Laziness and Comfort; Sanity and God.

“Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear, or laziness?”

Honestly, I feel that humans live for laziness. They work to get money and power and control...why? So they can have a "comfortable" life. A life filled with a shelter, a surplus of food and comfort. They work hard in order to live this comfortable life.

What is comfortable, really? When I think comfortable, I think of a long, luxurious red couch with grapes sitting in a golden bowl on a glass table. But this is not comfort in the sense I want it to mean. Comfort as a lifestyle cannot be defined simply as a red couch. It is a state of being. It is anxiety-free, loving and happy. He has a family; be it a wife and children, or close friends, or his biological relatives. He has care and people to care for him. He has few worries. Money is no option. He loves his job and his in-laws. This man lives comfortably. He has worked his whole life to live the way he does now- care free and lazy. Today, he works on his jobs and relationships and education so that one day he can one day be just like the "carefree" man he desires to be.


"Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled."

I don't think sanity can be defined as "madness put to good use". To me, sanity is clear thought and articulated processes. Madness is chaos and confusion. The only way I think they relate is to say some sort of sanity can come from madness; likewise, madness can result from sanity. I believe order can lead to mental anarchy, just like disorder can lead to comprehension.

I also disagree with the second part of the quote. "Waking life is a dream controlled." My favorite part about my dreams is that I am in control of them. Whether I can realize it in the moment or not, I dream what I want to dream. So that might be a nightmare one night and a fantasy adventure the next... it is really my choice. My "Waking life", or my real life, is not controlled by me. I make the decisions where I want to go and who I want to see, but everything else is controlled by some external force. I call that force God but you may call it something else. Whatever the case is, dreams are controlled by me, but life is controlled by something greater.

Personal v. Universal Truth

For this blog assignment, you need to review Anderson’s I Know the Moon, Gaiman’s Wolves in the Walls, O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story”, and Dickinson’s three poems. Once you’ve done that, you should post a blog in which you a) explain your interpretation of each author’s main point about truth, b) discuss the similarities among these points, and c) write about the piece of literature you liked best and why.

Each of the messages about the author's opinion of truth from the literature we read varies slightly from piece to piece.

Emily Dickinson wrote three poems demonstrating the absolute Truth which exists. She states this when she says "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant", implying that there is a Truth, a universal Truth. If there is the option to tell someone the Truth, then a Truth must exist. But the idea that the person would have to "tell it slant" because Truth "must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind" implies that Truth which people tells us is absolute, but we can only understand It in pieces.

The absolutist truth of Emily Dickinson clearly contrasts with Anderson's I Know the Moon. This story is about a group of animals who have each found their own personal truths in regards to the moon, implying that each of the creatures is right in their own regards. For example, I could believe that the moon represents this and has this certain purpose, whereas you could think something totally different and we would both be right. We would be right based on our own personal truths, but right all the same.

I feel that in general, a combination of these two ideas exists; or according to Anderson, exists to me. I think that everyone has to have their own personal truths. To me, I believe murder is wrong. But at the same time, I feel like patriotism (and therefore the fighting involved with it) is good. So this truth I have crafted into my persona, or perhaps it was military propaganda. All the same, I hold this contradiction deciding on the truth that murder is only fair if done for the right reasons. And this truth I would classify as a personal truth, knowing full well that a kamikaze pilot would probably not have that same truth. So for that reason, I feel like there is a universal Truth like Emily Dickinson talks about. One with a category dedicated to murder. For this reason, I understand the part of Dickinson's quote, "but tell it slant": we all can only understand a part of the universal Truth, and the part that we can understand is our personal truth.

The Impossibilities of Utopia.

In Issac Asimov's Lecture on Humanity, he makes many predictions on life in the 21st century; many predictions which I believe will come true (and already have), but many that seem far too extreme to be possible. Not to discredit him, but I think the predictions that he gave which seem to be accurate are based on changes in society that have been long forthcoming, and others seem to be far too outlandish to be true.

For example, he gives the anecdote about women and their increasing role in the workforce: “…in order to keep the birth rate down, we’re going to have to give women interesting things to do that’ll make them glad to stay out of the nursery… I mean we’re going to have women help in running the government, and science, and industry.” (Asimov 7) Though he ties this example to lower the birthrate, and then later to old age, the concept of employed women has been around since before Asimov’s time, growing, some would say, since in the mid-1800s; but definitely by prohibition time, the eighteenth amendment, and the progressive era. It is for this reason that I wouldn’t really call this a prediction…just an inevitable truth that he claims a prediction by relating it to other examples.

In contrary to this, Asimov gives examples of things that I cannot foresee as ever being true. On page 10, he talks about a world without war. He says that today, “we are already in a world without war” which to me, makes little to no sense. Above he describes small bombings as not a true war, a nuclear war as emotionally ineffective, and a traditional war as impractical “because nobody’s got the gasoline for it.” And though this all seems true, a world without war seems like a total 70s, hippie movement take on life. However, Asimov also says “the greatest gift mankind has is its vast gene pool.” (10). These two statements, though only half a page apart, seem to completely contradict themselves. So long as the population has a “vast gene pool”, there will be disagreements, which, in turn, will probably lead to fighting. When disagreements are so huge, time, pride, and gasoline do not matter; the drive for conquest takes over. I think that humans can be barbaric and for this reason, no matter what the cost, wars will always be inevitable.

Asimov ends his speech more realistically by stating all good things must come to an end: "I hope you see a world in which mankind has decided to be sane. But I must say in all honesty that I figure the changes are against it." All the same, he presents an argument for the betterment of humanity (no war, no racism, no sexism, peace, responsibility) and then draws on multiple examples and anecdotes to prove his point. Though I cannot say I agree with his argument, I respect his semi-synoptic approach to the solution.

A New Perspective Leads to a New Society

"If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded--or even suspects--that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe."

--Irving Kristol


Irving Kirstol is completely correct when she says that "no community can survive if it is persuaded...that its members are leading meaningless lives...". Imagine what would happen if the American people found out that the United States Government was making deals solely in order to benefits those in the government, completely ignoring the demands of its people. Not only would that be completely unconstitutional but it would cause for extreme riots from the American people. No one wants to think that the things they accomplish or the request they make are meaningless, no matter how small or big the accomplishments or requests may be.

To relate this back to Plato's Apology, the townsfolk was afraid that Socrates was going to persuaded the youth to believe that the wise, or those in charge, had no position to be in charge, for their wisdom was really just a facade. But thinking about the situation from those who were considered "wise" point of view, their fear was legitimate. If Socrates had been successful in convincing the youth of this, according to Kirstol, the community would not have been able to "survive". Socrates had only appealed to a small number of the people in the community, but the "wise" people were afraid the snowball effect would happen: whether or not what Socrates spoke was truth, he would tell someone, then that person would tell someone, and then that person would tell someone still.... the supposed blasphemy that Socrates spoke of would have ruined society as they knew it.

For this reason, it seemed the acts that the wise took against Socrates was beneficial. With Socrates dead, a precedent would be set for any future people who desired to be as blasphemous as Socrates would be killed just the same. However, killing Socrates did just the opposite: it made Socrates appear to be a martyr; a man willing to die for what he believed in. And what he believed in was what he shared with those he talked to. What I believe Kirstol is saying when she states the society will not be able to survive, I think she is inferring that the society leading meaning lives will end, and in its place a new society will form. We see this in Apology or perhaps with the readings following it. Socrates is dead, but his words and messages continue to spread - those considered wise are dubbed unwise - being afraid to question is now a thing of the past. At the end of the last paragraph I wrote, "would have ruined society as they knew it." The 'as they knew it' part is important because it reminds us that life will continue no matter what, but perhaps just in a different way.