Brick Flotilla has predicted that the replacement line for Bionicle is Ben 10.  If this is true, then Bioncle elements will be no more.  The Ben 10 line will attract fans of the show and younger kids, of course, but the high prices and bulky, specialized elements are enough to horrify me.  Only 20 pieces, at most, for $18.  Sad. 

The pieces may be may find their uses, but they do not look nearly so useful as Bionicle.  Not to mention that it’s not Bionicle.  These are not Bionicle elements.  I fear Bionicle may truly be ending if Brick Flotilla is right.

MOOD:

So, recently I got back my mock exam results and I was pretty happy with the two A*s and A I got. It’s a bit of a relief.
In English Lit. I’ve gotten another essay set though, but it should be fine really, I’m trying not to stress about it.

On a lighter note, I’ve just finished watching the whole Utawarerumono series box set I bought a month or two ago It was good!!
(Spoilers may follow)

I didn’t really have a favourite character (unusually), but they were all kind of good in their own ways (except for Kamyu, her voice was annoying).
The storyline’s structure was vaguely reminiscent of Kanon’s in the way new stories were gradually added in as well as Hakuoro’s memories gradually returning.
The storyline itself was pretty good Despite the cliche’s it was still very gripping and actually made me cry (when the people of their home town all died ;.; ).
Towards the end of the series (very noticable in the final episode) unfortunately the dialogue appeared more forced, but I’m not sure if it was just the dub (I’ll have to rewatch it with subtitles at some point).
Overall, I would rate the series at about an 8/10, ’cause it was very watchable and I really enjoyed it. The animation was pretty much consistently good and the soundtrack was nice. The cliche’s and occasional bad dialogue were the only negative qualities of the series really.

Oh my, I actually wrote a review XD (although I took a break in the middle to write that English essay).

Ja mata!

-kizukimizu

Go check out the Thanksgiving Kosher Cooking Carnival….it features my recipe for chicken soup and matzah balls and the recipe for my world famous pie cake.

Have a thankful day!

by Kristin Blank

At my first Weight Watchers meeting in January 2001, my sister Jennifer and I waited to step on the electronic scale.  I observed the other women waiting:  some looked too skinny to be there; others looked just like me, massive, with flabby skin sweaty with the exhaustion of hauling ourselves around.

I’d been overweight my whole life, and at 21 years old, I was done being the “Fat Girl.”  That day, I was racked with anxiety.  It embarrassed me when even my doctor read the scale, but I closed my eyes and stepped up.  The woman behind the counter filled in my “Starting Weight” box.  238 lbs.  My throat closed.  Oh God, I thought.  Don’t cry, don’t cry.

I knew my body was larger than others.  But seeing that number innocently staring up at me cemented it in my mind—I was fat, huge, massive.  I can’t do this, I thought, this is too much. I pushed down these thoughts that I knew would make me fail before I even began.  I glanced at Jenn’s paper and saw 220 lbs., then showed her mine, clenching my jaw to ward off the still-threatening tears.  Neither of us could believe I weighed that much.

*

Later, I logged on to the Weight Watchers website and tried out the tools.  I checked the charts that told what my healthy weight was:  at 5’5”, I should weigh about 135 pounds—at least a hundred pounds had to go.

I clicked to find out my Body Mass Index.  I needed to face the truth, just like I needed to face that Starting Weight box.  I entered my height and current weight and waited for the computer to process.  Your BMI is 39.7.  According to the explanatory paragraph, a BMI of 20–25 is healthy and a BMI over 30 is considered “very overweight (obese).”

I scored nearly ten points above “obese,” which meant I was unbelievably obese, send-in-the-clowns obese, morbidly obese.  I’d never defined myself by that term—who wanted to call themselves morbidly anything?  Morbid means rotten, near death, overwhelmingly odorous, gruesome, or somehow psychologically depraved.  The woman thought the man morbid because he pinned live insects to cardboard and watched them writhe.  To be morbidly obese meant to be hopeless, disgusting, fit to be examined beneath glass but never touched with bare hands.

*

And then, I was thin.  In hindsight, the transformation feels instantaneous.  In reality, it took about a year until I was satisfied with my body.  In hindsight, it seems effortless.  I followed the program and weight fell off me in little bunches and that was that—the Fat Girl was gone.  At least from the naked eye.

Once, I ran into someone who hadn’t seen me throughout my entire weight loss.  He didn’t even recognize me until I spoke.  Totally new person to him.

And yet, my grandmother said, “You look so much better than you used to.”  Totally repaired person to her.

I never owned my fatness.  I never celebrated it the way some people seem able to do.  I never stood nude before a mirror and said, “Yes, this is me.  I am the bounteous rolls of flesh, I am the thickness of supple thighs, the curves of soft shoulders, the roundness of these hips, the woman of these DD-cup breasts.”

Instead, I didn’t look at my body except in shame and told myself that I was just like all my thin friends.  I was awkward in my fatness, because I didn’t wield it like the weapon it can be in the hands of a girl who doesn’t let the body she has stand in the way of the person she is.  By getting thin, I felt I was excavating from the caverns of fat the girl I really was.  With each pound gone, I felt I was getting closer to her, getting closer to me.

*

At size eight, one could say, I have arrived.  I am at ease in public.  I can concentrate on the book in my hands or the sidewalk beneath my feet because I don’t worry if someone is wondering why that Fat Girl can’t get control of herself.

In many ways, I have become invisible.

Yet, I am seen.  I am seen for my dark brown eyes and shiny auburn hair.  For my slender pianist’s fingers and rosy cheeks.  For my easy smile and sense of humor.

For these things that were there all along.

Kristin Blank earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from American University in Washington, DC.  Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Vermillion Literary Project, and on BettyConfidential.com.  She currently lives in Maryland.

Angeles Estates from balcony

 

 ‘In my heart, a home to roost’

In a writer’s mind, a place is not a mere location. Any place has the potential of seeping into whatever she creates. Moonlight on the water in a sea resort soon appears on a page as a haiku sequence, one that I wrote. Fifth Avenue on winter evenings sheds off its glitter and reveals a sinister side as in a piece I submitted for a writing exercise on “Setting for the Novel” at a class I attended in New York’s Gotham Writing  Workshop. Cherry blossoms shedding petals in the wind along Riverside in Baltimore at dusk brings on images of moths in their last flight as I wrote in a haiku that won for me an honorable mention at the 2007 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival.

But places or a place during a travel or visit to a writer can turn into a home to roost. Once it does, her spirit lives there and so do the characters of her stories. It is then when the ordinary takes on the quality of permanence as do settings in literature. One such place for me is Angeles Estates. It is not just a place to stay. In my heart, it is a home to roost.

‘Light splashes here like a flood’

During my long stay in 2001–and the coconut trees were still dwarfs then except for the almost-a-hundred-year old mango tree by the gate–I’ve written literary journals, completed a novella, and a short story with Angeles Estates as setting. It is the quality of light I so love. It comes as splashes like a flood during the day and at night especially during a full moon it swarms and stays with me.

Secured and guarded, I would stroll at night on the paved walks of the front lawn. Some nights, the sky unfurled like a diamond-studded mantle. I’ve seen a shooting star from the frangipani island hedge and a waning moon that appeared like the many faces of sadness behind streaks of clouds.

Now that the trees, the hedges, and the frangipani ‘pool’ in the middle have grown breathlessly lush, I can imagine how much more satisfying it is to stay for the night and see the dawn rise and the day come in splashes of light.

At a fiction writing class I attended at New York University’s Continuing Education workshops not long after I left Angeles Estates, I wrote this story which I spun out off the novel I finished during that extended stay .

The main character, Amanda, comes home for the first time after she was exiled to New York by a grandaunt.

“Dawn in Manggahan”: An Excerpt

Amanda woke to an engine sigh. Deep and sad like a man’s, it rose from below the window of her room at the south end of the estate buildings’ eastern wing, her grandaunt’s residence. Then, a soft hiss of gravel shifting under steps faded into the muffled din.

She listened, sifting other sounds—singsong calls in the dialect, some low-throated laughter, and like high choral notes, the warbling of ricebirds.

Barely seven and the morning had ripened like noon. In Amanda’s room, daylight had swollen like a flood. On a wall, patterns in monochrome heaved—light bouncing off the front lawn.

Estates garden: frangipani 'pool'

The corridor buzzed with cleaners, young girls with open smiles. She felt she moved among strangers. Exiled to New York after she recovered from that night she bled in a shack in the foothills, Amanda had come back to the estate for the first time—so changed from the hacienda she spent summers as a child.

She had missed the kitchen balcony where she watched the sun rise. It was also there where Senora Viana had set her up in a rattan lounger on mornings after she was brought here incognito from the hospital a week following the raid. On her first winter at that studio in the West Side in New York she craved for those purple dawns. She thought she would die of longing, wondering about the child and the lover she lost.

She slipped out of the south entrance, grazing the side mirror of an Eisenhower jeep parked fronting the wall—the engine that sighed, perhaps? Past the lawn, Amanda spotted a cluster of men in starched denims and buri hats, the farmers waiting for the dining cum seminar hall to open.

They were telling jokes, slapping knees as they guffawed, some gagging, a few spitting red juice from chewed betel nut—so unlike the grim men who crouched in bamboo groves to watch her plays years ago: those hardly laughed, wearing pain like a brand singed on their faces.

dwarf coconuts

Amanda turned away, wincing, ducking fronds of dwarfed coconut trees, and skirting a hedge of blooming frangipani bushes and of birds of paradise in clumps.

She stepped into a lull in the kitchen. Counter shelves on the wall left a yawning center, half a dance hall drenched in light. On a green speckled Formica table, Amanda saw the thermos pot’s on-button still lit and beside it tightly lidded jars of instant coffee and cream. Cups and saucers stacked on the open shelf above the sink still glistened from the last rinse. Noticing a breadbasket and a tub of margarine, she sat down for breakfast.

Amanda had stood up to leave when the screen door heaved then banged. A wiry woman huffed in, four live hens in her right hand tied together in the shins—lidless eyes blinking their anxiety. When she whirled from the door to the counter past the table where Amanda sat back, only then did she see Amanda.

“Ay naku!  Sorry,” her apologies of not noticing Amanda immediately tumbled. She prattled on as she filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove. She was told Amanda would come down later so she thought she should dress the chickens first before she made Amanda a meal of fried rice and pork sausage.

Amanda said, it’s okay, she had eaten and thanks anyway.

“Ay, teka! Taste the bibingka,” the woman spun around, sliding onto a plate a piece of rice cake grilled in banana wrapper.

Amanda demurred. “Huwag na. No, really, I’m full.”

The kettle lid jiggled from the rising steam. This made the cook jump, and yell for someone to help. A girl in Bermuda shorts and thong slippers dashed in and yanked a chicken from the bunch. The cook, blade in one hand, twisted the fowl’s neck as the girl gripped both legs.

“I have to go. Salamat,” Amanda leaped to the door, shaking.

The cook laughed. “Hindi ka pa nagbabago. You’re still afraid to see a chicken dressed!”

Amanda looked back through the screen door, straining for the cook’s face—did she know her? But a sun patch had splashed on the marble steps, blinding her.

She re-crossed the gravel path and reentered the south wing from another door. The corridor had emptied, clearing a view of the south entrance. Amanda glimpsed a man walking off, perhaps to that jeep parked there? His gait, the way he shifted his weight to his left leg and swung his left arm—though his shoulders seemed a bit hunched—froze Amanda. When he stooped to peer at something, she saw a fat curl tumble to his brow.

“Oh, my God!” she gasped, gripping her arms around herself, suddenly feeling bare.

When she looked again, he had disappeared.

Visist Angeles Estates at www.angelesestates.com

Ambition often leads to downfall and this is the case in William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. The play is centered around the rise and downfall of the play’s most prominent character, Macbeth. Although Macbeth’s ambition did strongly contribute to his downfall, there were also many other factors which heavily influenced the path Macbeth chose. Beyond his intoxicating ambition, he was influenced by Lady Macbeth’s strong will for power, the confusing prophecies of the Witches and the strange appearances of the supernatural.

Macbeth’s ‘vaulting’ ambition was indeed a driving force behind his downfall. His ambition to become king was at first a ‘horrid imagining’, however due to the strength of his ambition, it soon became reality. At first, Macbeth doubted the murder because he felt that as he was ‘his kinsman’ he should not ‘bear the knife’ against Duncan, but again, his ambition was too strong. After Macbeth committed the irrevocable deed of murdering the King, he did not expect to feel emotionally unstable. This was because as a soldier loyal to the King, he had ended the lives of many men before. Soon after Macbeth’s ambition drove him mad, he murdered many innocent beings, such as his good friend Banquo. This action made Macduff suspicious that Macbeth ‘playedst most foully’ to gain the throne. Macbeth’s ambition to remain in power pushed him to muder Macduff’s whole family which provoked Macduff’s revenge and therefore Macbeth’s death. Thus, ambition certainly contributed to Macbeth’s downfall.

From the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth displays herself as a forceful and pushy character. Her skillful manipulation was one of the highly influential factors which drove Macbeth to murder Duncan. When she first read the letter informing her of the Witches’ prophecies, she immediately resolved to help her husband achieve the position of King through murder. It was she who led Macbeth down the spiral of evil and to his downfall. Although Macbeth called Lady Macbeth ‘my dearest partner of greatness’, it was really Lady Macbeth who manipulated and provoked her husband to murder Duncan. She was willing to sacrifice her femininity and humanity to be the ’serpent undert’ who dragged Macbeth to downfall. Macbeth’s attempts to refuse murder were seen as feeble fears and were easily squashed aside by Lady Macbeth’s violent persuasion and questioning of his manhood. ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man’. Lady Macbeth was a highly influential driving force behind Macbeth’s intial actions and therefore contributed to his downfall.

Recurring appearances of the supernatural pushed Macbeth to his downfall. The first confusing prophecy of the witches was the first strike against Macbeth. If the ‘midnight hags’ did not ‘meet with Macbeth’, Macbeth himself may not have murdered Duncan, thus not leading him to downfall. However, supernatural appearances were not solely confined to the Witches’ coven. When Macbeth doubted the murder, he saw the bloody dagger which ‘marshall’st’ him to Duncan’s chamber to commit the evil deed that marked the beginning of his downfall. Macbeth’s second meeting with the ‘imperfect speakers’ further pushed Macbeth to his downfall. The second prophecy led Macbeth to believe that he ‘bore a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born’. As a result of this, he was blinded to the fact that there were some who were from their ‘mother’s womb untimely ripped’, such as Macduff. If Macbeth had not heard the second prophecy, he may have chosen a different path to prevent his downfall, thus, supernatural appearances contributed greatly to Macbeth’s downfall.

Macbeth’s ambition undoubtedly contributed to his downfall however there were other influences, such as Lady Macbeth’s manipulative arguments and the confusing appearances of the supernatural. Ultimate responsibility for Macbeth’s downfall nonetheless like all human activity rests upon the individual. Macbeth chose his own path and therefore it was Macbeth who led himself to his downfall.

1. paul and john
treemiesters
balloonhands
noo wayy
laughing
most of our way
through the monotony
and when that doesn’t work
i’m locked into the bathroom
singing beulah land

2. burning walnuts
for the pesto
twice

3. sheet tray of potatoes
450 degrees
meets bare arm
shock of heat
pink patching and spreading across skin

4. the undeniable
mathematical
and scientific approach
to poetry
including charts and
computations

5. how quick
sun slips
stopping
halfway there
to fetch bike light
from bag
to be seen
in the thick dark

6. the poem
that killed
the whole room
with sister in the last stanza
i don’t need to tell you
what she’s doing
in the doorway
at the rescue missison

7. this is not a love affair
but i am tortured and passionate

8. the essay
that refuses
to write itself

9. gelato for dinner
kitchen laughter for dessert

10. scalloped hanky
of so many feathers
tucked into
back right pocket

Click here to read!

Nature’s Rage

“Abuse God, He’ll always forgive,

But abuse nature, it will never forgive”.

It’s the most abhorrent first time in the country’s history of calamity, a tropical storm brought a devastating and enormous flood dipping many places like Metro Manila, Pampanga, Cainta, et al. The nation succumbed on the flash flood happened last September 26, 2009, Saturaday. Just 9 hours of nonstop downpour was enough to equate a month-long rain (410 mm rain gauge range, which was even higher than the normal rain gauge range). Due to the incident, it must be cursed by many for the ruin it brought, tremendously.

Undeniably, tropical storm Ondoy and the flash flood it brought seem as a sample of the perfect “Destroyers and Assassins”. They are envoys of destruction and death – destroying voluminous properties, taking 300 lives, and leaving numerous individuals homeless. What must be the message of these calamities?

Although we grieve from such tragedy, it’s not an excuse for us to ignore the lessons behind it. Really, experiencing such is detestable and once again, proved that experience is a harsh teacher…it gives the test first before the lesson. I’m sure, we learned a lot from Ondoy.

Why the killer flood happened is an indication of mankind’s negligence. An end justifies the means an action employed; therefore, anything we do has its connection to the outcome. It’s safe to say that we are the cause of the killer flood. Man made the massive pollution causing the world’s threatening “global warming” which contributes to the climate change and the deterioration of the ozone layer.

Mother Earth perhaps is calling for us. Let’s get hand in hand saving the Earth from destruction. Let’s go back to the basic – plant more trees, dispose garbage properly and let’s eliminate burning too much fossil fuel that contributes to the pollution of our land, water/marine and air biodiversity.

We can’t resist from the changing climate as well the uprising calamities, but we can resist wasting lives and properties by ensuring preparedness and safety. Let’s adopt the Boy Scout’s motto: “Be Prepared”. Preparedness won’t make us futile and cry over a spilled milk. The positive side of the tragedy is that it brought us lessons that we must not be too reluctant and numb of what our surrounding needs…it’s an eye-opener for us to perform our duties towards the nature with dedication. And due to the rage, it surfaced many heroic Filipinos who helped willingly their fellows who’re in dire need to save their lives. Some heroic fellows even paid life just so save the rest…flagging the sacred sacrifice, giving their life in exchange other’s safety. The spirit of sharing, concern, help, love and care flourished… awakening everyone the virtue of “Bayanihan”.

A calamity unexpected brings a grotesque disaster but a calamity being prepared brings less ruin and grief. So, when nature’s rage strikes, behold to its possible lessons it may bring which will serve as the mirror to check out what’s lacking in our part. Wait not for another disaster, life is too short to waste on insignificant things…your belongings; your loved ones and your life can be lost in a blink of an eye when you’re hit by nature’s rage.

“My boss…he sucks.”

That’s what my friend spits back at me when I ask about his new job. To be honest, all of my friends tell me this. No, they don’t work at the same place, not even for the same parent company. Yet, the responses are all the same. It is never that they enjoy the atmosphere, the shortness of their commute, or even that they get to take a free pizza home. No, their answer is about the nefarious nature of their overlord.

My friends, in their complaints of their boss, I must admit are wrong. They are simply uninformed about what a “sucky boss” is. Not that I can blame them, it’s not common knowledge among the laypeople. Even some bosses are unaware.

The best way to know what makes a bad boss is to know what a good boss is. As I said, this sort of information is not widely known, but through my travels I came across a compilation–Highly Confidential stamped in red across the cover. Titled How To Be A Good Boss – For Dummies, I later learned that this is the required reading material for every boss. For success, it must be read, memorized, and lived.

Though I read the private manifesto in its entirety, the most important part was its beginning. Being a good boss has been simplified, the document’s preface informs, to three simple rules, by way of long, arduous research. Organized thusly, in a neatly numbered list, they read:

1. Never take ‘no’ for an answer, unless asking “Are you happy with your job?”, in which case a ‘yes’ is simply unacceptable.
2. Undue respect is the best kind of respect, and so you must demand it from your minions [my copy was a rough draft] employees at all times.
3. Make hiring decisions based on whichever candidate is most willing to accept the least pay. Remember, the less you pay your underlings, the higher you can inflate your pay and benefit package.

The more stringent they are in following this manifesto’s dictations, the better a boss they are. A good boss, this document at his side, will in no time be able to take his new Maserati to the wash, tipping just under the socially-acceptable minimum.

So, the next time one of my friends complain to me that their boss is horrendous and therefore their job sucks, I’ll shake my head at them. Slipping them a copy of this outline for success, I’ll pat them on my back, so long as it’s not still sore from the back-breaking labor, and congratulate them: “No, Elliot, you have it all wrong. You have a good boss, maybe even a great one.”

Describe a building as seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war. Do not mention the son, war, death, or the old man doing the seeing; then describe the same building, in the same weather and at the same time of day, as seen by a happy lover. Do not mention love or the loved one.

1.

The barn was built in 1894 to store straw, feed, and livestock. It stood tall and red for the next hundred years. It was a kind of lighthouse to farmers who drove far east from town to work and then returned home along the highway. It once stood for hope–a symbol of success. People in the valley thought of it as a landmark. The day it was erected was celebrated by farm families for miles around–a proud achievement of the first landowner. But as the years wore on, and the prosperity of farmers began to diminish, just as the barn began to sag and rot, the lives of the country folk in America began to deteriorate. And no amount of maintenance and hard work, no amount of barn-red paint could keep time and fate away. The barn would one day fall, as all things must. The young people in those places knew that and so they went where they must–to foreign soils, seeking glory and adventure. Now there was no one to carry on the tradition of agriculture, only the decaying barn.

2.

The barn, sanguine and noble, stood out from the rest of the farm buildings as the iconic image. It was the place of shelter. It had birthed many babies, it had fed more, and with a heat lamp and a milk bottle had done its part to keep away death. The life of the barn progressed in this way: it was built to great acclaim from the community–people thought it a perfect structure; the loft was filled with straw and grain, the rest with farm equipment and livestock in the winter; with the advent of the grain silo and the tractor its usage changed to more of a garage than a barn, but its utility never declined. The farmers that used it through the years owed much of their success and faculty with agriculture to that building. It required upkeep–it needed to be painted every five years, the floors had to be swept, the windows replaced, boards repaired. But it was always worth the work.

This semester, I am adjuncting an online-only science fiction class at a nearby university that caters to full-time workers, bringing my number of simultaneously held paid jobs to three. Because I am primarily a freelancer, I think of things in freelance terms: maximizing money earned, minimizing time and effort. It all comes down to the hourly rate you command. When I taught before, I agonized about every decision: what books, what organizational scheme. This time? Not so much.

Here’s a rundown of how I approached adjuncting.

1. It’s not about the money.

Everyone knows this, right? Nobody adjuncts for money; the pay is pathetic. I ran the numbers. I make more money teaching aerobics.

But working for the university system has its rewards: they take taxes out for me. That is a huge bonus for quarterly-tax-paying me. I decided it was worth it because it provided me with practical online teaching experience, which I may be able to parley into something later. It also connects me with some colleagues, thus expanding the academic side of my network.

2. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

The first thing I did when I got the online class was contact a colleague, a fellow member of the Science Fiction Research Association who regularly teaches online-only classes, and ask him for advice. I was able to modify my colleague’s syllabus: he’d found the perfect textbook to replace lecture and to organize the readings.

I’d done prep work before—and I’m an expert in my field. I’ve taught face-to-face SF classes many times. I had a pile of desk copies. Rather than agonizing over every title, I selected an anthology with historical breadth, and novels that I knew well that were short, famous, or both. It was easy to fit readings into the textbook’s rubric.

Forget the students and their reading load; it was all about me. Bonus: I won’t have to rewrite modules and quizzes from scratch next time I teach the course. I can just reimport the entire class into the online teaching system, Blackboard, and tweak it.

3. Don’t be afraid to drop things that aren’t working.

I spent hours—hours!—doing link roundups for every unit, to provide extra sources for the students to look at, to make up for the lack of face-to-face opportunities for questions and discussion. I even offered students the opportunity to do the link roundups themselves in lieu of another assignment, because creating them was so enlightening (no takers, alas). I found audio recordings of primary sources! I found cool YouTube vids on aspects of the science! I found gorgeous illustrated covers! I linked to authors’ personal Web sites! I found other teachers’ pages on the texts!

My students didn’t look at any of it.

Similarly, I kept online chat office hours, except the interface was annoyingly buggy and only one student visited me—and that was to, well, chat, not talk about the class.

I no longer create link roundups, and my office hours are now by appointment.

4. Go for generalities, not specifics.

In my midterm survey, students asked for study guides. Study guides? I thought. (I had linked to some in the links roundups, but see above.) I dutifully wrote two study guides, only to discover that they prepared you to take the quizzes, which are open book and open note. So it duplicated effort: I had two tools for a single learning objective.

I inferred that a request for study guides really indicated a desire for strategies to know how to pinpoint what is important in a text. So I wrote a general 2-page study guide for our nonfiction book. It can be used to help understand what is important in every chapter. And I stopped providing specific prompts for the discussion board posts, because it was constraining discussion around a single topic. Instead, I replaced it with a single general question: “What insights into the week’s subject stories did the reading from the textbook provide?” I requested that student responses consider why I assigned a particular story to a particular unit.

It’s the student’s job to link the specifics of the readings to the generalities of the unit, not mine. Once I realized this simple fact, everything fell into place. I provide the overview and organizational structure, and they populate it. And I guide them as needed.

5. It’s an online class, but don’t assume online knowledge and skill.

About half my students don’t seem to have reliable Internet access, and some don’t even have computers. I had these Grand Ideas of promoting media literacy, but my students seem barely able to keep up with the minimum weekly requirements: taking a quiz on the reading, and making two discussion posts. I’d love to ask them to create artwork, or do a group report on works derived from Wells’s War of the Worlds, or, heck, even do link roundups, but with this population of students? It’s not going to happen. And that’s okay.

Similarly, I had hoped to prepare slide shows and record lectures for presentation online, but the university’s accessibility requirements put the kibosh on that. I am supposed to provide all such media to the university at least 2 weeks ahead of time, so that they may create DVDs of content to give to the students upon request—and I’m honest enough to say that this kind of forethought is not going to happen.

6. Caveats

I am able to cobble together all these jobs because I am on my husband’s health insurance. This puts me in a huge position of privilege, one I know is not shared by many adjuncts. And I’m also privileged because I do not rely solely on adjuncting for my income. As copyediting work increasingly goes offshore, I have to decide how I want to proceed: retrain, perhaps in the fitness industry? write? get a job teaching? accept an in-house job, which would require my moving away from my husband? Part of my decision to adjunct a class came from my exploration of these possibilities.

Despite my relatively privileged position, the drawbacks of adjuncts affect me as much as anybody. I get no special library permissions or access to locked library holdings. Even if my class had a face-to-face component, I wouldn’t get an office, even a shared one. I feel isolated from the larger university. And I engage with everyone via e-mail asynchronously. The only reason I’ve had contact this semester with my department and the dean is, I had to handle a plagiarism case and was required to do considerable paperwork.

The problem with my current workload is that it is crushing. I thought that adjuncting would permit me to reconnect with the text-based, English-teacher side of me, but I’m too overwhelmed with keeping my head above water to make more meaning out of the experience—a situation I imagine many adjuncts are in. To free up time, I’ve dropped every single thing I can, and I’ve streamlined so extensively that I can streamline no more. I’ve ruthlessly applied Getting Things Done techniques to freelancing and teaching. I’ve sacrificed some interpersonal engagement on the altar of expedience.

However, one thing has become clear: I need to decide how adjuncting fits into my larger goals. I suspect it may not fit at all; my goal is not, and has never been, to seek a tenure-track job. Considering the poor rate of pay, I would probably be better off teaching a few extra aerobics classes a week—at least that helps me with my presentation and personal fitness goals.

This text is copyrighted under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. The image by is Ms. Tina and is copyrighted under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. If you duplicate the post, please also copy the pictures and host them yourself. This post was originally written on November 25, 2009. It may be freely copied anywhere. If you read this document a site other than its original, I may not see any comments you might append, and I’d love to hear from you. Please comment at the original blog post if you wish me to see your remarks.

Schwerer lesbar als das gestern vorgestellte Buch fanden wir beim Herbstwochenende der „Zukunftswerkstatt Jena“ in Bad Sulza den Text von Roswitha Scholz „Der Wert ist der Mann“.

Ich hatte dazu schon früher etwas geschrieben, aber so richtig habe ich später dann nie wieder etwas damit anfangen können. Damals bezog ich mich auf das Buch „Das Geschlecht des Kapitalismus“ (R. Scholz 2000), jetzt haben wir ihren früheren Text von 1992 als Grundlage genommen.

Was wir verstanden und auch so sehen, ist, dass es in gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen, bei denen gesellschaftliche Beziehungen nicht direkt durch menschliche Koordination und Kommunikation, sondern über den Wert (marxistisch bestimmt) vermittelt werden, entgegen dem Anschein eben nicht nur diese wertförmigen Strukturen, Verhaltensweisen und Denkformen gibt, sondern menschliches und gesellschaftliches Leben auch auf anderen Dimensionen wie Sinnlichkeit, nicht wertförmigen Denkformen (auch „Irrationalität“) und Natürlichkeit beruht. Diese sind nicht wirklich beseitigt – sie werden für eine wertförmig vermittelte Gesellschaftsform zu seinem Schatten, der jedoch in der positiven Selbstreflexion verleugnet wird.

Warum nennt Roswitha Scholz diese Verleugnung „Abspaltung“? Das Wort „Abspaltung“ wird in der Psychoanalyse verwendet, um vor allem die psychische Dimension von Dissoziation zu beschreiben. Dissoziation wiederum ist der „teilweise oder völlige Verlust der normalen Integration von Erinnerungen an die Vergangenheit, des Identitätsbewusstseins, der unmittelbaren Empfindungen sowie der Kontrolle von Körperbewegungen“ (Wikipedia)

Das bedeutet hier: wertförmiges Verhalten impliziert eine Abspaltung der nichtwertförmigen Anteile in 1. der Persönlichkeit und 2. auch der Gesellschaft selbst. Damit wird ein psychologischer Begriff auf die Gesellschaftstheorie übertragen, will aber auch gelten – soweit ich das verstehe – für das Geschehen für die Subjekte selbst.

Hinzu kommt nun noch die „Projektion“, die „unbewusste Verlagerung eigener Wünsche, Gefühle oder Vorstellungen auf andere Personen oder Objekte“ (Wikipedia) Freud schreibt: „Projektion ist das Verfolgen eigener Wünsche in anderen.“

Alles, was dem Wertförmigen entgegen steht, wird demnach abgespalten und auf Anderes projiziert: das Sinnliche, Irrationale, Natürliche… und aus der Erfahrung wissen wir, dass mit Sinnlichkeit, Irrationalität und (abgewerteter) Natürlichkeit sehr oft das Weibliche assoziiert wird. Roswitha Scholz will darauf hinaus, dass nicht nur der Wert thematisiert werden muss, sondern dass er nur zusammen mit seinem abgespaltenen „Schatten“ existiert und dass dabei nicht wirklich eine Trennung geschieht (wie das Wort „Abspaltung“ meinen könnte), sondern sich zeigt, dass beide Seiten aufeinander angewiesen sind.

Historisch war es tatsächlich so, dass die abgespaltenen Aspekte (Sinnlichkeit, Irrationalität, Natürlichkeit) oft mit dem „weiblichen Prinzip“ verbunden wurde. Das andere „männliche Prinzip“ wird eher mit den für den Kapitalismus typischen wirtschaftlichen, politischen und allgemeinen Handlungsweisen in Verbindung gebracht. Für Roswitha Scholz bietet sich damit eine ausgezeichnete Gelegenheit, feministische Konzepte mit der Wertkritik zu verbinden.

Da gibt es nur ein kleines Problem: Natürlich ist Roswitha Schulz über kruden Biologismus hinaus, sie bestimmt das „Mann-Sein“ nicht biologisch, sondern ein Mann ist bei ihr ein „historischer Träger der wertförmigen Versachlichung“ (19) und das „männliche Prinzip“ ist verwendet „im Sinne einer kulturell-historisch gewordenen sozialen Tatsache“. Damit definiert sich das Mannsein über das „wertförmige Versachlichung Tragen“. Genau genommen sollte es diese kulturelle Bedeutung des „Mannseins“ dann wirklich auch erst unter kapitalistischen Bedingungen geben.

Was ist da nun methodisch passiert? Die Kritik am Patriarchat (an der Herrschaft des „männlichen Prinzips“) wurde mit der Wertkritik verbunden, indem der Gegenstand der Kritik identifiziert wurde. Das Wertförmige wird mit dem Männlichen identisch („Der Wert ist der Mann.“). Welcher Aussagewert steckt außer dem Tautologischen dahinter? Wird dadurch das Patriarchat über den Wert begründet oder der Wert durchs Patriarchat? Es scheint, als wolle Roswitha Scholz letzteres. Es ist bei ihr das Geschlechterverhältnis, welches das „gesellschaftliche Syntheseprinzip [...] zentral strukturiert“ (3). Da diese Geschlechterverhältnisse aber wiederum im Kapitalismus eine ganz besondere Qualität annehmen, begründen sich beide Momente hier wiederum gegenseitig.

Auf irgend eine Weise klingt das zwar dialektisch, aber mir erschließt sich das nicht als großer Erkenntnisgewinn.

1992 passte das Abspaltungs-Theorem noch in ein Konzept, bei dem die Distanz des Weiblichen zum Wertförmigen als „Krisenmoment der Warenform“ gedacht wurde:

„Die Abspaltung eines weiblichen Lebenszusammenhangs, der für die wertförmig nicht erfaßbare Seite des menschlichen Lebens “zuständig” ist, wird so zur “Bedingung der Möglichkeit” für die Entfesselung der Warenform – und die von der kapitalistischen Produktivkraftentwicklung blind erzeugte Möglichkeit einer weiblichen Rollendistanz somit zum Krisenmoment der Warenform als solcher.“ (Kurz 1992)

Diese Funktion, ein Krisenmoment zu begründen, dürfte das Konzept für die „Wertkritik“ inzwischen verloren haben.

In der Diskussion um diesen Text fielen uns auch immer wieder Beispiele aus aller Welt ein, für die viele Grundannahmen der Plausibilisierung nicht stimmen. Wo in aller Welt ist/war es denn wirklich massenhaft üblich, dass die Frauen für die Männer den gemütlichen Haushalt als Rückzugsort aus der harten Wirtschaftswelt bereit stellten? Doch nur im privilegierten Mittelstand einiger weniger hochkapitalistischen Länder. Allerdings fällt schon auf, dass dieses Biedermeyer-Idyll tatsächlich viele Köpfe und Herzen zu bewegen scheint, das Muster ist also durchaus sehr dominierend (aber vielleicht auch nur hier, in Afrika dürfte das völlig anders sein).

Trotzdem würden wir uns viel lieber erst einmal umschauen in vielen Regionen der Welt, ob eine solche Zuschreibung von „männlichem/weiblichen“ Prinzipien überhaupt stimmig ist und nicht nur begrenzte historische Erfahrungen verallgemeinert.

Nehmen wir noch einmal eine zusammenfassende Darstellung auf:

„Alle Momente der gesellschaftlichen Reproduktion, des persönlichen Lebens und der sozialen Beziehungen, die nicht in der abstrakten Logik des Werts aufgehen oder sich nur widerwillig und unter Verlust ihres ganz eigenen Charakters in die abstrakte Logik des Werts einordnen lassen (Kinderbetreuung, „Hausarbeit“, „Liebes- und Beziehungsarbeit“, sozio-psychische Pufferfunktionen usw.), wurden vom ökonomisch-politischen Universum abgespalten und historisch als „weiblich“ definiert. Kapitalismus ist also nicht bloß der Zusammenhang seiner kategorialen Formen, sondern immer auch ein Prozess der Abspaltung. Das Verhältnis des Werts ist gleichzeitig ein Verhältnis der Abspaltung bestimmter Momente der sozialen Reproduktion, und erst beides zusammen kann den kritischen Begriff der modernen Gesellschaft bilden. Der Wert und sein Subjekt sind strukturell männlich bestimmt.“

Bis auf den letzten Satz finden wir die Aussage ganz überzeugend. Wir müssen noch darüber nachdenken, was das für andere Zusammenhänge bedeutet.

To earn this week’s participation credit, simply submit your Essay on time: either in class today or via email to rdturner@cnm.edu by 8:00 pm today.  Graded Essays will be returned in class next Monday.

A couple of years ago I wrote an essay for the Kendal Literature Festival writing competition. I was very lucky and managed to win the comp, which I was very pleased about.

Recently someone asked me about the essay and I thought – hmm, I’ll just pop it on my blog, so here it is.

I would like to thank Dave Pickford for casting an eye over this before it was finished and offering his sage advice. Dave is a superb writer and photographer. His article Who’s There on UKClimbing   is well worth a read.

Under The Black Cliff

Pushing the old body harder than it was used to, he suffered. Every step, his lungs bursting, legs screaming, up, up, harder, faster. He wanted to suffer.

Cresting the marshy brow, his head fell forward. He longed to look up, but he fixed his eyes on the damp ground. Wrenching his gaze forwards he stopped and steadied himself against the nausea. The shadow of the black cliff encased him and he retreated in to its darkness. A group of twenty, maybe thirty people were gathered at the cliff base. Flowers, poems, sullen faces, falsely cheerful tales: the shambolic grief of those close to the young climber. He turned around.

The walk back to Llanberis gave Graham little time for reflection. All too soon he was back in the land of roads, of houses, of people. The mountains pained him, but this village pained him more. The events of the past week would stay with him for the rest of his life. For the last forty years he had lived and breathed climbing. Living in Llanberis, he’d seen them all come and go. The bold, the strong, the talented. And the lost.

As he strode quickly down in to the village, ageing feet suddenly sore from hitting the solid tarmac, his thoughts wandered. A woman flung open a door, bursting on to the pavement, language and clothing equally colourful. It was a scene he had relived many times, his face flushed with shame. He thought of her, tall and colourful, and of how he’d left in a brown Austin Maxi, with her screaming on the step. But climbing was everything to him then. Almost running out of the house, leaving his Simond twelve point crampons on the kitchen table, not daring to look her in the eye. He’d not sobered up until Dover. That winter in the Alps had been his crowning glory.

The forgotten corners of North Wales have been a fitting background for troubled times in many a young climber’s life. He’d encouraged them, advised them, slowly brought them back to dry land. “Climbing is key”, he’d told them, “Keep climbing”. Who was he trying to convince, if not himself. It sickened him now. Who was he to advise, to educate? Back to the village, back to the bottle.

New to the scene, a young man exploded in to Llanberis this summer. Chris was an exceptional climber, he had a natural litheness about him, moving gracefully despite his long limbs. Tall and striking, flamboyant and confident, he’d made quite an impact on the local climbing scene. He ticked off test-pieces with a machine-like regularity. A modern day Fawcett, his appetite for rock was so insatiable that he could chew through partners, sometimes up to four in a day, leaving them worn out, raw handed and falling asleep after the first pint of the evening. The old man held his rope on Lord of the Flies and, watching him pull effortlessly on those tiny pockets, was young and fit all over again.

Chris was lost, as they always were. He was smart, as they always were. The old man gave him hope, gave him a light to follow, gave him purpose. Slowly, and for the first time in his life, Chris began to feel at home.

The Indian Face tackles a featureless shield of rock, high on the barren flanks of Snowdon. Facing North, plagued by rain and mountain vegetation, it lies in the most inhospitable nook of Wales. But when the late summer sun sweeps around Moel Elio, glinting gold on the perfect lines of the Great Wall, it gets under your skin. And for those that are good enough, of whom there are few, one route strikes a hidden chord. The Indian Face.

Heralded as a breakthrough in climbing and immortalised by the almost suicidal early attempts of John Redhead, The Indian Face is held in the highest esteem by climbers in Britain and throughout the world. If a man wanted to make his name in the world of climbing, then surely there was no greater route than this? And what if he were to die trying? Would his name be yet greater? A fearless and talented protégé, robbed from the climbing world by the simple snap of a flake? Or a lonely, lost soul, willing to risk everything to appease the baying crowds?

It was a dry summer, all sunshine and ice cream. It was a summer for swimming in Llyn Padarn, for cold drinks outside the Vaynol in Nant Peris and for climbing on Cloggy. It was a summer for The Indian Face.

Chris understood the seriousness of the game. His usual methodical approach to routes, working moves, learning the gear, saw him at the cliff many times over the summer months. He spoke at length about the route, to Graham and to everyone. Who didn’t want to hear about those holds? Creaking, sloping, pushing you in all the wrong directions. His progress was watched intently, a throw back to the days of the Eiger North Face. This time the binoculars had been replaced with internet blogs and there were no crowds gawping up from the valley floor. Instead, just hits on a website, silently following the dreams and nightmares of a man they’d never know.

He top-roped, shunted, abseiled. It was so complex, so many moves, so many holds. More used to the shortness of gritstone – which has few holds and even fewer runners, this was to prove a very different challenge. “You can’t learn this route Graham” he’d said one night in the Heights pub. “It’s a real climbers route. You just have to be able to climb. There might be a big sloper over there, or a crimp on the right, but it’s like a maze. I climb it differently every time. It’s just not in control ….”

“Climbing’s all about adventure Chris. Uncertainty, fear. If you knew you’d succeed then the challenge would be lost. It’s a magical thing and you need to learn to trust that magic. You can do it”.

Trust that magic. It had sounded good. Chris had smiled, picked up his pint from the bar and wandered off to chat to others in the pub, young men with bouldering mats and jobs and girlfriends. Chris was friends with some of them, but he always felt apart from them. Graham had put down his glass and continued arguing with Tony, seventy two, about the Kosovo genocide. His heart wasn’t in it tonight. Tony stood tall now, holding forth on air-strikes and politics, his voice full of passion.

Graham thought of his son. Where was he? How was he? He’d be the same age as Chris now. He hoped he climbed.

His hey days were now long behind him, but Graham had had his share of scrapes; greasy rock, no protection, heart in the mouth stuff. Stuck on the Brenva Face for thirty six hours, he’d lost a toe. He was convinced the lad knew what he was letting himself in for. They were both very wrong.

Stuck high on that slab, like a child swept out to sea, Chris had screamed for fifteen minutes. He couldn’t move up, he couldn’t reverse. Legs cramping, toes sliding, he swore. Then he’d gone quiet, resting his forehead against the rock. His rapid, loud breathing dimmed to a faint rasp. Young Martin held the useless ropes like rosary beads, his fingers twisting across them. It was too late, but Chris plunged upwards, no choice but to do battle with the cold, grey enemy. Shaking beyond control now, his foot stabbed the rock, eyes wide, fingers grasping, searching, crawling and, finally, slipping.

But what if he hadn’t have fallen? What if he had succeeded? The rock would still be there. The Black Cliff was filled with a strange quietness that evening. The wind made alien patterns on the surface of Llyn D’ur Arddu. As the cloud lifted slightly, the unrelenting shadow of the wall fell across the lake.

Later, as night was falling, the tall parabola of East Buttress leered back at Graham through the thin rain. The profile of the wall was now hardly discernable against the gathering gloom. He stooped against the wind to re-light his cigarette. Just visible between the boulders, eyebright flashed, hidden amongst the cotton grass. He remembered her twenty years ago, tall and colourful. Her figure was clearer now, her movements sharper. He remembered how she swam at the edge of Llyn D’ur Arddu, her dark curls making long ripples through the darker water.

Before he made a final turn across the northern edge of the lake, Graham took one last look towards The Black Cliff. He thought again of his son. Where was he? How was he? He’d be the same age as Chris now. He hoped he climbed.

With each passing furrow the daylight was fading.The score of the plough flecked weak sparks as it tore through the stoney clay. It was almost time to call it a day as the lights of the tractor were fighting a losing battle against the falling darkness of the night. A few candles would have done the same job of illuminating the few, visible yards in front of the wheels. On the final furrow, a strange thing happened. The tractor stopped dead. The battery power was non existent and I knew there was plenty of fuel in the tank. This was different.

As I was inspecting the problem using only the light of my phone, a low sounding drone became apparent. It was coming from the other end of the field. The sound was almost comforting, like the washy sound of ocean waves or the humming of a hoover. I approached with caution, fear and a pinch of excitement. A small green light illuminated what seemed to be a triangular object sitting on the dewy stubble. It was about the size of a Nissan Micra, and oddly, shaped like an isosceles triangle, not an equilateral triangle. I poked it’s dull metal like shell with a stick and it responded with a jolt and a ping sound. A small door opened.

I thought to myself,aliens? A potentially fatal situation but none the less, life changing. Out came three creatures, pineapples with legs to be exact. This situation was getting weirder by the second. One of the pineapples began to speak, while the other two kept falling over from lack of balance. It explained in perfect english, with an almost Welsh/Monaghan accent that the strong gravitational pull of the earth hindered their balance. I personally think it was their lack of ears which caused it.

My first concern was for the tractor’s health. They assured me it would be fine once they left, as they had an uncontrollable power to disable earthbound machines. I asked them; “eh what are you and why are you here?”.

They responded; “ we are pineapples haigh, from a smoll villaj on a planette call-ed Whellhai”, “We’ve just come to get the auto trayda”.

This left me a little confused. I mean, even if these creatures did buy a car, they could never use it as long as they had that machine disabling power. It’s kind of a tragic life but I suppose they can dream by browsing the classified car ads.

By chance, I happened to have the most up to date issue of the magazine in my house so I invited them in and gave it to them. After a quick cheese on toast snack we all headed back down the field to the spacecraft. They were so greatful of my hospitality that they gifted me something very special. Well actually it wasn’t that great, just a glass of pineapple juice (not from concentrate).

As they took off in their vehicle and headed towards Orion’s belt I knew I had witnessed something very special. But as I was walking away, I turned back for a second look and saw them hit a passing buzzard. The craft, still lit by the small green light plummetted towards a distant tower crane. The impact sent the occupants into a bin where they died on impact. The triangular spacecraft was recycled in an environmentally friendly manner. My tractor recovered.

The End

Simon Kenny

Kant’s Essay on Enlightenment

Kant might have been only responding to a newspaper query in answering the question, however, the views expressed therein might as well
encapsulize the aspirations and ideals of the intellectual movements that have been acting proactively and reactively to combat the stifling forces of the socio-political systems of the eighteenth century.

He described the means to attain an aspect of humanization of the individual, to achieve one’s full potential as a thinking being, wherein one takes active part in the pursuit of knowledge, and to have sole responsibility in teaching oneself of the truths encountered in that pursuit, so as to arrive at a perspective independent of the prevailing institutions of the time. In short, to be one’s own man.

His statements appear deceptively innocuous and very carefully worded s far as political and military authorities were concerned, but totally uncharitable to religious views and their adherents. It might as well be so, writing in Prussia, one of the most powerful military states of the time, and the Unifier of the then highly fragmented German states.

Other philosophers and scientists might have been exercising more or less restraint in attacking the superstitions and the obduracy of the authorities when it comes to being pilloried, however, the implications of serving the creed of individual/self-determination, on how far freedom and reaction to the realizations of critical thinking could be obtained with lasting results were not lost on those who were under the yoke of colonial domination or any form of intellectual or political repression.

It it debatable whether Kant was arguing for a more radical form of exercising that freedom, of totally overthrowing the Guardians upon proven guilty of being hindrances to that “freedom from immaturity”, but cursory study of the events that suddenly were precipitated after or during Enlightenment, we could theorize with conviction that the peoples in nation-states touched by these concepts of which Kant is one of the spokespersons, had acted on these views to the fullest, if not, to the extreme.

Let us be clear that Kant’s Essay explicitated the necessity of disregarding religious authorities insofar as their guidance was flawed, while rulers/superiors that demand obedience were, by inference, tolerate no dissent leading to open rebellion. Thus, Kant had indicted oppressive governments/rulers and intolerant religious hierarchies as the adversaries of human individual and social progress and/or expansion of knowledge.

Thus, without stating it, it would follow, a reader could reason, that a confrontation or open conflict with these “adversaries” would be inevitable, in the pursuit of one’s reasoning and search for Truth.

It goes without saying that the sudden explosion of scientific discovery, social criticism, critical and satirical literature, and the great political upheavals in the French, British, and American Revolutions, especially the American Revolutionary War, had had their seeds planted during the Enlightenment, and that was followed by the Modern Era. On a local note, Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels recounting the abuses of the Spanish overlords and friars in the Philippines further inflamed the Filipinos to revolt from the Spanish Crown.

The importance of Kant’s assertions do not lie in whether he was directly responsible for influencing revolutionaries, anymore we can credit Nietschze of the superstition of Aryan racial superiority or Marx with the Communist Revolution, rather Kant had been a famous element in “internationalizing” liberalism, as was his French, British, and American counterparts, thus helping corroborate the universality of the individual reasoning and its social expression and actualization. Here, philosophers, scientists, and thinkers buttressed each others’ conclusions and modes of thinking. We could perceive here an “underground international democratic movement” as far as the number of unforgiving military, political, and religious authorities were concerned.

The question now remains, “Is Kant’s call to ‘dare to know’, with its revolutionary undertones necessarily relevant in today’s society?” The answer to that would be taken up vigorously by Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault: What is Enlightenment?

According to Foucault, the reasoning “component”, and thus, its published or publicly expressed intentions, of the Enlightenment, is but a part of the complex power relations and historical circumstances and factors that birthed the Modern Age, subsuming any philosopher, or their theories and convictions, into a greater whole, that Foucault seems to require laymen to comprehend from its totality to its minute machinery. So, any defintion of Enlightenment, in a few facts and explanations, would not suffice without contrasting it to other eras, and making anyone a scholar if one dares to match Foucault’s challenge.

As for his take on achieving enlightenment, one should be aware of one’s own capabilities, or even one’s attitude, and taking into account present reality, the lessons of history, before philosophizing and then undertaking the insinuated quixotic admonition of Kant, “aude sapere”, lest our collective or individual action following this misguided direction lead to the “return of the most dangerous traditions”.

This he adeptly illustrated by mentioning National Socialism and Stalism as humanisms, and that the Enlightenment nourished a plethora of humanisms enthusiatically making good “thinking without guidance from another”, thus pointing out the possibility of people/societies overstepping their “aude sapere”.

Thus, Foucault appears to advocate a more moderate approach to the concepts of enlightenment, one that is in accordance with modern sensibility and stability.

However, it seems ironic that Foucault, a Frenchman, faults the Enlightenment and propaganda/discursive formation, whereas his countrymen

aided the American cause in repudiating the Divine Right of Kings, an Enlightenment political contention, and radically enforcing “Give me liberty or give me death” against British Rule, the political “guardian” of the Colonies.

The victory of the American Revolutionaries could by no means be attributed to blind luck. American and French leaders were visionaries, as far of the reality aspects of the war and the confidence of securing victory, was concerned. They had Foucault’s view of Enlightenment in mind when they

utilized tactics, logistics, and knowledge of terrain to break British Hegemony of the Atlantic, and establishing the world’s largest democracy since the first democratic assembly was held in Athens, Greece.

Question to be asked of Foucault’s polemics on Kant’s assertions is: Is it absolutely necessary for Foucault to discredit Kant, whose views were absolutely IMMEDIATELY PERTINENT to the Enlightenment Era in general, and to the American Revolution and Nation-building in particular, or does his philosophizing beg the question? Furthermore, is he guilty of theorizing for theorization sake?

A follow up question would be: What realizations could a student attain in the analysis of the two essays?

For the former, Foucault should have had recognized Kant’s words value for its reflection on the dependency of the Guardians’ (rulers, governments, church, or any other authority) mandate on the sufferance of their constituents, on the majority’s perception of their maintenance of civil liberties and rights, and the truth about each person being responsible for their learning and decision-making. His perambulation on Enlightenment, his own application of discursive formation, historicity of power relations, is nonetheless brilliant, yet, is far from what a layman would have time for, unlike Kant’s easily comprehensible text, the facility of which easily urges one to action. One could surmise that Foucault strove to be only understood by a few, while Kant was trying to reach a great number of people with his simple-worded text. For the latter, a student should realize: (a) Responsible to learn as much as possible not only to be good at one’s profession but to also uphold dignity and to be in the best position to protect one’s own rights; (b) institutions are established to serve the interests of the constituents. Failure to do so would invite censure, and the people should readily speak out against such abuses of power and advocate reforms; (c) radical liberal views, though attractive and seductive in their passionateness, should be critiqued in the light of today’s due process of law, primacy of social order, the best forums for the redress of grievances, proper expression of dissent, etc., just to name a few possible student responses.

The best definition of enlightenment remains in the hands of the individual, by how far and how purposeful one’s own desire to conscientiously advance oneself in knowledge, skill, and self-actualization and humanization, and in doing so, one would best serve the family and society.

Hello Friends!

This week’s essay is posted: Write For Yourself and Celebrate Writing!

An excerpt:

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“Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.” ~~Thomas Berger

Thanksgiving, for those of us in America, has grown and evolved like most holidays. It all began when the Pilgrim’s celebrated a bountiful harvest with the Indians whose assistance made their survival possible. These days, families gather together to bond over generous servings of turkey (or Tofurki), endless hours of football and parades, and tasty bites of pumpkin pie. Yet tucked within the basting and the touchdowns is the root of an idea.

Thankfulness.

Being thankful for our family and friends, for prosperity and health, and for life itself. Now, let me add one more item to the list, Thankfulness for our innate creativity. Is there anything quite like the joy of being a writer? Penning marvelous adventures and exploring the journey of our characters, all within the cozy pages of a delicious novel. Yum-yum. Being a writer means having the power to create worlds. Wow. Could there be a bigger thrill?

“One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start to appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it’s kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling.” ~~Steven Brust
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Ready for some motivation?

Jump to The Write Soul: www.chironokeefe.blogspot.com for the complete essay.

Keep writing, everyone!

–Chiron O’Keefe

I’m taking a vacation break! Monday’s Motivation will be posted as usual but I will not be able to send out these reminders next week. If add The Write Soul to your blog list, the new posts will show up in your Blogger Dashboard. Have a great holiday!