Timarchy

Timarchy might have been most common in the Spartan government, but it is still prevalent now. Just by glancing over the yearly budget plan for the United States, you can tell that we still emphasize the military. For the Fiscal year of 2015, the United States government allotted 109k to the defense department. The United States puts emphasize on having a military background. Nearly all our presidents served in the army and many politicians have some tie to the military. If we take a close look at the United States, we can see that many parts of our society glorify being part of the military. We also have several foundations that are aimed to help our troops such as USAA. To be part of the United States military is seen an honor.

Debate day one

The debate today was a nice way to lead into the rest of the questions. I personally liked how we rebutted and how we also answered our question. It also helped a lot to receive feedback from how the points were being awarded. It helps me see how the further debates will be and how the points will be awarded. So far I think as a group we have done a good job, but we could definitely use more examples and dressing up wouldn't hurt. I look forward to the next debate and being able to improve in our response to questions.

plato's metaphor of the sun

http://outre-monde.com/2010/09/25/platonic-myths-the-sun-line-and-cave/

So the metaphor of the Sun is basically stating that by having light that is provided by the Sun you are able to see the truth. This is because the light gives you visibility and this allows you to see the truth. Without the sun their would be darkness and you wouldn't be able to see clearly and the truth wouldn't be visible. This part relates also to the allegory of the Cave. The Sun is also connected to the Good and the Good is science and the truth. The Good is also responsible for all existence but with out the sun the Good wouldn't be apparent. In that way the Good and the Sun both depend on each other and can't exist without the other.   

Soul

Hinduism seems the soul as the main part that they take care of.



The soul is seen as the only part that Allah
sees and therefore must be taken care of.  










 Native Americans see the soul
as this

This version of the soul reveals that
it is made up of several parts that
all work together to make
the soul divine enough to
be judged by god. 

Plato describes the soul as being mad up of three components that



The soul is seen as a mix of both evil and
good. That the soul can't be purely just one single thing.

These different version of the soul reveal that the human condition is not innately designed to know the difference between malice and good. The human condition is made up of several things and in order for it to reach potential it has to be able to conduct itself in a way that all its components work well together. All these different versions try to explain how the soul is this divine component of the human. The only difficulty within all these versions is that all off them have a different definition of what the soul is. Not having one universal definition of what the soul is proves that the human knows little about what the soul really is and the function of the soul.

To add to this point the soul is seen similarly within these version because they all explain it as this complex thing that is within the human. It shows that the human condition can not be whole without the soul and to take away the soul take away a large part of the human. The soul is an essential part of the human to just function and it is the only divine/sacred part of the human.    















Plato and human nature

Plato believes that the humans are innately wicked and twisted. He doesn't believe that everyone has the capability of being good. As he shows his philosophy of bronze, silver, and gold and how humans have this pre-destined life. Plato also believes that the majority of the humans are not able to achieve their potential. As he states that many are usually dedicated to a profession by greed rather than by passion or being able to do that profession well.
Plato being the pupil of Socrate, it would be fair to say much of Plato's philosophy is just an expansion or build up on what Socrate's philosophy was. This being said it can also be assumed that Plato had a similar definition of justice and how this related back to his perspective on human nature. To be just, a human must have certain qualities and can not be miser, hurt others and other bad qualities. Just as Socrates believed that many people could not be just and there was only a selected few, Plato had the same opinion on that matter.

Myth

The second generation would believe this "myth" because according to Socrates the majority of the population would become silver and bronze. This means that many of them don't have the qualities that a ruler would, so more of them would easily believe this myth. They would believe it because since they aren't leaders they don't know what a leader would do so they would be easily influenced.   

Propaganda

This poster was used during WW II to influence the attitude of Americans. The purpose of it was to make Japanese seem threatening. The United States army promoted this type of propaganda.   

Propaganda is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of a population toward some cause or position. This magazine uses celebrities to promote dieting. By having a celebrity diet it promotes the concept of dieting and makes it a trend.

  

Justice?

According to Dictionary.com justice is the quality of moral rightness. That is a very ambiguous definition. To me justice is made out of several factors among them are ethic and morals. In cases like  the shooting of Mr. Brown in Ferguson, I don't think justice was really served. I believe this because the officer that shot Mr. Brown didn't suffer severe consequences for his actions. The incident wasn't taken to the level it would have been if the man shot was white and the officer was African American.    I think that it is injustice to judge a case by the pigment of your skin. A crime should be judged by the evidence and the facts, not speculations or theories. It is hard to do this because when judging something you want to be impartial. Although, no matter how much we try that is impossible, emotion is attached to our reasoning in some sort of way. We can say that we do not have an emotional attachment to certain issues, but we do.

Alienation

Work, a four letter word that puts me on edge. It wasn't always like that. I didn't mind going to work, I mean four hours seemed to go by pretty fast. Now four hours is an eternity. I know I started to detest  work once I started to work Sunday mornings. Why, because I work as a cashier at Harris Tetter this means Sunday morning is the worst. Everyone comes to buy there weekly grocery and most of the customers are in the worst mood possible. I became irritated and I slowly started to care less for quality of my work. When there are ten to thirteen people in your lane and every single one has a cart that's overflowing. It doesn't really matter if the cans are baged by themselves or with the fruit. You just want to get the customer out as soon as possible. Being part of this system every Sunday morning becomes tedious. No one really cares that you take you time to double bag a customers order or that you place items alike together. Most of the time the customer will be on their phone and you have to wait there for several minutes till they realize they have to pay. Even when I work the self checkout it's the same. Either the customer will want you to bag their order and will fail to understand the concept of a self checkout, key word self. Or the process of scanning an iteam is foreign to them. Work itself is the one thing that will never fail to make me feel alienated.

Heraclitus and Parmenides

Instinctively I want to say that everything changes and nothing really stays the same. But to say that is taking a huge assumption because certain things will always remain the same. The fact that my brother is my brother will never change. Maybe how we feel towards each other will fluctuate but the fact that he is my brother will remain the same. Another thing that is held to be true is the order of things, in a story you always have the beginning, middle, and end. Maybe in a different order, but this makes up a story. This is the same for the course of life. We are born we live and we die. It is a continuous cycle. There are certain things that never change, that will be true till the end of time.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/easy.htm

This site helped me understand Hegel mainly because it separates different concepts into it's own idea. Then it explains those ideas in plain English. It starts by explain Hegel's process of thought when thinking about his Phenomenology and this helps because before getting into depth of his theories you have an idea of his logic. In the very end he also explains his absolute knowledge in terms that you can really understand by splitting it up into parts. It explains contradiction in three parts and this helps because instead of one large generic paragraph it's specific. The only thing with this site is that while reading it you have to be aware that the site is written in a Marxism point of view and this affect parts of the blog.

Senses deceive

During the period that I meditated, I was able to make so many connections to Descartes. I didn't lose my senses, but they definitely were limited. I couldn't hear that well and I couldn't see so it really was left to my conscious mind to understand that I never left. Although my senses deceived me to thinking I was in some kind of sanctuary and not just above the highway. When I felt the moss underneath me I felt that I was in atop of a hill or in the woods. It was my conscious mind that told me that I hadn't moved. Also at points I felt that I had lost balance or that I was slowly falling, my logic told me that it was because I was seated at an angle. Without that logic I my senses would have tricked me into thinking outrageous things.    

Meditation

When we come across the word meditation, for the most part we think yoga or some other calming activity. I myself haven't really thought of meditation in other terms. I meditated once for my anthropology class, but other than that never put much effort into trying again. I'll admit that when we went outside for philosophy to meditate it was amazing. The fact that we were meditating in philosophy was like ice cream on a hot sunny day. I remember when we started, I was trying to focus on my surrounding. Slowly I started to drift and let my consciousness take me into a different realm. It was unbelievable that I felt as if I was in some distant place when in reality I was in the midst of arlington a suburb. It was a unique experience that you really have to go through in order to understand.

Debate

The argument of whether senses come first or logic was intense. Hume brought up very good points. Descartes defense was strong bringing up point like, you don't have to experience something to know it's harmful. Logic aids in that, he also brought up other points such as time, that it's something that is innate in every human being. Hume counter attacks were very strong bringing the blank slate where you fill everything from experience. A point that would defend Descartes theory of a higher being would be that god existed at a certain time period, whether he still does or not, he did and he was the divine force that then created what is.

Music

Hearing New Soul by Yael Naim five times put me in a good mood, because it's an upbeat song and it has a positive undertone. It's a song you would listen to when you are upset or having a bad day. The lyrics after the second time started to process through my mind. I started to get an idea of what the artist was trying to communicate. The first line to her song is, "I am a new soul..." it was a comforting line. This is true for the whole song, it has that feeling. Personally after hearing it five times, I was in a much better mood. It also helped that the song's "theme" is talking about how making mistakes is okay and you live and you learn.