December 2002 posts
There's
a rumor on BC&S that Glenn Quinn (Doyle) died on Monday. Confirmed?
-- cjl, 13:26:55 12/05/02 Thu
[> According to http://glenn-quinn.com/
he passed away Dec. 2 -- he will be missed, 13:35:52 12/05/02
Thu
[> Oh my God! I had no idea.
Was he sick? -- Rob, 14:12:05 12/05/02 Thu
[> [> Details, please!
Anybody?? -- A very saddened Masq, 14:16:37 12/05/02 Thu
Doyle! *sob*! It's like the end of "Hero" all over again,
only 100x worse.
[> [> [> Details at
http://www.glenn-quinn.com/ -- frisby, 15:48:06 12/05/02
Thu
It's true. I found it at
http://www.glenn-quinn.com/
off of the
http://whedonesque.com/
site.
Here are the words:
"This is an unofficial fan site dedicated to the talented
Irish actor Glenn Quinn. This site was built by Glenn's fans to
help publicise his career, provide a place for fans to learn more
about Glenn, and meet and get to know one another.
It is with great sadness that we report that Glenn Quinn passed
away Tuesday, December 3, 2002. Services for Glenn will be held
privately with his family and close friends.
Glenn's body of work earned him the devotion of fans around the
world, and he will most certainly be sorely missed. The staff
at Glenn-Quinn.com would like to extend deepest sympathies to
his friends and family, and the assurance that through his work,
Glenn touched all of us.
He will never be forgotten."
[> [> [> Whoops! Sorry!
Nothing new there. A memorial at URL below -- frisby http://www.geocities.com/glenns_girl_01/memorial.html,
15:57:28 12/05/02 Thu
http://www.geocities.com/glenns_girl_01/memorial.html
advertises itself as a memorial to his memory.
[> Despite extensive searching...
-- Wisewoman, 14:20:28 12/05/02 Thu
I can't find any more on this than the announcement at www.glenn-quinn.com
He was in his early 30s so if this is true he's very young to
die. Bandwidth has been exceeded at most of his fan sites, so
it may be some time before we get any details.
I thought Doyle was a great character. I couldn't believe they
killed him off, and I always kinda hoped we'd see him again...guess
not.
:o(
[> [> Me neither. Other
sites I found just redirect to glenn-quinn.com, which gives very
little info. -- Rob, 14:24:57 12/05/02 Thu
[> This is horrible. Peace
be with him. -- Apophis, 15:16:10 12/05/02 Thu
[> May he rest in peace.
-- Sophie and Sophomorica, both very saddened, 15:43:18 12/05/02
Thu
[> I really don't know what
to say. -- Deb, 15:56:12 12/05/02 Thu
[> Poster on a Glenn Quinn
message board -- Wisewoman, 16:32:12 12/05/02 Thu
...who says he lives down the street from Quinn's cousin (or nephew?)
confirms that Quinn died in his sleep of a heart attack at the
age of 32.
I take no responsibility for how reliable this may be, but it's
all I've been able to find...
:o(
[> [> I really hope we
get official confirmation soon. -- Rob, 16:50:13 12/05/02
Thu
...Do we even yet know if this real or just one of those Internet
rumors that go around about celebrity deaths?
Rob
[> [> [> I hope we
DON'T get official confirmation soon . . . -- d'Herblay, 17:26:52
12/05/02 Thu
. . . 'cause then he'd be, you know, alive.
A Google News search on "Glenn
Quinn" came up empty. I haven't seen anything on the
AP
Wire. It's impossible to prove a negative, of course -- not
that Quinn's being, you know, alive is really a negative -- but
my skepticism is in overdrive. But then, as my results on the
Museum
of Hoaxes Photo Test showed, I tend to be so quickly skeptical
that I often discount true stories.
[> [> [> [> Guess
I didn't phrase that right. I sorta meant official confirmation
either way... -- Rob, 19:06:26 12/05/02 Thu
...although since Tim Minear posted about it (see Rufus' response
under this), it seems like it's true. Too bad. I really liked
him.
Rob
[> Glenn Quinn died Tuesday
December 3, 2002 -- Rufus, 17:31:45 12/05/02 Thu
I got an e-mail from the girl who runs slayage.com..
Hi friends
It's with a heavy heart that I write to you today to tell you
that Glenn Quinn died on December 3nd.
I first heard about it this morning from Tara O'Shea
Webmaster of glenn-quinn.com on alt.tv.angel and confirmed by
Tim
Minear
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: timminear@aol.com (Tim Minear)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.angel
It's true. Just got word myself. Very sad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My sympathies go out to his family and friends. I will always
fondly remember him as Doyle, of course, and as Mark in Roseanne.
A very talented actor. That poignant moment at the end of 'Hero'
had so much meaning at the time and resonates with this news now...
Doyle: "If you need help. Then look no further. Angel
Investigations is the best! Our rats are low."
Cordy: "Rates!"
Doyle points to the papers taped on the windows behind her: "It
says 'rats'. - Our rates are low, but our standards are high.
When the chips are down, and you're at the end of your rope you
need someone that you can count on. And that's what you'll find
here - someone that will go all the way, no matter what. So don't
lose hope. Come on over to our offices and you'll see that there's
still heroes in this world. (Clears his throat) Is that it? Am
I done?"
Take Care
--
Bec
http://www.slayage.com/
Is this a
coincidence or a hidden truth? -- Frank,
14:14:42 12/05/02 Thu
I may be wrong or not, but I would like to know either way. Has
anyone noticed that in the Buffy episode "Fool For Love"
the character known as Cecily, Spike's pre-vampire crush, is also
strikingly famliar to Halfrek, Anya's vengeance demon friend.
Is this why, in "Older and Far Away" they recognized
eachother? If so, I have another comment to add. Wouldn't Spike
be a little angry with her, I mean because in "Fool For Love"
when he hears Buffy make the remark, 'You're beneath me.' he goes
a little ballistic. I would have thought him to have gotten even
with Cecily or something after he was sired. Unless, of course,
he felt that she no longer mattered to him after being sired.
In which case, that was probably why he didn't make a fuss of
being recognized by her in "Older and Far Away." Or
maybe he was embarrassed of what he was and he didn't want to
make light of it. Maybe the same might be for Halfrek. Both of
their beginnings were unspectacular and in my opinion a little
embarrassing. I just wished that Joss Whedon would have written
a little more into Halfrek's becoming a 'justice demon'. Uunless
of course I'm completely wrong, which I strongly disagree. Please,
if anyone has a reply, I wish very much to hear it.
[> Re: Is this a coincidence
or a hidden truth? **Spoilers for Selfless** -- Wisewoman,
14:38:55 12/05/02 Thu
We did discuss the fact that Cecily and Halfrek were played by
the same actress back when Halfrek first appeared, last season
I think?
It was never explained how Halfrek and Spike knew each other,
to my knowledge, and now that Halfrek has been killed by D'Hoffryn
we may never know anything more about her.
You are indeed correct, though, that they are played by the same
actress, even if they're not supposed to be the same person.
[> Re: Is this a coincidence
or a hidden truth? (Spoiler for Lessons) -- Sarand, 14:51:00
12/05/02 Thu
Halfrek's conversation with Anya in "Lessons" indicates
that she was a justice demon in the Crimean War, which was before
William some thirty years before the events in "Fool for
Love". I read somewhere, probably on this board, that it
was a coincidence that the same actress was hired to play Halfrek
as had played Cecily and that the writer(s) thought it was funny.
I think the little recognition double take was put in as a nod
to the fans who were surely going to recognize the actress, and
not because Hallie was Cecily.
[> [> Re: Is this a coincidence
or a hidden truth? (Spoiler for Lessons) -- leslie,
15:50:16 12/05/02 Thu
I don't know, if Hallie was on the job and masquerading as Cecily,
and already a vengence demon, a) it gives an interesting twist
to the "beneath me" brush-off, since we have seen that
most demons, and especially vengence demons, *do* consider themselves
to be superior to humans (as with Anya's comment in Beneath You
about the others being "so...human" in tones of disgust);
and b) it gives a nice irony to the fact that William immediately
went off and got himself vamped, thereby "trading up on the
food chain." (Vengence demons seem to be the one class of
demon that is comparable to vampires in that they are both demons
who were formerly human.)
[> [> [> another possibility?
-- anom, 20:57:57 12/05/02 Thu
"I don't know, if Hallie was on the job and masquerading
as Cecily, and already a vengence demon...."
Maybe William was the job Hallie was on! Maybe someone
had made a vengeance wish on him: that he be rejected & humiliated,
& have to carry that pain w/him eternally. Maybe there was a woman
William considered beneath him, who loved him, was rejected
(or not even noticed) by him, & wished he would know what it felt
like. Halfrek could have become the very embodiment of his fantasized
ideal woman--or, if he was already in love w/Cecily, kept her
out of the way long enough to play her in that little scene we
saw--& sent him running straight into Drusilla to arrest his development
right at that point. All of his attempts to leave behind what
he had been in his human days...could he have just been trying
to escape the humiliation that had been wished on him?
[> [> [> [> That's
kinda hard to believe -- vh, 07:37:46 12/06/02 Fri
That William could possibly reject and humiliate any woman. He
was so very insecure.
However, I do believe Hallie probably was a vengeance demon, and
William was just there.
[> Doug Petrie gives the
answer in the FFL commentary [spoilers to Selfless] -- slain,
18:06:53 12/05/02 Thu
He says that he doesn't know what Cecily became Halfrek,
and invites us to make up our own mind. I kind of think it's a
shame that Hallie was killed, as I think I'd have quite like to
see her interact with Spike. After all, Cecily was such an important
part of his human life. But perhaps we might see her return in
the form of the First Evil? I wouldn't be surprised.
[> [> Et... -- slain,
18:08:13 12/05/02 Thu
...But he does make it clear that they're the same person,
not separate characters; Halfrek is Cecily.
[> [> [> Re: Et...
-- Sophie, 18:40:17 12/05/02 Thu
That is my working theory.
The Misrepresentation
of Buffyverse Vampires & Demons in Academia -- Rob, 14:19:14
12/05/02 Thu
I'm probably opening up a whole big controversial can of worms
here--actually, I know I am, since we've had discussions about
this before--but, while reading "Fighting the Forces,"
I became very disturbed by a particular essay, "The Undemonization
of Supporting Characters," in which the author casually referenced
a source that claims that "Buffy" is racist. She went
on to demonstrate how the show was not racist; her examples included
things such as the Initiative plotline and Spike, and the overall
greying of the good/bad delineations in the Buffyverse. And yet
the author still claimed that vampires and demons are symbolic
of "race in American society; the characters' successful
and unsuccessful attempts to deal with the Other often illuminate
the ways in which society may come to terms with differences in
race, culture, and lifestyle." Throughout the essay, she
continually repeated the idea that the vampires and demons on
"Buffy" are symbolic of minority races.
While I will acknowledge that, at times, the treatment of vampires
and demons have been used to demonstrate racism--examples include,
from "Buffy," the Initiative arc, and from "Angel,"
the Scourge from "Hero" and Gio from "That Old
Gang of Mine"--I think that to make such a sweeping gesture
as to say that all vamps and demons on "Buffy" at all
times represent minorities is not only an overgeneralization,
but robs other, deeper layers of meaning from this incredibly
complex show. Metaphors do not remain constant on "Buffy."
Just look at all the different things magic has been used to represent!
An interpretation of vampires as the minority, of course, paints
Buffy as an evil figure, wiping out those other races trying to
converge on white society. While this is a convenient argument,
I think it ignores a great deal, particularly regarding vampires.
For starters, "Buffy" is a show about growing up, and
all the trials and tribulations the characters go through in the
process of growing up. And what are Vampires? Things that will,
in the "natural" course of events, live forever. They
can be seen as representational of the fears Buffy and the SG
have upon growing up--that they will become cold, soulless things
also, as many adults in their world seem to be. Principal Snyder
is not much different than a vampire. What I've always felt to
be the important part of the vampire symbol is that vampires were
once just like us, but were changed into demonic things. The "minority"
symbol doesn't do justice to this very important part of the "Buffy"
mythology, the fear that one day we will give into our darkness
as well and also become vampires. Yes, Vampires are societal Others,
but they are Others who used to be members in the society. Minorities,
on the other hand are considered societal Others from the get-go;
they are not members of society who were transformed into something
else, as vampires are, but have always been perceived as different,
be it because of the color of their skin, the sound of their accent,
or their religion.
This also ignores the fact that Buffy and the SG were also shown
as societal Others, and that the two groups (Buffy and her friends/demons,
vamps) were meant to parallel each other from the beginning. It
was again one of the first clues on the show that a souled creature
is not necessarily good, an unsouled is not necessarily evil.
Buffy and her friends, from the start, were shown in a similar
position, in the high school microcosm, as the beings that they
fight.
I think that it is easy to find racism in just about any piece
of art. If you look for it, you can find it. If you try to find
a very surfacey symbol--that because vamps and demons run in gangs
and harm people in the society, that they are villainized versions
of minorites, done to promote, as propaganda, the idea that minorities
are monsters--you can find it. But that ignores so much. I'm very
glad that Sunnydale is being portrayed as more multi-cultural
this season, because it further hammers home the point that vampires
and demons do not = Blacks, Hispanics, etc. A white person, a
black person, a Hispanic person, a Jewish person, an Asian person...they
all could be turned into vampires. Vampires are not the Other
of White Society, but are the Others of the Entire World, feeding
on the outskirts of every society. Vampires and Demons are the
darkness within Ourselves.
Rob
[> After all, Buffy still
kills vampires and feels perfectly justified in doing so --
Masq, 15:15:42 12/05/02 Thu
And if vampirs and demons are just allegories for other races,
then the implications are staggering. Because despite notable
exceptions, most vamps and demons on the show are still straight-forwardly
depicted as evil and killers.
[> [> Agree. The implication
is staggering. -- Deb, 15:48:49 12/05/02 Thu
The racial card could have been argued better by looking at casting,
which season seven seems to demonstrate that there was an influx
of minorities over the summer. I'm sure there is a researcher
out there who will use this also to make some sort of staggering
implication of "white flight" like white people can
afford to run from the vampires, but the minorities, and single
mother headed households, are forced to stay and put up with the
vampires because of inability to flee due to economic repression,
or perhaps there is a growing population of minority vampires
and demons in general which is more politically correct.
[> [> Re: After all,
Buffy still kills vampires and feels perfectly justified in doing
so -- slain, 18:02:30 12/05/02 Thu
It does strike me as a feature of the American academic style
that it's acceptable to make sweeping generalisations without
backing them up, in order to keep points short and concise (making
my own sweeping generalisation there, of course!) and the overall
length of the paper less. But as Deb says, it's a general feature
of modern criticism that very specific points of view are used,
along with apparently very tennuous interpretations - something
I know has stood me in good stead in the past!
I do think demons can represent races - but it depends on the
way that they're portrayed. Take the demons in 'Hells Bells',
but the contrast them with the demon-supremascists in an episode
of AtS. Demons can be racists as well as racial minorities, but
Buffy herself, unlike Faith or Riley, never discriminates against
harmless or persecuted demons (such as Clem, for example).
[> [> [> Okay, so
is what you are saying is that..... -- Rufus, 00:11:49
12/06/02 Fri
Though the basic metaphor of vampires is akin to being our shadow
selves and remains the same, but part of that metaphor may shift
to suit a particular episode?
[> [> I don't follow
the racial implications... -- ZachsMind, 08:35:39 12/06/02
Fri
I think that may simply be reading too much into it. The vampires
and demons in "Buffy" represent general evil in society.
I don't see how Whedon has ever implied they mean any particular
known race, color or creed. Most vampires are obviously caucasian.
Most recently there was a vampire that happened to be black, but
that's simply a casting choice, and not an implication that all
vampires are innately minorities.
In the Star Trek franchise, one could compare the Klingons to
present day russians and Romulans as present day communist chinese,
but again that may simply be reading too much into it. There's
far more dissimilarities than comparisons.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. =)
[> Re: The Misrepresentation
of Buffyverse Vampires & Demons in Academia -- Liv (just lurking
most of the time...) ;), 15:19:41 12/05/02 Thu
Extremely well-said!
I'm actually working on a term paper for my Sociology of Fear
& Risk course and you re-enforce my argument pretty damn well.
Would you mind if I referred to your posting?
...With full credit of course! ;)
[> [> Of course! I would
be honored!! :o) -- Rob, 15:28:32 12/05/02 Thu
[> [> [> Re: Yay!
Thanks, Rob! -- Liv, 15:32:24 12/05/02 Thu
[> Jumping before looking
-- Deb, 15:31:50 12/05/02 Thu
Critical analysis of a text in the postmodern academic world gives
creedence to all interpretations. You could write a paper on any
one of the social issues you bring up. I've read a few papers
that I certainly don't agree with, but that is my right: not to
agree.
The only frustration I feel about this board is the fact that
some people, including myself, have a tendancy to academically
view Buffy as text and approach it from a certain framing that
is not communicated to the other posters. Others post from the
heart and from opinions, which are valid also. My thread below
is a mixture, and I should have made that clear. My criticism
of *the topic that has been beaten to mush by now* is based upon
the mass communication theory of social responsibility and the
theory of uses and gratification, which does not have anything
to do with with the art history view of one interpretation, that
being that of the creator. You can't really argue a point if you're
not approaching the argument from different world views. Vampires
in the Buffyverse represent whatever a viewer sees them as representing
based upon the viewer's personal schema. (This is according to
rhetorical criticism) So in rhetorical criticism in academia,
JW's explanation of the Buffyverse is not considered to be the
only valid explanatio, and the viewer even has the right to say
it is invalid in their world. It's about ripping a text apart
using a particular method, and then reconstructing the text using
feminism, metaphorical, ideological, Marxism, Cluster Theory,
Visual Rhetoric, psychoanalytical, etc,. etc. Sounds like this
paper uses a form of feminism with a smacking of Marxism possibly.
I don't know. I would need to read it.
If anyone is interested in how rhetorical criticism is done, I
highly recommend Sonya Foss' "Rhetorical Criticism"
which is very open to non-academic understanding. Straight to
the point with examples to boot. (My favorite is "Batman
as Schizophrenic Hero" and the book has a buzzy neon green
cover that is quite stimulating also.) Another recommendation
Jill Dubisch's "In a Different Place" which is about
pilgrimage, gender and politics using an Iconic shrine to the
(Orthodox) Madonna on the Greek Island of Tinos as a rhetorical
text. Her approach is ethnographic experimentation. It is very
textured reading and quite startling in its conclusions, but she
argues beautifully.
I think I've just come to the conclusion that we need to be grateful
that we have Buffy to use to discuss the difficult issues of life
and that we all, somewhere, can find common ground, and learn
from each other.
[> [> I guess "misrepresentation"
was a subjective term. -- Rob, 15:46:16 12/05/02 Thu
I still don't agree with the representation that this essay suggests,
because I think it's a limiting one, that blinds readers to the
other issues in the text...but maybe "misrepresentation"
wasn't a fair word to use.
Rob
[> [> [> That's the
point. You have the right to disagree and be correct. -- Deb,
15:51:33 12/05/02 Thu
[> [> [> [> Cool!
-- Rob, 15:54:33 12/05/02 Thu
[> Rob, I've been ranting
against this pov since Day 1!!! -- Rahael, 16:19:35 12/05/02
Thu
Every single real life friend who loves this show (and who I haven't
through the board) is 'non-white'. However one defines whiteness
or blackness.
The whole contribution I made to your site about "Otherness
as specialness" was triggered by arguing against this view.
Funnily enough, I don't look at the show and think "Spike!
Drusilla! Finally, I'm being represented in BtVS."
The whole Spike as Victorian Imperial symbol thing that I've posted
on has also been in response to this view - my attempt to explain
why I, with my background find him the least likely candidate
for 'blackness'. And my posts on why I find BtVS the most compelling
show for me to think about prejudice and intolerance I've encountered.
I'm kind of like a broken record about it.
[> [> Re: Rob, I've been
ranting against this pov since Day 1!!! -- Rob, 16:48:48
12/05/02 Thu
"Funnily enough, I don't look at the show and think 'Spike!
Drusilla! Finally, I'm being represented in BtVS.'"
LOL!
While typing up my post, I actually did mean to give you credit
for the idea of the SG as the Other in the high school, but in
my frenzy to click "Send" and "Approve," I
forgot. I apologize about that. While I was reading this article,
your ideas about Otherness as Specialness were screaming in my
head. I wanted to personally walk up to the author's front door
and yell, "You're missing the point!" A lot of the posts
you had here about race I skipped past or didn't read as thoroughly
as I should have, because most of them grew in to (or were part
of) such huge threads that it was kind of overwhelming, since
I didn't feel like I was knowledgable enough to comment on the
issue. But I totally agree with you.
Rob
[> [> Re: Rob, I've been
ranting against this pov since Day 1!!! -- Caroline, 17:14:39
12/05/02 Thu
I remember those posts, and pretty darn fabulous they were!
[> [> [> Hugs to you
both. Your kindnesses to me is always appreciated -- Rahael,
02:33:58 12/06/02 Fri
[> This Writer shows her
issues more than anyone elses, IMO. -- Briar Rose, 18:04:01
12/05/02 Thu
To take the lengthy hsitory of the Vampire in literature and reduce
it to "racial minorities" is obviously more about her
own issues than the majority of the public.
The Vampire in literature and history has always been about human
sexual repression being challenged by the seduction of an evil/morally
corrupt (or you might just say "more open) "Other"
that takes away the repression in the "victim" and usually
the "victim" is in some way drawing/allowing the Vampire
to seduce and "intercourse" with them.
Deamons and Vampires are the classic struggle between good and
evil. I have never seen anything that turns deamons and Vampires
into "racial stereotypes" nor that would lead me to
believe that was the intention (and I'm a sucker for these types
of books!*L)
I agree that the terms "black" and "white"
are outdated and based in lots of different types of chauvanism
and bigotry and should be used in any circmstance. Even more so
because nothing is "balck" and "white"
in life. It is all gray at heart.
Sorry - can't even begin to figure out where this writer is coming
from with her analogies on this subject. She's entitled to her
opinion, but I can't see where she even proved the point she was
trying to make.
[> [> Everyone has been
making good points. I'll chime in here. -- Cactus Watcher,
08:09:27 12/06/02 Fri
Academics are humans just like everybody else. Thematic literary
criticism that goes beyond the actual overt content of the work
of art is always problematic. If a person is deeply interested
in a topic everything they look at in any context begins to look
like it relates to that topic. Whether it is their personal religion,
their personal philosophy, personal passion, or personal fears,
it always colors the way they look at the piece of art. For example
we've all heard people rave on about what an abstract painting
means. Actually the painting means nothing one way or the other
in itself. All we can say is what each of us individually sees
or doesn't see in it. (In an abstract painting even the artist's
opinion really doesn't count more than anyone else's.) The same
is true about literature. For a particular person to say that
Buffy is about race in their own opinion is okay, just as its
okay for our friend frisby to see Nietzsche all over Buffy, and
others of us to see Christian symbolism in everything. And we
can learn from them when they point out what they see. But, the
problem is that academics including me have a bad habit of acting
like everyone must see everything the same way. Just don't take
us too seriously when we do that concerning something as subjective
as 'hidden' agendas in art. Buffy has plenty of overt issues for
people to get serious about, like death, good and evil, rape,
parenting, growing up...
[> [> Academic writing
is weird -- luna, 08:15:02 12/06/02 Fri
It sort of requires a defendable thesis, whereas the writing on
this board for example allows wandering, self-correction, ambiguity,
etc.
For an academic paper, you've got to come up with some "original"
take on something and present an argument for it. This forces
writers into some weird positions, hardening their arguments,
blinding them to complexities.
Conversations, such as we have on this board, on the contrary,
encourage examining multiple interpretations, accepting contrary
evidence, incorporating contradictions, capitulating when wrong,
etc. A much better form of communication, but doesn't lead to
tenure and promotion.
[> Otherness Without Distinction
-- Buffyboy, 01:04:07 12/06/02 Fri
The problem I often have with analyses that involve the idea of
Otherness is that the idea of the Other is often far too undifferentiated
and indistinct. From the point of view of many of these analyses
any attribute that is not part of the Norm (the Norm being understood
as Western, White, Male, Middle Class, Christian, or whatever
one wants to toss into the category of the normal or dominate)
is seen as somehow good, an opposition to oppression and exploitation.
It would then follow that since Vampires are other than the norm
in a number of ways (they drink blood, there're serial killers,
they're feared by members of normal society, etc.) they should
be seen as victims of oppression and become a stand-in for other
oppressed groups (Women, Blacks, the Working Class, etc). Yet
such as assimilation is absolutely perverse. Simply put: not all
forms of Otherness are good. Simply being outside the norm is
no guarantee that your cause is just or that your particular cause
even deserves general recognition and consideration. Just think
of the obvious examples: the KKK in America and various neo-Nazi
groups in Germany to use what I hope are non-controversial examples.
The members of such groups nearly always see themselves as fighting
a heroic struggle against the norms of the dominant society and
just as often they see themselves as victims of its oppression.
Yet the moral basis of their positions, while it may in some sense
be other than the norm, is also simply indefensible.
Though it is undoubtedly important to develop one's capacity to
see oneself from the standpoint of the Other as well as to respect
many of the various forms of Otherness in our world, it does not
follow that the admonition to put your self in the shoes of the
Other is always good advise. If those shoes are the shoes of the
Vampire, the racist, the sexist, the oppressor, etc. then they
will give off an awful stench. To assimilate these types of Otherness
to those Others who rightfully struggle against their oppression
and lack of recognition is, as I said above, simply perverse and
does a grave injustice to these legitimate struggles.
[> Applicability and allegory
-- Tchaikovsky, 03:10:58 12/06/02 Fri
I think the reason why the essay is wrong is because it doesn't
only deny other interpretations of what we do see, but it also
ignores the actual intentions of the writers. To me, the continued
supernatural concepts in Buffy are not a sledgehammer one-thing-only
metaphor throughout the show. Both magic and vampirism are both
used literally, and used as several different layers of metaphor.
So it's a fair point to say that vampires have been used in a
particular episode as a minority, (can't think of one off the
top of my head though), but it denies the beautiful layeredness
of the series to see that metaphor as overarching.
TCH
[> There is a very small
kernel of truth here... -- KdS, 05:02:56 12/06/02 Fri
The big contrast between BtVS and AtS now is in the presentation
of demons in general - BtVS still tends to view demons as evil
or grey at best, but AtS has them all over the moral spectrum.
Considering episodes like Hero (although the Scourge are
pure demons rather than pure human, which makes a difference)
and very specifically That Old Gang Of Mine one could suggest
that AtS sometimes treats demons as a whole as an analogue
to racial and cultural minorities. They're all over the moral
spectrum just like humans - some are conciously good, some conciously
evil, a lot of them just trying to make their way in the world
like everyone else. However, a lot of humans tend to judge them
all by the worst members of their culture - who are most visible
to those who don't bother to look around them.
I, and quite a few writers I've read, have a very big problem
with the scene in Forgiveness where Angel is about to torture
Linwood and Lorne starts talking about it being wrong because
Linwood is human and not "some slimy demon". Considering
the number of good demons we've seen, including Lorne himself,
that line has a very nasty ring even without the extra squick
that it's coming from a non-human character. Essentially, this
is the hazard of episodes like That Old Gang of Mine -
they grey things up for the purposes of a single episode in a
way that creates serious problems for the series as a whole -
for example, what does it mean that the AI crew just steams in
and massacres the demon punks in Loyalty when to this viewer
there could have been a more peaceful solution to the problem?
So yes, the interpretation is problematic, but to some extent
the scriptwriters themselves have been tossing metaphors around
without seriously thinking of the possible results.
[> [> Re: There is a
very small kernel of truth here... -- Rob, 09:09:51 12/06/02
Fri
I don't think that the greying mucks up the whole mythology of
the series, because I think the term demon needs to be
taken literally. At its base level, before any metaphors or symbols
are attached to it, these characters are literal demons. Yes,
they are different races of demons, so there are race issues there,
but they're not the same as human races, and, for the most part,
demons are (a) evil and (b) not held to the normal rules of society--ya
can't incarcerate them...too strong. At times, AI have made mistakes,
and hurt demons who were good, or at least not violent at the
moment. But, when dealing with demons, you usually have to think
the worst first. Even in "That Old Gang of Mine," the
frightened, helpless-looking "Oh my God! Oh my God!"
demon ended up morphing into that huge monster and choming Gio's
head off.
There are good demons, but it seems that these sects evolved and
"humanized" over time, perhaps by exposure to humans
for centuries and centuries. But these sects are in the minority
(A ha! Minorities being shown as good!). Demons first and foremost
do not have souls i.e. moral compasses. Even the seemingly kind,
jovial, peaceful Straley family from "The Bachelor Party"
ended up having that not too pleasant "eating of wife's former
husband's brains" thingy.
Re: Lorne's line in "Forgiveness," I didn't have a problem
with it, because I don't think he said it as a slur as in, "Those
slimy demons!" I think what he meant was that, were Angel
to be torturing a demon, it would be a slimy, not-good, evil one.
Rob
[> [> [> Have to disagree...
-- KdS, 09:28:14 12/06/02 Fri
I don't think that demons in AtS are being shown as inherently
evil any more (and there's a question as to whether they're soulless
or have some demonic equivalent). There've been enough decent
demons shown to make it dangerous to assume. The AI team's response
to the Pilea situation was to attempt to halt racial discrimination,
not to try to claim the dimension for humanity, which suggests
that they accepted species not to have any inherent moral implication.
As early as Season 1, I thought that the Strahelys (sp?) were
intended as a satire on naive multiculturalism, not as a general
message that you can't trust them demons. Anyway, once the confusion
had been sorted out, the AI team seemed perfectly happy to draw
a line under the situation instead of seeking any retribution.
Some human cultures have had equally nasty practices in the past
(and some still do today). If all demons are inherently evil,
why does the AI team do business for them with relatively little
checking of their bona fides (the demons with the squatter mid-S3,
say)?
Biting Gio's head off? Any jury would have acquitted on grounds
of self-defense.
And I did hear the tone of Lorne's reference to "slimy demons"
as derogatory.
Quote from
Wed night's Taken (by little girl narrator) that made me think
of Spike. -- Silky, 10:12:53 12/06/02 Fri
"I have this idea about why people do the terrible things
they do. Same reason little kids push each other in the schoolyard.
If you're the one doing the pushing, then you're not going to
be the one who gets pushed.
"If you're the monster, then nothing will be waiting in the
shadows to jump out at you. Pretty simple really - people do the
terrible things they do because they're scared."
This made me think of Spike because I have seen him (since Pangs)
as a character who feared feeling afraid and vulnerable. William
was vulnerable - to the rejection and verbal sling and arrows
of his peer group. That's why he reveled in his newfound strength
as a vampire - he didn't have to be vulnerable anymore. He could
pick a fight and win. And that became part of his big bad persona.
The chip made Spike vulnerable again - at first he thought to
everything, but then only to humans (and the slayer) once he discovered
he could fight demons.
Someone mentioned Spike being concerned with his reputation. I
thought something slightly different - that he has made the effort
to be feared by advertising himself as the big bad, mistakenly
substituting fear for respect. (Why not? Most of the bosses/supervisors
and Queen Bee co-workers I have had made the same mistake. It
works on many people, too.) But being feared still kept him safe.
As William, I don't think he felt safe (I don't mean physically,
but emotionally). As Spike, he felt safe - at least until he heard
about slayers and then his obsession began.
But, when he was chipped, he felt vulnerable again. His fear is
striking in Pangs. Soon after, he tries to kill himself. He finds
other ways to feel safe, eventually trying to hook up with the
Scoobies - and Buffy - only to be rejected over and over.
I believe that for almost two years, the writing was designed
to make Spike a sympathetic character. At least it seemed that
way to me. I don't think I'm the only one who felt that way. Starting
with AYW, suddenly we were supposed to believe Spike was bad -
well sometimes. I saw him as sad and frustrated, not evil, after
all the build-up to Spike, the trying-so-hard-not-to-be-bad vampire.
Some have pointed to Crush as proof that Spike was still bad.
I saw instead, someone sucked back into the realm of Druscilla
ONLY after Buffy cruelly rejected his admission of his feelings.
Still, he didn't stay in Dru's world long and had a difficult
time forcing himself to drink the dead girl at the Bronze. Granted
his means of proving his love for Buffy might seem off (though
really, why wouldn't the slayer be happy to see Dru offed - Spike's
pov). I have always wondered how different Spike's journey would
have been had the Scoobies accepted him into the group - and kept
him there even when Buffy returned.
But, not for me the furrowed brow. Revisionist history of Spike's
un-life or not, I have to say the perceived retcon does make me
somewhat unhappy. We had a character whose journey seemed to mean
something, who (at least those of us who like the character) we
could root for, who we sympathize with (hey, like Buffy, I have
a yen for the underdog), whose desire and need for acceptance
is something we can identify with, and who could help Buffy and
provide her with some of the insight she needs. Now we have Spike
the rapist, totally ignoring that much vampire myth links sex
and drinking blood (Bram Stoker and Forever Knight, not to mention
Graduation Day II).
As long as Joss is directing the course of the story (as I hope
he is), I guess I'll have to trust him. Maybe the writers don't
get that 'rape' is a topic some of us would prefer not to have
pushed in our faces. I just hope the ME people all remember how
unhappy the fans were with the end of Xena. I didn't watch the
show, but friends who did swore never to watch the reruns after
Xena got beheaded.
Go Wisewoman - I agree! Self preservation in the no. 1 instinct
of all species.
Interesting
comment from ASH interview... -- Darby, 11:30:35 12/06/02
Fri
From
http://www.bronzeshelter.com/showdetails.php?contentid=1580
There's a lot here, much of it interesting, but I wanted to highlight
this (the italics are mine):
"I'm truly flattered, (but) the bottom line about writing
is conflict. If you have no conflict, you have no situation really
that's interesting. For Giles to simply stay there would not have
presented the challenges to the writers. Because when I said
I wanted to leave and Joss said 'Yeah, sure,' he then turned round
and said 'This is just the time you should be staying and I said
you could go. What do we do with that?' And the way he built
that into the plot, I thought was brilliant, really absolute genius.
And he's always been one to rise to the occasion. When Seth (Green)
had to go off and shoot a movie, and suddenly Joss was faced with
losing Oz, out of that the Tara/Willow relationship was born.
And he's always worked very well with whatever cards he's dealt."
Regular viewers of the series might be surprised at just how much
of the meticulously detailed plotting comes about as a result
of production issues and the availability of the acting corps.
Season Two's "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" episode,
in which Xander's attempts at a love spell yield unexpected and
very funny consequences, was written specifically to fill in for
Sarah Michelle Gellar's absence while she was appearing as a guest
on Saturday Night Live. One of Whedon's great gifts is making
those small changes yield long-lasting results. Witness the Tara/Willow
relationship, or the spell which turned Buffy into a rat coming
back in Season Three's "Gingerbread."
Nice to see that we weren't the only ones (other than Buffy)saying
Giles' departure was wrong (sort of).
[> Re: Interesting comment
from ASH interview... -- MaeveRigan, 11:38:16 12/06/02
Fri
Nice to see that we weren't the only ones (other than Buffy)saying
Giles' departure was wrong (sort of).
It also illustrates, possibly, that maybe Buffy was right when
she told Giles, "You're wrong" in believing that he
had to leave in order for her to learn to stand alone.
At least, in an ideal world (or even the real world), he might
at least have written a letter or e-mailed or called now and than.
But in the Buffyverse, Buffy has to walk her own lonesome valley.
And I suppose we're to assume Giles is busily at work with the
coven, preparing (though he may not know it yet) for Willow's
meltdown.
So in the end, they were both right.
Ah, fiction!
All Things
Gothic on BtVS -- slain, 18:15:23 12/05/02 Thu
Preamble:
Once again it's another long one. The Gothic was something I'd
forgotten about, but which I was reminded of when Season 7 started
to veer away from the misleading postmodern-lightness tack that
Joss had claimed it would follow, ala Season 1. I think this may
be nearly as long as my Spike essay. The title is open to debate,
with 'Buffy vs. the Gothic' and a variety of horrible puns also
possibilities, though at the moment I like this homage. Thanks
goes to shadowkat, ponygirl and others for inspiring me in some
of the directions.
+ALL THINGS GOTHIC ON BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER+
What do I mean by 'The Gothic'? The literary gothic was a genre
in the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, which developed as
a reaction against the Age of Reason and what we might think of
as the rise of science and rationalism, with famous authors including
Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Anne Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis, and
Edgar Allen Poe in America. It was about anxiety, the supernatural,
morality and the limits of existence; often it was about extremes
and the extraordinary. Today it usually refers to people who wear
fishnet stockings and say they prefer night to day, but while
the term isn't often used to describe modern fiction, everything
that makes up the Gothic is alive in well in literature, film
and TV; not just in the work of Anne Rice, but everywhere. Replace
the term with 'horror', and you get better idea of the Gothic's
pervading influence.
HORROR VS. TERROR
If we think of horror, we think of movies which aren't necessarily
scary, but which are often capable of shocking the audience. Horror
means lots of blood, lots of monsters and probably some running
around while being chased by things. But 'terror' is an equally
important part of the Gothic, arguably more so. Horror is about
being graphic, about being disgusting or horrific, its power in
presenting visceral images or death and murder and an unambiguous
supernatural. Terror, on the other hand, is more subtle; it isn't
interested in showing so much, but rather in building up fear
and apprehension; terror is mental, whereas horror is more physical.
The majority of the most powerful Horror-genre films are actually
about terror, not horror; The Exorcist, for example, and The Omen
both use terror to build up, before some scenes of horror. Horror
is what B-movies and cheap fiction thrives on; gore and guts,
and probably some sex, too. Terror can make you afraid, whereas
horror can shock you.
Neither mode is the more gothic; most gothic novels use a mixture
of the two, to some extent. Buffy uses horror as its basic mode,
because it's based on the tradition of Horror films; which means
that vampires and monsters are usually up front and fairly horrific,
and that the supernatural is fairly unambiguous. However the show
has also uses terror frequently, often in deliberate contrast
to the less deep horror elements.
In Season 2, Angel's mental torture of Buffy was an exercise in
terror, using psychological means and based around small but subtle
tactics such as the bundle of black-ribboned roses. Terror doesn't
usually make the object of the terror clear, or even make its
existence concrete; it's all about the imagination of both the
character and the readers. In the episode 'Amends', Angel's mind
is manipulated by an obscure force (the First) which uses subtle
means to achieve a state of confusion and fear; in Season 7, the
same tactics are used again. While terror typically exists primarily
in the mind of the characters, the nature of Buffy means that
the First is more explicit and visible.
In 'Amends', Buffy herself is confronted by the First. Having
abandoned terror, it reverts to horror, trying to shock Buffy
by making itself visually frightening. Buffy isn't impressed;
her reaction demonstrates the specific way the Gothic works in
the show. Instead of terror being built up, it is frequently undercut
by humour, and horror isn't often expected to be shocking. The
novel 'Dracula' was an exercise in terror, but the same terror
can't be brought to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because this is
the Age of Reason; the Gothic has relied on superstition, and
on the believability of its fantastic situations. But in a postmodern
world it's less easy to be terrified by something, certainly not
a TV show with advert breaks every ten minutes. Similarly horror
is less horrific, because audiences no longer accept that shocking
images are 'real'. Buffy plays with this idea, introducing monsters
that are not horrific, by subverting them or by acknowledging
that they're fictional archetypes. The episode 'Buffy vs. Dracula'
revisited the most famous Gothic novel, but while Dracula was
portrayed with some seriousness, ultimately he was undercut by
humour and by the acknowledgement that he was a fictional character.
THE UNHEIMLICH
While we are no longer frightened by many of the things that the
Gothic has often relied upon, the unhiemlich or uncanny still
holds as much power as it is has always done. Cliched devices
for building up terror, such as the use of atmospheric music or
lonely dark corridors, have been subverted by the show as much
as devices for horror have. But all things unhiemlich are used
when the show really wants to step into the Gothic and become
more deeply involved in it. Freud's idea of the unhiemlich centred
around not unfamiliar or alien things such as werewolves and demons,
but around the familiar, and around things which are both difficult
to define, and difficult to escape from. Something which is familiar,
but also frightening. 'Creepy' is often a good adjective to describe
things which are unhiemlich.
'Hush' is an episode which uses the power of the unhiemlich to
create terror. While using some of the typical Gothic cinema effects
(background music, dark lighting and shadows, unwanted silence),
it relies on the making of the familiar seem terrifying. The Gentlemen
themselves are not conventional horrific monsters, but more humanlike;
they look like us, but they aren't us. They mimic human politeness,
and the precision of surgeons. They wear clothes, but don't walk.
'Hush' uses the unexplained, and its effect on the everyday; Buffy
and Willow wake up on a normal morning, but can't speak. Everything
is at once familiar but also disturbing or foreign.
While 'Hush' existed within a relatively recognisable Horror genre
style, 'The Body' was an episode which used terror in a less obvious
way. Things which are unhiemlich are often things which seems
to be neither one thing or another, neither animated nor inanimate,
dead or alive. A familiar character since the start of the show,
on her death Joyce's body becomes unhiemlich to Buffy; is the
body her mother, or just a dead thing? The moment at which she
comes to the realisation that her mother is 'the body' is the
moment at which the terror is resolved; rationalising terror often
leads to its resolution, as if by understanding something negates
its power. For Dawn, the moment of unhiemlich and terror comes
when she reaches out to her mother's body; lying there in the
mortuary, Joyce doesn't seem to be real, or to be dead or alive.
Death is a very unhiemlich event, because while it's inevitable
and familiar to everyone, it's also unexplained, uncanny, disturbing.
'The Body' deals with the relationship to the body of someone
who has died, and the fear and dread its uncertain and undetermined
nature brings.
DOPPELGOTHLAND
Another aspect of Freud's uncanny which has particular reference
to Buffy is the doppelganger, and this can mean a 'split personality'
as well as the double self. The Gothic uses the doppelganger to
illustrate anxieties or aspects of a character's personality,
or about the human condition. There have been many obvious doppelgangers
in Buffy; in 'Dopplegangland' Willow's doppelganger made physical
many of her desires and her so-called 'dark side'. Xander's split
doppelganger in 'The Replacement' portrayed the good and bad points
of his character, both charming and lacking in confidence. Angel/Angelus
was about both Angel's inner darkness, but more pointedly about
the inner darkness and cruelty of men (a feminist statement),
and also generally about the duality of all humans; Oz/Werewolf
made the same points, as did the other selves in 'Beauty and the
Beasts' and Xander's hyena possession in 'The Pack'. Spike's duality
in 'Sleeper' represented not only his own fears about returning
to evil, but the fear that he would be uncontrollable, unable
to control 'the beast'; much as 'Wild at Heart' represented the
same fear for Oz.
However many less explicit Gothic doppelgangers have been shown.
The First Slayer in Buffy's dream in 'Restless' made visible her
fears about being a 'killer', of being someone with power but
not control, and of losing herself in her slaying. Many other
characters exist in part as doubles of others; Dawn is Buffy's
double, initially illustrating her negative points, namely becoming
absorbed in herself and in her Otherness or supernatural nature
and seeing herself as set apart from others. Tara initially represented
an earlier, less confident Willow, with Willow's bringing of Tara
out of herself as symbolic of Willow's own growth. In Season 6
the Troika are the double of the Scooby Gang; what they could
become if they ceased to take the fantastic elements of their
life as seriously, and treated them as fiction rather than 'reality',
which each Scooby representing elements of Buffy, Willow and Xander.
Warren illustrates Buffy's fears of becoming a cold, emotionless
killer incapable of love and using others rather than understanding
them. Jonathan is Willow's double, lacking in confidence and led
by others rather than being in control of his own power. Andrew
represents Xander's fears of being insignificant, the third wheel.
SO'CAL DREAMING
The dream state, and the idea of the prophetic or psychologically
significant dream is a key Gothic feature. Dreams, like doppelgangers
or other manifestations, demonstrate the inner mind of the characters,
as well as having supernatural elements. The four dreams in 'Restless'
were both psychological, and prophetic; they illustrated the character's
fears (Willow's fear of being 'found out' as less confident then
she really was; Xander's of being trapped in his basement and
staying the least intelligent or useful Scooby, Giles' fear of
not being able to help or understand Buffy, and Buffy's fear at
becoming a killer with bad hair), and the dreams also foreshadow
events to come in both a literal and emotional way, in terms of
actual plotlines and character's individual feelings.
HOUSE
The House, mansion or castle is always a powerful Gothic metaphor.
Typically the house represents the emotions of the people who
live in it, which is why terrifying castles and run-down mansions
are so popular, as they aptly represent the turbulent emotions
of Gothic characters. There are two main buildings in Buffy; Sunnydale
High, and the Summers' house. The Summers' house often literally
represents the turmoil of the characters, particularly in 'Conversations
with Dead People' where it represents that disorder of Dawn's
mind, and the confusion of the events. However the different levels
of the house also have significance; lighting is a key feature
of Gothic cinema, and in the bedrooms it can be either airy or
dark, mirroring the events being acted out. The basement is always
significant in the Summers' house. In 'Normal Again', its dark,
cluttered nature symbolises Buffy's own confusion and anxiety;
in 'Never Leave Me', the underground surroundings of Buffy and
Spike's conversation suggest that something is buried or hidden.
Sunnydale High is a more complex Gothic building than the archetypical
castle. In past seasons, it wasn't lived in, and presented a bland
and acceptably non-Gothic facade; the turmoil was within, and
Buffy's role, in episodes such as 'Passion' or 'The Zeppo', was
to keep the Gothic manifestations of mental turmoil from escaping.
School was hell, but didn't appear so. As a modern Gothic metaphor,
the school is more subtle than the classic 'honkin' big castle',
though clearly the giant snakes and many-headed beasties that
appear in and around the school are less so. In Season 7 the new
school has changed, by dint of being inhabited. Spike's mental
turmoil was represented by the corporeal spirits in 'Lessons',
and the earth-floored maze-like basement is more explicitly representative
of the unrest, amongst the people who go to school in the building,
than the fairly innocuous Sunnydale High Mark I was.
GOING TO EXTREMES
Extremity, the limits of human morality and existence, is perhaps
the most significant Gothic feature, and what created the genre
in the first place; it was a reaction against reason and moderation.
The Gothic is about another, less polite or 'realistic' world,
in which the unreal is both real and dangerous, and in which the
characters don't behave in a 'normal' way, or aren't able to.
The Buffyverse is in this way a very Gothic universe, in that
it frequently seeks to test the limits of being human. Vampires,
as well as being unhiemlich and other-but-familiar, are also extreme
humans; horrific, in their lack of morality and their violence,
but also capable of understanding both human emotions and human
morals. Buffy herself lives her life in an extreme way, living
with terror and horror; the other Scoobies' arcs have often explored
the depths and heights of humanity. The Gothic seeks to exaggerate
and to dramatise the internal in an external way; in the Season
6 finale, Willow's inner struggle is taken to a literal level
with the whole world becoming an extended house-type metaphor
for both her angst, and more generally that of humanity as a whole.
The Gothic always pushes the envelope as far as intensity of emotion
is concerned, and in the destructive and powerful events that
dramatise the emotions of the characters.
Limits of love, linked to pain and pleasure, are explored in the
show through sadism and masochism, often a Gothic preoccupation.
The relationship between Spike and Drusilla exists on this edge,
as does his relationship with Buffy. Both explore the limits of
love in relation to morality. Love is a powerful, destructive
force as much as it is healing; in a Gothic world, love is frequently
close to hate, jealousy and revenge. Damnation and redemption
are Gothic themes, with the first often being the most common;
Gothic characters often subscribe to the Calvinist idea that every
human being is effectively damned from birth, and in the Buffyverse
certainly vampires can be seen as the damned, in a way which demons
in general are not. Love as a positive force is not typically
a Gothic feature, but rather the type of mutual abuse that characterised
Buffy and Spike's relationship in Season 6 typifies a Gothic romance.
THE POSTMODERN GOTHIC
Many other aspects associated with the Gothic are represented
in Buffy (the villain hero, pursued heroine), and are also often
subverted. Buffy's relationship with the Gothic is always set
alongside its relationship with postmodernism, or simply with
it being modern; the Gothic insists that terror and horror must
be given power and credence by the narrative, and that we must
be effected by these things, whereas postmodernism points out
that these things are not real, but are part of generic modes
which the audience understands. Buffy exists within the Gothic,
but often steps outside it to view the idea of terror, horror
and other Gothic features more objectively, or ironically. Doppelgangers
are as much a feature for comedy as they are for terror and portent,
for example. But while some features of the Gothic (those most
associated with the Horror film genre) are sometimes pastiched
by the show, in fact Buffy remains true to the Gothic principle
of a narrative where the supernatural is a metaphor for the psychology
of the characters, and where a darker, hidden side of life, and
the limits of morality are explored.
[> Excellent, slain, simply
excellent! -- Dead Soul, 21:05:57 12/05/02 Thu
[> Honestly, that essay
was as good or better than anything in "Fighting the Forces"...
-- Rob, 22:18:47 12/05/02 Thu
...and a lot less snooty! I loved what you said about each character
of the Troika mirroring aspects of the core Scooby Gang. I'd never
thought of it that way before.
Your essay was very insightful, and was a great examination of
"Buffy'," in a way I haven't seen done before. Thanks
for posting it!
Rob
[> A little bit more on
the House -- Tchaikovsky, 03:27:04 12/06/02 Fri
You mention the house in Gothic horror. It's interesting that
the most obviously Gothic castle/mansion is an ironic nod.
From Psyche Buffy vs Dracula:
EXT. DRACULA'S CASTLE - NIGHT (NIGHT FOUR)
Riley and Giles arrive at the castle. Gaze up at the huge , imposing
edifice. A beat. They can't believe their eyes.
RILEY
(facetious)
I've lived in Sunnydale a couple
years now. Know what I never
noticed before?
GILES
A castle?
RILEY
A big, honking castle.
They walk up to the front door, enter.
This is a very funny quote, but it also suggests something to
the audience reading along Gothic lines. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
enjoys rejecting traditional stock concepts of the Gothic, even
though the underlying themes are rooted in the genre. Here, the
Castle is shown to be Other. It doesn't really belong in Sunnydale,
only being imposed for Drcaula. In Buffy, the Gothic castles are
just normal buildings.
'High School is Hell'. Well, yes the experience is. And, analagously,
the High School building itself is the 'unheimlich' mansion. The
apparently innocent space in which terror comes to play for the
school's general population and horror representing terror for
the Scooby Gang.
'Home is where the Heart is'. Emotions play out in the Summers
house- and they also sometimes have big, black bugs from outer
space. Buffy's house is a typical American frontier house. Nicely
hand-crafted, but nothing special. Just a 'normal' place.
In Buffy, we are shown time and again that the things that sometimes
appear scariest, and the things that are sometimes traditionally
portrayed as scariest, are not. So the Master's candle-y Church
and Dracula's castle are throw-away sets. The horror is terror,
and the terror happens in real life.
Just commenting on one aspect of a brilliant and revealing essay,
Slain. Thanks.
TCH
[> That was great! --
ponygirl, 09:34:01 12/06/02 Fri
The interesting thing about Buffy vs. Dracula is that while it's
as close to camp as the show has ever come, it still speaks to
the power that the Gothic, the terror, possesses. Buffy can mock
Dracula and any monster all she wants, but the darkness they represent
still calls to her. It exposes that post-modern detachment is
at times just a very thin protection from larger, more primal
forces. In BvsD, Buffy may have defeated the ultimate Gothic Dark
Prince(bater), but she then goes home to find... Dawn.
"Everything is at once familiar but also disturbing or foreign."
Something's always lurking underneath, worlds can be changed in
a heartbeat.
Great essay, slain!
[> [> Horror vs. Terror
(slightly OT but possibly still relevant) -- Thomas the Skeptic,
11:08:44 12/06/02 Fri
Like everyone else who has responded, I thought your essay was
outstanding! (And, of course, I printed a copy to go in my personal
collection of great posts on the ATPOBTVS message board.). By
the by, your comparison/contrast of the similarities and differences
between horror and terror reminded me of a quote I read in an
interview with Boris Karloff years ago. The interviewer asked
him what the difference between horror and terror was and he said
(paraphrase here) "Horror is walking down a city street and
suddenly seeing the person in front of you being stabbed. Terror
is realizing that the attacker is turning around to stab you next!".
That always stuck in my mind as a good rule of thumb to distinguish
them, with terror being the more visceral,and immediate, of the
two. That is, until I read your essay and re-examined my assumptions.
Thanks for expanding my horizons (and definitions)!
[> [> [> Re: Horror
vs. Terror (slightly OT but possibly still relevant) [spoilers
for 7.7 i think] -- slain, 16:55:19 12/06/02 Fri
I've read that Karloff quote - it's certainly a good piece of
rhetoric. The way I'd understand it is that horror is more seeing
something, whereas terror is more personal. You don't put yourself
in the place of the person getting eviscerated, you just watch.
Whereas with terror, you're put in the place of the person.
The actor who played the lead Gentleman and Gnarl uses terror
very well - we feel like we're in the place of the young man who
gets opperated on in 'Hush', and in Willow's when he's eating
her skin. Horror distances us, but terror really doesn't.
[> Re: All Things Gothic
on BtVS -- Sentinel,
11:42:37 12/06/02 Fri
To Slain's impressive listing of Buffyverse doppelgangers, a minor
quibble: In The Replacement, the second Xander is used thru much
of the episode as a "false doppelganger" of the type
that Nabokov seems to have invented (first in his Russian novels,
e.g. Despair, and later in the more sophisticated usage of Lolita).
The writers were setting up a straw man, someone who we and the
original Xander are expected to believe is an evil demon, intent
on doing harm/rape, especially to Anya, but who in the denouement
is revealed to be no more evil or guilty than any other character
(in Lolita, the straw man was Clare Quilty, or Clearly Guilty--but
was he?).
Whether, in this special usage, the technique can actually be
an example of a true Gothic doppelganger, or a post-modern parodic
double, is a question I leave to the semantic entanglements of
other quibblers.
[> [> What's interesting
about "The Replacement" in this context.... -- cjl,
13:16:52 12/06/02 Fri
....is that we're in the POV of ButtMonkey!Xander for most of
the episode. If either of the two Xanders conforms to the definition
of the classic gothic doppelganger, it's BM!Xander, not Suave!Xander.
BM!Xander is the Shadow: the desperate, insecure, quip-happy (and
yet, strangely endearing) part of Xander he's been trying to outgrow
for the length of the series.
[I recall a Lovecraft short story (sorry, blanking on the title)
which is entirely from the point of view of a horrible monster
who's just awakened and is wandering through a dank castle, wondering
who he is what the heck is going on. At the end of the story,
he finally gets a good look at himself in the mirror, and we kind
of feel bad for the guy: maybe he was better off not knowing.]
"The Replacement" isn't your classic doppleganger tale,
but a faithful-in-spirit modern update. (I'd classify it with
modern SF tales like Harlan Ellison's Shatterday.)
[> [> Re: All Things
Gothic on BtVS -- slain, 17:04:41 12/06/02 Fri
I haven't read Nabokov, but I agree that the Replacement confirms
to the idea of the false doppelganger. However I think it's still
Gothic, because of the reason for the doppels - to show things
about the character. The doubles make the point that the way Xander
views himself (as 'Butt-monkey Xander', thanks cjl!) is different
to the way others often view him (as charming, sexy, capable Xander).
'Restless' was about his fears, but 'The Replacement' marks, for
me, the beginning of his realising about his strengths.
Thanks for everyone for the kind comments - I think we can let
this return to the archives, now!
[> CutPrint ....will respond
later...and thanks -- shadowkat, 11:48:33 12/06/02 Fri
Nice to know I inspired such an interesting and creative post!!
[> Preserving the thread
-- Masq, 16:45:23 12/06/02 Fri
[> Belated spoilers for
7.9 in first post -- slain, 16:52:36 12/06/02 Fri
[> Re: All Things Gothic
on BtVS (Spoilers to NLM 7.9) -- shadowkat, 21:04:22 12/07/02
Sat
Interesting post. I love your points about dopplegangers
and the house. Also the idea of love in the gothic sense.
I watched Stanely Kubrick Biography on BBCAmerica tonight and
they were discussing how he broached the modern gothic with The
Shining and struggled to find the right music and setting for
it. Never could quite find a good match to set the tone.
I think in film, particularly gothic - tone is important and I
think Buffy like the Shining is the modern or rather post-modern
version of the gothic. (I've never really understood the concept
of post-modern...so will stay away from that in fear of misstepping.)
Typically the house represents the emotions of the people who
live in it, which is why terrifying castles and run-down mansions
are so popular, as they aptly represent the turbulent emotions
of Gothic characters.
In The Shining - they decided to go for an off-putting old hotel
in Oregon as opposed to the white stately structure in Colorado
which Stephen King had in fact based his book on. Must admit the
structure in Oregon is far more frightening. Another house that
has always made me think of "gothic" is the house in
Robert Wise's 1960 film The Haunting based on Shirly Jackson's
novel of the same name.
The house in that novel is the horror - it contains within its
walls and windows and structure the pain and suffering of all
that died within its walls. Subtly through lighting and odd camera
angles Wise gets across the terror of the house - it's not bloody
and gruesome like the 2000 movie of the same name. This version
builds the terror slowly through the tension of music and the
actors. The difference between psychological terror and "horror".
In Buffy - the scene with Dawn in the house during CwDP seems
to build quietly as well, first with thumping then with out and
out destruction. By the end of the episode, Dawn is curled on
the floor, gasping and wondering what is real.
In contrast the harbingers attack of the house in NLM is more
horror - with fighting and no quiet build up. While watching the
Principal descend to the basement and remove Jonathan's body is
somewhat creepy terror - the epic torture and crufixion of Spike
on the wheel is horror in all
its glory, blood dripping from his wounds, etc, and Nosfertu vamp
staring up at him. I mention Nosfertu because it was also in the
Gothic tradition - a truly horrible creature that rose from the
depths of the earth, feeding - not the romantic handsome yet evil
prince later played by Frank Langella and Gary Oldman in the Dracula
movies.
Many other aspects associated with the Gothic are represented
in Buffy (the villain hero, pursued heroine), and are also often
subverted. Buffy's relationship with the Gothic is always set
alongside its relationship with postmodernism, or simply with
it being modern; the Gothic insists that terror and horror must
be given power and credence by the narrative, and that we must
be effected by these things, whereas postmodernism points out
that these things are not real, but are part of generic modes
which the audience understands. Buffy exists within the Gothic,
but often steps outside it to view the idea of terror, horror
and other Gothic features more objectively, or ironically.
Buffy seems to make fun of the "gothic" horror tradition.
In Buffy vs. Dracula she doesn't believe it is Dracula at first
- after all she comments - "I've meet a few pimply overweight
vamps claiming to be Lestat." Earlier in School Hard, Angel
tells Spike - that he got the slayer to leave him alone by pretending
to be good, holding Xander's exposed neck between them as the
prize. Spike responds: "It's amazing how many people fall
for that Ann Rice Stuff. What a world."
Then later in Lie to Me - both Spike and Angel look dismissively
upon the goth vamp wannabes. Angel comments on how they are just
children play-acting. They don't even know how to dress like us.
(Only to discover to his dismay one boy who does). And Spike?
He lets Chanterelle later Lily later Anne know that he's a monster
not some misunderstood romantic knight - ready to eat her.
Ford approachs Spike with the same romanticism -the old gothic
view of the villain - "now you say I only have 30 minutes
to live", Spike - "actually why don't I just kill you
now?" Ford has played it all out like a movie but the reality?
It's not quite what he expected. He dies. He rises.
And Buffy stakes him and he explodes into dust. He doesn't even
get the cool Pee Wee Herman death scene of the BTvs movie.
The commentary from the very beginning has been - yes romanticize
the vamps...but at your own peril.
In Season 2 - people are constantly commenting on how Angel is
yes a vampire, but a good vampire and he'll never hurt you. Cordy
says it throughout most of Halloween. Buffy mentions it in Lie
to Me. Then we have Surprise to Innocence - and well appears he
will hurt you. And Kendra may just be right - the only good vampire
is a dead vampire.
Or is it? Since Angel does come back and does help to save the
day, sort of.
In Btvs the villian hero does pursue the heroine...but not quite
in the same way. We don't have the romance of Dracula and Mina
or the Lestate and Louis being played out here.
And the girl is often as strong as or stronger than the guy.
That's another interesting point of "gothic" that Btvs
turns on its head - the female role. In most gothic traditions
- the girl is in danger. In the gothic romances -she is saved
by the guy who seems at first to be a villain.
The classics - Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights don't end
that well and the female is actually far stronger, but not nearly
as strong or as empowered as Buffy. In constructing Buffy - Whedon
went out of his way to turn the idea of the small blond girl getting
killed or being saved by the boy on its head.
In Season 6 the Troika are the double of the Scooby Gang; what
they could become if they ceased to take the fantastic elements
of their life as seriously, and treated them as fiction rather
than 'reality', which each Scooby representing elements of Buffy,
Willow and Xander. Warren illustrates Buffy's fears of becoming
a cold, emotionless killer incapable of love and using others
rather than understanding them. Jonathan is Willow's double, lacking
in confidence and led by others rather than being in control of
his own power. Andrew represents Xander's fears of being insignificant,
the third wheel.
Finally someone points this out. I think we are seeing this odd
dynamic still being played out now. With some of the dopplegangers
oddly enough being incorporated into the characters or the characters
themselves becoming their own doppleganger.
I think with the First Evil playing each character in the story
-we'll see it even more. In CwDP we saw Cassie's evil doppleganger.
In Sleeper - we saw Spike's. Spike's split is seen in Sleeper
and NLM. We also see Buffy's in Sleeper and NLM with the First
Evil. But like in the Replacement - the dopplegangers aren't easily
detected. It's not like looking at Willow and VampWillow. ButtMonkey
Xander and Suave Xander look the same by the end of the Replacement.
Just as First Evil Spike and Spike are similarily dressed in the
basement of NLM. The use of dopplegangers in Btvs goes a step
beyond the gothic tradition - instead of just pointing out a character's
dark side - it's asking us who we are inside. Is Spike - a man
at heart or a demon with the face of a man. Is Spike's true face
the bumpy wrinklies or the smooth visage? Is Willow's the black-eyed
visage and black hair or the clear green and red hair? (not sure
if that made much sense - it's late and I think I'm rambling again.)
At any rate...great essay.
SK
Buffy's stake
in Wittgenstein's poker -- Tchaikovsky, 05:10:54 12/06/02
Fri
'People say again and again that philosophy doesn't really progress,
that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems
as were the Greeks. But the peple who say that don't understand
why this has to be so. It is because our language has remained
the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions.
Ludwig Wittgenstein- explaining succinctly his 'language is the
problem' theory'
'The later Wittgenstein used to talk of 'puzzles', caused by the
philosophical misuse of language. I can only say that if I had
no serious philosophical problems and no hope of solving them,
I should have no excuse for being a philosopher: to my mind there
would be no apology for philosophy.'
Karl Popper, with a trade-mark dig at Wittgenstein, dismissing
language puzzles as part of the most pressing philosophical problems
of the 20th Century.
'Thank you for not giving me platitudes, but something that was
complex and dark and strong.'
Rahael in reply to Deb's startlingly powerful post down below
somewhere.
************** I need an OnM-ish line-break here. Imitation is
the sincerest form of flattery.
Litany
The soundtrack then was a litany - candlewick
bedspread three piece suite display cabinet -
and stiff-haired wives balanced their red smiles,
passing the catalogue. Pyrex. A tiny ladder
ran up Mrs Barr's American Tan leg, sly
like a rumour. Language embarrassed them.
The terrible marriages crackled, cellophane
round polyester shirts, and then The Lounge
would seem to bristle with eyes, hard
as the bright stones in engagement rings,
and sharp hands poised over biscuits as a word
was spelled out. An embarrassing word, broken
to bits, which tensed the air like an accident.
This was the code I learnt at my mother's knee, pretending
to read, where no one had cancer, or sex, or debts,
and certainly not leukaemia, which no one could spell.
The year a mass grave of wasps bobbed in a jam-jar;
a butterfly stammered itself in my curious hands.
A boy in the playground, I said, told me
to fuck off; and a thrilled, malicious pause
salted my tongue like an imminent storm. Then
uproar. I'm sorry, Mrs Barr, Mrs Hunt, Mrs Emery,
sorry, Mrs Raine. Yes, I can summon their names.
My mother's mute shame. The taste of soap.
Carol Ann Duffy (our real Poet Laureate) on language.
*********** Yes, quite infectious.
I've been shocked and deeply moved by this little board this week.
For several reasons. Things have hit me about it in the last week.
It is incredibly flexible. One thread can talk about people's
experiences of abuse, while another is, (not disrespectfully)
talking about foodstuffs made out of Buffy lines. There's a great
range of style. While being entirely composed of typed words,
I have felt part of a dislocated community, living together in
cyberspace, but so far apart in the world. And this week I feel
really indebted to everyone who had contributed to Deb's thread
on Death, Rape and the whole Controversial Thing, (as Rahael would
have it). So many people have put across experiences and opinions
based on them which have both been valuable to me, and almost
moved me to tears. I didn't feel I could contribute, as, being
a sheltered, middle class, young-ish student, I was simply worried
that I would lapse into default platitudes to cover up my naivety-
my inability to begin to imagine what some people have been through,
and my essential lack of words necessary to even acknowledge that,
in being on this board, I meet people who have experienced more
of the world than I have.
To summarise, it is an immense joy to me to read every single
post, of all natures, and it is a gift to me that anyone writes
here, (and of course, that they're able to. Somebody knight Masq.)
The inadequacy of language to explain things led me back to a
book I have just finished, called 'Wittgenstein's Poker'. It also
led me back to Carol Ann Duffy, my favourite contemporary poet.
How does language affect or constitute the great problems of philosophy?
How does language affect us? And how is language used in the Buffyverse?
The following ramble is, I hope, some attempt to repay the immense
debt that I owe to this board's posters, for the thoughts which
they throw out almost casually for my pleasure.
*********** I love these things.
Language is not the only way in which we express ourselves. How
many times have we heard the sentence: 'X% of communication is
non-verbal'? (usually with the X wildly varying, but usually well-above
50%). However, here on this board, in a very real sense, it is.
Body language is stripped away, as is tone of voice. It has an
enabling effect, as well as the much commented-on drawbacks. We
can't establish so easily when people are being playful, are genuinely
angry, or are intending generosity but actually portray cruellness
of some kind. But on the other hand, I suspect that the board
does allow people to express opinions more easily than everyday
life in other ways. As little as I wish to admit it, I suspect
subconsciously that my lack of knowldege over many people's gender,
age and location actually helps me in dealing with arguments head-on.
I don't spend time thinking that people's viewpoints are bound
to be different, so why bother. I also don't feel as intimidated
by people as I might do if I knew that they were 30 years older
than me, (which might just be true in some cases). Any subconscious
prejudices of vision are swept away too. In a sense, this is one
of the most pure forms of language communication you will find
anywhere. So how important is language to the way we think? Is
language in fact the only restriction on philosophical progress.
Are there no real Philosophical Problems? This was the question
posed in Cambridge on 25, October 1946.
My knowledge of Popper and Wittgenstein's philosophies stems entirely
from the book 'Wittgenstein's Poker', by Dave Edmonds and John
Eidinow. I don' claim in any way to be an expert on these philosophers,
just a keen reader, interested in linking their thoughts, (or
an 'explained to the layman' version of them) to my own experiences,
here particularly of language.
In the book, it is explained how Wittgenstein and Popper were
two of the greatest philosophical minds of the 20th century. And
how, to Popper, (the younger and less established of the two),
Wittgenstein's views were entirely useless. He set himself up
diametrically opposed to Wittgenstein's views, particularly on
just what it is possible to know.
On 10/25/1946 (I'm getting those American dates), Popper was a
guest speaker at the Moral Science Club, an institution led by
Wittgenstein, the pre-eminent philosopher at Cambridge. It is
the only time the two men met. Popper's paper addressed the question
'Are there Philosophical Problems?'. He put forward that they
were, and that the attitude of Wittgenstein, of saying the Problems
were only puzzles with language, was insufficient. There are problems
not created by language which need to be addressed. These included
inductions and ethics.
Wittgenstein was angered and appalled by this statement which
was obviously made to challenge his core assertions. These assertions
had made him the most famous philosopher in the world, and inspired
the Logical Positivists of the Vienna Circle. With his trademark
nervous energy, he brandished a poker at Popper, telling him that
he was incorrect. Shortly afterwards Wittgenstein, riled, left
the meeting slamming the door behind him.
The crux of this story is that, at some point of the debate, Popper
was asked, (either by Wittgenstein or one of his Cambridge acolytes),
for an example of an empirical moral rule. Popper replied: 'It
is a moral rule never to threaten visiting lecturers with pokers'.
Argument rages as to whether, as Popper writes assuredly in his
autobiography, Popper said this to Wittgenstein, or whether he
merely offered it back to the room after Wittgenstein had left.
The real truth of this matter seems like it will never be known.
What consequences do these two appraisals have for our lives?
In Wittgenstein's view, all Philosophy is a mire of inter-tangled
definitions of words. Language creates the problems. There are
only puzzles Here at Voy, the questions of moral ambiguity are
only intriguin puzzles in language. The Logical Positivists, (whom
Wittgenstein inspired, but largely disagreed with), asserted that
a sentence is only meaningful if it is verifiable. Either it is
true by definition, [an intrinsic truth like: 'the moon is a lunar
object'- merely playing with language] or it is true if it can
be shown by experiment, [eggs have always smashed on concrete
floors]. All other statements are irrelevant amusements. 'There
is a God' is not intrinsically truw by definition, nor verifiable,
and is therefore not worth discussing as a serious truth.
This is a 'puzzling' dilemma for our little room. Are all our
little disagreements about things that don't really matter? Are
we searching without any chance of finding. Is the grey ground
not worth looking at. Or, as Wittgenstein put it, is 'the deep
insayable?' Are the puzzling, profound questions that we ask ultimately
without an answer in language. Are we just amusing ourselves,
but never learning about our ultimate situation here?
Popper dismissed this argument. There were real problems in the
real world. We need to know that totalitarianism is wrong. The
Logical Postivist argument was false anyway, in his opinion, as
to claim eggs break on concrete floors one would have to check
every egg on every concrete floor, an action both impossible and
severely damaging to us omelette-lovers.He said that something
can be shown to be false if there is one counterexample, an aspect
of philosophy which has been thoroughly applied to the maths syllabus
I now study, (between lengthy voy rambles, of course). Popper
inspired many people, including, oddly enough, Margaret Thatcher,
who cited him as her favourite philosopher. But Popper, ultimately,
saw the Philosophical Problems. He would perhaps have been interested
in, 'Should Buffy forgive Spike?': 'Was Giles right to kill Ben?',
and 'Did the Parking Ticket Lady deserved to have her wheel clamped'?
For him, ethics was part of philosophy, and a truth about how
we exist could grow out of the problems in the real world, outside
language.
********** Is this one strictly necessary? Probably not.
Carol Ann Duffy also likes to explore language. I make no excuse
for not censoring the above poem, as it would be a ridiculous
irony- censoring a poem about people scared of language. For the
women of this poem, language is, in a sense, there greatest problem.
There desire for a 'Litany', a use of language which somehow expresses
something holy and indescribable about their mundane life, is
a product of their deep fear of language. In a sense, language
is reality for them. It is as if saying 'cancer' instead of 'The
Big C' might somehow incur cancer on the speaker. Similarly for
's-e-x'. Mentioning it might lead innocent Tupperware sessions
to decay into drunken orgies. As we can see from Duffy's portrayla,
language shapes the women's existence. They are deeply afraid
of its power. The child with the temerity to utter the word 'Fuck',
even when, as it is repeated from the boy, it is entirely devoid
of any meaning, shows how some of the problems with their lives
stem from an inability to cope with language. No-one can spell
'leukaemia' , so somehow their experience
of it is resticted. But is it that there problems in life are
reflected in their language problems, or is it language itself
which is the problem? Here again, we have the Wittgenstein/Popper
dichotomy.
[Check out more Carol Ann Duffy at home.clara.net/stevebrown/html/carol_ann_duffy.htm,
where the poems from her collection 'Mean Time' are truly remarkable.]
************ Last one. I promise.
So how does this relate to Buffy. In Joss' opinion, we communicate
better without language. In 'Hush', everybody is emotionally honest,
without the tangles of language to impede them. With Wittgenstein's
tangle of language cleared away, they are free to understand problems
concisely. But surely this doesn't shelve everything? There are
still ways to behave with each other, ultimate questions, which
are still relevant despite the loss of words? Or are there.
Language is a powerful tool. Without language, we would not have
this discussion board. Language is still necessary for the exposition
scene in 'Hush', even if written rather than verbal. Language
allows Deb, Rahael, Arethusa, Briar Rose, Caroline and others
to make me attempt to understand- and it can make me cry. But
language also appears to restrict life. Language can be scary-
and our attempts to control it can impede understanding.
There is never anything said about language which is not said
in language- a paradox which hampers the whole argument. If Popper
and Wittgenstein, two great minds, thought so unalike, what hope
is there for us, in uncovering the great mysteries of philosophy?
Maybe not a lot. But maybe, ultimately, I don't care that much.
Through trying to find out, trying to understand, we form much
stronger links. Links of emotion, ratehr than merely hyper-script.
We make friends. We cry with grief, or lack of understanding,
or smile with pleasure at an argument well-made, or at a thought
or emotion shared. We are fellow strugglers in the journey of
life, he said, relapsing into platitudes.
I'm British- so clearly I love Winston Churchill.
Are we still 'Captains of our fate' and 'Masters of our souls'.
Yes. More so for understanding ourselves by reading from others.
What language unites, let not trolls put asunder.
TCH- feeling thoroughly exhausted and egotistically begging feedback.
[> Not directly related
to philosophy (to TCH, Rah, Deb, Tiresius, and others) --
KdS, 05:51:07 12/06/02 Fri
TCH put into words everything I wanted to say in the thread below
but didn't dare to. The amount of stuff that comes out on this
board shocks, and stuns me, and leaves me wondering if I have
a right to respond, if I even dare to... I feel for everyone who
posted personal experiences and I'm stunned that such a proportion
of people on this board have had such experiences. Makes me feel
how sheltered my own life has been, how pointless and self-indulgent
my own occasional periods of depression have been when I have
such a privileged life in so many ways.
And Deb, I reacted very badly to some of your posts yesterday
in the same way as Dan did, coming very much from a background
of total artistic freedom. I'm glad I didn't post now because
of the sheer number of people... I'd better fall back on my usual
liberal fudge about censorship being a bad thing but artists having
a responsibility to think about the consequences of their actions...
[> Philosophical progress.
-- Darby, 07:42:10 12/06/02 Fri
Before getting to the meat, I want to echo that the most satisfying
aspect of the Board experience, for me, is having this window
into other lives, for experiences I will never know any other
way but which touch me in their telling. I would like to remind
people, in terms of language, that the more personal the stories,
the more vulnerable the poster, and sometimes the more visceral
the response, but please keep in mind that we challenge you to
answer with passion and courtesy (I always find it ironic
that the poster best able to do this, Rahael, seems to have the
least trust in her ability to do it). A badly-chosen phrase can
have the impact of creating long dry spells of no personal stories
and the withdrawal of some of our favorite community members (and
the continued lurking of valuable but unknown members).
And I'd participate with personal stories, and do on occasion,
but unfortunately I'm deadly dull.
To the matter at hand - is it a uniquely Western trait that everything
must experience "progress" to have value? Do Eastern
philosophers bemoan a lack of development in their philosophical
systems? And how, exactly, does philosophy advance?
To me, philosophy is an investigation of the inner voices of individuals
and groups. What does it all mean? What should it mean?
Do I matter, and does it matter if maybe I don't? Is there truth
to be found and then analyzed further, or does the truth only
exist fleetingly, a reflection of the spirit of the person or
society, changing from generation to generation without any real
directionality?
As a biologist, I firmly believe that Human Nature is not changing
in any significant way - if philosophy is inextricably linked
to our inner natures, it shouldn't really progress. Society, as
has been debated here extensively, may be a different thing -
is it progress to move toward broad-spectrum individual rights
and empowerment, or do I only think so because that seems "better"
to me? This is an interesting question, and not only because the
Big Picture aspect glosses over my ignorance in actual philosophy.
- Darby, actually amazed that he could dip a foot into a philosophy
discussion here.
[> [> Re: Philosophical
progress. -- Rahael, 08:31:59 12/06/02 Fri
Firstly, TCH, what a wonderful post. Complex and thoughtful and
very intelligent! (Plus you know, you brought Wittgenstein into
it!)
Just reading it and starting the brain thinking again has been
a blissful release. Words suddenly bubbling up within me again.
Reminding me that though I can be mute, words and text, in all
their articifiality can provide infinite amounts of solace. (But
I want to check out my copy of Philosophical Investigations first
before a proper reply!!)
Darby - wow thank you. That means a lot. Though I sometimes feel
fragile, I always feel stronger than everyone else. I mistrust
the ability of my tongue to cut and slash, for the ability to
cast people into moods I know I can withstand, but am not sure
others could.
I always feel that empathy and kindness are the greatest gifts
we can offer to each other, but are often the things that are
in short supply. I want to use Caroline's wonderful phrase (it
has such Miltonic overtones!) - the architecture of pain. Our
architectures allow us to understand and empathise where experience
is lacking. We all know what it is to be terrified, to be lonely,
to be desolate, to walk in a bleak internal land. With this understanding,
the knowledge that we as individuals can make a huge difference
to each other with such a simple thing as recognition, compassion
and understanding -
The idea that the greatest comfort afforded to me comes from a
centuries dead white, aristocratic Anglican vicar -
It's what great art does. It makes us feel included. It recognises
our humanity, or we feel that it does, and that's the important
thing.
When George Herbert, in his desolation asks God to make him a
tree, so he may afford shelter to a nesting bird, and thus make
him 'just', he asks that he become such a work of art. Inclusive,
kind, compassionate and justified.
Thank you, TCH and Darby, for your kind words. For when our words
connect and are understood and acknowledged, there can be no platitudes
or naivety. Sometimes all we can do is search for words that are
'not untrue and not unkind'. But sometimes we can give words that
are both.
[> [> [> And thank
you -- Caroline, 22:01:55 12/06/02 Fri
for grokking what I said. You put it far more beautifully than
I ever could.
[> [> [> Re: Philosophical
progress. -- M, 23:15:25 12/07/02 Sat
"So soon as a field of inquiry yeilds knowledge susceptible
of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins
as philosophy and ends in art."
Will Durant
[> [> 'I'd participate
with personal stories, and do on occasion, but unfortunately I'm
deadly dull.' -- Tchaikovsky, 11:52:54 12/06/02 Fri
That makes two of us then.
C'est la vie.
TCH
[> TCH, that was wonderfully
well-written! -- ponygirl, 09:06:28 12/06/02 Fri
[> [> Thank you --
TCH (hey! Everyone's finally using my acronym!), 10:46:17 12/06/02
Fri
[> [> I second that
-- slain, 18:02:30 12/06/02 Fri
I'm having flashbacks to some seminars on linguistics here which
I didn't understand at the time, so I don't think I can respond
in any coherent way, but I recall someone started an interesting
thread about language in BtVS not so long ago which might be worth
revisting in this light. Archives, anyone?
[> [> [> I think that
was -- Sophist, 20:21:09 12/06/02 Fri
**looks around furtively** (whispering) the meme thread(s). Don't
tell anyone I said so.
[> Re: Buffy's stake in
Wittgenstein's poker -- Sophie, 09:17:48 12/06/02 Fri
I, like many Americans, have lived a sheltered, middle-class life.
I lived (by choice) in a crime ridden inner-city neighborhood
for a couple of years (to see how tough I really was), traveled
to Europe and Mexico, and concluded that I had seen the world.
Rahael has reminded me of how wrong I am. My perspective is, unfortunately,
extremely limited by my only speaking English and living a sheltered
middle-class life in America - a country that has not seen a war
fought on its soil since the Civil War ended in 1865. (unless
one includes the attack at Pearl Harbor).
I appreciate the sheltered life that I have lived and how lucky
I am. The horrors, be them metaphors or not, shown on BtVS are
really fantasies and thoughts for me. I am not sure that I could
watch the show if this were not so. On 9/11, I was five blocks
from the WTC when the attacks occurred ñ the closest I
have ever been to true evil in my life. I, unlike nearly 3,000
unfortunate others, walked out with my life and no physical damage
to my body. What I saw, though, was truly horrible.
When I visited Europe, one of the things that struck me was the
difference in language. It was like somebody changed the operating
system in the people. This has contributed to my personal theory
that language forms our thoughts. I have started to force myself
to try and read books in French, to learn the words, and to learn
new ideas. This is a slow process. I read a little of Jacques
Derridaís philosophy (translated to English) when I was
an undergrad in college many years ago. He wrote about how language
informs our thoughts, but back then I didnít understand.
Now maybe I do ñ at least conceptually. Of course, the
different cultures that use these different languages inform the
development of the language as well. Translations of language
from one to another are thus doomed to be insufficient.
Derrida wrote a story(?) about how he wrote a journal on the back
of postcards and mailed them. Because postcards are not enclosed
in anything, everybody who gets hold of a postcard can read it.
The postman, the person who picks up a lost postcard in the street,
etc. Derridaís postcards all get lost, so all sorts of
people each get a part of the story, thus left to draw their own
conclusion. This board, sometimes reminds me of these postcards.
When someone posts a thought/thread/post, they risk it being misinterpreted
or some other life experiences being applied to it to derive the
meaning. It amazes me how we can work out these difficulties and
better learn to understand each other under such conditions, especially
considering how many of the posters here are writing in a foreign
(to them) language (English).
Sophie
[> [> Cart or horse?
-- Darby, 10:18:35 12/06/02 Fri
I sort of subscribe to the thought / language / culture symbiosis,
but like a good symbiosis, each probably influences the development
(geez, almost said evolution there!) of the other. How much does
a cultural persona influence the flow of the primary language,
and how much does language fit back into the culture itself, and
how much do both influence the thought flow in the individual
hive members? Like you, I think that somehow the couching of my
thoughts in a particular language influences the course of those
thoughts.
And for those who doubt that the inner monologue has a language,
I gotta tell you, as a profoundly visual thinker, mine does because
I can "see" most of the words as they go by. Makes me
a wicked good speller...
[> [> [> Ooops - this
was a response to Sophist... -- Darby, 10:20:18 12/06/02
Fri
[> [> [> [> Re:
Ooops - this was a response to Sophist... -- Sophie, 11:29:25
12/06/02 Fri
I agree with you, Darby.
I'm sure Sophist will show up sometime soon, though. I am amazed
how often he and I get confused. :)
Sophie
[> [> [> [> [>
By this point, I'm thoroughly confused and doubting my own
identity. -- Sophist, 12:22:39 12/06/02 Fri
Which is a metaphysical problem if ever there was one. Irony is
like that, I guess.
Having read Darby's post, I was sure it was really a response
to Sophie. Are you sure, Darby? And don't go solipsistic on me
now.....
I do have a solution, though. I think Sophie and I ought to adopt
each other's name as our evil alter egos. Then we can have a convenient
scapegoat for all occasions.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> I 'm confused. All here are confused. My job is done...
-- Darby, 12:59:55 12/06/02 Fri
Y'know, sometimes my students don't think it's funny when they
start a sentence, "I'm confused..." and I quickly say,
"Then my job is done!" and turn away. I do turn back...eventually...
It was actually a reply to Sophie - I had misread which
post I was bringing up. That explains why it appeared where it
did.
But Sophist, now I'm forgetting your take on language and thought
...
Man, can you tell it's Friday afternoon?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Language and thought -- Sophist, 17:28:21
12/06/02 Fri
It wasn't my take so much as Pinker's. He says that language does
not affect thought; it's the other way around -- thought affects
language.
He's the expert, so I accept that view. I tend to think it's right
anyway.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Re: Language and thought -- Sophie, 18:32:21
12/06/02 Fri
Pinker? Who? Might have to look into him.
Setting aside my acceptance of Sartrean beliefs and doctrines
wholesale just because Sartre said/wrote them, I started off life
thinking that thought informed language and it is only recently
that I have really changed my mind and think that language informs
thought. If you can't say it, then how can you think it? Grunt
grunt = I like cabbage? Ok, not making fun of you. In "1984",
Orwell describes how by deleting words from the vocabulary, the
prolitareites (Darby - spelling help needed!) can be prevented
from thinking things that might be against Big Brother's wishes.
Clearly, Orwell is proposing that language informs (or controls)
thought.
My theories loosely spring forth from there and combine with an
observation that books in English to a great degree are written
with the cultural understandings of Protestant beliefs, most notable
the "Protestant Work Ethic" (PWE). When I browse the
shelves at NYU's library, I can't help but notice that books in
French happily address issues such as torture and pity, while
the books in English only discuss Evil in terms of being against
God and thus wrong. It is hard to plant myself on either side
of the issue, but something is clearly at work here...
Sophie
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> Re: Language and thought -- Sophist,
18:52:42 12/06/02 Fri
Orwell was writing in 1948 and using the understanding of language/thought
predominant at that time. Since then, Chomsky radically changed
the way science understands language.
Basically, Chomsky says language is innate; all humans, after
all, can use it. Even deaf people -- they use sign language, but
it's still language. (Speech is not the same as language.)
Language is innate because our brains are programmed in advance
to learn it. This means that we have wiring that specifies the
basic grammar of language. Chomsky calls this "universal
grammar". Don't think of this as quite the same as English
grammar. Think of it as a set of underlying rules that all grammars
-- English, Chinese, Bantu, etc. -- must follow.
At bottom, then, language works because thoughts are represented
in an internal brain language and then translated into the specific
human language we speak. This makes the human language secondary.
We can think any thought our brains are capable of and then we
express it in our "native" language.
If this were not true, then some languages would be "better"
than others. They would have, say, more complex grammar. This,
however, is untrue. All languages are equally complex; English
is not "better" than Bantu. It is true that some thoughts
might be expressed more felicitously in some languages than in
others, but any thought can be expressed in any language. Again,
if this were not true, non-English speakers might be unable to
learn concepts first developed by English speakers. This is not
the case -- so-called "primitive" people can learn any
concept. Conversely, we can learn any concept first articulated
in another language.
The differences you mention between French and English are better
explained as differences of culture rather than language.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Language and thought
-- Sophie, 19:25:38 12/06/02 Fri
Just for fun, just for a minute, let's play with an idea.
Perhaps some languages are better than others. The Eskimo language
has multiple words for snow, whereas English has only one. I can
describe types of snow, but I can't efficiently speak them. I
have to waste time describing snow with English words (adjectives).
The Eskimo utters his type of snow with one word. Other languages
have, uh, fallen behind the times. I would hate to have to describe
my computer's parts using Latin. That doesn't make any language
"better", but rather, more useful/efficient at different
things.
Schopenhauer (I think it was him) wrote about how one cannot speak
without implying/using the concept of time. To say something about
an object required an implicit time frame. For example, "this
chair is comfortable" - I imply a specific chair (the one
I am sitting in), at a specific place (my bedroom), and at a specific
time (now).
You're most certainly right, if you don't teach a baby a language
while s/he is growing up, it will probably make one up - but it
will probably be limited and less robust and the baby will probably
never achieve any great thinking. So: culture + the specific capacities
of the language taught/learned + brain wiring capable of learning
language = thoughts. And speech and writing are used to share
these thoughts.
Anyways, for 30 years I lived using your theory, so now I will
live 30 years using the opposite theory. Maybe we will end up
at the same place, maybe we won't. :)
Sophie
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Language and thought
-- Sophist, 20:18:45 12/06/02 Fri
One factual point: Eskimo has no more words for snow than English
does. The opposite claim was one of those condescending myths
about "primitive" people so common in the bad ol' days.
We'd never do that now of course...
Think of language this way: in order to create something new,
we must be able to think of it in some way without using an existing
word for it. If this weren't the case, we could only think of
those things for which a word already existed. This is not true
-- we invent radios, then we think up the word, not the other
way around.
If you are interested in Pinker's books, he has written 4: The
Language Instinct, Words and Rules, How the Mind Works, and The
Blank Slate. The first 2 are excellent; don't waste your money
on the last two.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Sneaking in to be
horribly pedantic -- ponygirl, 07:51:39 12/09/02 Mon
Just to say that the correct term is Inuit, not Eskimo. Eskimo
is actually a Cree word meaning "eaters of raw fish."
While Eskimo is a pretty accepted name, the Inuit obviously prefer
their own name for themselves. The power of language...
Slinking off now...
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Thanks for
the tip! -- Sophie, 08:14:35 12/09/02 Mon
[> [> [> [> [>
[> are you sure you want to do that? -- Sophie, 13:19:07
12/06/02 Fri
I think I push more buttons than you -
I thought the post read more like a response to me, too. Chicken
and egg debate anyway.
Sophie
[> [> thought w/out language
-- anom, 22:43:00 12/08/02 Sun
"When I visited Europe, one of the things that struck me
was the difference in language. It was like somebody changed the
operating system in the people. This has contributed to my personal
theory that language forms our thoughts."
Love that part about the operating system! As for language forming
thoughts, the concept that you can't have thought w/out language
has been challenged recently. An amazing living example is Dr.
Temple Grandin, who is a high-functioning autistic person (very--Ph.D.
high enough for ya?). She describes her thought process as "thinking
in pictures" (I'm trying to remember if that's one of her
book titles--I know one is An Anthropologist on Mars, which
describes how she feels trying to figure out human society). Grandin
says she doesn't think in words; the thoughts come as images,
& she has learned the words other people use for those images
& applies them after the fact. For her, the thoughts definitely
come before the language.
Certainly, Grandin's case isn't the "normal" human experience
of thought, but it does show that it's possible to think without
language. Maybe we all do it to some extent. Of course, language
is still necessary to communicate our thoughts to others, whether
it's involved in forming those thoughts or not.
[> [> [> Re: thought
w/out language -- Sophie, 06:36:40 12/09/02 Mon
Yes, I know - I can see a scenic landscape and paint the thing
to express my "thoughts" about it without any language.
I guess I over stated my case - I'm trying to address abstract,
philosphical thinking - all those non-tangible thinky thoughts
- probably somewhat provoked by my being a researcher.
Honestly, I think you need a little of both language and thought.
I expect to come explore and come full circle some day, at which
time, I will resume playing my oboe. (I have this niggling desire
to become one of those subway musicians - gah!!)
S
[> [> [> "An
Anthropologist on Mars" is by Oliver Sacks -- Sara feeling
like a fountain of information, 13:21:27 12/09/02 Mon
and is a great book. Temple Grandin is the subject of the title
essay and is fascinating. Temple Grandin has two books, one called
"Emergence: Labeled Autistic" and the other is called
"Thinking in Pictures." I'm on Amazon.com right now
trying to decide whether to take the plunge and purchase them
both...I could buy them with Sarah Vowell's book "The Partly
Cloudy Patriot" with its chapter on what the Gore campaign
should have learned from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and not pay
shipping, oh dear... I really can relate to a sweatshirt I saw
yesterday - "So many books, so little time"
- Sara, whose sweatshirt should probably read "So many books,
so many line items on my Visa bill" (if you listen really
hard you can hear Darby whimpering in the background)
[> [> [> [> oops!
that's what i get for thinking i know stuff & posting w/out checking...
-- anom, 18:49:56 12/09/02 Mon
...which I don't have time for anyway. Thanks for setting me (& anyone
I misled) straight. The book I meant to refer to was Thinking
in Pictures.
[> I have, I suppose, an
extreme view -- Sophist, 09:56:09 12/06/02 Fri
of philosophy, one that either suits my posting name or is antithetical
to it, depending on your view of the real Sophists.
I see metaphysics as a failed project. If Wittgenstein wasn't
entirely right, he was essentially so. Metaphysics never could
provide answers to the questions it was asking, and many of the
questions themselves were meaningless. I see no reason to pursue
that project when science is available to ask better questions
and provide better answers.
Ethics is a different story, and I would agree with Popper up
to a point. Science can't yet provide answers to ethical problems,
and may never be able to. Even here, I'm skeptical of all-encompassing
systems that philosophers seem drawn to; I tend to believe that
each problem must be addressed on its own. JMHO.
[> Re: Buffy's stake in
Wittgenstein's poker -- Pilgrim, 12:22:39 12/06/02 Fri
Cool post, TCH.
I don't know, "having language" and "being human"
may be inseparable. I saw a documentary some time ago about a
wild child found in France (I think) who had no speech and who
the psychologists and sociologists of that era (I think it was
turn of the century?) concluded was "uncivilized" and
uncivilizable. If language and humanity are inseparable concepts,
then problems of humanity posed by metaphysics--like who am I,
what exists after the end and before the beginning of life, what
is the meaning of life--those problems perhaps necessarily are
grounded in language, our very ability to think about these concepts
arises out of our speech. In the beginning was the Word. And even
in "Hush," there was plenty of language--some of the
humor of the episode came out of the characters' ingenious alternatives
for the spoken voice in communicating with each other. Time and
again in the series, we see imtimacy grow when characters talk
to each other (I think Spike and Buffy in the basement in Never
Leave Me is an example) and distance and weakness grow when the
characters don't talk to each other.
I think that, apart from whether philsophy is ultimately "merely"
a tangle of words, beliefs do matter. Beliefs have consequences--some
Americans in 1861 believed that slavery was an evil and should
be abolished, and others believed the opposite, and the consequence
of those beliefs was bloodshed, horror, and some measure of civil
freedom for former slaves. We form at least contingent beliefs,
don't we, in order to decide how to act in any given situation.
And contributing to society's understanding how and why we hold
these beliefs and what the beliefs really are seems to me at least
part of what the philosopher does (as well as the novelist and
the TV series writer). Even scientists hold beliefs that sway
their science, don't they--that inform what questions they ask,
if not what the contingent answers are.
Buffy may not believe in "God" (she says the evidence
is inconclusive) but she does have beliefs she acts on: that there
is evil in her world and some beings are evil (not just that some
beings behave badly), that it is right and good for her to dispose
of evil beings, that humans have souls (and therefore are alive
and potentially good) but vampires don't (and therefore are dead
and not potentially good, no matter what good acts they perform),
that life is an ultimate good. These strike me as metaphysical
beliefs and not scientific conclusions, and they are important
in that they motivate conduct. And whether or not these beliefs
are at bottom issues of language definition (what is a human,
what is a vampire, what is life, what is death) or more foundational
philosophical problems strikes me as unimportant. But then, I'm
not a philosopher, a moralist, or a scientist, but only a lapsed
lawyer, so what do I know? :o)
[> [> Thanks, Pilgrim!
(oops, sorry about the pun!) ... -- Thomas the Skeptic, 14:37:42
12/06/02 Fri
The last paragraph in your post captured with perfect succintness
the qualities I love most about Buffy; that she strives to know
the good and do it even though the existence of God is still an
unresolved question. It is this existential integrity, if you
will, that inspires me, because I find myself in the same situation.
Although I suspect that most, if not all, metaphysical speculation
is pointless and perhaps literally meaningless, I keep coming
back to those questions because, when I consider Dostoevski's
pronouncement "If God is dead, then all is lawful.",
I am filled with a peculiar, pronounced dread. At any rate, this
"silly little tv show" seems to help me in my wrestling
match with these problems.
[> [> The lapsed lawyer
picks up a spare! -- Tchaikovsky, 15:04:27 12/06/02 Fri
Oddly enough, I don't think that anyone in this thread, (except
perhaps Rahael), has owned up to knowing anything about philosophy.
I was just summarising an interesting book I'd read. Darby claimed
to be surprised about being able to dip his toe in a philosophical
arugment. And so on and so forth.
But who cares? Anyone can be a philosopher. It just comes from
'philos' love- 'sophy'- wisdom- or something similar which some
philologist and philosopher will pick up for me. I think we all
love wisdom here.
And your points are well-made and thought-provoking. It begs the
question: did we become conscious before speech? Did we devise
'ultimate questions' before speech? I am unqualified to know whether
this is an aspect of evolution which has been explored, or even
if it's possible. But in a sense, maybe it holds a key to knowing
whether language precedes problems, or problems precede language.
Here we're running gun-barrel parallel to the dilemma about existence
and essence that Sartre had such strong views on. Existentialists
were, (as one can guess from the name), of the view that existence
came first. All the fascinating thoughts and theories that we've
had on existentialism here stem from that tenet.
And yes, even if the questions are 'meaningless' in some rational
way, it doesn't mean we shouldn't explore. If someone enlightened
with power had been on the South's Side in 1861, a similar conclusion
may have been reached without bloodshed. It doesn't matter that
we don't have all the answers. It doesn't even matter if there
aren't any. It's the trying that counts.
TCH
[> [> [> God, Buffy,
and Happiness -- Wisewoman, 17:49:53 12/06/02 Fri
This discussion has reminded me of a book I read a while back
by any actual (unemployed) philosopher: Better Living: In Pursuit
of Happiness from Plato to Prozac, by Mark Kingwell.
Kingwell uses everything from the Canadian National Exhibition
to Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy to investigate
what makes people truly happy.
His conclusion? Philosophy! Whether we call it that or not, what
people need to be happy is exactly what we're doing here--asking
the big questions, postulating the big answers, and discussing
everything in between. If the objective is happiness, it isn't
always necessary to find the truth, or to prove you're right;
what is necessary is to engage in the discussion.
Apparently the unexamined life really isn't worth living...
;o)
[> [> [> [> Re:
Happiness and Virtue :: Religion and Philosophy -- frisby
(the platonic nietzschean), 20:24:09 12/06/02 Fri
According to Plato, the achievement of the good we call "happiness"
requires the four goods of the body: strength, beauty (or nobility),
wealth, and health. Happiness is secondary though to possessing
the higher good we call "virtue" which requires the
four goods of the soul: that one be moderate, courageous, wise,
and just. "Faithfulness" (sometimes translated as loyalty)
at its highest combines that achievement with that possession.
As for philosophy though (according to the creator of Koyaanisqatsi),
the unexamined life is merely religion.
[> [> [> [> [>
Re: Happiness and Virtue :: Religion and Philosophy --
Wisewoman, 22:09:36 12/06/02 Fri
Ever read Ken Wilber on the difference between translative and
transformative religion? Fascinating stuff. I'll see if I can
find the link tomorrow, when I'm not so tired. Translative religions
do, indeed, support the unexamined lifestyle.
(I loved Baraka, actually, but I don't remember anyone saying
anything in that, LOL!)
:o)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: How it was said. -- frisby, 04:42:17 12/07/02
Sat
It was said on the commentary on the dvd. I don't know the difference
between translative and transformative religion (maybe the former
translate the authoritative opinions of the rulers into beliefs
for the ruled, while the latter transforms those very authoritative
opinions?). A link will be appreciated. I'll search Ken Wilber.
Thanks.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Here's the link... -- Wisewoman, 08:51:34
12/07/02 Sat
Sorry, just the cut-and-paste version, as I'm on my way out. I'll
check back in later...
http://www.wie.org/j20/wilberintro.asp
Cheers,
dub ;o)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Re: Here's the link...(thanks!) -- frisby,
12:27:31 12/07/02 Sat
Thanks Wisewoman. I got the link. Looks like an interesting article,
and a very interesting journal. I think I ran across it once before
somehow or other, but I don't know it well. Anyway, I'm about
to read but thought I'd post a short something first. For a baseline,
I'll mention that section #61 (on the uses of religion) and #62
(on the dangers of religion) of Nietzsche's _Beyond Good and Evil_
are my authorities in this regard of the essence of religion and
religious beings (chapter 3).
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> I'll re-read, thanks for the advance
notice! -- dub ;o), 09:49:36 12/08/02 Sun
If this discussion goes anywhere, we'll have to start another
thread, or possibly tack it on to Haecceity's thread at the top.
;o)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: Response on Wilber's translative vs tranformative
-- frisby, 16:50:49 12/08/02 Sun
Thanks again Wiseoman. I printed Wilber's article off the URL
you provided and read it carefully. His distinction between the
two functions of religion (translative and transformative) is
indeed enlightening and fruitful, and comes close to the way I
understand the difference between religion itself and philosophy.
One of the many ways he explains the translative function is that
it creates meaning (out of fortune) for the self, and also provides
the social glue which binds the members of society together. One
of the many ways he explains the transformative function is that
it explains and explodes that very translative process such that
in the end the "self" is understood in a higher sense
as part of the great spirit (the "ati" which is the
all). The translative function sounds to me as a description of
general organized religion, especially as known in the west, and
the transformative function a descripition of the purpose of religion
generally in the east. Wilber would not agree with this -- I think
-- and points to both functions as aspects to be found in all
religions. What I personally found lacking in the reading was
the treatment of "soul" (which he one place reduces
to "sometimes" being merely a form of egoism) -- but
in my studies these thoughts come down in the end to some formulation
of life involving the self, the soul, and the spirit (or if understood
as mass nouns - self soul spirit). "Life" seems to me
the focus of the conversation, and then birth, death, and overall,
time. Wilber, if I read him correctly, seems to end with a very
old formulation reminiscent of hinduism, namely that there is
only spirit, and all individual differentiation from that universal
spirit is in some way illusory or temporary or something at least
to be fixed. I've learned somewhat to the contrary (pointing to
Plato and Bacon and Nietzsche primarily) to push to the limit
the creation of the independent intelligent individual but to
also (somewhat following the romantic ideal) understand that creation
as limited and needing something like "the other" or
one's complement, or even one's marriage partner, to reach perfection
and completion. Stated differently, life needs the marriage of
soul and spirit (see Yeats on this) if one's true full self is
to be. Many other formulations of all this are possible -- adding
the poetic metaphors of the fire and the heart and one's destiny.
I find I prefer these to the (in my eyes) more simplistic version
that dissolves one's identity in favor of identifying with some
universal spirit. My thought on these matters begins with life,
moves to birth and death, and then rests overall on the question
of time. Our fundamental limitations are gender (by which I generally
mean our need for others, especially with regard to generation)
and mortality. Ending this response, I repeat I enjoyed reading
Wilber and discovered immense food for thought, but took this
opportunity to critically point to differences I still find important
-- most importantly, the question of "soul" especially
when considered in the larger context of the Socratic "know
thyself (auto)" dictum from the Delphic Oracle of Apollo
-- the general statement of psychology as as orientation for first
philosophy. So there's something to work with if you are interested
but for the moment I have to return to my cooking. Thanks again
for the URL and the even more, for listening.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Inadvertently Mis-spelled "Wisewoman"
-- sorry -- frisby (promising to add something on nietzsche),
17:07:44 12/08/02 Sun
Sorry for the mis-spelling of your name. Also, I hope to find
time to say something about Wilber's formulation in the context
of what Nietzsche says about the uses and dangers of religion
(Beyond 61-2).
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Re: Response on Wilber's translative vs tranformative
-- Wisewoman, 15:46:35 12/09/02 Mon
Ah, frisby, indeed I am interested in continuing this discussion!
Thank you for taking the time to read the Wilber piece.
(To the rest of the board: this discussion may at first appear
to be off-topic but, like a lawyer going off on a tangent while
questioning a witness, I hope to establish relevance later on,
if anyone makes it that far! ;o)
I think you are correct that Wilber sees the ìselfî
as ultimately apart of the great spirit, ati, the ìall,î
and ìall individual differentiation from that universal
spirit is in some way illusory or temporary.î Iím
not sure that discussing the concept of a ìgreat spiritî
is best done using that particular term (spirit) or any of the
others commonly used (The One, The Divine, Cosmic Consciousness,
The All, etc.) They have been overused to the point of banality.
Iíd like to propose an analogy that might make the concept
a bit fresher. (It is not my intent to offend you, frisby, or
anyone else with the simplicity of this analogy. When I come to
the edge of infinity and eternity, I find no option but to leap
into the metaphysical.)
Letís say, in the beginning, before the Big Bang, there
was nothing.* The BB happened, and then there was something. A
lot of something. Iíll call this something ìstuff.î
It is obvious then that everything that exists is made up of this
ìstuff.î That is easy enough to see in the case of
the material universe, but consider for a moment that the immaterial
universe, the world of spirit, soul, thought, mind, etc, etc,
is all ìstuffî as well, just temporarily differentiated
into different bits. Further try to imagine that the initial,
undifferentiated ìstuffî is conscious (a la Cosmic
Consciousness). This ìinfinite field of beingî or
matrix from which all material derives has a unified consciousness
as well, from which all consciousness arises.
So, if there really is only material ìstuffî and
ìstuffî consciousness then we are all made out of
stuff, are part of the original stuff, and we all have the use
of a small amount of "stuff" consciousness that we utilize
to conduct the business of our differentiated "stuff"
beings as humans. We only have the use of it as an ìindividualî
when we are stuck in the field of time and space. When the "stuff"
that makes up our human bodies begins its return to the undifferentiated
state upon death, the bit of "stuff" consciousness weíve
been using returns to its true state as undifferentiated "stuff"
consciousness. When it does that, obviously, it regains the function
of universal consciousness, and of course is again universally
aware and retains the memory of its time as individual consciousness.
Unfortunately, this doesnít work the other way. When a
bit of stuff consciousness is funneled into a human body it, of
necessity, forgets everything it knew as universal consciousness.
It must. There simply isnít enough of it assigned to each
ìindividualî to support all that, for lack of a better
word, knowledge, along with the learning and functioning it is
required to do as a strictly human consciousness.
(One thing Iíve pondered at length is why ìstuffî
would choose to engage in the myriad forms that it takes, and
why it would bother to spend millions of years evolving what are
ultimately the disposable forms of human beings with human consciousness?
The only explanation I can come up with so far is that ìstuffî
was somehow bored with itself and so invented a Big Game. One
of the first conditions "stuff" created in the design
of the Game was duality; self and other. This was truly brilliant.
How could "stuff," which is/was everything and anything,
conceptualize something ìotherî than itself? I am
in awe of ìstuff.î)
Now, to return to your post, it makes absolute sense to me that
itís part of the Big Game that human beings should feel
within themselves the desire to ìpush to the limit the
creation of the independent intelligent individual,î as
you say, and that seeking oneís ìother half,î
a necessity imposed by the condition of duality, would lead to
the ìperfection and completionÖ[of] oneís true
full self.î However, these ìselvesî only exist
during their participation in the BG, which is played in the field
of time and space. There is no need to prefer this type existence
as an individual ìselfî over the (in your terms)
ìmore simplistic version that dissolves oneís identity
in favor of identifying with some universal spirit (stuff!)î
because they co-exist. You get to experience your ìselfî
in both ways.
As to the question of ìsoulî which you found lacking
treatment in Wilberís piece. If we conceive of the soul
as being our true ìself,î in other words, the absolute,
deepest expression of our human individuality (the thing in itself?),
it is easy to take offense at Wilberís characterization
of it as being merely a form of egoism. But in the bigger picture
of ìstuff,î he is correct. Egoism is not intended
here as a derogatory term. Heís merely saying that sometimes
we define soul as being who we really are, while we are busy being
individual human beings, so it is of necessity tied to our image
of our ìselvesî as individual egos.
In terms of ìstuff,î and those religions that refer
to it (albeit by very different names *g*) soul can be defined
as the unconscious memory of ìitselfî that "stuff"
retains when it differentiates as an individual. It's the conscience,
the "angel on your shoulder," the nagging suspicion
that there'll be a tallying somewhere down the line and you'll
want to be able to say you did your best, you were a good girl
or boy, or, at the very least, to be able to clearly understand
why you did all the horrible things you did.
So you have material ìstuffî making up your body,
and ìstuffî consciousness making up your consciousness,
and the recognition/realization of this while individuated in
the field of time and space is the understanding of enlightenment
(not exactly the same as the experience of enlightenment).
Once this understanding is reached then the concept of soul is
that of ìstuffî, i.e. the recognition that the absolute,
deepest expression of our being is as undifferentiated, universal,
infinite, eternal, conscious ìstuff.î
As you note, the oft-quoted advisory on the Temple of Apollo at
Delphi is to ìKnow Thyselfî and this would seem a
dictate to investigate oneís individuality (personality?)and
essential soul to the extreme of oneís ability. In several
instances I have read that the entire message reads, "Man
Know Thyself and Thou Shalt Know the Universe, and God (or the
gods)." I'm desperately trying to track down the veracity
of this translation, so if anyone knows more, please let me know.
If the longer version is the case, then the meaning becomes, "to
truly know yourself is the same as knowing the universe and God,
because it's all the same thing," which would be exactly
the opposite of an instruction to wallow in individuality. Alas,
this bit is all just so much hot air if the message simply reads,
"Know Thyself." In that case, your interpretation is
as valid as any. But keep in mind that Bacon also said, "Let
the mind be enlarged, according to its capacity, to the grandeur
of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness
of the mind."
I feel I should mention somewhere here that I have been an atheist
since I was 12. I don't think I will ever be able to conceive
of the Big "G" God in any way other than as the Judeo-Christian-Muslim
anthropomorphic, patriarchal guy from the Old Testament. But I
absolutely believe in "stuff." Does this mean I am no
longer an atheist?
And, finally, what does all this have to do with Buffy and her
stake in Wittgenstein's poker? Well, it would appear that we're
moving toward yet another (and maybe the last?) apocalyptic battle
between good and evil and we loyal viewers are all firmly on the
side of good, Buffy's side. Except, if "stuff" is everything
then good and evil are both "stuff," both the same thing.
Both come from the same infinite, undifferentiated field of "stuff"
consciousness. We, of course, see them as being very different.
So does Buffy, or at least she did in the beginning. Things were
very clear-cut then. She was good, and she fought evil just because
it was evil. Along the way, some of the evil started to look almost
the same as good. Hoo! That was angsty. What if her purpose is,
as someone proposed, just to be good in order to maintain a balance
of good and evil, rather than to eradicate evil entirely? Maybe
that's one of the rules of the Big Game that "stuff"
came up with? For sure, one of the rules is that, "it's all
connected." I think the jury is still out on whether "it's
all about power" is one of the rules. That might just be
wishful thinking on the part of the First Evil, who doesn't want
the boring task of maintaining the balance anymore.
Okay, now I'm exhausted and I'm sure there's a lot more I wanted
to say, and I wanted to say it all much more coherently than I
have done. As the mystic Sufi poet Rumi once said, "Out beyond
ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet
you there."
Cheers,
dub ;o)
*Actually, before the Big Bang there was "stuff"; it
was just disguished as nothingness.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Oops! disguished = disguised -- dub ;o),
15:48:59 12/09/02 Mon
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Dub, that was the stuffiest argument ever!
-- Tchaikovsky, 16:33:15 12/09/02 Mon
Very, very interesting. As was the article from Wilber, and frisby's
response. So good/evil is a just a kind of crazy, cosmic balance?
Perhaps we only define good and evil as necessary to explore the
Self/Other duality. Perhaps we characterise good as being somehow
in service of Other, doing things which are a help to the Universe,
the universal consciousness, the stuff continuum. Perhaps we characterise
Evil as being 'an island'. Selfishness is analagous, (too scared
to write identical) to Evil. When we do things purely for personal
gain, we typify it as Evil. Spike killing and raping for pleasure
and no more. He's doing what's good for him- but also finding
not a great Spirit, but only wrapped in a mire of individualistic
self-gratification. We must try to become 'Selfless'? Integrate
to the great cosmic pool, like Odo in Deep Space Nine. In that
case, must we, like him, leave our true, but individual (even
selfish) loves behind in favour of wholeness. What a sacrifice.
I guess that's what enlightenment's all about. Struggle.
Say not the struggle naught availeth.
TCH
PS This is great, dub. Thanks
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> LOL! Thanks! -- dub ;o), 17:47:27
12/09/02 Mon
Just one comment though: We must try to become 'Selfless'?
Integrate to the great cosmic pool, like Odo in Deep Space Nine.
In that case, must we, like him, leave our true, but individual
(even selfish) loves behind in favour of wholeness. What a sacrifice.
I guess that's what enlightenment's all about. Struggle.
Um...not so much. When it comes time to reintegrate with the great
cosmic pool of !stuff! you find you haven't left anything behind
at all, loved or otherwise, because it's all right there with
you, just another drop of !stuff! in the pool...So, don't sacrifice,
don't struggle. Play the Big Game while you're here and enjoy
yourself, while keeping a careful tally of all the things you're
going to have to "explain" to !stuff! when you get back
into the pool.
;o)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> Re: LOL! Thanks! -- Rufus,
23:06:31 12/09/02 Mon
I flashed back to Buffy and Ben's conversation about "coffee"
in I Was Made to Love You and got all confused.....;)
Um...not so much. When it comes time to reintegrate with the
great cosmic pool of !stuff! you find you haven't left anything
behind at all, loved or otherwise, because it's all right there
with you, just another drop of !stuff! in the pool...So, don't
sacrifice, don't struggle. Play the Big Game while you're here
and enjoy yourself, while keeping a careful tally of all the things
you're going to have to "explain" to !stuff! when you
get back into the pool.
In Lessons we got that bit of dialogue from the First Evil while
it morphed from Warren to Buffy.
Drusilla morphs into The Master, and he stands up again.
MASTER: Right back to the beginning. Not the bang ... not the
word ... the true beginning.
He begins to pace again. Spike continues staring at the floor,
hugging his knees.
MASTER: The next few months are going to be quite a ride. And
I think we're all going to learn something about ourselves in
the process. You'll learn you're a pathetic schmuck ... if it
hasn't sunk in already. Look at you. (scornfully) Tried to
do what's right. Just like her. You still don't get it. It's not
about right. Not about wrong.
The Master paces past Spike again. Close on Spike's face still
staring at the floor.
Pan across Spike and back over. But now it's Buffy, standing there
with her arms folded.
BUFFY: It's about power.
So, are you saying that we could just substitute the word "power"
for "stuff"?
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> Oh yes! -- Tchaikovsky, 15:20:46
12/10/02 Tue
OK, didn't notice that aspect. In a sense then, Odo's great tragedy,
(finding the Link but losing Kira) is something harder than we
must go through. We must only convince ourselves that in our Cosmological
Link, we really are connected to everything.
TCH
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Re: Response on gnothi seaton -- Angela,
17:02:01 12/09/02 Mon
http://www.frankmarrero.com/otherbooks/ecstaticdance.htm
Dionysus stands in the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. On the wall
in the temple is written Apollo's two famous sayings: GNOQI SEATON,
and MEDAN AGAN, Gnothi seaton and medan agan, commonly known as
"Know thyself," and "Nothing in excess." The
way we moderns consider "know thyself" was cast as far
back as Plato as an internal process of self discovery, implying
or leading to the transcendental Self. But this was not the original
meaning as inscribed upon the Temple walls. To the priests and
Sages who preceded the logical obsession, gnothi seaton was closer
to "Know thyself to be human and follow the god" or
divine feeling. This sage advice was not directed at an internal
world of self-revelation, but as necessary wisdom needed to counter
the force of hubris, or pride. Gnothi Seaton conveyed an understanding
of an individual accepting the unknowable infinity within which
he or she inheres and thus not fall prey to false pride, knowledge,
or other limitations of the developing self. And Medan Agan could
be more clearly translated as "do not leave the middle"
from which it is easy to see the usual, more shallow translation,
"nothing in excess".
Standard Disclaimer: Not vouching for source or content
Just wanted to let you know someone else was interestedly following
.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> Thanks, Angela. I was afraid of that.
-- dub ;o), 17:49:05 12/09/02 Mon
And thanks even more for reading to the end!
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Thanks. -- Angela, 04:50:53
12/10/02 Tue
You were afraid people were interested and actually reading what
you wrote? Just teasing! ;-)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Frisby's Response to Wisewoman -- frisby (posting before
retiring for the day), 19:55:22 12/09/02 Mon
Yes, we should continue. As the later Wittgenstein contended against
the early Wittgenstein, philosophy is not so much about arguments
as it is the exchange of viewpoints. And as with any two things
whatsoever, whether viewpoints, or thoughts, or things, we humans
have the power (perhaps one of our greatest powers) to selectively
see this as the same (for example, as both simply being stuff)
or as utterly different (the logical principle of the identity
of indiscernibles notwithstanding). I think our viewpoints do
diverge but that's not to say we can't find common ground.
Part of your piece ("Let's say, in the beginning ...")
seems to me to follow Descartes's hypothetical-deductive method
wherein we suppose the axiomatic conditions and then deduce what
follows and then make a judgment of absurdity (thus rejecting
the hypothesis) or feasible (providing support instead). Your
postulation of "stuff" (nice word) has traditionally
(I think) for the most part been referred to as "being"
(I won't begin to enter the problem of language here with regard
to noting 'what is') in ontological circles, but which in the
common tongue of philosophy goes by "nature" (translating
the Greek physis). The so-called ontological difference is that
between "being" and "the beings" -- also connected
in logic to identity and difference. According to Plato (and I
say this tongue in cheek of course, knowing the problem of interpreting
the dialogues, and also noting that even within the dialogue,
this was referred to as old beyond time), the greatest vision
with regard to the stage for philosophy is the war of the gods
and the giants. The gods take the side of "being" and
insist that "the beings" merely reflect differential
aspects of "being" temporarily. The giants take the
side of "the beings" and insist that "being"
is merely "one" of the beings, an upstart at that, which
is out of place. [Nietzsche presents the case with a joke wherein
the giants claim there are no gods at all, only dwarfs who postulate
gods because they haven't the courage to stand against the giants.]
I think, at least for argument's sake, that your piece takes the
side of "being" while my position attempts to speak
for "the beings."
The stuff in question of course is "power" (at least,
according to Plato, Bacon, and of course Nietzsche, although the
latter qualifies it as the "will to power" intending
to spell it out more cogently. Power is what best describes the
Greek word 'physis,' or nature, or being, or the world. But is
not that very position one that speaks of "being" and
takes the side of the gods? (Yes, Nietzsche argues, and that "is"
my personal position.) And it is here that we approach what I
think will be the main point of this response. Just before your
"in the beginning" you say: "When I come to the
edge of infinity and eternity, I find no option but to leap into
the metaphysical." It is that leap that I think not only
not necessarily but also not desirable (also of course it is possible
in one sense, but, as I will argue, not, in another). The focus
here is known in the literature (several books for example, but
based primarily in Plato's _Phaedo_) as Socrates's second sailing.
Socrates argues (there and elsewhere) that the great natural philosophers
before him (what are today known as the pre-Socratics, or as Nietzsche
prefers, the pre-Platonics) all inquired into nature (physic)
and asked for its principle (its 'arche' best translated as 'origin
and order'). Some postulated infinity (Anaximander), and another
the one (Parmenides), and others others, but they all ended in
madness. I probably need to emphasize that: they all, all of those
attempts which engaged in the "first" sailing (as did
the young Socrates himself), ended in madness. Socrates postulates
a "second" sailing which begins not at the "beginning"
but in the middle with ourselves (his meaning of the Delphic oracle,
know your self and stay at the middle), inquiring not into the
meaning of nature but of human nature, not into the meaning of
"being" but into the meaning of human being (one of
"the beings"). We begin with psychology and not with
physics (to use some more recent jargon). To do otherwise requires
a "leap" into the beginning or out of human nature into
an imaginary perspective where we become spectators on the whole
-- and this powerful use of the imagination is quite admirable
in Nietzsche's eyes, but still flawed, because the only proper
"beginning" so to speak is life itself, or the spot
where we stand and ask about the whole (Heidegger's "dasein"
as opposed to "sein" itself, for example, even if the
ultimate aim be "sein"). [Incidentally, Stephen Hawking
says the "Big Bang" is not to be thought as a beginning
because there is a very small interval of time that necessarily
precedes it, just as there is one that follows any Big Crunch,
such that it seems to me in his latest book the cosmos becomes
an oscillating cycle of repetitions as opposed to any linear finite
stretch of being -- but that's really neither here or there.]
My main point is that western political philosophy as found manifest
in the person of Socrates, what we might call Socratism or even
Alexandrianism or Hellenism, comes to a stand with regard to the
"second sailing" or with regard to beginning not with
any beginning but with knowing one's self first, or with understanding
that all accounts of nature necessarily take their bearings from
some previous account of human nature (the human nature of the
physicist colors the account of physical nature). It seems to
me that those who continue the "first sailing" (of which
I think part of your piece reflects) in the end selectively perceive
away the "beings" when they conceive only of "being"
-- like drops of water (souls) that cohere with the ocean (god).
The "West" on the other hand -- that which through the
person (so to speak) of modern philosophy has established dominion
over all of creation (Bacon's jargon) does not do so. It on the
contrary "saves the appearances" and "speaks for
the beings" against that which would have "death"
swallow up "life" reducing all to nothingness or emptiness
or the void. We can not (in good intellectual conscience) leap
over our own human nature (or human being) into nature itself
(or being itself) -- or again, is not desirable and should not
be preferred (even though possible through the power of the transcendental
imagination as Kant shows in the "a" edition of his
first critique). The "unconscious instincts" (so to
speak) of this modern philosophy aim to destroy the world (with
its materialism, methodology, mechanism, determinism, and nihilism)
but the noble aspirations of humanity (through Nietzsche's philosophy
of power) have transfigured this deadly science into a joyful
science, one that enables humanity to enter into marriage (so
to speak) with the earth consummating the midday of eternity (to
use Nietzsche's poetic jargon) in the great event of the great
noon.
Ah, Wisewoman, but I muse that I've perhaps veered too far astray
from the discussion so I will return to your piece before veering
again. A close friend of mine (who teaches the philosophy of India
and China here at the university) have argued back and forth for
decades on the priority of importance to be assigned to consciousness,
with he taking the side that seems compatible with what you imagine
to be, and with myself taking the side that delegates it to an
epiphenomena nowhere near as important as say life. Following
some form of Vedanta he always or at least usually brings everything
down to some form of being and consciousness and then closes with
that particular "consciousness" which becomes conscious
of "being" such that all differentiation ceases and
all is (or integrally becomes) one -- or something like that.
I on the other hand prefer to follow some form of natural language
philosophy and bring everything around to some form of nature
and human nature (or the whole of nature and life on earth) and
then open up to that particular living being (the potential philosopher)
which recapitulates the whole into one unique vision (one entailing
the interdependence of the spectator becoming a participant and
the participant becoming a spectator -- see Nietzsche's _Beyond_
55-56). Trying again to return to your piece, you say in your
fifth paragraph (and I paraphrase) that we are partially conscious
only while "stuck" in the time-space field and that
upon death the partiality becomes universal, but yet remembered
as partial, but that when consciousness begins (evading reincarnation
at this point) it retains but a trace of the universal. [This
is very reminiscent of the Myth of Ur at the end of Plato's _Republic_.]
If that "trace" somehow broadens to include the whole,
I suppose that would qualify as enlightenment? Anyway, my main
point at this point, is to contend (as I think I've done to some
degree in earlier posts) that the past has ontological status,
and this makes all the difference. In your seventh paragraph you
say (and again I paraphrase) that the self only exists during
its participation in the Big Game (of Life and Death perhaps)
which is played in the time-space field. Whatever notion of "time"
we bring to this exchange colors (I believe) all else. What really
happens after an event arrives out of the future into the present
and occurs, only to then pass into the past. Does it become "nothing"
or does it become "eternal" -- and also, whatever the
actual case, does it matter which we choose to believe? Do "the
beings" merge into "being" upon the end of their
finitude, such that at best they become memories in some universal
consciousness, or do they assume an ontological status of their
own rivaling even that of the eternal ideas -- do they perhaps
become souls? You (Wisewoman) also refer to my words on the "other"
and the romantic ideal and then speak of the condition of duality,
but I prefer to think of the nature of the human condition as
being gendered (not to mention mortal). You say there that "There
is no need to prefer this ..." and I agree the choice is
not necessary but I point out that the most important choices
are those we desire as good as opposed to those we succumb to
as needed or necessary -- that is, we "can" prefer to
think of our "self" as eventually becoming a "soul"
rather than as losing its identity through merging (or returning)
to spirit. [Actually, apart from this crystallization of contention,
I kind of prefer experiencing it both ways also, with regard to
1) forging my destiny out of the fate that subsumes me and 2)
forming my history out of the fortune that impends on me.]
Again, losing my way to some degree in this labyrinth of a response
to your piece, I will take up the thread "Know thyself"
and return to the stage (wearing alternately, the mask of Apollo
and then Dionysos, but allowing the muses, and even Aphrodite
with little Eros too to find their way into the play). Apollo's
dictum means we must study human nature before drawing conclusions
about nature itself. It doesn't mean we will know nature "by"
knowing human nature -- it's a question of priority. Stepping
back to your previous paragraph though, you (perhaps) culminate
in a description of the recognition of soul as the deepest expression
of our being -- and I think we might find common ground there
-- but we again differ in our description of that recognition
(you describing it as undifferentiated, universal, infinite, eternal,
conscious stuff -- with mine running more along the lines of individuated
(or exceptionally differentiated), singular (or unique or haecetic),
finite (or self-contained, whole), eternal (too much to go into
here), human being. Again, your description tends towards the
drop of water that returns to the ocean while mine approximates
a statue that stands forever, or perhaps better a movie (of a
lifetime) that plays all at once again and again. In the paragraph
before your antepenultimate paragraph, you say "In that case
your interpretation is as valid as any." I do agree that
that "is" the case but I think the validity of interpretations
is not that easy. My interpretation (following I think Nietzsche's
as should go without saying at this point) holds that (with regard
to philosophy or the highest pursuit) psychology (or the inquiry
into the soul) must once again (as it was with Plato) be reckoned
the queen of the sciences (with philology the king, replacing
the old king and queen of physics and mathematics), and understood
to be the royal road to wisdom. But along the way, the psychologist
also needs to master biology and physics (all as part of philosophy).
That is the meaning of the Apollonian dictum when Nietzsche recapitulates
what began with Socrates. Bacon (whom you quote), is of course
a fellow Socratic (as was Descartes too) and begins with the mind
moving out to the mysteries of the whole, and not visa versa.
[By the way, parenthetic but important I think, Bacon rules the
world today, but Nietzsche will usurp his power this next century
-- his "New Atlantis" is what we are and are more and
more becoming. Bacon also presented a philosophy of power, as
is well known. But that is another thread too.]
Needing or wanting or choosing to begin closing, I'll confess
I also became an atheist at age twelve (after my mother mysteriously
passed away), but on the contrary I think I "was" able
to transcend the Big "G" God, in many ways, from "God"
as simply the common tongue for what the nobility know of as the
good, from a necessary political stratagem to legitimate the rule
of the people (I still need to say something some time about Nietzsche's
uses and dangers of religion _Beyond 61-2), to many other forms
I'll not litanize at this time. But I will note that I agree with
Leo Strauss that Nietzsche, the philosopher most famous for declaring
the death of God, in his book _Beyond Good and Evil_ vindicates
God, although it turns on a non-theistic religiosity for the time
being (another century or so). The crucial question regarding
God today turns on the priority of the following questions: is
there God? what is God? who is God? is God good?
Theologians generally contend with philosophers generally assigning
the question of God's existence priority over God's essence or
definition. They claim God chooses to dwell in mist and is not
willing to be known or defined but "can" be known to
exist, while philosophers insist one can not know whether "God"
exists unless one first knows what is meant by "God."
And then the argument takes a humanistic turn with the question
of "who" and again a gnostic turn with "goodness"
--
I have to close. Otherwise I won't get this posted tonight. Last,
as for Buffy, I agree with her that "nothing solid"
is out there on God these days (that is, the burden is on belief
and not on demonstration), and I also agree with Sarah Michelle
Gellar that "'Buffy' is the most religious show out there"
and that any two intelligent people who seriously begin to discuss
its meaning tend to move into philosophical and religious areas
as if drawn.
Closing, thanks for your time and energy too, providing this pleasant
opportunity on my part to share thoughts and feelings in an exchange
of mutual regard. Ain't "Buffy" grand? So is this forum
and website, not to mention its participants, and the spectators
too.
[> [> [> [> and
thus you have truly shown why you possess your board name
-- Caroline, 21:49:28 12/06/02 Fri
I've been so frustrated reading all these posts about metaphysics
being irrelevant and I'm so glad I didn't post until I read your
contribution. I personally feel that the questions worth pursuing
are the unanswerable ones - why pursue the ones that CAN be answered?
There's no mystery there.
[> [> [> [> [>
Thank you, Caroline. And well said, yourself. -- dub ;o),
22:11:46 12/06/02 Fri
[> [> Great post Pilgrim
- sounds like you know a lot. -- Caroline, 22:14:44 12/06/02
Fri
And a wonderful response to some of the reductionistic views expressed
above. The physical sciences are okay at exploring the how but
not the why. And for some reason, we've always sought to ask the
why.
[> Very good post, really
enjoyed it. -- shadowkat, 21:23:16 12/06/02 Fri
Thank you for this post. I read it and now understand Wittgensen
and Popper - two philosphers I didn't know of until I read the
back of Wittgensen's Poker...thank you for discussing that book
and their philosophy and doing it so well.
My take on philosophy is actually very similar to Sophist's. I
don't really buy any one view and take bits an pieces from several
and apply them to a situation on a case by case basis, perhaps
it's the lawyer in me that learned to do this. I also tend to
agree with Popper - there's more problems with Philosophy than
just language.
On language - I agree with your take.
Here's some points I'd like to comment on:
"As we can see from Duffy's portrayla, language shapes the
women's existence. They are deeply afraid of its power. The child
with the temerity to utter the word 'Fuck', even when, as it is
repeated from the boy, it is entirely devoid of any meaning, shows
how some of the problems with their lives stem from an inability
to cope with language. No-one can spell 'leukaemia' , so somehow
their experience of it is resticted. But is it that there problems
in life are reflected in their language problems, or is it language
itself which is the problem? Here again, we have the Wittgenstein/Popper
dichotomy. "
Sticks and Stones Can Break My bones but words can never hurt
me...
How untrue. Words words words I am sick of words - show me!
screams Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady...but words are what makes
her into a lady from a guttersnipe at least in the Professor's
opinion. Actually they only allow her to take on the trappings.
Eliza was always a lady. The words, how she spoke - gave her admittance
into a new society. Just as Spike's new accent and words give
him admittance into a new society. That the two society's are
the opposite of each other and Eliza moves to upper class while
Spike moves to lower class is not lost on me.
Words...they can bruise horribly. Make you cry. Make you shout.
Make you scream.
The power of language continues to astound me. I am awed by it.
With a word, a phrase, a sentence I can change someone's mind,
persuade them, anger them, enlighten them, humor them or bring
them to tears.
Then there are times that I wonder if we are little more than
Pavlov's dogs with our knee jerk reactions to words.
You use a four letter word and people act as if you hit them.
I remember once writing a story where every other word out of
the character's mouth was the "F" word - the person
who read it was enraged and asked me why this was necessary -
I informed them that it was the part of the character - it was
how the character thought and spoke.
It took me a long time to understand people's difficulties with
the "F" word - it is after all just a word - it only
has the power that we give it. Yet on the other hand the meaning
behind it is visceral. It does after all discuss sex in a way
that is devoid of love and feeling and just a violent animal act...much
like the Spike/buffy scenes last year.
Language can create divisions - like the tower of Babel in the
bible. One word in English may not translate in another language.
So how do you begin to understand one another if you can't translate
a particular word? Or can't even find it's equivalent. Rah says
there is no word for forgiving in her native tongue - so how do
I find the means to explain it to her? Without making it sound
hollow and meaningless?
Language at it's best allows me to see inside another's head and
allows me to take someone else inside my own, to show them what
I see, think, feel and desire. Through the written word - I felt
I could finally communicate pain, want, dreams, desires, thoughts...feelings
to the world. I could... gasp... connect. And yet I live in fear
that I don't. That I just won't find the right words. That people
will misunderstand.
"Language is a powerful tool. Without language, we would
not have this discussion board. Language is still necessary for
the exposition scene in 'Hush', even if written rather than verbal.
Language allows Deb, Rahael, Arethusa, Briar Rose, Caroline and
others to make me attempt to understand- and it can make me cry.
But language also appears to restrict life. Language can be scary-
and our attempts to control it can impede understanding.
There is never anything said about language which is not said
in language- a paradox which hampers the whole argument. If Popper
and Wittgenstein, two great minds, thought so unalike, what hope
is there for us, in uncovering the great mysteries of philosophy?
Maybe not a lot. But maybe, ultimately, I don't care that much.
Through trying to find out, trying to understand, we form much
stronger links. Links of emotion, ratehr than merely hyper-script.
We make friends. We cry with grief, or lack of understanding,
or smile with pleasure at an argument well-made, or at a thought
or emotion shared. We are fellow strugglers in the journey of
life, he said, relapsing into platitudes."
Beautifully said and I agree.
I've been wondering what platitudes are, and if I've lasped into
them. If so...no, I won't apologize. One person's platitude is
another's mantra. I am tired of all the apologizing for words.
For being misunderstood. For is it our fault we are, really? Or
does the fault lie with the one who misunderstands and does not
query? Does not ask us ever so politely for more information or
clarification?
And if we can't make ourselves understood? Than what's the point
of language?
"So many people have put across experiences and opinions
based on them which have both been valuable to me, and almost
moved me to tears. I didn't feel I could contribute, as, being
a sheltered, middle class, young-ish student, I was simply worried
that I would lapse into default platitudes to cover up my naivety-
my inability to begin to imagine what some people have been through,
and my essential lack of words necessary to even acknowledge that,
in being on this board, I meet people who have experienced more
of the world than I have."
Have they? I'm beginning to wonder if age, experience of the world,
etc is something we can truly measure like runners in an endurance
race or people climbing a mountain, with some higher up the slope
or further along the race merely because they've seen the world
or witnessed war or any number of traumas I do not wish to name.
We all have our own trials and tribulations and they are different
for each and every one of us. This is no race or competiton and
please before anyone misunderstands me, I'm not saying anyone
here has ever said it was, these are just my own thoughts on an
issue I've been thinking about for quite some time.
Even if your experience is having lived in one town, one house,
in one school with a loving family and friends and no problems
your entire life - it is a valid worthwhile one to share - it
is NOT boring. Because your voice adds to the others, it shows
another view, another way to live. If your experience has largely
been positive - who knows it may give hope to someone who has
had a negative one, make them realize there is a light at the
end of the tunnel and it is NOT a passing train.
My experiences are a mixed bag. Some bad. Some good. No peaks
really or pits. Just a valley...boring to me but not apparently
to others. Because we are not always the best judge of how our
experiences appear to someone else.
And age? I've met 50 year olds who act like ten year olds
and 15 year olds who seem to understand more than most 50 year
olds do. So I try not to make broad generalizations.
There are however some key differences - I've learned at least
for me that as I grow older, I become more tolerant of views that
clash with my own, more tolerant and understanding of alternative
perspectives and less likely to react in anger to small slights.
I find myself less angry and bitter as I age and more able to
let go of things, more capable of ...sorry Rah...can't find another
word for this...forgiving myself and my friends and not dropping
them or sealing myself off from the world for imagined or real
wrongs. When I was younger? I wasn't so forgiving. If someone
hurt me? I cut them out of my life.
Now...you have to work very hard for me to do that. Because I've
learned that friendship is a fragile and beautiful thing and not
something to push away lightly. Time I've learned has a tendency
to bleed together as you grow older and the pains you felt tend
to fade, you start to slowly forget...I used to keep a journal,
now I don't except to record book and story ideas...I no longer
record painful experiences...I've learned to let them go and sometimes
the best way of letting them go is not to put words to them, not
to write them down. So I guess in a way experience and age is
important.
At any rate - your youngish voice has added a great deal to the
board. Thanks for a beautiful post.
SK
[> [> Re: Very good post,
really enjoyed it. -- Rahael, 14:36:32 12/07/02 Sat
Sigh. Double sigh.
The last couple of days have been pretty bad for me. More difficult
than any time for years.
I have swung in and out of black depressions so immense that I
have felt support structures I have worked hard to build up crumble
away.
Anyway. So more apologies from me. I must have a record on the
board for these.
I am sorry if I have made anyone inadvertantly feel that my pain
is greater than theirs. As if my pain is something more immense,
so immense that I should be excused from forgiving.
It's still not something I see as relevant or valid for me. But
I'll never mention this again. Please keep on using the word without
worrying about me.
And that comment about platitudes seems to have had more effect
than I intended. Please no one, worry about that. I can only echo
the words of my earlier post and say, it is good to have words
that are not unkind and not untrue, even better to have words
that are true and kind.
I'd especially like to thank Arethusa, who for the last year has
made me feel less like a monster. Less of an alien being here.
Trying very hard to find joy in life right now, but difficult.
But trying, trying very hard. Repeat listenings to Holliday singing
Gloomy Sunday probably not helping.
[> [> [> Re: Very
good post, really enjoyed it. -- shadowkat, 15:43:57 12/07/02
Sat
Not sure what caused this response, except to state - stop apologizing
for well written beautiful posts and what you believe in. I certainly
didn't mean for you to take that from my post. Ironic really.
When you consider the post was in a sense about the inability
to communicate through language. I can't control how my words
are interpreted, all I can do is hope somehow to make them clearer.
At any rate - I was attempting in some way to get across my feeling
that we all use language differently, that we all have different
experiences to add and that they are all wonderful and worth presenting.
Also my sympathy, I hope things get better for you soon.
I know what it's like to go through a bad time, going through
one myself.
[> [> [> Good grief,
Rah! Turn that off right now!! -- dub, 16:06:53 12/07/02
Sat
Sweetie, here's a platitude (or maybe it's a cliche, I'm never
sure): This, too, shall pass.
And please, as much as I love Billie, stop listening now. Try
the Chipmunks Christmas Album, or Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer...anything
but BH!!!
;o) xoxoxoxoxoxo
[> [> [> Re: Very
good post, really enjoyed it. -- Caroline, 17:33:47 12/07/02
Sat
I share your dislike of platitudes. "You're so strong",
"Life goes on", blah, blah, blah. All said by people
who want you not to express your pain because they cannot handle
your suffering, because they don't know that all you need is an
"I'm so sorry" and "If there's anything I can do
for you let me know" and have the courage to know that they
can't do anything for you except be with you. So, don't get down
on yourself for being down, accept that you are, go through it
and come out the other side. If there's one thing that is sure
in life it's that nothing is permanent.
Some of my favourite things for melancholy - I find Concrete Blonde's
Bloodletting CD to be fabulous melancholy music and Keats is probably
my favourite melancholy poet. Oh, and then there's Macbeth's "tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliliquy. Time to wallow.
[> [> [> Re: you have
mail -- Angela, 06:30:39 12/08/02 Sun
[> [> [> Time to put
away Holiday and take out Boz Scaggs -- Sara, 09:36:24
12/08/02 Sun
Those emotions just won't go on holiday, will they? Can I just
say that Rahael, you are not, nor have ever in your life been
a monster. When Darbs started reading posts on the board to me,
you were the first poster I became really attached to. It felt
like a privilege to be allowed to share in your experiences and
insight, plus I got to hear references to all sorts of things
I knew nothing about, re-sparking my desire to learn and expand
my horizons. When you took that vacation from the board I yelled
at Darby "NO! Get her back!!!!" even though the poor
guy had no way of doing so. You have never written anything I've
seen that you had in any way need to apologize for, and I read
most of your posts.
The truth is that some of your experiences have been so dramatic
and so profound it leaves the rest of us trying to figure out
how this all works. I think shadowkat actually did a lovely job
of putting it into words, and because you're already feeling bad,
it made you see your own words in a negative light which IS NOT
THERE. As another happy little person who has not seen the worst
of people, it becomes hard for me to evaluate my own painful experiences
in light of the atrocities that you've had to deal with. There
is a fine line that we must get through that involves:
Guilt - why must you suffer and not us? I don't understand it,
and never will.
Again, guilt - how can we feel bad about what happens in our lives,
when it's a walk in the park compared to what others have suffered?
And although it is a good reality check to realize that some of
things that really bother us, aren't earth-shattering awfulness,
we need to take the next step which I believe is what shadowkat
was addressing, and say it's ok to feel bad about what you feel
bad about. We can get some perspectives on our lives and still
allow ourselves the emotional reactions to our own experiences.
You have never said anything to indicate your pain is more than
someone else's, it's just easy to question our own lives in comparison.
Having my father die at 67, after a month of illness, in a hospital,
knowing he wasn't afraid, myself at 40, is very different than
being a child whose mother is murdered for political reasons.
I don't think either of us should be afraid to deal with how this
has shaped us. You should not be embarrassed to address it when
it is such as a critical part of your experiences and is so influential
in how you see the world. Just as I might go on a rant about smoking,
which may or may not be well-considered, but is something I feel
so strongly about.
I think that for people whose natures are to share and show themselves,
it can be uncomfortable sometimes to be out in the open, with
little hidden. Coming from a very reserved family, one of my epiphanies
was that I am emotional, I'm not reserved, and generally it's
way more work hiding who I am than I have the energy for. Maybe
it's not so bad to let people know you, and it certainly isn't
anything to be sorry about. It would be a terrible thing if you
became bland in your writing in the hopes of not insulting anyone.
shadowkat's comments were not directed at the writers, but at
the readers. If we remember both the power and limitations of
language and try to put more context in people's words, strong
and interesting statements can be made, personal stories can be
shared, feelings don't have to be hurt, and people don't have
to regret sharing.
- Sara, hoping shadowkat and Rahael don't want to slap me for
my presumption (but they can if they want, I don't bruise easy!)
[> [> [> [> Thank
you Sara. That is exactly what I was trying to say. -- shadowkat,
10:18:01 12/08/02 Sun
Thank you for putting it so well. I agree with everything in this
post. Everything.
shadowkat's comments were not directed at the writers, but
at the readers. If we remember both the power and limitations
of language and try to put more context in people's words, strong
and interesting statements can be made, personal stories can be
shared, feelings don't have to be hurt, and people don't have
to regret sharing.
That's it exactly.
hoping shadowkat and Rahael don't want to slap me for my presumption
(but they can if they want, I don't bruise easy!)
I can't speak for Rah of course, but can I give you a cybernetic
hug instead? With lots of chocolat?? Thank for this post. That's
exactly what I was trying to express.
SK
[> [> [> [> [>
Hugs and Chocolate - way better than a slap! -- Sara, breathing
a sigh of relief, 11:36:43 12/08/02 Sun
[> [> [> [> Thanks
Sara (and everyone else, esp. Caroline) -- Rahael, 12:33:18
12/08/02 Sun
Wise words.
[> [> [> [> [>
Re: Thanks Sara (and everyone else, esp. Caroline) -- Arethusa,
14:33:06 12/08/02 Sun
Finally back on the board.
Your thanks meant a lot to me, I haven't been feeling the picture
of mental health myself lately. Three weeks of flu is way too
much, and little things keep dragging me down. Just remember you're
not alone; there are people who care about you and think about
you, even if they are on the other side of the world and have
never met you. This type of communication has a lot of potential
for misunderstanding, but it also lets us see more deeply into
each other sometimes than face-to-face encounters do. Don't ever
forget that what we see in you is beautiful.
And dancing around the house to Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just
Wanna Have Fun" never fails to cheer me up.
[> [> [> again not
sure of the best place to put this -- anom, 22:20:10 12/08/02
Sun
Y'ever think this board has a high concentration of posters who
are too hard on themselves? Every one of us is going to push somebody's
buttons sometime (we had a thread about that, didn't we?). That
doesn't make it your fault & isn't a reason to beat up on yourself.
I realize this is harder to avoid when you're already feeling
down (& I'm sorry to hear that you are, Rahael & shadowkat, &...well,
sorry, I read through a bunch of posts at once & I know there
were others but I forget who; hope you all feel better).
We also don't need to measure the degree of our bad experiences
against others'. If you haven't been directly affected by war
or terrorism or crime, well, damn, good for you! It doesn't make
your experiences or what you have to say here any less valid.
It may even give you fewer buttons to push, which I'd say is a
good thing. I'm glad to know people can have better lives, & I'd
hope learning about people who've had worse experiences can help
them appreciate them more, & that learning about better lives
can give hope to those who've had those worse experiences that
things can be better.
I don't suppose anyone's gonna ease up on themselves just 'cause
I said so, hmm? Well, I guess it's better than the kind of thing
you see on so many other boards, but maybe we can find a middle
ground? (I haven't read those other kinds of boards, but learning
about them here makes me appreciate this one more!)
--anom, whose favorite mood lifter is Benny Goodman's Carnegie
Hall Concert album, & who once baked banana bread when I was down
'cause it always makes me feel good!
[> [> [> [> Re:
again not sure of the best place to put this -- aliera, 04:50:52
12/09/02 Mon
I think that there's a kind of process that people have to go
through when things happen anom. For each of us that's going to
be a little different. The question that I've been asking myself
is why do the spirals on this particular situation seem to be
getting tighter? Or maybe that's just my perception? By the way
I'm trying to convert my board name from aliera to Angela, which
is my given name, but wasn't sure if you would recognize the new
one. :-)
[> [> [> [> [>
i might not have recognized it... -- anom, 18:57:38
12/09/02 Mon
"By the way I'm trying to convert my board name from aliera
to Angela, which is my given name, but wasn't sure if you would
recognize the new one."
...but you could always do what Jay (the poster formerly known
as JBone) did & make an official announcement on the board!
Thanks for answering. I know everyone has to go through their
individual process, I just hate to see so many of us...well, I'm
not sure how to describe it, other than what I said before, a
lot of folks seem to be unnecessarily hard on themselves. Not
that I'm exempt...I just don't usually get public about it!
[> [> I have things to
say about this post... -- Tchaikovsky, 14:39:41 12/07/02
Sat
...which I think clarifies and expands on my post in a very powerful
way. A great post as yours always are.
In this case, another universal dilemma, time trouble, is against
me, and so I will reply tomorrow, hopefully.
Thanks Shadowkat
TCH
[> [> More on the power
of words and the power of saying nothing (NLM spoiler) --
shadowkat, 08:14:44 12/08/02 Sun
This morning I tuned into CBS SUNDAY MORNING and they did this
oh fifteen minute news essay on Bartlets quotations and the power
of words. Here are some of the quotes they mentioned:
Do not ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can
do for your country. John F. Kennedy
I'm not afraid of dying. I just don't want to be there when it
happens. woody allen
Me want cookie. cookiemonster from sesame street
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Apocalyspe Now
And that's the way it is. Walter Cronkite
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. Bob Dylan
Each phrase causes an emotional repsonse - whether it is humor,
need to act, or just a smile.
And in case we doubted the power of words - read Rah's response
to me and the responses to Rah or Deb's post above on The Initative
- which she closes with this striking statement: " I apologize
if my words brought pain to anyone. It was not my intention."
Beginning to wonder if we should adopt this as our mantra - since
no matter what you say, someone is bound to take it the wrong
way and be upset by it. Take for instance - alcibades response
to the political "Homeland" statement...which appeared
to many of us to have come out of the blue, caused much rage,
and may have caused alcibades to leave the board permanently(I
hope not - alcibades has written some of the best posts on Ats
and Btvs this season, remember her framing post on Angel? Please
come back alcibades.) But her post caused others to feel rage,
myself included. That guys is the power of words. Sometimes it
takes no more than two words to cause this response. Sometimes
just a sentence.
Ex: Read my lips. No new taxes. (President Bush Sr.)
Just have one word to say to you: plastics (The Graduate)
I don't know much history, but wasn't part of the reason WWI happened
due to a verbal battle between two countries?
And how many duels have been fought historically over words?
I think Alexander Hamilton may have died in such a duel.
But saying nothing has an equal amount of power. When someone
leaves the board? We miss their voice. We feel the gap. Whedon
showed how powerful the use of silence was in Btvs in The Body
and Hush.
In the Body - there is no soundtrack and no words during the scene
in which Buffy waits for the ambulence to arrive.
Nor are their words as she tells her sister, which we watch through
a glass window. In Hush - there are no words at all just music
- we feel Olivia's fear when she sees the Gentleman in the Window
and the silence between Buffy and Riley at the end of the episode
says more than all their words in the next one - Doomed. And in
The Gift - when Buffy stands on the tower and tells her sister
what she is going to do...there is no sound, we get it later in
a voice over as she dies.
Whedon has become a master at saying something with very few words.
Look at the original shooting script of Never Leave Me then see
what aired? The difference? Less words.
The final is more ambiguous. In the final Spike alludes to what
he may or may not have done in the past, in the original he makes
it crystal clear. And in the final - Buffy's speech is far simpler:
Original:
BUFFYThere's a man in there underneath that monster. A man who
-- even when he had no soul --
SPIKE-- It's window dressing --
BUFFY-- struggled to find redemption. You're alive because I know
he's in there --
SPIKE-- I'm killing you --
BUFFY-- and I believe in the man he can be.
What aired:
Buffy: You faced the monster inside and you fought back.
You risked everything to be a better man.
And you can be. You are.
Spike: Buffy.
Buffy: You may not see it. But I do. I do. I believe in you Spike.
That phrase alone has more power than anything else said:
I believe in you.
Joyce said it to Buffy in Normal again. I believe in you, Buffy.
And it is what may allow Spike to survive the coming days.
But again - what's important is how Spike chooses to react to
Buffy's words. Whether he decides to believe her, ignore her,
push it aside - is up to Spike. We choose our reactions. When
someone says something that hurts us? We can either laspe into
silence or challenge them. Sometimes the best way to deal with
trolls on posting boards - is to say nothing - the troll disappears
in archives never to return. So lack of words, the blank space,
the silence in film, on the internet (would it exist without our
words?), is just as powerful if not more so than the words are.
I like what fresne said some time ago: If a tree falls in the
forest and no one hears it? Did it fall?
If I write words and send them out and no one responds to me...no
one reads them...did I write them? Do they exist? Do they even
have a meaning outside of the one I have in my
head? Is part of the experience of writing and sharing our work
the fact that everyone who reads and responds to it, changes and
alters the words in some way - giving them greater meaning with
their response then we ever could?
[> [> [> Re: The power
of words... -- Wisewoman, 14:05:19 12/08/02 Sun
Well said, shadowkat, and may I second the request to Alcibiades
to return? I feel I may have been responsible for his/her disappearance.
Sometimes I wish I could better control the way I respond to posts
but the older I get, the more my mind seems to latch on to some
specific phrase or point, to the detriment, perhaps, of the communication
as a whole. This is a case in point; I read through your list
of quotations and immediately had a response to the Dylan quote,
based on my absolute (and inexplicable) love of mondegreens
(mis-heard song lyrics).
Then, later, you said, Is part of the experience of writing
and sharing our work the fact that everyone who reads and responds
to it, changes and alters the words in some way - giving them
greater meaning with their response then we ever could?
On this board, this is usually the case and it's a beautiful thing.
Sometimes, though, changing and altering the words has a very
different effect--
The ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind...
dub ;o)
[> [> [> [> There's
a term for that? LOL .Witness firsthand the power of language
to incorporate human nature. -- Haecceity, 14:25:47 12/08/02
Sun
[> [> [> [> LMAO!
dying laughing.... -- shadowkat, 15:15:20 12/08/02 Sun
This is a case in point; I read through your list of quotations
and immediately had a response to the Dylan quote, based on my
absolute (and inexplicable) love of mondegreens (mis-heard song
lyrics).
The ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind...
Yes...LOL! I have the same problem...having something called audio
dyslexia I mishear things all the time.
Particularly in songs.
My favorite is from FlashDance...
You know that lyric: "Take your passion?"
I always hear "take your pants off."
[> [> [> [> [>
LOL! I've got a million of them... -- Wisewoman, 15:49:52
12/08/02 Sun
But the one I did myself, for years, was from, I think, Three
Dog Night? "There's a bad moon on the rise" I always
heard as "There's a bathroom on the right."
Another fave, from Angel of the Morning, Juice Newton:
"Just call me angel of the morning, angel,
Just brush my teeth before you leave me..."
(Instead of "Just touch my face")
;o)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Have you seen Dave Barry's Book... -- Haecceity,
17:03:15 12/08/02 Sun
...""Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy" (probably
nothing near what Hendrix meant;)...It's full of these Alterno-lyrics.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> No I haven't, but -- dub ;o), 18:16:34 12/08/02
Sun
...I seem to remember that one of the prime sites on the net for
mondegreens is www.kissthisguy.com, if it's still around...
;o)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Mondegreen and other phrases site --
Nightingale (who was curious enough go searching...), 16:40:28
12/10/02 Tue
There are some good ones here:
http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/meanings/mondegreen.html
as well as the original verse of the "...kiss this guy"
line. :)
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Gavin Edwards, not Dave Barry -- d'Herblay,
19:13:17 12/08/02 Sun
Y'know, in case you wanted to search for it by author's name or
something. Or in case anyone forgets that I'm a nit-picking little
pedant with nothing better to do than relentlessly highlight the
minor errors of others while staying completely oblivious to my
more major ones.
[> [> [> [> [>
[> Well, don't we all find dental hygiene very romantic?
-- Sara, who wonders if an angel likes colgate or crest..., 17:07:33
12/08/02 Sun
[> [> [> [> [>
[> [> ROFL! Exactly! -- dub ;o), 18:18:21 12/08/02
Sun
[> [> [> [> [>
[> My most spectacular personal one... -- KdS, 03:33:47
12/09/02 Mon
David Bowie - "Life on Mars"
"Sailors fighting in the dancehall/Oh man, look at those
gay men go..."
(believe the actual lyric is "cavemen")
Must have been something to do with the performers image...
[> [> [> [> wouldja
believe there's actually a button that says that? -- anom,
21:58:16 12/08/02 Sun
"The ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind..."
...w/a picture of ants blowing away in the wind!
And I've heard "bathroom on the right" in "Bad
Moon Rising" too. Sometimes "there in the back room
on the right."
[> [> Some extra thoughts
-- Tchaikovsky, 04:53:34 12/09/02 Mon
I basically agree with everything you say here.
'I don't really buy any one view and take bits and pieces from
several and apply them to a situation on a case by case basis'
I think this is probably a more healthy approach than buying in
to a point of view in a wholesale way. A friend of mine has become
a member of the Liberal Democrats, (the third biggest UK political
party) recently. I feel that he is so restricted by it in some
ways. I could never have an affiliation to a political party,
because it would in some underhand way deny me the right to my
own opinion. In choosing the whole package, a fraternity, (politics
is still too male), is running my thoughts. I'm well aware that
many members of parties disagree with some of the party's policies,
but I wouldn't be able to put up with that constant, nagging contradiction
in my mind.
'I also tend to agree with Popper - there's more problems with
Philosophy than just language.'
Me too- although I attempted to not give any answers to the questions
posed in my original post, because I felt that wiser people had
tried and failed. It was more a musing on the book than a direct
response.I think I'd probably have to go with Popper if I was
forced at gun-point- but I'd prefer to choose aspects of both;
even if they saw each other as diametrically opposed.
'I remember once writing a story where every other word out of
the character's mouth was the "F" word - the person
who read it was enraged and asked me why this was necessary -
I informed them that it was the part of the character - it was
how the character thought and spoke.'
This reminds me of Irvine Welsh's work, such as Trainspotting.
I just didn't get it to start with: the realism seemed ounnecessary.
Like Glory's euphemisms, we could surmise what was suggested by
the words she used. Ultimately, the words were part of the people's
mode of expression, and hence mode of thought. In this case, language
does affect consciousness. On a Buffy note, (as most of this thread
is a glorious side-note), it's interesting to consider just what
we're supposed to think about obscenity on Buffy. Buffy's mis-step
with the student in 'Help' was oddly out of place- as she's never
been seen using the word when she hasn't been censoring herself,
as with Dawn. I think that, in a sense, it is a handicap for the
show that it doesn't have complete freedom of expression. I love
the coy mischief ME can play, like Buffy's 'Willow! You kiss your
mother with that mouth?' in Becoming, and 'What the f'[Cut] in
'Gone'. But I do think that sometimes people's level of formality
or informality of language is expressed better than any other
way through their tendency to swear. Michelle Trachtenberg told
one newspaper recently that nobody cussed around her on set. The
feeling of isolation of mid Season Five Dawn could have been expressed
well by this change in 'Blood Ties'. It's only a minor point-
ME does extremely well within the bounds set for it by the network
rules, and has at times pushed them back. It wouldn't much affect
my viewing experience, it's just a quirk that, when asked what
would improve Buffy for me, I might mention.
'It took me a long time to understand people's difficulties with
the "F" word - it is after all just a word - it only
has the power that we give it. Yet on the other hand the meaning
behind it is visceral. It does after all discuss sex in a way
that is devoid of love and feeling and just a violent animal act...much
like the Spike/buffy scenes last year.'
Yes, and I'm still a little surprised (and pleased)nobody has
berated me for using it in my post. I guess the point is- possibly
it is used more often in a meaningless way, (like the 'boy in
the playground' in the Duffy). Here it has no negative connotation
of sex, it's just used as a rude word, one that would not be approved
of by grown-ups.
'I've been wondering what platitudes are, and if I've lasped into
them.'
From American Heritage Dictionary:
1. A trite or banal remark or statement, especially one expressed
as if it were original or significant. See Synonyms at clichÈ.
2. Lack of originality; triteness.
This is similar to what I imagined Rahael meant by it, and what
I think I would have written had I replied in Deb's thread. I
would have recycled something I'd heard from someone else, (instead
of thinking or experiecing it personally), and then, in the act
of posting it, claimed it to be important and/or original. I don't
see this as the same as sometihng someone has learnt which they
find important and useful in many situations- a mantra if you
will. I think your constant ability to express your own, honest
view keeps you well out of Platitude Land.
'I've met 50 year olds who act like ten year olds
and 15 year olds who seem to understand more than most 50 year
olds do. So I try not to make broad generalizations.'
Agree, and this is why I find the Hindu version of re-incarnation
so beguiling- although I ultimately reject something which, to
me, cannot be shown either way. I don't have the necessary faith
to support strong but necessarily blind faith. I have respect
for people who do. In Buffy, (yes, I'm mentioning the actual show
again, impressive!) Oz seems like such an old soul. He seems to
have such a reserve of experience and good judgement. Xander,
conversely, seems to have an extremely young soul- possibly a
reason why he is so hapless. I apologise in advance for stepping
on the toes of people who know more about these things than me.
Incidentally, thank you all for your kind comments, which I really
appreciate, particularly coming from so many people whose own
writings have given me such enlightenment, joy and food for thought.
TCH
[> [> [> Well said
and thank you for the explanation on platitudes -- shadowkat,
07:41:13 12/09/02 Mon
The comment regarding platitudes makes more sense now. Note to
self - get off lazy but and look up stuff in dictionary that is
next to your computer. ;-)
One final note? I think you've added a great deal to the board
since you first arrived and have enjoyed all of your posts without
exception. anom is right - some of the people on this board are
far too hard on themselves ;-)
And I like your take on reincarnation with OZ - old soul and Xander
- young. Wholeheartedly agree. (Not that I know much about these
things either.)
[> One more puzzle: Churchill
or... -- Moscow Watcher,
15:30:02 12/07/02 Sat
A little comment about puzzles. Quentin Travers words may also
be a re-phrasing of the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
i.e 19th century poet named William...
Another wink-wink? Or a false thread? NLM shooting script mentions
Churchill's name, but there is a lot of changes in the aired episode,
and it's unclear who rewrited whom. It could be Goddard'd interpretation
over original Whedon's idea. Or vice versa. Or just a fascinating
coincidence.
[> [> Hey, there...Welcome!
-- Wisewoman, 16:10:14 12/07/02 Sat
Now, I may be wrong on this, but I think that d'Herblay has been
positing for quite some time now that Spike is really Henley,
so you may indeed have a point.
;o)
[> [> Re: One more puzzle:
Churchill or... -- Rufus, 16:58:08 12/07/02 Sat
Well, I think it is Travers ripping off Churchill, who in turn
ripped off Henley. I think that the rephrasing of passage in Invictus
is ironic in that Churchill was making a speech about cooperation
at a time of war. This is the speech....
Author: Rufus
Subject: Travers and Churchill......"Still Captains of our
Souls" from Sept. 9/1941 speech.
Churchill Society
"Still Captain of our Souls"
HOUSE OF COMMONS
September 9, 1941
Late in July I learned that the President of the United States
would welcome a meeting with me in order to survey the entire
world position. I obtained His Majesty's permission to leave the
country.
I crossed the Atlantic Ocean in one of our latest battleships
to meet the President at a convenient place. Important conclusions
were reached on four main topics.
First of all, an eight point declaration of the broad principles
and aims which guide and govern the actions of the British and
United States governments and peoples. . . Secondly, on measures
to be taken to help Russia to resist the hideous onslaught which
Hitler has made upon her; thirdly . . . the policy to be pursued
toward Japan . . .
fourthly, there was a large number of purely technical matters
which were dealt with and close personal relations were established
between high naval, military and air authorities of both countries
. . .
I have, as the House knows, hitherto consistently deprecated the
formulation of peace aims, or war aims - however you put it -
by His Majesty's Government at this stage. I deprecate it at this
time, when the end of the war is not in sight. But a Joint Declaration
by Great Britain and the United States is a process of a totally
different
nature.
Although the principles in the Declaration, and much of the language,
have long been familiar to the British and American democracies,
the fact that it is a united Declaration sets up a milestone or
monument which needs only the stroke of victory to become a permanent
part of
the history of human progress . . .
Thus far then have we travelled along the terrible road we
chose at the call of duty. The mood of Britain is wisely and rightly
averse from every form of shallow or premature exultation. This
is no time for boasts or glowing prophecies, but there
is this: A year ago our position looked forlorn, and well nigh
desperate to all eyes but our
own. To-day we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: "We
are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls."
If we just read the poem in whole as written by Henley I find
that the meaning is similar but if you take the speech by Churchill
into consideration the actions of the Council of Watchers is more
tragic. For a group who speaks of cooperation, they were attacked
and crippled rather easily. Maybe they were more interested in
Masterpiece Theater (as Buffy suggested in Checkpoint s5).
Travers at best is a windbag who has overestimated the Slayer/Buffy,
and the First Evil. He took the assault on the Council as the
First Evil making an act of war upon "their" institution,
with little thought of the consequences to others. They wanted
to wage a war with only themselves and the First Evil with no
thought of bringing in other powers as they only thought the "Watchers"
were capable of defeating the First. Giles said something in Grave
that sums up why he didn't have much contact with the Council......
GILES: I came as soon as I heard.
BUFFY: The Council?
GILES: The Council haven't a clue. About much of anything,
really. (walking toward Buffy, leaning on the horse) No, there's
an ... an extremely powerful coven in Devon. They sensed the rise
of a dangerous magical force here in Sunnydale. A dark force,
fueled by grief.
Giles understands that the Council is more secular in their leanings
and sought out people (the Coven in Devon) who were more connected
with life in a spiritual way. I don't know how the Council started,
but if all is connected I'd wager the Council had decided long
ago that they didn't need a connection because they were the power...in
that conceit they are not only not connected, but dangerous in
that they would interfere with those who are.
[> Thank You For Finding
The Words, All -- Haecceity, 13:18:41 12/08/02 Sun
TCH,
I cannot thank you enough for posting this. The huge emotional
storm that blasted through the board this week ripped the air
from my lungs, leaving no words to speak. I wanted so desperately
to respond to everyone, but every response I drafted seemed pompous
or dismissive, when all I really wanted to do was comfort. So
I didn't post. Then felt badly for it, for not responding when
others were in pain merely because I couldn't find the right words.
I'm a visual person--the words come later, reluctantly, mistranslated.
I tend to think that they diminish things, somehow. But in a space
where all we are is words, it seems ever so much more important
to craft them carefully, and I found myself this week too torn
between the desire to help and the fear of adding pain that my
word-self sort of dropped off the board.
Your post and the ones here say beautifully all those words I
wished to say, far better than I could have. As a long-time lurker
and still-too-new-to-be-a-regular poster, I just wanted to let
you all know that when you speak so eloquently you speak for others
who lack for words, and that those you address are thought of
and cared for by the sometimes voiceless. Thank you.
---Haecceity
P.S. to TCH
Plus, yummy language/thought, form/function post. Like a beautiful
form with a caring heart.
[> [> Thanks -- Tchaikovsky,
05:35:56 12/09/02 Mon
And I was partly prompted to attempt something long and thematic,
(as opposed to OnM's long and episodic, or many others long and
canonical, both of which are great), by your brilliant postings.
I suspect you qualify as regular as, on the occasions you do post,
you write as much as everyone else does on several occasions!
And all at a great quality and with focus.
TCH
[> [> [> Re: Thanks
-- Haecceity, 22:14:04 12/09/02 Mon
TCH,
So it's to be a mutual admiration society, then :) Does this mean
I can leave the long and thematic to you for awhile? The "clutches
of life" (finally remembered it was Fresne who came up with
this. Of course, 'cause she's brilliant) have claws this week,
so will *try* to keep things short and series-related. But will
fail utterly, as the long thematic ramble is my nature, which
you've sussed out, apparently--"on the occasions you do post,
you write as much as everyone else does on several occasions!".
Kudos to you for bringing in the Wittgenstein--I find him daunting,
and though I keep picking up the book in the shop, never seem
to convince myself to take it to the counter. Keep posting and
I won't have to:)
Again, lovely post. Welcome to the long and thematic tribe.
Now, when's the next? ;)
---Haecceity
[> [> Echoing the thanks
-- ponygirl, 08:54:43 12/09/02 Mon
So after plowing through some work for three vaguely productive
hours, I grabbed a Coke, put on my headphones to drown out the
latest discussion of Metroid Prime (computer game, don't ask)
and read this thread from beginning to end. What a treat this
has been, even as I have been alternately amused, concerned, perplexed,
I have felt nothing but delight. Delight that people can express
themselves so eloquently, share their feelings so bravely, and
empathize with such generosity. I am grateful that we have these
words to share. Sending out best wishes to Rah, shadowkat, Arethusa
and everyone else. Chocolate and uplifting power pop to all. Alcibiades
come back!
My Catatonia cd is ending so maybe I'll steal a few of their words:
And I dream one day I find
The one who lives inside my mind
They feel the same way too
We've all been used
Dazed, beautiful and bruised
[> Re: Buffy's stake in
Wittgenstein's poker -- Deb, 13:45:23 12/09/02 Mon
I'm so glad I came back to read your post. Language is a favorite
topic, among many, of mine. I can remember a time I thought I
had nothing to share, nothing to say, because my life was so boring.
You have plenty to share. Your English -- there's a story right
there, at least to me.
Thank you for your kind comments on my post.
[> Laurie Anderson once
put it succinctly: "Language is a virus." -NT --
ZachsMind, 14:01:51 12/09/02 Mon
[> [> Originally said
by Burroughs -- Dead Soul, 18:15:31 12/09/02 Mon
[> Re: Buffy's Stake (MEMETICS!!!!!)
-- frisby, 09:03:07 12/10/02 Tue
There "is" progress. I direct those concerned to read
up on the new exploding field of Mimetics (the study of memes,
which are the cultural unit of transmisison from generation to
generation, in the same way genes are the biological unit). The
relation of philosophy (and the other other disciplines) to this
new field of study will open up vast new areas and provide a new
"forest" for scholars to hunt in over the next century
or two.
http://www.memecentral.com/ is just one of several very good websites.
A "meme" (like a virus in some ways) can conquer the
world. A question I daily ponder is whether Nietzsche's thought
of eternal return is a meme? I also wonder what 'memes' which
we regularly encounter on "Buffy" (besides the theme
song) have become part of our culture? The show has definitely
led the way in some areas of language development: "can you
vague that up for me" (for example)? Or one of my favorites,
that's "of the good."
[> [> Re: Buffy's Stake
(MEMETICS!!!!!) -- Darby, 19:06:52 12/10/02 Tue
You DO know how much we've already gone round-and-round on this,
right-? ...That's what I figured from the subject line.
Anyway, it doesn't work. Memes should be no more progressive than
genes. They may inherit according to Lamarkian inheritance (passage
of acquired characteristics), but they don't evolve according
to Lamarkian rules (progressively "better").
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