agent gives me a big thumbs-up. My hands are numb. I can’t feel my face. My tongue belongs to someone else.” His life meaning has now become dictated by the “Tele-Prompter” which he reads off of as instructed by the writers and his agent. Palahniuk has now given us two examples of how this one persons life is controlled by others and uses Tender as the overarching example for how all our lives are controlled by others.

While most of the book focuses on the example of Tender Branson, Palahniuk is able to bring the example to the rest of America through the views of a secondary character who states that “We all grew up with the same television shows. It’s like we all have the same artificial memory implants. We remember almost none of our real childhoods, but we remember everything that happened to sitcom families. We have the same basic goals. We all have the same fears.” This is what the book is exploring about the meaning of life. How all of our life meanings have become dictated by other people, mainly the media, and how we will never have control of our lives until we commit suicide (hence the use of an suicide cult as an example for the main character.) In a sense the book is saying that life is meaningless because you will never have control over it.

The idea that life is meaningless is explored in other means of art as well. The song zero sum also explores the idea that life is meaningless through the idea of the end of the world, and the lead singer talks about how life has been fairly meaningless up until that point in time. “shame on us; doomed from the start; may god have mercy; on our dirty little hearts; shame on us; for all we have done; and all we ever were; just zeros and ones” This line talks about how up until now (the end of the world) everyone has wasted their lives, and because everyone’s lives have been wasted, and now that there’s no chance to make it up (due to the fact that it’s the end of the world) our lives are meaningless. This song does a good job of expressing ideas about the meaning of life in song form. Along with the aforementioned chorus other lyrics in the song bring out the idea that even though life is meaningless and has been wasted, it was still important to enjoy life all the same: “and i guess i just wanted to tell you; as the lights start to fade; that you are the reason; that i am not afraid; and i guess i just wanted to mention; as the heavens will fall we will be together soon if we; will be anything at all” What he is implying is that although the earth is ended, he is still glad that he was able to enjoy the time spent with the person he is talking too (presumably a lover). This expresses the idea that even though life is meaningless because you die in the end, it is still important to enjoy life without worrying about your inevitable fate.

The song Zero Sum is not the only piece of art that expresses the meaning of life in that sort of way. The movie The Seventh Seal expresses similar ideas to the song about death and enjoying life. Throughout the movie the main character is striving off death by playing chess with him. The movie expresses how death is inevitable, and that death always will make life meaningless in the end, but that even though life is meaningless in the face of death, you still have to enjoy the finer things in life. In the movie this enjoyment is symbolized by the innocences of the traveling actor family, who share strawberries with the main character during the journey and all how him enjoy life. The innocence of their child and the main characters reaction to the child shows that life is ment to be enjoyed, and that one should not brood over death, because it will happen to all of us.

The enjoyment of life is a reoccurring theme in art about the meaning of life. The writing piece Rita Hayworth and the shawshank redemtion covers ideas about enjoying life no matter what situation you are in. The main hero in the book, Andy, is said to enjoy life and not let the institution of prision get him down, which is the main theme of the story in relation to the meaning of life. The idea is that no matter what situation you are in (such as facing death as in the Seventh Seal) you still need to enjoy the finer things in life, this is shown in the shawshank redemtion by the way andy lives in prison and how he still retains who he is even though prison tries to break him down.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Nietzsche 2nd Draft

Philosophers have had many perspectives on the meaning of life throughout the ages. Some have some up with reasons for existence; others have come up with reasons why there are no reasons for existence, even more have come up with reasons for why the reasons of why there are no reasons for existence are wrong, and so forth. Friedrich Nietzsche was a nineteenth century philosopher who developed many ideas on the meaning of life and who contracted even more. While Nietzsche never directly speaks of the meaning of life he develops ideas on how life should be lived, which is simply another form of the question. Nietzsche developed ideas on how animals and humans exist, and what they exist for; one of his major theories was that of Will to Power, which is that animals and humans live their lives to promote their power. “Nietzsche aims at freeing higher human beings from their false consciousness about morality (their false belief that this morality is good for them), not at a transformation of society at large.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Nietzsche also talked about the transvaluation of values, which is the acceptance of all instincts as organic and therefore valid, the will to power being one of these instincts. Nietzsche believed that one must accept organic human instincts and not attempt to oppress them, thus he was vastly anti-Christian because he viewed the religion as something that oppressed natural human instinct and also because the religion “warped” the teaching of Jesus, who Nietzsche believed might be the first Übermensch. According to Nietzsche the Übermensch is the final man so to speak, the “superman”, and humanities goal would be to reach the Übermensch.

Nietzsche detested morality because he claimed that it made “untenable descriptive (metaphysical and empirical) claims about human agency” and that morality took away from the organic human instincts, which is how someone should live their life. Nietzsche believed that there were two types of morality, slave-morality and master-morality. Nietzsche looked down mainly upon slave-morality and claimed that master-morality was the creator of man as he is now. Master-morality, which Nietzsche claimed is the creator of values, is the morality of the strong and the noble. “The noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; it does not need approval; it judges, 'what is harmful to me is harmful in itself'; it knows itself to be that which first accords honor to things; it is value-creating." (On Genealogy of Morals) What Nietzsche is claiming here is that the noble man, the master-morality, is the one that creates values and does not follow others. From his views on master morality, we understand that Nietzsche had a very individualist perspective on the meaning of life, and viewed values as needing to be self created. Nietzsche’s ideas of mastery morality can be connected to the meaning of life through the Übermensch, which shares many characteristics of someone with master-morality, and also which Nietzsche believes is the final goal of a man. Along with this master-morality is slave-morality, which Nietzsche looked down upon. The people of slave-morality are weak; they do not create their own values and follow the herd in a sort of herd mentality. Slave-morality uses good and evil as excuses for actions. Nietzsche distained slave-morality and viewed its followers as weak minded and oppressed. While Nietzsche didn’t distain master-morality as much as he did slave-morality, he believed that they both detracted from the way ones life should be lived, with purely organic values.

Nietzsche also detested other things which detracted from acceptance of all instincts as organic, which is why he hated what Christianity taught. He believed that Christianity disrupted the natural, organic instincts of mankind and that it disrupted the pure teaching of Jesus for its own benefit. Nietzsche believed that Jesus may have been the Übermensch, but then discredited the thought because Jesus embraced death, when the Übermensch would exalt in life. He despised that Christianity promoted life as a mere path towards the afterlife, glorifying death over life, which goes against Nietzsche’s “transvaluation of all values” that exalts life above suffering, unlike Christianity. Other primal instincts that Christianity shielded against was sex, which Nietzsche claimed was the creation of life, and because Catholics and Christianity promoted abstinent from sex they promote abstinent from a primal, organic instinct, which is how Nietzsche believed people should live their lives.

Nietzsche believed that people creating meaning in there life through the Will to Power, which he claimed is an organic instinct. The idea of Will to Power was supposedly born from the notion of Will to Live. But instead Nietzsche claimed that living was merely a subset of the Will to Power. He said that: “Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results” (Nietzsche). The will to power is a perfect example of Nietzsche’s view on the meaning of life. He believed the will to power was the massive combination of all the organic instincts of human behavior, and humans live for one thing: To promote their power thus we get “the will to power”. Nietzsche claimed that he was supported by many instances of this, including “people and animals are willing to risk their lives in order to promote their power (for example, ancient Greek heroes or "masters" often died young in battle, but achieved great power in the process).” (Wikipedia) He promotes his idea of the will to power in the Übermensch or in English: the overman or the superman.

The Übermensch is in a sense, the ultimate individualist who is created through the primal, organic instinct of the will to power. A man becomes Übermensch through a series of three steps. “By his will to power, manifested destructively in the rejection of, and rebellion against, societal ideals and moral codes. By his will to power, manifested creatively in overcoming nihilism and re-evaluating old ideals or creating new ones. By a continual process of self-overcoming.” (Wikipedia) The Übermensch breaks out of society standards and creates his own values and ideals to live by, all by the primal, organic instinct of the will to power. Nietzsche claimed that there was never a Übermensch during his life time, though he also claimed that to become Übermensch would be the final goal in life of all men, and the goal in life for all woman (according to Nietzsche) would be to give birth to the Übermensch.