Notes on Existentialism, Post-Modernism, Critical Theory & Ishmael

Philosophies and Ideologies

• Ideologies are beliefs of a group (e.g., liberalism, conservatism).

• Philosophies explain knowledge, reality, existence (e.g., idealism).

Existentialism

• Each person is unique and lives in an indifferent world.

• Meaning is created through choices and responsibility.

• Purpose: Develop self-awareness of individual identity.

• Reaction to: 20th-century violence, totalitarian systems, consumerism.

Modernism

• Began with the Renaissance (1500).

• Rise of capitalism and shared information.

• Use of human reason and increased individual rights.

Modernist/Capitalist Rationale

• Capitalism: trade, industry, and means of production are largely private.

Postmodern Criticism of Modernism

• Domination by a ruling class and corporations.

Post-modern \"Deconstruction\"

• Deconstruct socio-cultural canons by questioning foundations, beneficiaries, and modern impacts.

Critical Theory

• Based on postmodern and existential philosophies.

• Concerned with:

  1. Historical narratives.

  2. Social institutions maintaining the status quo.

  3. Awareness leading to liberation from oppression.

Hegemony

• Hierarchy involving the predominance of one group over another, leading to oppression.

Paulo Freire and Critical Pedagogy

• Dialogue: Find and use your voice.

• Critical consciousness: Develop awareness of hegemony.

• Taking action: Link consciousness to transforming oppressive realities.

Chapter 1 Discussion

• Narrator's initial reaction to \"Teacher seeks pupil\" ad is indignation.

• Koan: A paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.

• Gorilla's narrative is viewed symbolically (e.g., slavery metaphor).

• Sokolow's name change from Goliath to Ishmael signifies a bigger, more respectful identity.

• Sokolow's family destruction connects to taker logic and forming a new family with Ishmael.

• Ishmael teaches captivity, symbolically representing universal captivity.

• Counterculture movement failed to escape captivity due to not breaking the core of society.

• Pupil's story about Kurt and Hans illustrates lessons must be figured out independently.

Chapters 2 & 3

• What held the German people \"captive\" during the Nazi regime?

  • Hitler's story

• The Narrative Explains How Things Came to Be

• Vocabulary:

  • Takers: people of all other cultures that are more primitive?

  • Leavers

• 2 primary stories: Leavers and takers
  America's creation story involves Columbus, Pilgrims, Revolutionary War, Westward Expansion, and winning wars.

• Humankind's creation story involves the Big Bang and evolution.

• Ishmael's point about the jellyfish story: Jellyfish believed its creation story ended w/ him, just as man believed created ended w/ man.

• Ishmael believes man's creation story is a myth.

• Premise of our culture's story: World was made for man.

• Takers: world is human life support system, designed to sustain/produce human life

Chapters 4 & 5

• Pupil's Explanation: Agriculture, cementing their place division of labor stech strade commerce literacy-ization

• Ishmael: Man's destiny is to rule the world

• Man had to conquer it since the world did not submit to human rule.

• "I'm saying that the price you've paid [i.e. mastering or conquering the environment and thus destroying it] is not the price of becoming human. It's not even the price of having the things you just mentioned [indoor plumbing, automobiles, etc.]. It's the price of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world" (p. 75).

• The problem with man conquering the world is the world should be paradise but man is bound to screw up. People are destructive, greedy, and shortsighted.

• Irony: Increasing our mastery of the world is what we think will save us.

• First three parts of the story of Taker culture:

  • World was made for man.

  • Man was made to conquer it.

  • The world should have become paradise.

• Humans are not inherently flawed, the story is flawed not people.

• Takers rely on prophets for guidance on living.

• Story of the takers: The world was given to man to turn into paradise, but he always screws it up because man is fundamentally flawed.

• To find out how to live, Takers must cross the border of their culture, must other narratives and stories and go beyond dominant culture.

Chapters 6 & 7

• Boundary of thought in culture: don't know relevant laws, laws of culture

• Law pertaining to life is found in the community of life/ecosystems.

• The law keeps the living community together and applies to all life.

• Gods' dirty tricks: world isn't in the center of the universe and arranged man to evolve from common slime.

• Effects of the law: Species that comply live forever, others become extinct.

• The problem with the flight of the Thunderbolt: didn't know the law of aerodynamics.

• \"The A's are eaten by the B's and the B's are eaten by the C's and the C's in turn are eaten by the A's\"

  • Parallels to nature and sustainable ecosystems

• The peace-keeping law is to only take what we need, and live sustainably and not be at war with the system.

• About 10,000 years ago farming began, settlements, division of labor, disrupted the existing system of nature.

Chapters 8 & 9

• Takers do things never done in the community of life like exterminate their competitors and destroy competitors food and resources.

• Peace-keeping law promotes sustainable life, defines limits of competition, and promotes diversity.

• The pupil understands that we're destroying the world because we are at war with it.

• Inevitable result of rejecting the peace-keeping law: Takers are in the process of destroying themselves.

• Significance of 8,000 BCE: Beginning of large-scale conflict, agriculture begins, taker culture begins, and man denied the law of limited competition.

• Special knowledge for ruling the world: Who's gonna live and who's gonna die; knowledge of good and evil.

• Two tree dilemma: Shall they lead Adam to the "Tree of Life" or the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil"?

• Problem for man eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil:

• He knows as much as the gods, knows how to rule the world, "I may do as I may do"

• Takers will never give up their tyranny because they have one right way and force everyone to live the way they do.

• Genesis characters represent; Semites or Leavers and takers

• Fertile Crescent (takers) had eaten at the gods' own tree of knowledge of good and evil

Chapters 10 & 11

• Ideologies/myths about takers being rulers is unsustainable, humans as agriculturalist.

• Major changes in human history: industrial revolution, technological revolution, urbanization, Feudalism, medicine, wars, digital age, space discovery, education, information revolution, agricultural revolution, radio, television gender equality

• Changes due to revolutions: new tech, shaping daily life, specialization; Same: core desires connection, meaning

• We do not teach what works well for all because there is no universal law on how to live.

• Ishmael is upset when the student can't explain why he wants to know the Leavers' story so he can understand the context and have a critical perspective.

• Agricultural revolution is still in progress, development is exploitation.

• We strongly believe modern civilization is necessary because leavers have no control over their lives unless you control the resources.

• "What the gods provide is enough for your life as animals…but for your life as humans, you must provide. The gods are not going to do that. This is why you've got to take your lives out of their hands entirely. And humans will finally be safe, when we've taken the whole world out of the hands of the gods"

Chapters 12 & 13

• Concept of deism : religious philosophy that derived the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience.
  Takers removed themselves from this via sustainable systems established by the Gods

• Takers: The world belongs to humans
  Leavers: Humans belong to the world

• the world doesn't need to belong to man - but it does need man to belong to it

• Prison industry consuming the world

• Ishmael suggests to Provide people with a new vision
  Asking people to go back to being hunter/food-gatherers
  We need to let the rest of the community live