Empathy Deceives

Here is a poem I wrote about a philosophical thought I had about empathy:

Bleeding alone
No one can truly feel you
Empathy deceives
Seducing us with false comfort
Our suffering is parallel
But will never be equal
From our conception
To our requiem

Bleed alone
Bleed with none
Our rivers of pain
Cannot run the same
Look me in these eyes
I can only sympathize
Accept the reality

Dying alone
Your fate is your own
We are equalized
With an equaled passing
It is our natural desire
To find our resemblance
It is our need to believe
That together we bleed

Handmaid's Tale Journal Chap.30-33

"You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even."

   In our society, men strive to have sex because of the feelings they get from the experience. It feels good, like a nice, cold piña colada on a warm beach. If you took away the feelings of sex, there would be a great loss of incentive to do it. People would not want to have sex for the sake of it anymore. They would only do it if they had to. 

They would be disappointed like this gray man in a gray suit. The color gray is so... disappointing!

In the Handmaid's Tale, the society has become desensitized to sex. The men are turning down on sex as much as they can, because they only see it as a way to maintain their status in their society or government. If they need to stay in a position or move to a higher status, they use sex as a tool. They don't see it as a means to obtain pleasure or connect with the one they love. Feelings such as love have become eradicated in this culture and sex is meaningless. This eventually emotionally neuters the whole society of men.

Sex is not the only thing that people have become emotionally neutered to in this society. They also find an inability to feel during the particicutions and the picking off on peers. People are being ripped apart right in front of their eyes and they still look on and do nothing. It happens so often that it becomes routine and, in a sense, they become numb to the experience. Like for example, the gladiators of ancient times. The people of Rome saw lions eating people alive. It was literally murder, yet they didn't do anything to stop it. It is because it happened so often that people stopped thinking about what was wrong and what was right and they just looked on cheering with a hollow mind. 

Everything wrong that is happening around the people in this society have just become regular. The only feeling people really have is now just numbness. This suggests that people have just stopped trying to do anything to change their bad situation. 

Handmaid's Tale Journal Chap.34-37

"Love, said Aunt Lydia with distaste. Don't let me catch you at it... Wagging her finger at us. Love is not the point."

     In dystopias, love is like a disease to the government because it inspires two people to form an individualistic relationship independent of the government. To the government, this is a loss of control. They can't tolerate any loss of control because they're a totalitarian government. Total control is their goal. So, they do everything they can in order to stop something such as love from detracting from their control over the population.

    But this is not the only reason Aunt Lydia doesn't want Offred chasing love. In a society where men have become desensitized to sex itself, one of the most sensual experiences lovers can have, the room for emotions in every man's heart is mostly just empty. There may be some emotions left, but those might just be the basic "I want to talk with a cute girl" type of emotions. The real feelings in a relationship such as passion, pleasure, and happiness have all been pretty much eradicated. So what then is the point of a relationship like love in this society? If all the feelings in love have become extinguished, there is really no point in chasing love unless you want to face great sadness.

However, the fact that Offred is even attempting to chase love is still intriguing. Even after love has been eradicated in this society, there are still people chasing it. It suggests that maybe love really is an indestructible concept. It can carry on through the darkest hours of mankind, like in this dystopia, and still be alive at the end of the day. It leaves the glimmering hope that even if you took away every principle for liking love, it is a concept that will still survive.

Chap.17-19 Handmaid's Tale Journal

"I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable"

Actual values are the type of values one would see in a field of study such as economics. An employer would value his employees for their capital and sees value in them only for the sole purpose of his business. These aren't exactly invaluable values because if one employee leaves, the employer can just find another one to replace his value. These values are valuable but not invaluable so that they cannot be replaced by anything else. 

There are certain values in this world that transcend actual values and I like to call these invaluable values. These type of values are found beyond the professional world. You can find some of these values in things like relationships. When someone dates a person, they aare valuing them for something that they cannot easily replace. It could be that they care for them in a certain way or that they give really good kisses. These values are invaluable and can't exactly be given a value. Yet at the same time, they are values. These are harder to find than valuable values and they are even rarer to find in a professional, serious environment. 

In the dystopian world of The Handmaid's Tale, these invaluable values have become eradicated. They are seen as an evil to this world where women are basically walking reproductive factories. This makes the women no longer invaluable for their relationships as they are seen only for their sex.

This is why Offred is trying to find something she can't exactly describe. However, she know it exists and that is why she craves it. She is seeking an invaluable value.

When The Line Begins To Blur

What does it take for the line between right and wrong to begin to blur and what is the true nature of human nature? Both very important questions, these were questions I asked myself during the discussion in class. Some of the answers that I found showed me a part of human nature that I thought could never be unleashed. 

One thing I observed as we were divided into serpents and angels is that the majority of class belonged to the serpentine side. Does this mean that we are a species that tells stone cold lies all of the time? I would say no because I think it just shows that there are situations for everyone in which they would be forced to lie about something for a better good.

The least extreme example of our serpentine side is Santa Claus. We find it good to give our children something to look up to that is magical and will instill that spirit of childhood in them during that age. The same goes with most euphemisms that we tell our children when they inquire about the serious and darker side of life. But we do not tell them these euphemisms because that's what we want them to believe for the rest of their lives. We do it because we believe that when they are ready to, they will learn about the darker, more serious stuff that we kept hidden from them.

This leads me to one conclusion about the true nature of human nature: Being deceitful is not something that would be hard for any human being to do. From white lies to massive lies, every human being is capable of doing one or the other.

A more complex side of human nature is the lion and lamb side. Every human being varies when it comes to how much they think their violence could extend. Violence is worse than lying for some people, and other people would think that they are both equal. It is hard for me to conceive a thought about killing another human being. However, there is breaking point for everyone. When the line of insanity or desperation is crossed, everybody is capable of doing the things they wouldn't dare to do if they hadn't crossed the line.

The 1972 Andes flight survivors no doubt thought that McDonald's was gourmet when
they came back to society.

An example of how there is a lion within all of us when the situation calls for it is the 1972 Andes flight disaster. There was nothing left for the survivors of the crash to eat except for the preserved bodies of others who died in the crash. They were forced to turn to cannibalizing so that they could survive until rescue arrived. I am sure that before the crash happened, some of them would have thought that cannibalism is something that they would never do even if they were forced to. But the breaking point was broken when they came to a grim realization that they would die unless they crossed the line. In such a desperate situation as this, the line between right and wrong had to become blurred in order for these people to survive.

My final conclusion: There is a lion and a serpent in all of us. Certain situations can force these darker sides of personality to rise. How we would act in normal society is a far cry from how we would act in a desperate, seemingly hopeless society ( Like "The Road"?). 

The Sonnet Post_1.01

Her eyes as blue as ocean water's luster
Caught effortlessly my heart's love
She and I don't share the same cluster
And I am forlorn that I'm a grade above

While it strains my schedule and my grades
I risk it all just to receive embrace
Hoping the moment will never fade
It is a truth I must finally face

There is no other one I'd rather see
She's a treasured jewel that I have found
As I move away towards the sea
My torch for her shall burn proud

Even if life may try to tear us apart
There shall be love ever building in my heart

Tempest Act I Reflection

Power and authority, while they may seem to go hand in hand, do not go together as one would think they would. Continuing all through Act I of The Tempest, the definition of power and authority becomes more defined. The line becomes more clearly defined as we learn that anyone can get power.

Master of puppets and pulling the strings! Notice the doomy hands looming over the land in the sky.

Power - The possession of control or command over others.
Authority - The right to control, command, or determine. 

I think that of all the characters in The Tempest, Prospero undeniably has the most power. His authority, however, is almost nonexistent to most except perhaps Caliban. He has become deposed of his authority by Antonio, but Antonio doesn't exactly have the most power in the play. Antonio may still inhabit Prospero's old throne and he may command an entire kingdom, but he does not have the powers of control others indefinitely. He can command someone to do something, but he is not in full control of their actions, no matter how much he tries to do so. Prospero, however, has found the power to fully control one's actions through his wizadry but he does not necessarily have the right to do so. This leads me to question: Are power and authority the same thing?
 
If power can be obtained by any one, no matter what right they have to use it, and authority can be obtained by a select few, I think that power and authority are different things. Propsero does not need to be the duke of Milan in order to possess the skills he has in wizadry. He could have gone to one of the lowest of the hierarchial pyramid of social class and still have obtained the powers he has. Antonio had to fight his way to the top of the hierarchial pyramid in order to obtain the power he has, but his powers are limited to what he can do by himself. He may maintain authority over every one else in the land, but his powers are limited to what he possesses in his arsenal. If he does not have any powers beyond his legal powers, then he is powerless against someone as powerful as Prospero. Therefore, what does it mean to have authority?

Having authority means that you are allowed to use your power in politcal terms. For example, even if a terrorist such as Kony has a powerful army that he can use to make others do what he wants, he still does not have a politically given power to do so. Does he need the authority to do so? Not at all, as he can still possess whatever he pleases with his menacing and sinister army. If he did have authority by being a president of a country, he wouldn't need to do most of his actions by force as much because people would recognize that he has a politically given right to command others. However, people can still protest and disobey his commands, so, authority does not exactly come with an equal amount of power.

So, what is the role of power in the first act of The Tempest? Propsero uses his power for his own benefits. He is a selfish person and he plans a grand scheme in order to benefit himself. He couldn't do most of his scheme without a great amount of power, though. So, he uses his warlock powers to force his plan to work. He has so much power that he could even control Antonio and regain his powers in an instant. However, he uses his powers with a considerable amount of reserve and saves it for when he thinks that he needs it. Without the powers that he has, he would be unable to make his scheme go exactly according to plan and his plot would most likely fail, as would the rest of the story's plot. This suggests that Prospero is indeed a control freak.

In conlcusion, I think that power is greater than authority. Antonio could be the king of the world but still not be the king of power, as Propsero is.