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January 3rd, 2005
07:13 pm
THIS JOURNAL IS FRIENDS ONLY :)
From time to time I would make public posts with excerpts or quotes that I like, but other than that, I like to remain friends only.
-xoxo Lauri
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March 20th, 2004
08:09 pm - Zosima's philosophy:
He has suffered, which for Dostoevsky is purification.
Man should take upon himself the suffering and the responsibility for the sin of all men, and not simply for himself, which helps to justify the existence of such seemingly evil creatures as Fyodor, as such characters as his sons shall, in one way or another, accept the suffering for his sins as their own.
The faith of Zossima is the ideal, and is in stark contrast to the ideas that Ivan has come to. His message remains one of love and truth as found in the Bible, and is one regarding the two greatest and most essential elements of faith and salvation. Love and truth bring belief in that which we can not understand. This is what Ivan, and intellectual skeptic, can not accept, that love and truth will result in believing in that which is an inexplicable mystery.
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March 15th, 2004
January 14th, 2004
12:22 am - Candide Analysis
Theme Analysis
Voltaire’s Candidehas many themes, though one central, philosophical theme traverses the entire work. This theme is a direct assault on the philosophy of Leibniz, Pope and others. Leibniz held that the world created by God was the best possible world with perfect order and reason. Alexander Pope, similarly, in his Essay on Man, argues that every human being is a part of a greater, rational, grand design of God. Pangloss stresses this viewpoint—that what appears to be evil is actually part of a greater good—when he asserts to Jacques that “private misfortunes make for public welfare.”
Voltaire, on the other hand, found that his own experiences contradicted this optimistic determinism. Much like his protagonist, Candide, Voltaire must abandon this belief after realizing the needless suffering that surrounds him. Thus the major theme of the book revolves around this idea that the world is not the best of all possible ones, that it isn’t determined by reason and order, and that accident and chance play a major role. Though as a deist, Voltaire believed that God did create the world, he also believed that human injustice and brutality made the world anything but perfect. Furthermore, he believed that the fatalistic philosophy of Pope and others stripped man of his God-given free will.
In addition to his anti-philosophy current which runs throughout the work, Voltaire also satirically indicts religion and war. Almost from the first chapter to the last, Voltaire depicts religious men (priests, monks, etc) as hypocrites who don’t live up to the religion they profess to believe. Most importantly, Voltaire makes the Church out to be one of the most corrupt, violence-ridden institutions on the planet. This is seen both during the Inquisition scene towards the middle of the book as well as the Jesuit satire seen while Candide and Cacambo are in Paraguay.
Based largely on Voltaire’s experiences of the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), an anti-war message is found throughout the fast-paced narrative of Candide. Voltaire bitingly criticizes both the French (Abares) and the Prussians (Bulgars). Casually describing the thousands of dead soldiers on both sides, Voltaire underscores how wasteful these “heroes” are of human life, clearly showing his anti-war sentiments. During one such battle, Candide, his protagonist, hides, doing his best to keep away from the needless bloodshed and “heroic butchery.” After the battle subsides, he escapes through the battlefield, seeing the “scattered brains and severed limbs” that “littered the ground.”
Thus, Voltaire bashes a multitude of people and institutions throughout Candide. Despite his many sources of criticism, however, Voltaire merges all of his satires into one, larger message—that the human world is utterly disutopian. All of the versions of utopia which Voltaire raises up and then slams down in his work demonstrate such a loss of optimism. Pangloss’ utopia, for one, which simply changes the conditions of the word to fit it to the world he knows is proven false, since even Pangloss himself eventually stops believing it. Eldorado, a second kind of utopia, also fails to satisfy Candide, who soon becomes bored, yearning for adventure, and, of course, Cunégonde. Only the decision to simply till the land at the conclusion of the book satisfies a quasi-utopian hope of the reader. Yet when Pangloss tries to resurrect the idea that this world is a utopia in the second to last paragraph, Candide himself dismisses the notion.
Top Ten Quotes
1) Pangloss teaches that everything is for the best and that man lives in the “best of all possible worlds.”
2) When Pangloss explains that Cunégonde has been killed, Candide passes out. Upon awakening, he muses, “Ah, best of worlds, what’s become of you now?”
3) When Jacques confronts Pangloss’ systemic philosophy, the philosopher responds, “…private misfortunes make for public welfare.”
4) Seeing an abused African slave stretched out on the road before them, the two question him, and learn that a very religious Christian man is his master. Hearing this, Candide admits to himself, “I’m through, I must give up [Pangloss’] optimism after all... It is a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell.”
5) Angry and dejected, Candide tries to get the authorities involved, but they are less than helpful or polite. Soon he resolves to himself that if there is a place where everything is for the best, “it is in Eldorado and not in the rest of the world.”
6) Later, being entertained at a home where he meets a wise man, Candide immediately asks him if he subscribes to Pangloss’ philosophy of optimism. The man says he doesn’t, maintaining that “everything goes wrong in our world….”
7) Candide responds by repeating Pangloss’ teaching that “troubles are just the shadows in a beautiful picture.”
8) At this point, however, Martin asserts that “the shadows are horrible ugly blots.”
9) Now in Venice, Candide makes his first priority to find Cacambo, hoping that he has brought Cunégonde. After a few days of fruitless searching, he grows despairing, finally resolving to Martin that Cunégonde is dead, that “all is but illusion and disaster.”
10) Following the example of a neighboring Turk, Candide decides that his household will no longer debate philosophy, saying “we must [simply] cultivate our garden.”
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12:11 am - Descartes Meditations ewwwwww
http://www.andyland.com/education/rensselaer/01999spring/metaphysics/descartesMeditations.html
Descartes' First Meditation explains his plan in pursuit of knowable truths. His systematic breakdown of the set of things he previously claimed to know is typical and substantiated. In the final paragraph of the section, he comes down to what he believes is a necessary consideration in the search for some fundamental knowable truth(s) - he supposes the existence of an evil deceiver who may potentially deceive him in everything he appears to observe and think about. His consideration of this is valid and necessary, however I might point out one fault. The mere fact that he continues optimistically in his pursuits after the considerations in this section shows his implicit belief that he is not being deceived in his current or future deliberations on the matter. This simple fact seems to contradict the very essence of this meditation.
The Second Meditation continues to address the issues of evil deception in body and mind, and aims primarily to draw the conclusion that although at this point the existence of the body apparently cannot be known, the existence of the self (which is later equated with the mind) can. This is based on Descartes' belief: "I think that I am something." Furthermore, he proposes the apparent tautological necessity of one of two possibilities - the first is that he is correct in that thought, and the second that he is being evilly deceived in the thought. Naturally, both cases indicate the conclusion that he does indeed exist, for (conveniently) even in order to be deceived one needs to exist. This is a classic and enormously intuitive step at first glance. However, some may claim that depending on what sense it is presented in, it may be problematic or impotent since the language of "I think…" presupposes the existence of "I" in itself.
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January 9th, 2004
06:50 pm - Frankenstein again arrggh
"But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently u nited by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the special care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me."
"To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self0interest, are full of brotherly love and charity."
-CHAPTER 15
"'You are in the wrong,' replied the fiend; 'and instead of threatening, I am content to reasonw ith you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he contemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human sense are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth."
-CHAPTER 17
"As I sat, a train of reflection occured to me which led me to consider the effects of what I wa now doing. Three years before, I was engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it forever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit and neightbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species."
"'Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hatefulto you. You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!'
'The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your power is arrived. Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but they confirm me in a determination of not creating you a companion in vice. Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a demon whose delight is in death and wretchedness? Begone! I am firm, and your words will only exasperate my rage.'
"The monster saw my determination in my face and gnashed his teeth in the impotence of anger. 'Shall each man,' cried he, 'find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn.......Are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains - revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food!"
"How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!"
-CHAPTER 20
"'I am not mad,' I cried energetically; 'the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the assasisin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race.'"
-CHAPTER 22
"'Man,' I cried, 'how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.'"
-CHAPTER 23
"'Are you mad, my friend?' said he. 'Or whither does your senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy? Peace, Peace! Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.'"
"What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may e; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered andw ho know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe."
"In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness paramuont to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do I know where this thirst for vengeance may end."
"You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed hishopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I as still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic who sought to destroy the savior of his child? Nay, these are virtuous and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandonned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice.
"But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the selct specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more."
-CHAPTER 24
Current Mood: working
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January 8th, 2004
07:20 pm - Frankenstein again
"They were not entirely happy. The young man and his companion often went apart and appeared to weep. I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched."
-CHAPTER 12
"These wonderul narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degredation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing."
"Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!
Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death -- a state which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows."
-CHAPTER 13
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January 7th, 2004
10:48 am - Frankenstein
Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?
-letter 3
"Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to aply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology."
"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow."
"A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to distrub his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed."
-CHAPTER 4
"I expected this reception,' said the demon. 'All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, whom am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus far with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind."
-CHAPTER 10
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January 4th, 2004
01:32 pm - Candide, XXII
"He's a scholar," said the lady, "who never plays cards and whom the abbe brings to have supper with me on occasion; he knows everything there is to know about tragedies and books, and he's written a tragedy that was hissed and a book that has never been outside his bookseller's shop except for one copy that he inscribed to me."
"What a great man!" said Candide; "he's another Pangloss."
Then, turning toward him, he said to him, "Sir, no doubt you think that e everything is at its best in the physical and moral worlds, and that nothing could be otherwise?"
"I, sir," replied the scholar, "I think nothing of the kind: I deem that everything goes awry with us; that no one knows his rank or his function, what he's doing or what he ought to be doing, and that, except during supper, which is a rather cheerful occasion when there appears to be a fair amount of harmony, the rest of the time is spent in impertinent quarrels: Jansenists against Molinists, men of parliament against churchmen, men of letters against men of letters, courtiers against courtiers, financiers against the people, wives against husbands, relatives against relatives; it's an eternal war."
Candide replied, "I've seen worse. But a wise man, who later had the misfortune to be hanged, taught me that all that is wonderful; those are shadows in a beautiful picture."
"Your hanged man was joking!" said Martin; "your shadows are horrible stains."
"It's people who cause the stains," said Candide, "and they can't avoid it."
"Then it's not their fault."
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12:53 pm - O....M.......
:O :O
Ok, let me try to be coherent.....
You know how originally Viggo wasn't the first choice for Aragorn? Peter Jackson had cast someone else to play Aragorn, but realized last minute that their guy was too young. So Peter Jackson gave Viggo a call, and the rest, as they say, is history.
STUART TOWNSEND WAS THEIR ORIGINAL ARAGORN!!!!!!
:O :O :O
Wow. Stuart must have been so pissed.
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11:10 am - Candide, Chapter XXI
At last the French coast was sighted. "Have you ever been in France, Monsieur Martin?" said Candide. "Yes," said Martin, "I've traveled through several provinces. There are some where half the people are mad, a few where they're too cunning, others where they're commonly rather gentle and rather stupid, and others where they play the wit; and in all the provinces the principal occupation is lovemaking, the second, slander, and te third, talking nonsense."
"By the way," said Condide, "do you think the earth was originally all ocean, as is affirmed in that large book belonging to our ship's captain?" "I don't believe it at all," said Martin, "no more than I believe all the other daydreams that people have been selling us for osme time now." "But for what purpose, then, was this world created?" said Candide. "To drive us crazy," replied Martin. "Aren't you astonished," continued Candide, "at the love those two girls int he land of the Oreillons felt for those two monkeys, the adventure of which I related to you?" "Not at all," said Martin; "I don't see what's strange about that passion; I've seen so many extraordinary things that there's nothing extraordinary left." "Do you believe," said Candide, "that human beings have always slaughtered one another as they do today, that they've always been liars, knaves, traitors, ingrates, brigands, weaklings, fickle types, cowards, enviers, gluttons, drunkards, misers, self-seekers, blood seekers, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites and fools?" "Do you believe," said Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they've found them?" "Yes, without a doubt," said Candide. "Well," said Martin, "if hawks have always had the same character, why would you imagine human beings have changed theirs?" "Oh!" said Candide, "there's a big difference, for free will..." Reasinging in this way, they reached Bordeaux.
Current Mood: complacent
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January 3rd, 2004
08:42 pm - The genius of Voltaire
Si c'est ici le meilleur des mondes possibles, que sont donc les autres?
~*~
Candide, terrified, overwhelmed, distraught, bleeding all over, throbbing all over, said to himself, "If this is the best of all possible worlds, then what can the others be like? I might put up with it if I'd only been flogged, for I was flogged by the Bulgarians. But, O my dear Pangloss! greatest of philosophers, did I have ot see you hanged without my knowing why! O my dear Anabaptist! best of men, did you have to be drowned in the harbor! O Miss Cunegonde! pearl among young ladies, did your belly have to be ripped open!
Candide, Chapter VI, How A Fine Auto-Da-Fe was Held to Prevent Earthquakes, and How Candide was Flogged on the Backside
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