Let's learn about NYU courses!

So I came up with the incredibly bright idea to summarize my notes on blogspot! It's my ideal method of reorganizing the chaotic mess of writing in my notebooks and forming clear concepts for me and anyone else who is remotely interested. Although who would be interested in Concepts in Social and Cultural Analysis?

The concept of the day is difference. But to understand the concept of difference, whether in a social or individual sense, it is imperative to realize the abstract qualities of sameness and identity. What is an object's identity; what makes it different from other objects? Take for example rest and motion. They are polar opposites, correct? However, the unitary notion of rest cannot exist without the concept of motion. An entity obtains it identity by being what it is not; rest is not motion, therefore it is rest. The definition of rest is inherent in it quality of not being motion: identity incorporates difference. But what is identity? According to Heidegger, identity is manifested in his example: A is A. However, this does not presume that A = A. For what is at stake is not the equality of two separate objects, but of a singular object. Insomuch as my own identity remains the same, I remain the same with my past self; in other words: because my conscious self has remained the same despite the divisive forces of time, I continue to identify with myself through the gap of time. My reflexive, tautological identification to my past self is indicative of a circular dative line of self recognition. Therefore, difference can be understood as the exclusivity of sameness - A is the same only with itself because it is not B, C, D, etc...

However, in a social context, the line separating different organizations becomes hazy and nebulous. What a group represents, its identity in relation to its members is unclear. For example, the fragmentation within feminism and paradoxical opposition of the movement by women indicates a perplexing conundrum. The feminist movement is for women, but there exists difference within its own organizational borders; feminists do not possess a seamless, coherent unity; one cannot presuppose that the category of women is singular and identical to itself. Feminism does not constitute the unitary subject of women, for factions exist even in the boundaries of the movement itself.

And I'll stop there for today, this is confusing as hell.

best speech ever

From The Great Dictator:

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite! Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up Hannah! The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality. Look up, Hannah! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow! Into the light of hope, into the future! The glorious future, that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up!

I strongly advice everyone to watch this speech. It is from the 1940 film The Great Dictator. It makes me wonder where all the good actors and script writers have gone off to...

youde shihou wo ye want to discover the un-discoverable

It seems I'm the only active blogger lately. I'm not sure how many people are actually reading what I write, but I find blogging a surprisingly cathartic hobby. I find that I articulate my thoughts more clearly and coherently when I type; contrarily, I am quite unable to locate and phrase the appropriate words while clutching a pencil or pen. It is perplexing. That's probably why my past paper journals have failed miserably. Also, the fact that an internet blog is situated in such a vast forum of public cyberspace (a public yet intimately quarantined space of existence - isolated by its ridiculously vast environment and not by a dominating, opposing force) somehow appeals to me. I can't quite explain why or how the medium of the internet affects my writing, but I just know that it does. Not a very convincing argument I'm sure, but I'm working on it.

But anyway, I've been thinking a lot lately. No, nothing too serious or suicidal (although I guess it is pretty depressing) - but about society and contemporary culture and the weight of my existence upon the former (and perhaps also the latter). And the central inquiry of my idle contemplations is this: What effect does my existence have on the lives of others, whether it be of my friends, relatives, or even people with whom I am not acquainted?

My recent obsession with the Korean figure skater Yuna Kim has caused me to acknowledge my miserably marginalized existence. For I will never know this girl - she is too distant. The barrier between normal folk and celebrities is a torrential gap than cannot be forded in accordance to an individual's physical willpower - numerous social conditions must be met, and these we cannot handily manipulate. It is regrettable, truly and greatly. If I could just have one chance to truly know this distant being, who is currently, to me, nothing more than a tortuously unattainable, wholly desirable entity (a desire wrung from my entire being), it would be an enlightenment far beyond that of any natural form of encounter. For it would symbolize a rendezvous with the unknown, the impenetrable, the unfathomable - a closeup exploration of what cannot be rationalized or sought. But futility rings forth as I attempt to catch the smoke with my bare hands. Leave me with nothing but unsatisfied desires.

Curse my stupidity for perceiving thy vanity as innocence. But it is upon this stupidity I thrive.

김연아, 너를알고싶다.

One love me bredda

I noticed today that small, insignificant things make me unnaturally, unjustifiably happy. Small things keep my life together; additionally, I noticed that becoming more organized academically has proven to be quite beneficial to my thinning hair. And all I did was buy some good cereal and a tube of gaudy toothpaste.

I've been noticing lots of strangeness in my life lately: my habits, predilections, anomalies. For example, the fact that I hiccup after taking sips of carbonated beverages has never seemed strange to me. But people tell me it's quite strange...

Another bad habit: I rarely finish what I start. I hate it, but oh well...

And now, I have to start my film review! Off to work! Have a nice day =D

oh my lord.

My professors are conspiring to murder me with work. This sucks donkey balls. I can't even describe in words how stressed I am. And my printer isn't helping with its incredibly inefficient usage of black ink. A new cartridge lasted 1 week! And each cartridge is 24 ish dollars, oh my fucking goodness.

On the bright side... oh wait, is that the bright side? Because it looks like a shit-gray to me. Fuck my life.

And incredible site: www.fmylife.com

That's about all I have to say lol.

eureka - righteous self sacrifice.

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."

Do not revere the man who ponders. For all his scrutiny and brooding yields less rationality than the aggregate erosion of the continents by orbital whiplash - namely, none at all.

Do not denigrate the man who muses. For from his unflagging futility he forcibly extracts the incorporeal, spiritual nourishment of man.

Thus arrives the inquiry: Is it possibly to satisfy simultaneously our physical deprivations and spiritual desires? Is asceticism (denial of bodily cravings) the sole path towards spiritual enlightenment? What constitutes "spiritual enlightenment"? Is it not a relative term?

Furthermore, who is to judge reality from fantasy? Can lies become truth and truth, lies? Questions lead to more questions - a truly vicious circle. Desperately striving for comprehension, we inevitably sink farther into the quicksands of chaos.

Man was blessed with conscience and rationality; but upon realization, it may have been for naught. For cursed be those who understand.

Seriously midnight.

Can't find the words. Fuck.