Lives of Animals - John Maxwell Coetzee

Coetzee is interested in the Outsider/Other.
He himself is an Outsider.  Has a distant personality.  Focuses on the solitary individual.
His work has been compared favourably with Nabokov, Kafka and Conrad.
Coetzee’s writings question any easy correspondence between fictional representation and the rapid changes in the 20C.
He seeks to problematize rather than produce.
Coetzee is considered a postmodern and post-colonial writer.

Presentation:
Just for the record, I am not an animal rights activist.
Recognition that the ability to choose a certain diet/lifestyle entails the privilege to choose in the first place. Understand that life eats life. But I cannot understand unnecessarily killing.  In the context of my urban environment, I do not need to use animals or animal byproducts in order to be healthy or more broadly to live.

Costello is accused by her son and daughter-in-law to have a terrible delivery.  Could this be why Coetzee chose to deliver a lecture in the Tanner Lectures on Human Values via a novella?  Perhaps he knows that his delivery may be flat and thus not persuasive.
In 2007, Hugo Weaving read a speech written by Coetzee for Voiceless, an Australian animal rights group.  The speech is called “I feel therefore I am.”
http://old.voiceless.org.au/About_Us/Misc/A_word_from_J.M._Coetzee_-_Voiceless_I_feel_therefore_I_am.html
“[Practices which] we might also call cruel and inhuman but for the fact that inhuman is the wrong word, such practices are all too human.”

Debates about whether Elizabeth Costello is John Maxwell Coetzee’s alter ego?
I think Coetzee is speaking through the voices of John Bernard (who is a little bit sympathetic to Costello) and  Elizabeth Costello.  Maybe Coetzee is still working out his own paradoxes and inconsistencies in his thoughts and actions relating to animal ethics?  Brainchatter?  Left brain ‘taking over’ right brain?  I suspect that LoA is semi-autobiographical.

Private versus public reasoning?  LoA written in 1999.   Fictional characters allow Coetzee to separate his private and public reasoning but he (speaking as Coetzee) has become more outspoken on animal issues in the last few years.

Coetzee is known to be elusive.  Rarely giving interviews or making public appearances.
Apparently he has also rarely been seen smiling.  This brings to my mind the austere sisters in Babette’s Feast and unfortunately reinforces the notion that vegetarians/vegans are austere people who are “missing out in life”.
Speaking for myself, I disagree.  To eat with a fuller conscience allows me to enjoy my foods so much more.  In religious terms, eating vegan allows me to experience grace.

Why food animals? They are the most exploited animals on earth.
Coetzee’s speech (Hugo Weaving): “We can make a long list of the ways in which our relations to animals are wrong, but the food industry, which turns living animals into what it euphemistically calls animal products – animal products and animal by-products – dwarfs all others in the number of individual animal lives it affects.”

Vegetarianism does not equal compassionate towards animals.  I agree.  There is no homogenous concept of vegetarianism or veganism. The motives to go veg also differ.
Health, environmental, religious, etc. For me, veganism is a way of life (as opposed to a diet fad) that is congruent with my personal ethics and philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence/harm), of minimizing harm to others and to my surroundings.  It is also a lifestyle that makes sense to me in my urban environment in which animal and animal byproducts are not necessary for my survival.  My veganism is expressed by my rejection of all animal and animal byproducts as food, clothing and beyond.
Veganism as an alternate way of being in relations to non-human-animals.  (Seeing animals not as food or property but as fellow creatures brings me tremendous joy than I cannot express through words but I feel it.  “Who feels it knows” – Bob Marley).

“Desire to save my soul” parallel with religious awakening.
Just as James argues that the philosophy of religion is insufficient to explain complex religious experiences, Costello shows that philosophy in itself is inadequate to address the complex question of how we as human-animals should treat our fellow non-human-animals. I observe that the ‘revelation’ of my own animal ethics is an authority for myself alone.  However, I am in agreement with James that the intuitive feeling of this knowledge is rooted in the embodied senses, through the identification of one’s self with the ‘Other’ (the non-human-animal via poetic/artistic imagination).  In this way, salvation is, in theory, is attainable by all but first, a willingness to be open to salvation, to open one’s heart to non-human-animals is absolutely essential.   Abstaining from animal foods and beyond is part of what constitutes a good life to me.

Coetzee notes that the field of animal ethics is “a curious one in one respect: that the fellow beings on whose behalf we are acting are unaware of what we are up to and, if we succeed, are unlikely to thank us. There is even a sense in which they do not know what is wrong. They do certainly not know what is wrong in the same way that we know what is wrong. So, even though we may feel very close to our fellow creatures as we act for them, this remains a human enterprise from beginning to end.” (speech read by Weaving).
Coetzee/Costello also points more broadly to limits of the power of language to touch on ethical issues.
Reason vs. Passion – continuum, not a dichotomy – Humean morality.
I see value in approaching the issue of animal ethics via philosophy as well as through poetic/artistic imagination.
Philosophy can help to clarify thoughts and/or to show holes in one’s arguments.
Poetic/artistic imagination has the power to move us in ways that philosophy cannot.
But to debate ceaselessly about which medium is more important is not particularly useful.

Animal ethics/rights implicit but the main topic (to me) is
Can vegans/vegetarians and meat-eaters have a genuine/serious/civil/respectful dialogue or are the competing ideologies so deeply divided rendering meaningful discussion futile?

Appreciate that Coetzee/Costello notes that while vegetarianism/veganism may be an ideology, so is meat-eating (based on what I feel is an arbitrary judgment on the ‘value’ of human-animals v. non-human-animals).
Quote from a member of the blog, vegansofcolor: “I find it frustrating that the dominant ideology – to eat meat, in this case – is not recognized as an ideology, that the status quo is unquestioned & those disagreeing with it can be accused of moralizing while those in line with it are not espousing any moral view at all.” – Think Norma.  Think social justice issues.  Meat-eating is a male dominant ideology (for those who are interested in this, I suggest reading Carol J. Adams).
Animal ethics rather than rights.  The language of rights from the Enlightenment period is problematic on its emphasis on rationality.
Affirm similarities rather than differences.
Particularly with fellow mammalians.
Connections to female/male gender.  Baffled by Kala’s want of a goat thinking that this goat will just produce milk for her.  People seem out of touch with reality due to their distant relationship with the food-animals.  Not cognizant that in order to get milk, you need to impregnate a mammal repeatedly (usually by a machine termed a ‘rape rack’ in the industry or by human arms).
Quote from my essay:
“I wished that instead of having Elizabeth talk about the unethical nature of consuming veal to her grandchildren that you had her instead relating the experience of a mother cow being artificially inseminated year after year, against her will, only to have her child torn away permanently from her shortly after childbirth, having her child denied her rightful food, the milk of her mother, having her milk then stolen from her to provide to human-animals who do not need bovine milk in order to live, having every child of hers turned into a commodity and having the emotional and physical pains from forced repeated pregnancies to Norma’s own painful and joyous experience of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood.”
These are real lived experiences.
Following in Smuts’ lead, I would further argue that a more direct identification with non-human-animals is an important bridge to an animal ethics ‘salvation’.

Philip touched on the issue of sight (or the lack of it for most people).
Would we want to eat meat if slaughterhouses had CCTVs or glass walls?
“As with any violent ideology, the populace must be shielded from direct exposure to the victims of the system, lest they begin questioning the system or their participation in it. This truth speaks for itself: why else would the meat industry go to such lengths to keep its practices invisible?” ~ Melanie Joy
Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight – Timothy Pachirat

Deflection of personal responsibility reinforced by invisibility.  Claiming ignorance.  Awareness atrocities (genocide, war,  cruelty to animals, etc.) but lack of  guilt/shame. One could argue this is a decline in humanity.  Once you have the exposure/awareness/knowledge, how does one deal with the trauma?  (Costello and Red peter as wounded animals).
Sue Coe vegan artist who draws images from her experience in slaughterhouses.
How do you stomach being in the midst of a killing floor? Does making the images help you cope? Or do you become numb after a while? The images are about me retraumatizing you, the viewer. Trauma is like having acid thrown onto your brain: Like an etching plate, it eats into it, and you are compelled to keep imprinting it onto other people, until they feel it too. It’s not my stomach I worry about; it’s my mind, or wherever my soul is located, because it gets broken every time animals suffer. When I make art, I make more witnesses, and when there are enough witnesses, the horror stops. Insanity comes from isolation, feeling you are alone in seeing what most do not. Many animal-protection activists suffer immensely, because they have opened a door of consciousness that enables them to see a reality that very few want to see. Article: http://www.printmag.com/Article/Witness-to-Slaughter
Much of the language to justify the use of animals is the same language we used to justify slavery, colonial conquest.
From Aristotle’s Politics, slavery was ‘needed’ to built Greek civilization as we know it today.  Was it really a ‘need’ or a ‘want’?  Ditto in current context (do we really need the sweatshops and the cheap goods?) and pro-meat arguments in a context in which we do not need it.

For the human-animal, the non-human-animal companion in their care is thought of more as a family member, thus informally relegating the non-human-animal to the status of a ‘person’ rather than an object.  Implicitly, these human-animals recognize the immorality of the law that degrades those nearest and dearest to us to nothing more than a thing.  The (in)justice system that I find myself in will likely impose a harsher punishment to an individual who smashes the windows of a bank than to an individual who abuses a non-human-animal.

King speaks at length about unjust laws in which man-made laws “are out of harmony with the moral law” (para. 13).  Animal ethics is complex issue but in general, it is a matter of aligning one’s conscience with one’s actions in a consistent manner.  I feel a moral responsibility to ‘disobey’ the ‘monstrous’ cruelty inflicted on cows, pigs, chickens, etc. while I treat Kaslo, my dog as a member of my family.

Empathetic rather than sympathetic imagination.  Feel with rather than for.

Animal rights vs animal welfare - parallels between social justice movements - radical vs. reformist.
We need to tie all social justice issues together.  Veg does not equal humane/ethical.  Need to tie in labour issues, economic issues, environmental issues, links to racism, sexism and beyond.

“In the tradition of Mencius, you consistently point to one’s heart to guide one to the ‘right path’.  In pursuing and maintaining our own personal animal ethics, I am optimistic, although only mildly that this will in turn slowly create a domino effect of empathetic imagination, trickling down directly those closest to us, if we do not first alienate them by creating an ‘us versus them’ dichotomy.”  This entails not behaving like a self-righteous vegetarian/vegan and not thinking that you are somehow better than the meat-eater becuase you are not.
Cultivating virtue and what constitute a good life by habit  - Stoicism.

Questions for The Lives of Animals
1. Can vegans/vegetarians and meat-eaters have a genuine/serious/civil/respectful dialogue or are the competing ideologies so deeply divided rendering meaningful discussion futile?
2. Why is Elizabeth Costello’s Holocaust comparison ‘offensive’?  The Transatlantic slave trade is often invoked as another point of comparison in the treatment of food-animals yet I do not hear the kind of uproar that is generated by the slavery comparison.  Why?
3. What does our relationship with non-human animals teach us about our own ‘humanity’?

Discussion:
We should not dismiss abstract thinking altogether.
Why should we reform as a species? Duty to our planet, nature, fellow creatures including human-animals since we are a species that is single-handedly destroying the planet at a rapid speed.  We do ask animals to reform (to behave in a certain way).  If they do not, we may kill them (e.g. ‘tame’ bears).
Industrialization is the problem, not meat-eating.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King Jr.

The Letter from a Birmingham Jail is still very relevant today in regards to racial and other social justice issues.  We must look to the root of problems, recognize the intersections of social justice issues and have solidarity with each other in order to affect change.
A great scatching critique of the mainstream systems: it is useless to wait for government to exact change, change comes because oppressed peoples make demands of those in power.  Concessions are granted by governments, by the legal systems - these were fought for.  The government isn't trying to be generous to us.  There is no point 'waiting'.
I support direct action andhave participated in such acts myself.  The critcism I hear of this form of activism resembles what MLK terms as the moderate 'white' - order over justice.  "Sure, sure, we sympathize with Occupy's statements but camping is illegal.  Go volunteer at a soup kitchen, go sign a petition.  These are the ways to enact change".  While I agree that these actions produce some good, this alone is not enough.  Social change is enacted through a diversity of tactics. How to make such people aware that charity merely provides breadcrumbs?  To enact change, we cannot act as our oppressors do, unless necessary - In large numbers, direct action can be a powerful medium to enact change as Rosa Parks and others have.  I am not saying that direct action is the correct way or the only way to exact change.  I reiterate that social change is a continuum of a verity of actions.
The middle class is our current moderate white - complacement and not willing to give up their privileges voluntarily.
Understanding oppressed peoples' discontent helps us to further understan the bitterness that comes from the feeling of helplessness, of nobodyness.  Putting yourself into the Other's shoes.
"Civil discontent is the highest form of patriotism" - Howard Zinn
Legality does not necessarily means that something is moral; ditto for mainstream/majority, long standing traditions and cultures (e.g. female circumcision, meat eating, hunting for sport, etc.)
"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."- Elie Wiesel (in regards to MLK's "the appalling silence of good people".)
Inward spirituality, morality is more important that church dogma.
I love this piece of work from MLK - it contains so much truths.  I will remember the 'radical' and 'extremist' MLK.  Listen to his speech below.

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Some many important themes in this text which I absolutely loved!  While this text can be read as a warning of too much government control, it can also be read as a satire of Huxley's time.  The themes are clearly still relevant today and with more sense of urgency.  Some random thoughts:
1. Women do not seem to be dominant/powerful.  They are mainly portrayed as playthings.  Lenina as pneumatic - like an inflatable fuckable doll. 
2. Lack of relationships.  The humans in BNW are reduced to fuck-buddies.  There does not seem to be any deep friendship or relationships of any kind.
3. Everyone is just a number with a conditioned and 'predestined' role in society, even the Alpha-Pluses although they do have slightly more autonomy.
4. I am reminded of the pyramid of capitalism in which a few reap the benefits of this system while the majority (Epsilon Minus) toll for the property owners, the elites and the ruling class (Alpha Plus).  I started to wonder what rank I am...  Maybe a Gamma Minus or a Delta Plus.
5. I saw soma not just as a drug to make everyone happy necessarily but a 'drug' to numb everyone and to stop people from questioning authority.  It's easy to link soma to prescription drugs in today's BNW but I think soma also comes in the form of propaganda from the government, the education system and the media as well as but it could be consumerism, mindless entertainment, religion and other forms of dogma, etc.
6. Why are the choices the Brave New World, the Savage Reservation or exile?  Are there no other choices?
7. Why is monogamy so threatening in the BNW?  Isn't monogamy one of the best forms of mutual love and cooperation?  Would this not be good in the BNW?
8. To feel pain, to suffer is part of life but so is to feel happiness and pleasure.  I don't think that we have to feel pain in order to feel happy.  I think we want to live life not as an automaton in the BNW and this entails accepting the good and the bad, the pain and the pleasure of in life.  To live as an automaton (even a conditioned 'happy' one), to lack freedom is not really living.  As Bob Marley sings, "I'd rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave".
9. Which brings me again to my veganism - there is no humane meat - the animals are still enslaved, fattened up for human-animal food.  They do not have the chance to be free.  Tell me how is this humane when organic free-range animals still end up at slaughterhouses with bolts shot into their heads (if they are cows).
10. I can relate to Bernard Marx's alienation.  I'm a manager but I do not feel like being a figure of authority and so I try to treat others as my equal.  I feel alienated around other managers.  I don't care to dress up like one and my heart lives with the workers than with management.  It's a funny place to be in...
11. Mustapha Mond can be seen as pragmatic but a sell-out, I think...  While I may not agree with all of John's actions or thoughts, I at least respect him for his principles and dignity.

Frankenstein (1818) - Mary Shelley

I love this novel and could not put it down last night - a sign of a very good book.  Impressive that this text was written by a very young woman at a time when there weren't that many female authors.  I was surprised that 'Frankenstein' refers to the creator of the  'Monster' rather to the 'Monster' itself.  I think it is unfair to label Frankenstein's creation as a monster - it strips away the 'humanity' for a lack of a better term of creature.  Henceforth, I will refer to Frankenstein's creation as the Creature.

The longings of the Creature - love, companionship, comfort - these are all longings of all sentient beings.  How easily we as humans dismiss them in other creatures.  How arrogant! I know Frankenstein isn't about speciesism  but as a vegan,  I can't help but reflect upon this topic.  When I say pigs, cows, etc. are social creatures who care about their young, who grieve for their dead, who long for companionship, suffer, love, experience pleasure as we, humans do, I hear remarks like "Oh, you're anthropomorphising the animals."   What a load of ignorance...  Anyone who has spent time with animals know that what I say is true.  I am most certainly not anthropomorphising the creatures.  This is just what life is, be it human or non-human.  Then, what gives us the right to take away these natural longings of certain animals (cows, chickens, pigs, sheep) while we coddle and demand the good life for dogs and cats (within the context of North America)?  None, if you ask me.  We have wilfully turned a blind eye when it suits us and to have the audacity to claim cruelty and inhumanity when the same is done to a cat.

We are in a sense, the God and 'Maker' of farm animals, pet animals, fur animals - we have purposefully deprived these creatures of their natural longings, habitat, etc.  I think most of us empathize with the Creature as we see the longings (humanity) that are in essence the same as ours, even if he is not entirely human yet we turn a blind eye when it comes to the reality of life of an animal born in captivity for the sole purpose of human use. Chatter but no action.  It is depressing to me and some days I despair more than others.

Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us. ― Carl Sagan 

The same can be said about Frankenstein's Creature.

Random thoughts:
1. Who are we to judge that someone is flawed and not worthy of love/life just because we consider them "ugly"?
2. Thinking of Island of Dr. Moreau and the ethics (or lack of) in vivisections and biomedical experiments on non-humans.
3. What right do we have as humans to cause the (unnecessary) suffering of another? (human or non-human)

The Present Age by Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard would have likely thought our time as one that is passionless.  There is much chatter and hype but little action and passion.  In our hyper media and advertised world, it is easy to chatter.  It is disheartening to see uneducated, racist, sexist, speciesist and other biased comments on websites and on social media outlets.  These comments come in often anonymously and with little consequences to the commentators but may have deeper consequences to readers and authors of the websites/social media outlets.

Social media has allowed for passionless inaction within the social justice movement in which there is much publicity and majority support for important issues like economic injustice, animal abuse, the broken food systems, racism, sexism, etc., little is actutally done.  There is just much chatter online but at the end of the day, we generally continue to accept the economic injustice, animal abuse, the broken food systems, racism and sexism of this world without actually actively doing anything about it.

I agree that passion is needed to propel one into action.  Malcolm X said, "Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change."  I do think that there is deep truth in tihis statement.  It is deep passion that propelled me towards veganism and my limited involvement with social justice causes.

In a sense, we feel sympathy for a cause for a brief moment but essentially tune it out of our mind immediately afterwards causing apathy.  In the end, most of us do nothing after learning about injustices in this world.

When one reflects on the lack of passion and on the high passion in 'heros' like Malcolm X, Steve Biko and other activists and ordinary concerned citizens, the tension caused by our lack of action in turn causes endless reflection and is often, at least in my experience, reaffirmed by the public majority - "It's no use.  One person cannot change the world." - you  start to believe in this statement.  There is truth to the statement after all...  Apathy affirmed.  No action.  No passion.

I, too, have been guilty of this apathy.  But also of passion.  Such is the human condition... or is this just something I say to make myself feel better?

I agree that we need to apply our knowledge, that is to act.  I disagree with one of my classmates who said that to publish in an academic journal is to contribute back to society.  Well... let me clarify - there is value in producing and publishing in academia but the reality is that academia is a highly privileged world, available to only a small group in this world.  I am much, much more interested in learning on how to act on a daily basis and how to give back to society at large, not just producing literature for the consumption of a select privileged few, of which I am a part of.  This means figuring out an ethical path in life and in the context of the GLS program, a project that w ill be widely accessible to a greater population than just those privileged enough to be a part of higher education.

2010 Olympics protest

Aristotle's Politics

In reading Aristotle's Politics, I am starting to see the connections between his philosophy and the central themes in the modern day constitution, in the Universal Declaration of Humans Rights and so forth.  Interesting that Hegel and Marx derived many of their ideas from Aristotle.

I agree with the thesis that all relationships and associations are formed with the intent of achieving good, although 'good' can carry a variety of meanings.  No one can deny that humans are social and political animals.  The community's interests trumps over individual interests (within reason).  But how does one decide which are the community's interests?  Aristotle suggests a democracy in which all citizens know each other and partake in active decision-making processes - quite different from our current conception of democracy.  In some ways, the 'communitarianism' advocated by Aristotle reminds me of anarchism except that within Aristotle's context and view, hierarchies need to exist and not all are qualified to become citizens.  If only a minority can reach the end goal, the life of leisure, contemplation and virtue, does the majority (means) really need to be sacrificed so that the minority can reach this goal (end)?  I asked myself similar questions in the context of animal ethics (or lack thereof issues).

I would have to reply with a very strong 'no'.  Even Aristotle admits that  a constitution (the organisation/guidelines of a community) is just when it benefits everyone in the city and unjust when it benefits only those in power.  Yet, he advocates exactly this - that (generally) only Greek men of a certain amount of wealth are eligible to become citizens - rather hypocritical if you ask me...  I am aware that slavery was the norm in his time and slavery was 'needed' to maintain Greek civilisation at the time but I use the word 'need' with much apprehension - I see a significant difference between 'needs' and 'wants' and while slavery was the norm does not necessarily excuse Aristotle's lack of awareness of the injustice of slavery and blatant discrimination against women and other minorities.

I am not discounting's Aristotle's vast contribution to society, rather I am making the point that the elite class that Aristotle belonged to had an agenda to maintain their power, wealth and leisure - he was part of the status and strived to do exactly this.  Sadly, not much has changed in this respect - we still have this conundrum of who can be a citizen today, who has the right to vote, when do they have the right to vote, when they can dissent and how they can become active members of their community/polis/nation-state.  Economic migrants seem to be the preferred class of migrants in Harper's government - is this just?  Is this really in the nation-state's best interest?  I am not convinced that it is.

The demarcation of labour espoused by Aristotle is also very much alive today and in many ways, they are the 'non-citizens' of our society - they remain in stasis, unable to move beyond their current economic condition and education level which people in the middle class (and the wealthy) are able to 'progress', to have some time for leisure and contemplation - I fall into the privileged middle class in society.

Is this the best constitution?  The best possible world?  I don't think so.  I think we can do better.  While I agree with the general essence of Aristotle's argument in Politics, the privilege of citizenship and the ability to reach the good life should be an opportunity available to all, regardless of their status in society.

Candide - Voltaire

This is the first text that I am reading for LS 801 and I must say that I enjoyed it very much!  It read like an unbelievably creative adventure/horror/tragic/comedic novel.  The horrors that befell the book's characters were just too crazy to be true!  That said, while the book is fiction, many of the tragedies talked about by Voltaire actually happened to people, past, present and sadly, future as well.  You read this text and you think, gee, life ain't so bad...  I shouldn't really complain.

I don't disagree with the author's scathing critique of the folly of optimism.  I have been a cynic and a pessimist since I was a teenager and as I age, my cynicism has increased tremendously - I feel that humans are running the earth and all of its creatures (and non-creatures) to the ground, slowly and surely, all in the name of greed, power and profit.  However, I have little sparks of optimistic as well as I encounter more and more people who seem to genuinely care about the state of humanity and for our whole planet.  I love what Howard Zinn says about optimism in this article of his:

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

While Candide made the most of out his situations, like Zinn, I would argue that we must act, to accept 'fate' and to do nothing will not create change in this world.  We must do and act, instead of theorizing abstract thoughts.  As Marx notes, ""The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it" (Karl Marx's 11 Theses on Feuerbach (1845)).  While there is much that cannot be changed by one person, we can nonetheless affect those around us and have change slowly ignite one tiny spark at a time.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (ch. 1-4) - Mary Wollstonecraft

A lot that was said in Wollstonecraft's text back in 1792 seems to eerily still ring true.  Much has changed but much also has not.

Women tying their pride and self-worth on her looks still sadly ring true today.  Decorating yourself and spending a lot of time and money on it is generally still the norm.  The justifications that I have heard from this activity include
(1) I work hard and I deserve to treat myself - in other words, materialism and consumerism become the material (false) reward for our Protestant Work Ethic, a prevalent idea that doesn't get investigated enough!
(2) I was to look sexy and good to the opposite sex and also make myself feel good - in other words, mistaking dressing scantily and getting cat calls or other objectified "compliments" as a form of empowerment.

I, too, fell into this trap of a mindset.  Gender roles and expectations are taught and reinforced to us from childhood and into adulthood.  Pink is for girls, trucks are for boys, women don't become carpenters and so on.  Well, says who?!  I agree with Wollstonecraft that education is an important tool for women's empowerment, but not just rational education but spiritual education too.  Education is but a tool, women must also know how to apply the knowledge that they obtain.  Why is it that despite the relatively high level of education of women in the West received, we not the less subscribe to shallow activities that relate to our vanity and thus to our self-worth?  Is it because our sensibility takes our our rational mind?  The 'wants' often overtake the 'needs' after all.

Keeping women and other people of colour ignorant was certainly a clever ploy of some powerful men of the past.  Obedience is consider a virtuous value - why is that?  This still rings too today.  Women who stand up and speak their minds get labeled male-like or 'not a good' girl (if she is a young woman).  The false bias of women as children is still around today.  Just last week, a colleague of mine referred to one woman in her 40's as a 'girl'.  I think he realized his error and tried to save his face by telling me, "It was only a joke".  This concept of obedience as a good virtue is similar to how we consider a dog, a good dog - essentially by his obedience.  Something to think about.

What is Enlightenment? Kant

The freedom to make public reasoning while dutifully using our private use of reason - a topic that is very relevant today.  It seems like this is what is encouraged today. Get up, go to work, work hard for eight hours, go home exhausted.  Got beef against economic injustices and environmental degradation?  Write a letter to the Premier.  Sign a petition.  Business as usual.  Obey.  The minute you disrupt business (especially international trade), force and violence may be used against you.

Will we really reach public enlightenment through the method advocated by Kant?  Removal of religious dogma and tight state control is certainly a healthy start, I agree.  If we must conduct business as usual, how will social change really occur?  Would we not merely be paying lip service to issues of social justice and environmental degradation then?  How to create true resistance?  I agree with Kant that the contradictions arising from one's use of public vs. private reasoning creates dissent and resistance but how to activate this resistance in an experiential and material way?  I feel trapped in this paradox right now and have been for a long time...

I have to agree with Kant in some ways on revolution.  I believe that the Occupy Movement, the Arab Springs all constitute a very historical slow revolution.  But while people may be resisting, they may not all be 'enlightened'.  The issue of how to change people's awareness has been deep on my mind especially since 2009.  I struggled to make people see what I see on the issue of the Olympic Games in Vancouver and all around the world.  Now, in the context of the Occupy Movement, many have joined in with the cause but some are in the cause for self-interested reasons rather than for global justice.  The movement is diverse and it cannot be expected that thousands of persons all think alike.  This causes fractures in the movement.  The revolution cannot forge ahead with so much internal dissent.  Kant's discussion is still relevant today and of great importance - how to change the public's awareness and to create mass public enlightenment?  I have many questions but no answers... but the main thing to keep in mind is solidarity and to remember where the battle lies.  Internal bickering, egos must subsist in favour of the utility of the majority.  The 'battle' is not within the 99% at the moment - it is with the 1% and its supporters.

King Lear

I confess that the thought of reading Shakespeare scares me.  The only Shakespeare I've ever read was Taming of the Shrew in English 11 and Macbeth in English 12, many, many moons ago.  I had difficulty understanding the language then and I confess that I still do today.  Somehow, just reading the play doesn't bring about the vivid imagery for me and so it was helpful for me to rewatch Ran, Akira Kurosawa's version of King Lear before reading the text.  Perhaps I rely on the visuals to fully understand Shakespeare as I enjoy and 'get it' when I attend Bard on the Beach plays.

I'll discuss a few themes/events/characters that stuck out for me.

Ironic that the Fool is the wisest character in the play!  He sees through all the characters' motives and the bad and/or wise decisions they make.  He warns Lear of his errors but Lear does not see it.  It is only through a series of unfortunate events causing Lear's downfall and suffering that he begins to realize his poor judgement in banishing Cordelia and Kent and elevating Goneril and Regan.  It is is a sense only by being the "Other" (e.g. the banished: Cordelia and Kent) that he understands what it is like to be banished/refused/disrespected/powerless.  And in the end, the suffering makes turns him into a better man.  A theme similar to Julian of Norwich, Dante's Inferno.  He redeemed himself at the very end but dies from the grief over the one daughter who loved him, Cordelia.

Loyalty seems to me to be a theme that really stands out.  I am impressed by Cordelia and Kent's loyalty (a form of love, I suppose but I wouldn't call it outright love necessarily) to Lear.  Their sense of duty reminds me of the sense of duty advocated by Mencius.  In this particular case, the loyalty of Cordelia and Kent also translates as compassion - compassion and empathy for the now poor and powerless Lear. Again, I see the theme of identifying with the "Other".  It is through identification with the "Other" that compassion can be made possible.

Honesty - Cordelia and Kent's action of speaking the truth causes them banishment and loss of power while Goneril, Regan and Edmund's lies get them 'ahead in the game' - at least in the beginning.  Very Machiavellian.  Deceit brings power.  In his particular case though, Goneril, Regan and Edmund "lose" in the end and suffer tragedy themselves.  Justice is meted, so to speak (except for Cordelia and Gloucester). Kent is elevated to ruler at the end of the tragedy and in a sense, his honesty and loyalty brings him power although in tragic circumstances.  Cordelia on the other hand, is murdered.  A sacrifice of all that is good - sort of like Christ.

Gloucester's gouged eyes - very dramatic.  Perhaps this symbolizes his 'blindness' in not being able to see through Edmund's plots?  Or his 'blindness' in not recognize Edmund as his own flesh and blood (rather than as a 'bastard child').

Aging - Lear's aging is a return to infanthood in the eyes of Goneril and Regan.  He is to be rendered powerless and be told what to do by his two oldest daughter.  He challenges this but to no avail.

Afterclass thought: I find it a bit offensive the ageism discussed in this class.  There was the question of Cordelia as a young passionate/stubborn 'child'.  Ditto with Antigone and also Heloise. I catch myself being ageist at times too, at aged 35, no 'spring chicken' myself.  It is not fair to pick on youthfulness and to equate it with naivity/passion and though unspoken, in a sense stupidity.  With age, does not necessarily come wisdom.  To imply this is incorrect and unfair.  I work with young university students and sure, I encounter plenty of naive youth but I also encounter amazing youth that puts me into awe their awareness and wisdom despite their young age.  I wished I had been that aware at 20 but sadly, I was not.

It was not clear to be that there was a fixed 'ritual' at the beginning of the play until Budra pointed it out...

Interesting that Lear treats the Fool well and accepts his honesty yet banishes Cordelia for her honesty.

"King Lear" and the Fool in Akira Kurosawa's Ran