Meditations not void of Joy

In class it was suggested that the meditations were void of joy. I think that they may not have a ton of room for elation however I do feel that different people feel joy in different ways. I think there is something joyful about being able to get along with your friends, enemies and your self. I find there to be a lot of joy in peace.

For a Deeper Explanation of my Interpretation of #12

Straight, not straightened.

Discovery, not invention.

Richard Rorty's collection of essays, "Philosophy and Social Hope", discusses the difference between the school of "Discovery" and the school of "Invention".

Here a Wikipedia link to the book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_and_Social_Hope

I'm almost positive you could find the book in our school library if you're interested and I'm in the process of downloading a PDF version of the book so I'll be back here with an excerpt directly from the essay...

Proto-philosophy of life exercise

For today's blogging suggestion, try writing three "meditations" (exhortations/memoranda) in the same style as Marcus Aurelius -- one sentence or multiple paragraphs. Think about the things in your life you have trouble dealing with, and write reminders to yourself of ways you can deal with them better. Keep in mind Marcus' disciplines of perception, action, and will. I'm excited to learn from your words of wisdom!

Meditations

I, like many others before me, would say this was one of my favorite readings. For the most part, I understood what he was saying. In a way I guess, it was easy to relate situations or ideas to the points he was talking about. I've got more than one favorite though, I like 7, 10, 15, 22 and 73.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Not only did I not have trouble reading this. But I loved every single aphorism. It's certainly one of my favorite readings assigned to us so far. I understood it clearly, it wasn't hard to read at all, and I had fun reading it. I mostly found myself taking these aphorisms and applying them to me. And realizing how true they are. Most of them anyway. And how I never realized this. My favorite one was number 73. You've given aid and they've received it, and yet like an idiot, you keep holding out for more: to be credited with a good deed, to be repaid in kind, why?
As soon as I read that, I was like whoa. It hit me so fast, I tend to do this. And I found myself thinking Why? Trying to answer it in my head. And I still can't think of why. There were others that also caught my attention. And I wrote some of them down. It was fun reading each one.

2/16/11

Marcus Aurelius's, Meditations is by far my favorite piece of philosophy I've read so far. Each aphorism is sweet simple to the point and easy to understand. It was nice to space this reading out over the past couple of days and read a little bit each time when I would get frustrated with my studio project. Each aphorism felt like a little piece of wisdom to me that I could focus on. It's almost like a self-help book to make yourself a better person. I really enjoyed aphorism number four, "Focus on what is said when you speak and on what results from each action. Know what the one aims at, and what the other means." Language is so meaningful and powerful. Communication is so important in this world and words can be misconstrued from one person to the next, especially through technology. Many issues can be avoided between people if they speak clearly.

To Choose What is Gleaned

“To harvest life like standing stalks of grain//Grown and cut down in turn.”

The key part of this aphorism comes at the end; “In turn.” Nothing is born overnight; it must be cultivated and watered, until it is ripe for the picking. But there is more that can be gleaned from such a harvest than just the good stalk: when Marcus Aurelius speaks of life, he means life and all that it entails, which is not always something favorable. As in any garden or plot where things grow, it is inescapable that there will be the unwanted: weeds. And although literal weeds are accepted negatively, when speaking in terms of “weeds” in our lives, they can be rather good. The weeds will grow no matter who we are or what our circumstances are, that’s part of the nature of being human. But part of the beauty of humanness is learning to see the weeds and then laboring to remove them. A well tended field may, initially, be just as overrun with pests and weeds as an ill-tended one. However, if the gardener sees that his field is in decay, and so chooses to go out every day to remove the weeds as they come in, he is a good gardener. But if he sees the weeds and thinks, “What’s the use? If I remove these today, there will only be more tomorrow” then he has just forfeited his own life. Soon the weeds will overrun his crop, and he will in the end have nothing to harvest except the weeds and rotten crop. Although it may be futile to completely remove every bad thing from yourself forever, and so achieve perfection, which we cannot, I think it speaks beautifully to another nature of humanity, one that seeks to constantly better itself regardless of our chronic humanity. It was for this reason that I chose this aphorism, because I believe it vocalizes what our own “harvests” can be like, growing and harvesting things in turn, gleaning both the good and the bad, and then taking the seeds of the good to sow the fields anew.

Rhetoric and Poetics in Some of My Art

    
               After doing the exercise in class the other day my attention was drawn to the fact that Aristotle's ideas of Rhetoric and Poetics are used as almost a standard in todays narratives and advertisements. I started to look at many example and was able to apply Aristotle's concepts to most things that I came in contact with. I looked at a piece of my own art/advertisement and was able to see many of the aspects. So first I use ethos, at first glance you are able to see that I am indeed on the poster with my Pakistani/Indian boyfriend. I  Have a reputation around the school as being passionate  in what I do. My boyfriend has a limited reputation because he does not go to school at KCAI but when you look at his picture along with mine you would hope he and I together would be able to create the food of his people in some capacity. I utilize pathos when I use the first and largest sentence on the poster to question the audience about weather or not they are ready to facilitate social justice. In my mind when asked a question like that thoughts and feeling get conjured up about all the helpless feeling you get sitting in some KCAI classes hearing about issues you cannot change. Or images come to mind about all of the social injustices in the world. I use logos by pairing that idea with the idea that you will also receive FREE INDIAN FOOD, One logically can't turn down free indian food if what the alternative is the cafeteria or buying the food yourself!!! 
       I feel a little uncreative by not coming up with any new tactics for advertisement after all these years that society has used it, But these tactics do seem to work because of our familiarity with them to some degree. In contrast with the last statement it makes me feel happy that human psychology has not changed a lot sense Aristotle, if these uses of Rhetoric and Poetics still work today.

Short Meditations

I found that, while reading through the meditations, I tended to enjoy the shorter ones. I found that the shorter meditations were simple, sweet, and to the point. That's not to say I didn't enjoy all of them because I was highly amused and thoroughly loved everything, but the shorter ones were much nicer.

I believe my favorite had to be "straight, not straightened." When I had first opened the document and looked through briefly, that was the one that stood out to me the most. And it was the one that won being my favorite of the entire 75 something. I don't know if I understood the message correctly, but I interpreted the mediation more on the idea of beat, not defeated.

Were Aristotle's ideas of rhetoric original to him? It is apparent that these techniques have been used in writing for centuries, probably before they were isolated and explained by Aristotle. I find that because of the difficulty in understanding his drawn out writing style, that I enjoy reading the summary of his works, written by others in a clearer manner. His ideas of using pathos, logos, and ethos, have been incredibly influential.

Dear Aristotle,

I understand your concepts on Rhetoric and Poetics, however, the way you write is almost painful to read. Please take a writing workshop if you wish to appeal to a wider audience.That is all.

Thank you,

Julie

Reading Rhetoric

From reading about rhetoric and poetics from Aristotle, I noticed some of these ideas and subjects seemed familiar. Oh yea, that's right, I forgot I an Art of Persuasion class last year, and to be honest, I didn't think I understood it a whole lot at the time. Having read some of this material again, I noticed that some of these ideas stuck in my head...they just needed to simmer a bit. (a year) Also, for the most part I relate rhetoric to graphic design. I think of some of the ways we have to use aspects of it like pathos, logos, and ethos to persuade our audience and that pathos dealt with emotions, logos dealt with information, and ethos dealt with a credible source.



Also, I wanted to share an interesting video I discovered the other day. It reminded me about our discussion from last class about the cutting of arts programs and some of the issues dealt with education. It's also just interesting to watch the drawings throughout the piece.

It didn't make sense to me when Aristotle says:

"The man...must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically...and (3) to understand the emotions-that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited."

In the same train of thought those ideas don't make sense to me, espeically in the vein which Aristotle was using them - it seemed like he was in favor of using the logical fallacy of appealing to emotion:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-emotion.html

Sure, something might be "persuasive" - but emotional appeals aren't "logical".

Hello.. i was thinking about how much of a hard time i had when i was a freshmen in high school trying to keep up with ethos pathos logos. Now that i have a clear thought about it, it is so much easier to understand.

2/14/11

I really enjoyed the aspect of persuasion in Aristotle's Rhetoric & Poetics. What I found most interesting was when Aristotle spoke of what makes up a strong persuader. The speaker needs to reason logically, understand human character, and understand the emotions. I believe these aspects are incredible important when persuading because it's mostly about knowing how to manipulate the person your persuading and then backing up your persuasion with relevant reasons. Knowing how to read people, I feel, is a very important aspect of persuasion. You have to know how to get them on your side and then, of course, make yourself sound more concrete with facts.

Rhetoric & Poetics

My overall interpretation of Aristotle's Rhetoric & Poetics revolved around his systematically organized and sophisticatedly structured essay that I felt actually mimicked the subject of his article itself, rhetoric. I liked how Aristotle recognized the instinctive nature of human's to imitate instead of belittling that attribute.