The reasonable and the rational

"The voice of reason is often weak and ineffectual, however, because of the difference between the reasonable and rational."
Well, I looked up reasonable and rational in the dictionary, and they have basically the same definition. Even so, I think most people have a slightly different picture in their heads when they hear the two words. To me, the word reasonable reminds me of times when people have been trying to convince me of something, and all of their arguments are great, and completely REASONABLE, but I still don't really believe them. Sort of the, "Yeah... but..." syndrome. The word rational, on the other hand, reminds me of arguments that I have actually bought. As in, "Yeah, okay, that's RATIONAL. I'll accept that." In Frye it also says, "The reasonable is aware that every rational argument is a half truth, and that the other half should be included within a more tolerant and flexible compromise." I'll agree that the reasonable seems to be more specifically truth and facts, but I don't know if I can go for the rational being partial truth, unless it is taken to mean that the rational is not only made up of truth, but also of persuasion, emotion, and influencial outside factors. That would explain the need for tolerance and flexibility, because if the rational factors in more than just the plain facts, it would have to vary from person to person.
RATIONAL
REASONABLE

"...on the level of belief alone..."

"...on the level of belief alone, it is not possible to distinguish what we believe from what we believe we believe; our actions alonge show what we really believe." That is so intense. I kind of want to skip over the whole believing we believe thing for the immediate moment, just because that has such huge potential to be one of those circular thought processes where I never really get anywhere and eventually my brain just crashes. But about our actions alone showing what we really believe: basically it all come down to the fact that you can say you believe something, and you can even believe you believe it (crud, I was trying to avoid that), but it doesn't mean ANYTHING unless you act on it. Or maybe it means nothing? Anyhow, now matter how much you tell others you believe, or how much you tell yourself you believe you believe, you can't really know for sure until you actually LIVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE. Not really a hard concept in theory. Out of theory, it's a slightly different matter, just because outside of theory, there are other influences to consider. Which is why it is so hard to distinguish true believing from thinking you believe, etc. And I'm starting to see the circle, so I'll just stop there

Freedom of Speech vs. Tyranny of Words

So, here's another Frye lightbulb. It's probably more on the level of one of those blinky Christmas lights than a regular lightbulb, but that's okay. At least it's there.
K~ in Frye it says "The cause of freedom is not quite hopeless as long as someone realizes that the voice of tyranny is misusing words, that is, lying." The ability to recognize the power of words to control, then to refuse to be controlled by the misuse of that power is so incredible, and so important. As human beings, we (or at least I!!!) am constantly in search of true freedom. Definitions of that particular word vary slightly from person to person, but in general, the same basic idea is applicable to most people. Most definitely no one wants to be completely controlled by something or someone, or especially by lies. Which brings up another thought/question. By lying, we sort of create and force ourselves into our own tyrannical system. But what is controlling us? Is it the lies? Or is it ultimately ourselves? Because, once we realize that we are slaves to our self-created lies, we then have the power to change our status from "under control" to "in control." And yet we don't always, and therefore remain "under control." So.... why? And under the control of what?

Power of words

"The narrative becomes an argument, and argument is designed to exert a compulsive force on the reader, evoking such responses in both writer and reader as "I am forced to think,""I am compelled to accept," and the like"..."A question is thus raised which is implicit in the title of this book: the relation of words to power." (pg 9 of Frye) Words, if written/spoken/expressed in the right way ("The difference between the right word and the wrong word is that between lightening and a lightening bug." Mark Twain) have the power to cause us to change, or at least consider a change in the way we think. After all, Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin sparked the Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom

Conspiracy theory ; )

Frye lightbulb pg 7: "The authority of open science is recognized in theory in both democratic and totalitarian societies, but both still try to controll openness in historical writing by hiding or destroying the relevant documents." We can have different beliefs, and therefore a different system of government than some, BUT no matter what type of government we have, we are still subject to what those who have knowledge are willing to share with us. No matter what system we are under, it is a fact that we are controlled by the information that others provide to us, regardless of whether or not it is true, partially true, or completely false (the media, anyone?).

The Last of the Notations

Sacrifice- "fic"= make, "sacri"= sacred
heirogamy- "gam"= marriage, "heir"=sacred
"To look into the light is the sweetest thing for a mortal; what lies beneath the earth is nothingness." - Iphigenia, pg. 109


Homeopathy
"Anima"- spirit, soul
Everything is myth displaced
"mimesis"- imitation
"lacunae"- a gap or hole in the text
The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye
sparagmos- ripping/tearing of live flesh
women=social term; female=biological term

So, some extra thoughts- I really like the phrase "the educated imagination." I was looking up some quotes from that book and found one that pretty much sums up the whole idea, for me at least: "There are two halves to literary experience…imagination gives us both a better and a worse world than the one we usually live with, and demands that we keep looking steadily at them both." Imagination and education are both so important to have TOGETHER. I'm pretty much a fan of the theory that neither is much use on its own. You have to have the imagination to see all of the amazing possibilities that there are, but along with that, you have to have an idea about how to accomplish those things.

Blog posts are the sticky notes of the internet world

The story of the judgement of Paris: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Paris
*there's a picture on this site that might be a little bit offensive to some

The muses are 9 sisters who are the Goddesses of all the arts- they are the daughters of Mnemosyne ("memory")

The "F" word is "fall" and the "T" word is "truth"

"leth"= truth
"lethia"= forget
"alethia"= unforget

First there was Eros ("love") and then Uranos (sky) and Gaia (earth) came to be. Uranos tried to stop his children from being born by pushing them back into the mother. Chronos tries to stop his children from overcoming him by eating them. Zeus eats the mother Metis (wisdom) to stop his children from overcoming him.

Prometheus- forethought, thinks before- was sympathetic to humans and stole fire from the gods; refused to tell Zeus who would overcome him and was punished by being bound to a rock and forever having an eagle come eat out his liver during the day, and having it grow back during the night

Random is such a good word

archetype- repeated over, and over, and over, and over.... Usually a story and/or symbol that has influenced everything after to be modeled after it.
----fugitive archetype sometimes called Cain archetype

apocryphal: of questionable authorship or authenticity; erroneous or fictitious
Story of the Wandering Jew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew

etiology: how a thing came to be the way it is

Jacob's name was changed to Israel when an angel wrestles with him-- There's that whole "literal"/symbolic/misprision thing again. How does one interpret that? It seems pretty likely to me that the angel could have just zapped him with a lightening bolt or something.

More notes and random thoughts

Biblical literalism (check it out- it's way interesting):
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1332
My favorite quote out of the article is: "Literalism pays a high price for the hope of having firm and unbreakable handles attached to reality. The result is to move in the opposite direction from religious symbolism, emptying symbols of their amplitude of meaning and power, reducing the cosmic dance to a calibrated discussion." So true!!

Composed vs. written- a composition implies a work of art (think music!), while writing is just words that happen to be there

misprision- hearing something wrong... (Mairzy dotes anyone?)

prolix- abundant

synonymous parallellism and antethetical parallellism (synonymous ex: Genesis 28:3 "... and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee...")

Random notes and thoughts

Being in conversation is being engaged
Being engaged is to be fully receptive and responsive
Talmud- engagings of scripture; commentaries on scriptures
Canonical- sanctioned as the official- the Bible
Literary literacy- the choice to read something of substance
Iconoclastic- the breaking of images; icono=images, clasm= break
Arabesque:

Metamorphosis- change of transfiguration

metemphsychosis- transmigration of souls ("psyche")- the way they change or go from one place to another

Hesiod- theogony- the birth of the Gods-- How do the Gods get born? To be "born" you have to be in the womb at some point in time

BCE- Before Common Era

Greeks central event= Trojan War vs. Hebrew central event= Exodus

Hebrew story: 1. Creation 2. Revolution (Exodus) 3. Law (Torah) 4. Wisdom (Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs) 5. Prophecy 6. Gospel ("good news") 7. Apocalypse ("the unveiling", Revelation)

Simon Shaina- He who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. -- Actions have consequences.

Back in the land of blogging

Hey ya'll. After a LONG absence, I am finally back to the land of blogging! So... my first entry is going to be mainly notes, and then I will actually write something about Frye and all. So... notes!
9/9
repetetive parallelism- "Joseph was both handsome and good looking"
anthropocentrism and antheocentrism
paranomasia- word play
Mark Twain- "Puns are the lowest form of humor."
documentary hypothesis- pentateuc- 1st 5 books of the Bible

Question of the day: Are our lives a series of unconscious repetition? Historically, the answer would have to be yes, since history does repeat itself, and even for an individual the answer would probably lean towards the affirmative. So the next question: what happens when someone consciously upsets that pattern? Or tries? A great example of that would be Chronos/Uranus/Zeus trying to keep their offspring from overthrowing them. They come up with some pretty creative (if rather disgusting) methods of trying to prevent this. But just because they consciously try to disrupt the repetition, doesn't mean that it works. So what keeps pulling them back into the cycle?.....