on "beauty (re)discovers the male body"

Freud, Sigmund (1962). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, trans. James Strachey. New York: Basic Books. (1996). Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie. Fischer: Frankfurt am Main. [Reprint of the 1905 edition.]

The Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality explore the various definitions of who is generally deemed the sexual object verses who commits sexual acts. The discussion of this "sexual aim" may be utilized for Bordo's purposes in that it will analyze how psychology plays its role in identity, dominance, and gratification. While many of Freud's specific theories (castration anxiety, penis envy, etc.) are contested, the more general terms regarding sexual identity and its principal roots are referenced continuously in pop culture. Bordo may use this as a somewhat historical source to affirm her psychological claims regarding dominance and identity, particularly when she assesses the masculinity of the leaners, the rocks, etc.

shake it out

whenever i try to do anything productive, i unfortunately have the strongest urge to suddenly get my life together (make grocery lists, check Facebook, respond to emails, look at my calendar...) and avoid doing the task at hand. this blog post will be my procrastination buffer, so that i don't completely get out of the zone if i need a 30 second break. that said, i hope to build up the writer/student's endurance much like a runner would. one day i will hopefully be able to continue working without the need for any distractions due to lack of motivation.

i wrote that twenty minutes ago and have since checked twitter twice. i don't even go on twitter often. i'm going to have to start putting a rubber band on my wrist or something and snap it when my productivity wanes.

this is my solemn promise to be a more motivated student. in honor of friere, my education will be a product of my own interaction with what i'm doing. if i'm not going to put my full focus into it, my grades and the knowledge i will take away from each assignment will be representative of that.

dear kenyon college:

Due to the nature of this speech, there wasn’t really much to question. This isn’t expanding on a deeply rooted philosophical theory, its just showing students who are ready to “go out into the world” the various ways to see a certain situation. This article, as far as I can see, points out many important things about being conscious of perspective.

The following are quotations that particularly stood out at me, either because they illustrate that point, or because they just seemed particularly accurate in my eyes.

“The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.”

“…learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”

Possibly my favorite quote from this selection was:

“The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.”

My personal nature is to look at different ways of thinking. I don’t see much use for dwelling on how poorly prepared the dining hall food is on a given night, when, meanwhile, the children in Darfur would most likely give a limb to have an open-access meal plan. I really appreciated reading a cohesive monologue about thinking in a different way. I personally think that one of the biggest parts of educating yourself is to learn to see something from someone else’s shoes (even if that’s strictly limited to interpersonal intelligence). The only real evidence I have to back myself up is any experience I’ve had with a particularly self centered, or particularly biased person. If they cannot concede even slightly and acknowledge the strength of the opposing argument, they seem less intelligent.

corpo consciente

Most of “The Banking Concept of Education” was insightful, and elaborated much more philosophically my own thoughts on how we view “learning”. One area of the essay, however, was not as clear to me. I therefore choose this to blog about in hopes that handling it further will solidify my own understanding of what Friere is saying. (My attempt to learn in the spirit of Friere!)

On page 321, there’s a paragraph that specifically states the region I just referred to.

“Implicit in the banking concept is the assumption of a dichotomy between human beings and the world: a person is merely in the world, not with the world or with others; the individual is spectator, not re-creator. In this view, the person is not a conscious being (corpo consciente); he or she is rather the possessor of a consciousness: an empty “mind” passively open to the reception of deposits of reality from the world outside. For example, my desk, my books, my coffee cup, all the objects before me—as bits of the world which surrounds me—would be “inside” me, exactly as I am inside my study right now. This view makes no distinction between beings accessible to consciousness and entering consciousness. The distinction, however, is essential: the objects which surround me are simply accessible to my consciousness, not located within it. I am aware of them, but they are not inside me.”

I think the part that I understand the least is how Friere views the relationship with a human and its environment (although it could be the lack of sleep deterring me from making this connection). In my psychology class, I was absolutely fascinated when we discussed the spectrum of consciousness, and I feel as though much of that textbook information perhaps had roots from the teachings of philosophers such as Friere. What I am taking away from that paragraph/concept is this: in the banking concept of education, our ability to interact with our environments is belittled. We are what is given to us as “knowledge” and are not considered knowledgeable on our own because it wasn’t instilled in us (literally). Perhaps I’m not being articulate enough, so I will try to expand this in a slightly more concise fashion.

The scope of the student is limited to what the teacher can “teach”. We are spectators, not thinkers. He is saying that this view does not allow us to exist as what we were put upon this earth to be. We accept what we are told, we passively absorb the knowledge, instead of questioning, challenging, wondering. I might be as bold as to assume that he is saying the banking concept forbids us from utilizing the complex mental faculties we are given at birth.

Perhaps I am being brash in that assumption.

prospectus

We’re frequently encouraged, starting at a young age, to turn off the television and pick up books. In a country with such a high literacy rate (99%, as dictated by the CIA World Factbook), there are many social and academic pressures to encourage reading. The question we often ask ourselves (and each other) is that, while reading is necessary to keep up with the rapid pace of information speeding through our daily lives, what is the importance of reading/being literate to us? Physiologically, does it make us smarter? Does it improve memory? Psychologically, does it really open up as many new perspectives as we think it does—more so than other media sources? In today’s world, we are constantly using reading. Many believe that reading is somewhat futile in a lifestyle where information is available in so many other vehicles, but I will show how reading actually improves/conditions the brain’s given faculties.

I plan to review the evidence supported in a few of my sources (How The Brain Learns to Read by David Sousa, Proust and Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf, and Reading and the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention by Stanislas Dehaene) to generally back this point up, but other sources will be cited/utilized along the way. I also plan to insert various images of brain scans, such as PET scans, fMRI scans, and possibly EEG scans, to show the arousal of the brain when reading as opposed to other activities.

I have also contacted UF faculty regarding research projects they are currently facing, specifically regarding reading and brain activity. I hope, particularly with time constraints, that I might be able to utilize some of their findings.

The largest counterargument that I see myself running into includes (but is not limited to) comparing the brain’s stimulation during reading to other activities that require rapid visual processing or “using the imagination” (for example, heading a story be told, or watching a fast paced advertisement). I hope to do further research regarding a unique quality of reading and its effect on our brains that will illustrate my point better than the functional images previously mentioned.

While I have the makings of a “game plan” for this research project, I hope that the writing process will make me more inquisitive about the facts and statistics I include. I hope to do a lot of learning with the growth of my report, not only with the information at my fingertips which is completely relevant to my path of study, but also with learning how to make my writing more concise and organized.

your parents must be so proud

“The Achievement of Desire”

In reading Rodriguez’s biography on page 513, it clearly states that even his previous collection of essays, “Hunger of Memory”, ‘Rodriguez’s loss is represented most powerfully by his increased alienation from his parents and the decrease of intimate exchanges in family life. … This separation…is a necessary part of every person’s development, even though not everyone experiences it so dramatically.”

Rodriguez grew up with immigrant parents who were generally proud of their backgrounds, but at the same time wanted better things for their children. This is a theme uniformly tied into most parents' motives. With time progressing, adults see the opportunities growing and the mistakes they once made, and will often try to rectify those mistakes through their children's accomplishments (this is often the case of the parents "pushing too hard" or "living vicariously"). I think that because this theme is present in the essay, (his parents always pushing him but at the same time not always expressing their pride/positive reinforcement) many readers have a common ground with Rodriguez and relate to the idea of "the scholarship boy".

While it is not his main point, Rodriguez also expresses the need to grow as an individual (without one's parents), which is another common sentiment with all/most of his readers. There will always be a separation of sorts between us and our parents, which will cause us to rebel in a way (which may or may not be advantageous to our growth) and, quite often, this starts us on our journey of self-discovery.

The pieces that some readers have a harder time connecting with involve Rodriguez's specific experience. He specifically said on page 516, "Ambition set me apart." From his family, from classmates, and sometimes from himself, Rodriguez frequently felt estranged (as many of us do) and alienated along his journey of growing up and figuring out what his motivations were for being the black sheep.

There were two passages in particular that I thought somewhat embody the piece.

On page 520, it reads:

'"Your parents must be very proud of you." People began to say that to me about the time I was in sixth grade. To answer affirmatively, I'd smile. Shyly I'd smile, never betraying my sense of the irony: I was not proud of my mother and father. I was embarrassed by their lack of education. It was not that I ever thought they were stupid, though stupidly I took for granted their enormous native intelligence. Simply, what mattered to me was that they were not like my teachers.'

On page 529, it reads:

'But this is criticism more accurate than fair. The scholarship boy is a very bad student. He is the great mimic; a collector of thoughts, not a thinker; the very last person in class who ever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own. In large part, however, the reason he is such a bad student is because he realized more often and more acutely than most other students...that education requires radical self-reformation."