Book 1.3:1-46 After a night’s drinking

        Just as Ariadne, the girl of Cnossus, lay on the naked shore, fainting, while Theseus’s ship vanished; or as Andromeda, Cepheus’s child, lay recumbent in her first sleep free now of the harsh rock; or like one fallen on the grass by the Apidanus, exhausted by the endless Thracian dance; Cynthia seemed like that to me, breathing the tender silence, her head resting on unquiet hands, when I came, deep in wine, dragging my drunken feet, while the boys were shaking the late night torches.

        My senses not yet totally dazed, I tried to approach her, pressing gently against the bed: and though seized by a twin passion, here Amor there Bacchus, both cruel gods, urging me on, to attempt to slip my arm beneath her as she lay there, and lifting my hand snatch eager kisses, I was still not brave enough to trouble my mistress’s rest, fearing her proven fierceness in a quarrel, but, frozen there, clung to her, gazing intently, like Argus on Io’s new-horned brow.

        Now I freed the garlands from my forehead, and set them on your temples: now I delighted in playing with your loose hair, furtively slipping apples into your open hands, bestowing every gift on your ungrateful sleep, repeated gifts breathed from my bowed body. And whenever you, stirring, gave occasional sighs, I was transfixed, believing false omens, some vision bringing you strange fears, or that another forced you to be his, against your will.

Ovid, Amores, the assault

If there’s a friend here, tie my hands –

they merit chains – while my fury wanes!

Just now my fury thoughtlessly struck my girl:

my darling’s weeping, wounded by my mad hands.

Then I could have done violence to my dear parents

or savagely taken a scourge to the sacred gods!

Well? Didn’t Lord Ajax of the seven-layered shield

lay out the sheep he caught all over the fields,

and didn’t lawless Orestes, avenging his father

on his mother, dare to call up a spear for the secret Sisters?

So can’t I tear at her done-up hair?

or unravel the girl’s flying locks?

She was lovely like that. I’d say like Schoeny’s daughter,

Atalanta, hunting game in Maenalian hills:

or like Ariadne weeping as the south wind

blew away perjured promises and Theseus’s sails:

or who but Cassandra with sacred ribbons in her hair,

on the ground, in your temple, chaste Minerva.

Who’ll not say ‘madman, barbarian!’ to me?

She said nothing: her mouth slackened by trembling fear.

But her silent face still showed reproof:

she accused me with speechless mouth, in tears.

I’d sooner have wished my arms to fall from my body:

easier to have lost a part of myself.

I had a madman’s strength to my cost

and the force of my punishment was in it.

What are you to me, wicked and murderous tools?

Submit to the binding fetters, sacrilegious hands!

If I’d struck the least citizen of the Roman masses,

I’d be punished – had I any more right to hit her?

Tydeus, the wretch, left behind the worst example.

He was the first to strike a goddess – then me!

And he did less harm. I hurt what I professed

to love: Tydeus was cruel to the enemy.

Go, now, Conqueror, devise a great triumph,

wreathe your hair with laurel, and give thanks to Jove,

all the surging crowd, following your chariot,

calling ‘Bravo! The great man who conquered a girl!’

She’ll go ahead, sad dishevelled captive,

all pale, except for her wounded cheeks.

Lips bruised black would have been more apt

and love-bites marking her neck.

Lastly, if I had to act like a swollen torrent,

and my blind anger make her my prey,

wouldn’t it have been enough to shout at the frightened girl,

or thunder away with harsh threats,

or shamefully tear her tunic from throat to waist?

  -  Only her waistband would have felt my strength.

Instead I held her by the hair I grabbed at her brow

marked those delicate cheeks with cruel nails.

She stood there, stupefied, with pale and bleeding face,

as if cut from everlasting Parian marble.

I saw her terrified body, her limbs trembling –

like a breeze blowing through the poplar leaves,

or a soft west wind troubling the slender reeds,

or the tips of the waves touched by a warm southerly:

at length, the brimming tears flowed down her face,

as water runs from the melting snow.

Then for the first time I began to realise her hurt –

the tears I had made her shed were my blood.

Three times I tried to kneel at her feet in supplication:

three times she pushed away those repulsive hands.

Well, don’t hesitate, girl – revenge will lessen the grief –

go at my face with your nails straightaway.

don’t spare my hair or my eyes:

Anger adds what you will to weak hands:

don’t let so much as one sad sign of my wickedness remain,

put your hair back in place like it was before!

So I start with this quote because I want (especially in the mist of all this baby-making legislation) to understand where the notions of sex for procreation sake comes from. 

So obviously throughout much of history (besides perhaps now) population increase was needed and thus procreation became indoctrinated. However reading Max Weber (“From Max Weber” Girth and Mills pgs. 343-350) got me thinking about how the protestant ethic plays into this

Perhaps the protestant ethic exacerbates this issue because since sex is this worldly pleasure it takes away from the cold calculated hard work needed to attain salvation in the other world. And so the only way to show gods grace through sexuality is to show that it is to do god’s ‘work’ of procreation. So then any wasted act of intercourse that doesn’t result in procreation or worse yet that results in procreation but is aborted is a direct disgrace against god and is proof of this worldly pleasures. 

It seems the world was awash with a flood of empathy arising from the Kony 2012 video released earlier last week. Sadly, that motivation for change, that inkling against bureaucratic apathy, that we, the american citizen had a voice and could change the world was eroded away with criticism. Yet it no-one criticized the criticism.  American citizens and the world alike have slouched back into political apathy, but this time feeling justified. 

It is clear to me that the criticisms need to be resolved directly. I want to stress that this isn’t an attempt to say that invisible children is THE perfect charity out there, indeed it is probably not (although its efficacy is unprecedented) but rather that we shouldn’t waste all of the effort and sweat that thousands of empathetic americans like yourself to create such a beautifully successful campaign go to waste. I would even argue that the charity, although not perfect, is very good.

For a simple answer, here is a response from the Invisible Children organization themselves about their critiques

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html

Perhaps the most pertinent issue is finances. Before I address this issue directly, I want to avert your attention a moment to charity navigator’s (the same site ubiquitously cited in invisible children’s criticisms) rating of the American Cancer society. In particular I want to direct your attention to their rating, and to the salaries. 

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6495

If you are too lazy to look at this (which if you are I hope you are not making an outward stance against the Kony 2012 campaign) here are some brief numbers. 

Their rating is a 3 out of 4 stars

The chief executive officer of The American Cancer Society is compensated $914,906 yearly for his position

The now retired national vice president of division services was compensated this:$1,550,705

Finally, the now retired deputy CEO was given this: $1,407,719

But you don’t see anyone getting all ansy pansy about those salaries. Let’s redirect our attention towards the Invisible Children charity. 

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12429

you will see that they have a similar charity rating (3) but that their incomes are less than one-tenth of that of the American Cancer Society. 

All three founders of Invisible Children make between $84,000 and $89,700. 

Now granted you might still be thinking, well gee, thats still a lot for a charity. And granted you may be right. But for one compared to other reputable charities out there, they really are not giving themselves that much, and for two, who is one to decide that a CEO may exploit millions of people for his tremendous gain, but the founders of an extremely successful charity that dedicate their lives to helping people should be judged more harshly?

Second, the issue of oversimplifying the issue and or justifying war

I am probably one of the biggest pacifists I know, and yet I still support the Kony 2012 movement. For one, I don’t think the Invisible Children charity are war hungry like people make them out to be. For two, they don’t want Kony killed, they merely want to 1.) raise awareness of his atrocities and 2.) arrest him so that he can be tried by the International Criminal Court. NOT KILL HIM. 

As for the Ugandan Army being just as bad as the LRA, the best I can say is that I tried hard to find documentaries or media about their atrocities and found little to nothing. That is not to say that they haven’t committed atrocities, not at all (indeed even our own military has committed acts unspeakable), but rather to say that comparing them to the LRA is unfounded at best. I suggest you do the same and search for this evidence of their brutality.

Why is the Ugandan Army fighting Kony when Kony has fled his armies to other countries? Because the Ugandan army is one of the only armies strong enough and motivated enough to get him (considering their country experienced horrible atrocities because of him).

There was a picture that has gotten a lot of notoriety with the founders holding guns. The picture was a joke, because it was a peace talk/conference. It is impossible to find any other picure of them that is similar, and moreover the picture could not be found with a filter on google for images before the video’s success. However I do have to admit that the person who admitted photographing them said that she was not in full support of their charity, but mainly because of the big brother syndome I’m going to go over next, not some war hungry character of theirs. 

Big brother syndrome

I do struggle with this issue, especially being a sociology major, and the last thing I want to do is to personally belittle and stereotype a certain group of people. For one, I think that there is a huge oversimplification of Africa, to the point that Americans unconsciously slip and say it is a country (not a continent). I think there is a big brother syndrome to a certain extent that Africans are viewed as pitiable and helpless and that all of Africa is homogenous. However I don’t think this justifies inactivity when help is needed. This campaign might be big brother like in nature, and I don’t deny that, but should we instead turn a blind eye like we did during the Rwandan Genocide? Honestly, I think how the big brother syndrome is used in regards to the Kony 2012 campaign is more of a justification for political apathy than it is to have any real and in depth understanding of the people affected. Moreover the video necesarily had to juxtapose Americans and Africans to elicit the reaction it did (this sentence is somewhat of a means to address the ugandans anger at the showing). 

Slacktivism

First of all, WTF? Not only is this extremely ironic (using not wanting to be a slacktivist as justification for not acting at all) but it is COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED. YES, retweeting a video doesn’t take a lot of effort, but it is EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE. No other campaign to my knowledge has gotten the WHOLE WORLD to think about an issue like the KONY 2012 video has. Not to mention, how the fuck do you think the egyptian revolution happened? That’s right, “slacktivism”. If it takes billions of slacktivists to make a few million activists, I think that’s a good deal. Facebook and twitter have the ability to connect the whole world. That one repost could just be viewed by HUNDREDS of your friends. I don’t think that is “slacktivism”, I think that is technological efficiency at it’s finest. 

Look at Media surrounding Invisible Children before their Viral Video

When I first saw the criticisms of Invisible Children I did a lot of digging and research to understand just what kind of charity I was dealing with. Through this research I have found that I have not gotten less supportive of the organization, but rather more so. I recommend everyone do the same, for whatever outcome, whether it helps you support the charity or rather to support your criticisms, the big thing here is to do as much research as possible before taking a stance. 

to start here are a few links

Invisible Children on Oprah on April 20th 2011

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Invisible-Children-Founders-Talk-About-Uganda-and-Joseph-Kony-Video

Natalie Warne on TED about her internship with Invisible Children

http://www.ted.com/talks/natalie_warne_being_young_and_making_an_impact.html

BBC’s Take on the LRA (FEB 2011)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9397000/9397111.stm

Or simply try this. Go to googlenews and in the date bar make the date so that it filters all news AFTER the video went viral out of the results. You might be surprised to see that it was all praise and little criticism before it’s success. 

So why all the criticism? I think it is because of a couple of things. For one, it has been a huge success, and with success comes criticism. I think there is an aesthetic to figuring out that everyone is wrong and you are right. To be honest, I think there are many people in America (especially wealthy ones) who simply don’t want to support effort to a cause that isn’t directly beneficial to the United States resource consumption or security. 

The end note is this

The founders of Invisible Children have dedicated years to this project. And regardless of whether you think the charity is perhaps too emotional, too media oriented, or too big brothery, you have to admit that they taught more people about an atrocity and made them care about it, than perhaps any other campaign in history. Having done activism and charity work myself, I know this motivation and knowledge are beautiful and rare, and is only the result of a long hard dedicated process. To see young people talking about, engaging in, and sharing something they care about, and wanted to change, Hell to actually believe in their ability and autonomy to change it was awe inspiring to me (in a good way). Then the criticism hit, and it seemed many bought it at face value, even perhaps flaunting their superiority in knowledge to those dumb enough to believe the “scam”. The others now felt socially ostracized if they still supported the cause, and pressure to social conformity kicked in. I don’t want to support this if I’m going to get ridiculed I thought at first, and I’m sure many share this feeling. Knowledge is power. Go out there and judge for yourself if Invisible Children is a charity you want to support. If the video inspired you, do something about it. Even if you don’t support Invisible Children directly, you can still support the cause. Don’t let apathy take over. What a shame it would be for the invisible children campaign to not bring these children them into view, but rather shut them back into the darkness again, and result in Americans distracting ourselves with trivial things once again. The world is inspired, and we should utilize that inspiration. Now is the chance to make a difference, now is the chance to stand up for what you believe in. Do what inspires you, and what you know is right. 

And so I leave you with this…

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world, in fact it is the only thing that ever has” ~ Margaret Mead

When you look at characters like WoW (world of warcraft), it is easy to see that the ideal seems to be the greatest sexual dymorphism. Now whatever it might mean, sexual dymorphism in primates is related to non-monogamy. Today we have two seemingly different body disorders for men and women. Women having annorexia, and men “bigorexia” or muscle dysmorphia. Could this be our subliminal ideal of sexual dymorphism coming out. Do we inherently want to be different, to have our females smaller and our males bigger? Just a thought.

When asked how to solve racism, the answer I hear from a lot of white people is “don’t see color”. For one I want to point out that this is a great step from blatant racism. Being “color-blind” is much better than being color prejudice. However, thinking you are “color-blind” doesn’t necessarily correlate to lack of racist behavior such as micro-aggressions. This can be something like being especially self-conscious or cautious when a Black man enters a bus and sits next to you rather than a white one. Sure, you could argue that as humans we naturally schematize things accordingly. You might say, well gee, the reason I flinch when the Black guy sits next to me is because they are most likely to commit crimes.

I want to just side note the amount of subliminal racism and micro-aggression that occur in racial profiling as well as media portrayals, but with that aside, why do Black people, and Black men in particular commit more crimes?

Socioeconomic status. 

So now we can see this view as schizophrenic (simultaneously holding two contrasting beliefs) white people want to see Black people as equals and are “color-blind”, but yet we are able to schematize them as criminals because of their socioeconomic status.  

So one necessarily has to have cognitive dissonance. On one hand we claim to view them as equal, but then also view them as other. So in one regard we totally ignore inequalities of conditions and socioeconomic status, and on the other we highlight them as rationale for our racist behavior. Now I feel the need to point out the obvious that Black people cannot be biologically prone to violent behavior, so any inference of Black people inherently being violent as a peoples is unfounded at best. 

So now we need to address this schizophrenic view. How can Black people be seen as equals, when they are not? In fact, I want to argue, that seeing Black people as equal (not in the sense of human worth, indeed they are equal in this manner, but equals in privilege) is detrimental and is unintentionally (although at times intentionally) racist in and of itself. 

You see, when we see the Black people or really any minority group as equals (again in access to money and privilege) then one thinks legislation like affirmative action in both employment and school settings and racist towards white people. “color-blindness” blinds us to the history of exploitation of Blacks by whites, and furthermore blinds us from the current inequality of conditions and privileges between the two. Being “color-blind” is a good justification for one’s own privilege. So that one thinks things like “We are all on equal footing and so the things that I have achieved in life are due solely to my merit”, when indeed this is not the case. white people are more privileged and started out that way, and their privilege while in part might be due to merit, a large majority of it was handed to them at birth. 

“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” And so I want to leave you with this quote. While I obviously have taken it out of context, I think that it is exemplary of what I am trying to say. When the world see opportunities as “an eye for an eye” and presume that all are on equal footing, then the world necessarily becomes “blind” to current and past exploitation, and moreover it justifies current socioeconomic conditions as if they were based on merit alone (i.e. Black people are lazy and thus are poor, whereas I the white person, am hard working and industrious, and none of my achievement is due to my overwhelming privilege)

So what do we do white people? We look our privilege in the face. Realize that if you could choose to be reborn into this world as white or black, you would choose to be white. You know why? because it’s easier. Because were privileged. Own up to it. Embrace it. Use your privilege to help those rise who aren’t so lucky. (if you find this offensive and want to know what  I mean please comment below, I promise I don’t have a derogatory or big brother view of this help using privilege, so just ask)

*(if you are curious, the reason I capitalize B in Black is because I prefer this over the term African-American. Not all Black people are from Africa, however using Black with a capital B implies that now in the united states the group has formed a minority identity as they are subject to many of the same discriminations, and this Black identity has created a Black culture, hence, Black with a capital B. white is not capitalized because being the dominant class their culture is ubiquitous and not unique, and furthermore has not grown out of community action against discrimination)

So I don’t believe in meaning of dreams beyond manifest content, however, there was a weird coincidence today. 

First, I had some weird-ass cult dream, where me and my boyfriend went with a few of my old friends to this weird like fight club. Basically they like beat the crap out of each other and some of them died and then after wards had ritualistic sacrifice. My friends boyfriend was one of the fighters. It was just weird and creepy, well anyways we had the feeling that this was some creepy negative cult and we biked or walked home I don’t remember, and on the way was this trail of knives and pomegranate seeds. And this was a sign of some dark and bad omen basically. The rest of the dream is pretty much unimportant. I found some killer in my closet (probably from this dark omen thing) etc etc etc. Anyways, when I woke up I was like pomegranate seeds, really, LOLZ. 

Then I went to class…mind blown. 

We learned today that pomegranate seeds in Greek/Roman mythology was of Hades and the underworld. So for instance Persephone gets taken down to the underworld into a forced marriage with Hades, and when she comes back to Olympus to visit her mother Demeter, Hades gives her a pomegranate seed to connect her to the underworld so that she is forced to return. 

Seriously, fucked up isn’t it. 

In all reality I probably dreamt of pomegranate seeds because some friends and I were talking about them at dinner the night before, but still, it’s fucked up. 

All quotes from the top half are taken from the book “The Marx-Engels Reader” (1978). This contains much of the writings of “young Marx”. 

All quotes from the bottom half are taken from Marx’s book “Capital: Volume 1” (introduced by Ernest Mandel, Translated by Ben Fowkes)

On the Jewish Question

“In France, which is a constitutional state, The Jewish question is a question of constitutionalism, of the incompleteness of political emancipation. Since the semblance of a state religion is maintained there, if only the insignificant and self-contradictory formula of religion of the majority, The relation of the Jews to the state also maintains a semblance of religious, theological opposition.” pg. 30 (Italics Original)

“To be politically emancipated from religion is not to be finally and completely emancipated from religion, because political emancipation is not the final and absolute form of human emancipation” Pg. 32

“Civil society in opposition to this political state, is recognized as necessary because the political state is recognized as necessary” pg. 35

“The state which acknowledges the Bible as its charter and Christianity as its supreme rule must be assessed according to the words of the Bible; for even the language of the Bible is sacred. Such a state, as well as the human rubbish up one which it is based, finds itself involved in painful contradiction, which is insoluble from the standpoint of religious consciousness, when it is referred to those words of the Bible “with which it does not conform and cannot conform unless it wishes to dissolve itself entirely” pg 38

“the members of the political state are religious because of the dualism between individual life and species-life (our human nature), between the life of civil society and political life. They are religious in the sense that man treats political life, which is remote from his own individual existence, as if it were his true life; and in the sense that religion is here the spirit of civil society, and expresses the separation and withdrawal of man from man.” pg. 39 (stuff in parenthesis I added) 

“Liberty as a right of man is not founded upon the relations between man and man, but rather upon the separation of man from man. It is the right of such separation. The right of the circumscribed individual, withdrawn into himself” pg. 42

“The right of property is, therefore, the right to enjoy one’s fortune and to dispose of it as one will; without regard for other men and independently of society. It is the right of self-interest…It leads every man to see in other mean, not the realization, but rather the limitation of his own liberty.” pg. 42

“The term “equality” has here no political significance. It is only the equal right to liberty as defined above; namely that every man is equally regarded as a self-sufficient monad” pg. 42

“Security is, rather, the assurance of its egoism” (that is, security in capitalistic societies is security of one’s own self interest and wealth, so that others may not take it away) pg. 43

“freedom of the Press is completely destroyed, since “the freedom of the Press should not be permitted when it endangers public liberty”” pg. 44

“What is the profane (worldly) existence of Judaism? practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money.” (I share this quote to show that despite his genius, even great thinkers like Marx are prone to prejudice, if that is indeed what we take this to be) pg. 48

Philosophy of Right: Introduction

“man makes religion; religion does not make man” pg. 53

“the struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly, a struggle against a world whose spiritual aroma is religion” pg. 54

“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of men, is a demand for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefor, the embryonic criticism of this vale of tears of which religion is the halo. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain, not in order that man shall bear the chain without caprice or consolation but so that he shall cast of the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man so that he can think, act and fashion his reality as a man who has lost his illusions and regained his reason; so that he will revolve about himself as his own true sun. Religion is only the illusory sun about which man revolves so long as he does not revolve around himself” Pg. 54

Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

“The worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities; that the wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his production” pg. 70

“The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces” pg. 71 (since in a capitalistic economy the capitalist gets richer off of the workers cheap labor, so in comparison, he is forever getting poorer, as the rich get richer) 

“The more civilized the his object, the more barbarous becomes the worker” pg. 73

“His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labour is shunned like the plague” pg. 74

“As a result, therefore, man (the worker) no longer feels himself to be freely active in any but his animal functions—eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.;and in his human functions (labor) he no longer feels himself to be anything but animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal” pg. 74

The German Ideology: Part 1

“The production of life, both of one’s own in labour and of fresh life in procreation, now appears a double relationship: on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relationship” pg. 157

“These three aspects of social activity are not of course to be taken as three different stages, but just as three aspects or, to make it clear to the Germans, three ‘moments’” pg. 157. (only posted for satire towards Germans)

“Language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men” pg. 158

“Or how does it happen that trade, which after all is nothing more than exchange of products of various individuals and countries, rules the world through the relation of supply and demand—a relation which, as an English economist says, hovers over the earth like the fate of the ancients, and with invisible hand allots fortune and misfortune to men, sets up empires and overthrows empires, causes nations to rise and to disappear” pg. 162

“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself” pg. 162

Speaking of how historians have looked at history thus far

“Instead we get a narrative based not on research but on arbitrary constructions and literary gossip, such as Saint Bruno provided in his now forgotten history of the eighteenth century. These high-falutin and haughty huckers of ideas, who imagine themselves infinitely exalted above all national prejudices, are thus in practice far more national than the beer-quaffing philistines who dream of a united Germany” pg. 167

“serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. ‘liberation’ is a historical and not a mental act and it is brought about by historical conditions, the [development] of industry, commerce, [agri]culture, the [conditions of intercourse]” pg. 169

“The whole semblance, that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end, of course, as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which society is organised” pg. 174

“the separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a common battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors” pg. 179

“The competition of the nations among themselves was excluded as far as possible by tarrifs, prohibitions and treaties; and in the last resort the competitive struggle was carried on and decided by wars” pg. 183

“To this modern private property corresponds the modern State, which purchased gradually by the owners of property by means of taxation has fallen entirely into their hands though the national debt, and its existence has become wholly dependent on the commercial credit which the owners of property, the bourgeois, extend to it, as reflected in the rise and fall of State funds on the stock exchange” pg. 187

“State has become a separate entity, beside and outside civil society; but it is nothing more than the form of organisation which the bourgeois necessarily adopt both for internal and external purposes, for the mutual guarantee of their property and interests.” pg. 187

“Civil law develops simultaneously with private property out of the disintegration of the natural community.” pg. 187

“Thus in imagination, individuals seem freer under the dominance of the bourgeoisie than before, because their conditions of life seem accidental” pg. 199

CAPTIAL: VOLUME 1

“The [capitalist] smirks self-importantly and is intent on business; the [worker] is timid and holds back, like someone who has brought his own hide to market and now has nothing else to expect but - a tanning.” pg. 280

(in a footnote) “The ‘undersellers’, who sell [bread] at less than its value…sell bread adulterated with alum, soap, pearl-ash, chalk, Derbyshire stone-dust and other similar agreeable, nourishing and wholesome ingredients” pg. 278

(again from the book Democracy in America) Written between, I believe, 1830 and 1850. It is a French aristocrat who travels to America to understand their Democracy better. 

“Despotism, by its very nature suspicious, sees the isolation of men as the best guarantee of its own permanence. So it usually does all it can to isolate them. Of all the vices of the human heart egoism is that which suits it best. A despot will lightly forgive his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love one another…he calls those who try to unite their effort to create a general prosperity ‘turbulent and restless spirits’, and twisting the natural meaning of words, he calls those ‘good citizens’ who care for none but themselves.” pg. 509

“Liberty engenders particular hatreds, but despotism is responsible for general indifference.” pg. 510

“Americans cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die, and yet are in such a rush to snatch any that come within their reach, as if expecting to stop living before they have relished them. They clutch everything but hold nothing fast, and so lose grip as they hurry after some new delight” pg. 536

“Death steps in in the end and stops him before he has grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes him” pg. 536

“The taste for physical pleaures must be regarded a the first cause of this secret restlessness” pg. 536

“Those whose passions are bent on physical pleasures are eager in their desires, they are also easily discouraged. For as their ultimate object is enjoyment, the means to it must be prompt and easy.” pg. 537

“But men will never establish an equality which will content them” pg. 537

“When everything is more or less level, the slightest variation is noticed. Hence the more equal men are, the more insatiable will be their longing for equality” pg. 538

“In democratic times enjoyments are more lively than in times of aristocracy, and more especially, immeasurably greater numbers taste them. But, on the other hand, one must admit that hopes and desires are much  more often disappointed, minds are more anxious and on edge, and trouble is felt more keenly.” pg. 538

“When a workman is constantly and exclusively engaged in making one object, he ends by performing this work with singular dexterity. But at the same time, he loses the general faculty of applying his mind to the way he is working. Every day he becomes more adroit and less industrious, and one may say that in his case the man is degraded as the workman improves.” pg. 555

TITLE OF CHAPTER 20 “How an aristocracy may be created by industry” pg. 555

“Each occupies a place made for him, from which he does not move. One is in a state of constant, narrow, and necessary dependence on the other and seems to have been born to obey, as the other was to command. What is this, if not an aristocracy?” pg. 556 (by each he is referring to workers and owners of a company)

“In any event, the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in that direction. For if ever again permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy make their way into the world, it will have been by that door that they entered” pg. 558 (speaking of industry) 

“Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of these culminate in love of wealth or derive from it” pg. 614

“The prospect really does frighten me that they may finally become so engrossed in a cowardly love of immediate pleasures that their interest in their own future and in that of their descendants may vanish, and that they will prefer tamely to follow the course of their destiny rather than make a sudden energetic effort necessary to set things right” pg. 645

“There are two things that will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it” pg. 649

So two things I want to cover briefly between class periods. One, Does rhetoric in research influence bias? By that I mean does the tone in which research is written (passive or active voice) influence subconsciously how biased the researcher is. So in positivism you write with a passive voice as though you are only an unbiased observer, a computer or robot if you will taking in data and regurgitating it so that it makes sense. The passive tone is supposed to symbolize a lack of human presence and bias (e.g. this research was conducted). However a post modernist or relativist tone would use an active voice (e.g. I conducted this research). So my question is which one is better at hindering bias if any. Does the passive voice have more subtle bias because the researcher just assumes that their judgements are objective, and so without understanding their bias (like racism) might be prone more to it? Or does the active voice cause more bias because the researcher acknowledges their bias and thus might delve into it..thoughts?

Also, the topic of policing kids in high school. I tutor at a local high school, and I always see teachers policing students and I cannot help but find it slightly obnoxious and degrading. So I have to ask if there is a better way to maintain social control without such a police presence (so to speak) I generally think that at an age of being a young adult one needs to be treated like one. That means not only is adult behavior expected and encouraged but they should be respected as adults as well. A young adult who is not respected will in return give no respect back. And I think that is exactly the problem I see in that high school.  I think that their opinions and ideas need to be respected and combated in an adult manner. They also should not be subject to arbitrary rules for the sake of authority. (such as you cannot sit in this seat or that) I think a big problem is that the issue of not being treated as an adult is pervasive and doesn’t end at the school level. As a society we do not treat our teenagers as young adults, and largely it is seen as the time of leisure and irresponsibility, and these young adults are trying to live to those cultural values and morals. I think school is a great place to start though to get kids invested in their futures and in habits of being a respectable person. I think also that when you function off of respect you employ a more social environment versus a more economic one. There has been research done (sorry too little time to find and cite here but def look it up if you are interested, I promise I’m not making it up) that found that people’s willingness to help or do tasks is much higher when it is perceived as a social favor, rather than an economic one. So one is more likely to help a neighbor paint if the neighbor thanks him/her and invites him/her to dinner than if the neighbor pays the person $30. People are much more willing to donate time for social benefits than monetary ones, and so as soon as one starts seeing their behavior in terms of monetary gain and not social gain, their motivation declines dramatically. So what does this have to do with high school? I think that employing these rules and regulations are very much a monetary type of consequence. If you don’t do this you get these repercussions and get sent to principal or whatever. The behavior is motivated by something other than social aesthetics. It is motivated by rules, so the behavior is judged off of if the student cares about going to the principal. If the students are treated with less rules and more on a respect basis, I think we would see that students start becoming motivated for social reasons. To attend class because the teacher might be disappointed or think badly of them if they don’t. etc. Obviously I am not naaive enough to think that this will work right away because right now culture is so anti-school especially in high school but mutual respect for a high school teacher and student is a start. I do really think that when you not only truly value a student for their adult opinions, but expect that behavior and treat them as an adult, that the child will begin to behave accordingly. First you have to give respect to get it.