Maria's Blog

Blog Entry V

2006-09-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

The Underground Man's Take on Human Society

The last few pages of Notes from the Underground bring a sense of understanding to the reader, seeing as the events in Apropos of the Wet Snow help us to see why the underground man acts the way he does. The last chapter was basically about the man’s second encounter with the prostitute. This encounter shows his love of dominance, total control, and humiliation of people because he tells the prostitute that he does not really love her but envies that she is a “crushed and humiliated creature” (124). He states that “he was no longer able to love” (125). The underground seems like a totally vile creature; however, he brings up an interesting point at the end …

The man states that we are exactly the same as him! He writes, “ I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not cared to even carry away, and what’s more you’ve taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in deceiving yourselves” (130). From reading the whole book, I can see that the underground man has a hatred for the outside world and believes in staying in the “underground” and being inefficient. I believe that he is trying to say that if we followed the correct way of life (which is his way in his mind), we would be just like him. Instead, we are living in the modern, urban world and deceiving ourselves and hiding who we really are.

He goes on to say, “Leave us to ourselves, without a book, and we’ll immediately get confused, lost – we won’t know what to join, what to hold, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise”(130). He believes that the outside world influences our real human nature and tells us what to do. The underground man thinks that inside we are all envious, dominating people. What a point he makes! I’m guessing he believes in the idea that all humans are born bad, but society teaches them how to be this certain type of “omni-man” that hides those features.

Basically all knowledge is not certain, so I do not really believe that what the underground man is saying is true. The underground man is not a valid source for answers on humanity. Let me show the quick TOK problem outline with the underground man’s argument.

Emotion. Throughout the book, I have noted the underground man’s volatile emotional status. I think that he got rejected by society and totally does not want to put up with it. I can see that from his tantrum with his three old acquaintances, that he is not stable. He passed back and forth in the attention, very frustrated, and trying to get their attention. He also cries throughout the book and throws himself on the floor. Plain and simple; he is an emotional guy. His emotion influences what he thinks of society, because rejection is a very hard thing to take for him.

Reason. Because he is so emotional, his feelings have impacted his reason. He is dejected and despondent and reasons in a somber manner because of this. He humiliates and tries to dominate people because society kicked him out. His reason for human beings being totally like him is purely influenced by emotion.

Perception. Because he has this skewed view of human nature, due to emotion and reason, he sees our culture as being bad for humans. He perceives the humans who are actually doing something as “fakes” and thinks that we are hiding our true selves.

Language. The “Notes” that he has created is a result of his emotion that influence reason which in turn influenced perception. His ideas, writing style, and belief that urban society is bad is a product of the “ways of knowing”.

Therefore, in the end I am pretty sure that the underground man’s views are not correct. His “emotions” get into the TOK “ways of knowing”. An argument based on human nature should bee purely unbiased; although, I think the man’s explanation was a somewhat good attempt.

I enjoyed Notes from Underground. It was an interesting explanation of why we are the way we are. I hope that deep down inside, we are not like the underground, but I guess we will never truly “know” in the Theory of Knowledge sense.

Blog Entry IV

2006-08-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Replicas and the Real Things

In the Apropos of Wet Snow (back in my reading), I found an interesting TOK question. Can a shabby imitation have the same effect as the real thing?

I took this question from the underground man’s actions when he tries to put himself on equal footing with a soldier. At Nevsky Prospect, “He (the soldier) went straight at them (the people strolling) as if there were an empty space before him, and on no occasion gave way to them”(52). The underground man does not want to be one of the people that the soldier shoves aside. What is one of the ways he tries to equate himself to the soldier? –
The underground opts for an updated wardrobe. He chooses a “cheap German beaver” (54) as a collar, even though he knows that it is cheap. Why does he pick it? Because, “Though these German beavers wear out very quickly,” but, “when new; they even seem quite descent” (54). Therefore, in trying to equate himself to the well dressed soldier, the underground man has found a cheaper alternative, that looked just the same.

In the end, the underground man does end up in equal footing with the soldier. So I guess that an imitation of the real thing can have the same effect as the real thing – right? WRONG. For most people, a $300 pair of Chanel sunglasses is the same thing as a $5 pair of bootleg sunglasses that are the same in every way. Well, not to me. I believe in quality which is a big part in the whole imitation and authentic item debate.

How do you define quality? In TOK terms, I think quality is when what you perceive is of the finest materials. Well, let’s look at my Chanels – they are made of plastic. Plastic is the same everywhere. But plastic is not the only think that makes my Chanels of “quality”. Quality comes from the designer, from the house of Chanel … no bootleg can lay claim to that. Even If the Chanels had the same logo, I would opt to pay for the $300 dollar ones that came from the house of Chanel.

The ways of knowing can fool one into believing something fake is the real thing; perception especially does that. But something can help us out -- I think that you have to look at the “reason” aspect of the equation. I purchased the expensive sunglasses because of the idea behind them; the design. I respect the designer’s work; you cannot put a price on that. That is why the glasses are so expensive. The bootleg version; however, has no reason behind it, it is just a copy. I could go on to say that the designer at Chanel put emotion into the design of the glasses, while the factory worker at the bootleg plant did not. That is why I could never pay for an exact replica for my glasses, because it is just that – a replica; it can never have the same effect as a fake.

So in the end, even thought the underground man put himself on the same level of the soldier; his imitation of a “real beaver”, or any replica in the world, can never come close to the real thing.

Blog Entry III

2006-08-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

Individual?

I have almost finished my summer reading TOK novel and am up to the second part of Notes from Underground: An Apropos of Wet Snow. This part of the Dostoevsky’s book goes into certain events of the underground man’s life that have affected his character and influenced the person that he is presently in the book. Seeing as this part of the book does not have his philosophical thoughts in it, I went back to the first part of the novel, Underground.

I reread the speech that the underground man made – the one in which I thought he was talking about the predictability of life. My thought was wrong. In my thorough rereading I found that he was actually mocking the individuals that thought life could be predictable. Here is the quote that helped me decide this fact:

“ And it is then – this is still you speaking – that new economic relations will come, quite ready-made, and also calculated with mathematical precision, so that all possible questions vanish in an instant, essentially because they will have been given all possible answers. Then the crystal palace will get built.” (25)

I looked up what the “crystal palace” ment and found that it was socialist utopian idea for a perfect society having been created because human life was predictable. Then, reading the footnote, I found that the underground man was mocking it. He did not believe in the communist idea of unity, and the idea of everyone working as one. He believed in the notion of the individual. His desire to be recognized as an individual and not a predictable being can be seen throughout the book. I can take an example from the second part of Notes from the Underground, when he is acting ridiculous in front of acquaintances.

“For a man to humiliate himself more shamelessly and more voluntarily was really impossible, I fully understand that, and still I went on pacing from the table to the stove and back.” (79)

I think this quote shows the underground man’s efforts to strive for individuality. He knows that he is pacing back and forth in a drunken manner, trying to tick off the people he is with; he knows that he looks ridiculous and should stop. But he goes against what is “rational”, what the predictable thing is to do because he wants to go against his conscience and prove that he is an individual.

I think that individuality is very hard to attain. It’s hard to say that you are not tied to a bigger group. In fact, I don’t think anyone is an individual in that sense. How can you be, when you grow up with parents and friends telling you what to do? Surely, one does not climb out of a womb knowing that (for example) gay marriage is wrong. People are influenced by the environment around them. Other people’s ideas and what one sees influences the way one thinks. Going back to the TOK diagram; your environment influences your perception, emotion, language, and reason. For example, even though I like to say that I have individuality, I know that it is not true. As a child speaking the Russian language and living in Kyrghastan and Ukraine, I was brought up to think that the Chechens were bad. I still believe that the majority of them are awful, but this is not my original opinion; I got it from my parents. Their views influenced the fact that I thought the Chechens were murderous people (perception), my feelings toward them (emotion), what I said about them (language), and my rationality behind those feelings (reason). My views are not original since I have to be influenced by someone else, neither is my style, my hair cut, etc. Everything stems from something else.

So, in the end, I believe there is a problem with calling oneself a total “individual”; it simply cannot be done, because one is influenced by his or her environment. The underground man fought to be an individual, and went against the norm. It is hard to say if he was truly that. Who knows where he got his ideas from in the 1840s? All I know is that today it is hard to be an original, individual, and a person standing away from the crowd.

Blog Entry II

2006-07-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Science and Reason According to the Underground Man

Continuing to read my book, I was struck by a noteworthy quotation. Dostoevsky writes, “Science itself will teach man … that in fact he himself is nothing but a sort of key or sprig in an organ” (24). I could see that the underground man definitely had an opinion of society and the world he lived in. I mentioned the fact that the man had a nihilistic standpoint and seemed to be talking about an existentialistic life in my previous post. I can now see that the underground man can reduce life to doing nothing because of his belief in science. To him, science makes the point of human existence totally pointless pointless.

What is human existence to me? It’s too love and live. And to love, one must need emotion. Emotion drives reason. Conversely, the underground doesn’t believe in what I am talking about. Like I said before, he thinks that life is pointless, and humans do not really reason by themselves. The following quote from Notes from Underground: “Whatever he does is done according to the laws of nature. Consequently, these laws of nature need only be discovered, and then man will no longer be answerable for his actions, and his life will become extremely easy”(24). He believes that human reason can be calculated by science, that we do what we do because of the laws of nature, and there is no emotion driving this reason. Science is the only explanation for human reason, according to the underground man.

I want to go back to a lesson in Dr. Crane’s TOK class. We talked about how reason is affected by the other ways of knowing; language, perception, and emotion. The underground man has completely wiped the slate clean (for the ways of knowing) – reducing it to science. That really struck me. When we were in class, discussing what affected our reasoning, science never made it into my head as a possible idea. Now, thinking about it, maybe reasoning is just science. Maybe, we reason according to a “table of logarithms” (24) as the underground man says; maybe, everything is predictable. Could it be that language, perception, and emotion do not really influence what we want, and science is really choosing for us? I think it is highly unlikely though. It is an interesting argument, and I do not think you can prove it wrong (DON’T WORRY, I WILL NOT COMMIT A LOGIVAL FALLACY), but that does not make it true. I guess we will never know; that is the problem with knowledge.

This book has made me really re-think what I though I knew. It got me thinking; maybe that TOK diagram isn’t true; maybe I live my life predictably; maybe it is all just pointless. But that is a tough call … I think life has purpose, obviously unlike the underground man.

Blog Entry I

2006-07-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

Doing Nothing vs. Being Lazy

I have just gotten through the first half of Dostoevsky’s Underground from Notes from Underground. By “gotten through” , I mean to say that I re-read the pages some three times to grasp the meaning of the work – and I can shakily say that I have an understanding of what the rambling underground man is truly rambling on about. By no means am I trying to say that this underground man is babbling on about nothing; in fact, the man talks about existentialism and the laws of nature extensively.

The underground man takes a nihilistic stand point to life where he beliefs that existence is simply pointless. I think his view is best summed up in the quote there is simply nothing to do at all (Dostoevsky, 8). Subsequently, that is what the underground man does. He refers to himself as being an intelligent man because the, ingenuous people and active figures are all active simply because they are dull and narrow minded … they take the most immediate and secondary causes for the primary ones, and thus become convinced more quickly and easily than others that they have found an indisputable basis for doing things, and so the feel at ease (17). By doing nothing because he cannot find the exact cause for acting, the underground man regards himself as a smart being.

Following the underground man’s arguments for not exerting himself, I found myself understanding his viewpoint; however, when I got up to chapter six, I found myself dumbfounded. This chapter described the narrator’s desire to be a lazybones (19). I always thought that when a person did nothing, it was out of laziness; but, in this case, the underground man was doing nothing for a reason. For me, I perceived “laziness” to fall under the category of “doing nothing” with ones life. This in turn affected my language. For example, if you asked me how my day was, I could interchange my answer between, “I did nothing” with “I was lazy” – they meant the same thing to me. I now understand that the underground man did not perceive himself as being lazy; however someone from the outside looking at the underground mans life could have. I guess it is all in perception and reason; for if one has justification for doing nothing, then they are not being lazy at all.

This brings me to a point – what justification do you need so as not to be considered lazy when doing nothing? The underground man’s existentialistic argument seems legitimate, but what about the teenagers ‘I don’t feel like argument’ – where does one draw the line? A reason is a reason, but what is a good reason vs. a bad reason? There is no sure answer.

All I know is that next time I am doing nothing around the house during the summer and my mother tells me that I am being lazy; I will tell her that I am doing nothing for a reason, and instruct her to refrain from using that word to describe me. If only that could save me from cleaning my room …

Morals Quiz

2006-04-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last night, i was staying up and looking at my TOK sites.

I ended up totally engrossed in The Philosophers' Magazine Website.

I took a quiz that judged my moral intuitions and found some interesting stuff out. They ask questions similar to those ones posed in class regarding the Afghani that was to be persecuted due to his Christian beliefs ... and then rated my morals.

Go here, http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/taboo1.php to take it, it's pretty cool; i spent all night taking their other quizzes; the results are pretty comprehensive.

Afghan and Christianity Blog Assignment

2006-04-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

I was looking on the BCATOK blog, when I saw this blog assignment. Though time passed, I think that the discussion we had about the man that faced the death penalty was very interesting and I want to put my thoughts down in words because I really got into this topic during class.

As Dr. Crane and Mr. Torres pointed out in class, you can either be someone that believes in absolute truth or someone that believes in moral relativism. Somebody that believes in absolute truth believes that something that is always valid, regardless of parameters or context. A moral relativist believes that takes the position that there is no absolute truth, but there are facts that change under specific circumstances. Therefore, moral relativists believe that there is no definite truth.

Though I think it makes me seem like a cruel person, I think the man should be executed due to the fact (that I discovered in TOK class!) of my moral relativistic views. I think that we are brought up in a society where killing is always seen as wrong, whoever it is not seen like this by other countries. Consequently, we have to respect Afghanistan’s beliefs and not intervene if the Afghan man were to be executed.

One article in the Washington Post stated on the article that, “But Afghanistan is also a deeply traditional and tribal society, where 99 percent of the 25 million inhabitants are Muslims and no Christians worship openly. It is a capital crime under Afghan Islamic law to convert to Christianity …”. Therefore, I believe that we should respect their Afghan Laws and not intervene. If one does not follow the law, one must be punished. Like it or not, and I believe that it should be kept that way. No one society is perfect; no one society has the correct set of laws. Yes, I believe that killing this man is a horrible thing to do, but if I were brought up in Afghanistan and I was taught that converting to Christianity was punished by death, I would abide by that fact. We should let the country be, unless such matters continue; we must respect Afghanistan’s customs.

Second Blog Assignment

2006-03-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

Initially, when I quickly glanced at the picture, I thought that this was a painting of the beach. My first reaction to it was, “Oh, this is a beach scene” and nothing more. Then, a couple of seconds later I realized that the beach was outside of an arched door way, and there was an easel in the room depicting the beach that was outside of the passage.

At the beginning, I was seeing what was going on the outside of the arch (the beach scene).I observed the painting from an outside perspective, as a whole beach. I could have looked at it only through the easel (inside); therefore, I would be relying on the painting of beach for information regarding the beach scene.

I think that the picture ties in with TOK, because it deals with perception. One could look upon a particular situation from an outside view point or an inside view point. One can look at the whole picture or look at a representation of what has happened. Subsequently, this is how individuals perceive things; and it is how individuals perceive things that impact their knowledge.

Consequently, I believe that the way in which I saw the beach scene picture to be is in direct relation to perception and how it impacts our knowledge.

First Blog Assignment!

2006-02-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

Like OMG, it's Maria's Response ...

When I read the article In a Country That Craved Respect, Stem Cell Scientist Rode a Wave of Korean Pride, I analyzed it from the TOK student stand point. Consequently, I was able to find that the central theme of the article was South Korea’s overbearing pride or extreme sense of nationalism. This influences the knower from the emotional standpoint – influencing the “knowledge” from the TOK diagram perspective.

As I mentioned above, nationalism in Korea affected the fact that Dr. Hwang’s sketchy claims were kept alive for such an extended period of time. The Korean population was so bent upon having patriotism and loyalty for their country –wanting to make South Korea a dominant nation that they failed to see the falsely-hood of Dr. Hwang’s. Inevitably, their knowledge of the South Koreans was being affected by their emotional beings.

Nationalism is a very emotional topic in the minds of individuals, (i.e.) a Korean stated that "He was going to change our country's image and make South Korea No. 1 in the world in this sector” – showing how much was riding on the scientist’s success. Therefore, the South Koreans were willing to accept the claims that Dr. Hwang made without much supporting evidence. The population was so nationalistic, and so set upon being recognized as “this great nation” that they let their emotions take a hold of them, influencing the degree of what they considered true.

It is indelible to recognize the fact that emotion affected the South Koreans due to their sense of nationalistic pride. They failed to considerably question Dr. Hwang’s findings; thus, skewing their view of ‘knowledge’.

2006-01-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make my blog really pretty, like with a beach scene but it didn't work.