Me, A Machiavellian?

Machiavelli is a pragmatic and empirical thinker, an emerging philosopher of the Renaissance.  The Renaissance, a period characterized by the intellectual vitality and rebirth, must have influenced Machiavelli on his ideas, and the emergence of modern scientific period must have also induced him to abandon medieval ideas that concerns governing man in moral terms.  Hobbes, on the other hand, was influenced by Machiavelli, but he exemplified on the idea of social contract, an agreement and necessity for sovereign for his own vision of state called the Leviathan.  Hobbes, as compared to Machiavelli, is more inclined to the scientific and mechanical way of ruling, while the latter is more politically persistent.

Given a choice on which type of government would I want to live in, I would choose Machiavelli’s idea of government.

I find Machiavelli very impressive on his ideas about his type of a ruler, fully detailed in his famous work, The Prince. Because he is a realist and a humanist, he differs so much with other classical and medieval thinkers who dwell on their own idealistic type of ruler: humble, morally good, intelligent, sympathetic, virtuous, etc.  The fact that these kinds of descriptions are not really possible and realistic for a good ruler is exemplified by Machiavelli, and it is only fit that we should be disillusioned with these kinds of ideas.   The kind of ruler that Machiavelli envisioned is the kind of ruler that impresses me: ambitious and crafty.  In The Prince, he laid out the almost seamless and concise descriptions of a ruler:  the combination of a fox and a lion, the fusion of craftiness and military genius, wary and devious to defend power, the one who would know the character of a beast to control what needs to be controlled.  To be a leader, you have to assert a certain kind of power as a dominant tool, or else the state you’d be handling would be vulnerable and weak to political uprisings and essentially won’t work.

Although Machiavelli is undeniably refutable on his ideas especially with regards to issues of morality, (the idea that he prefers to use violence to a certain extent to extend the power of a ruler) nevertheless you cannot deny that he is also a practical philosopher to make us aware that we should not believe in the goodness of all people, and thus be doubtful on the motives of the people around you.  Truly a realist, this can be applied basically in all regions of politics.

According the Machiavellian principles, the ruler must be entitled to do whatever he wants provided that it is for the satisfaction of the community.  Power should be separated from morality, ethics and religion, and power is more prioritized. We thought that to do acts that are permissive as prescribed by Machiavelli can be considered as ‘ethically and morally’ heinous crimes, but this kind of consciousness is only deeply felt because the medieval thought of the dominance of religion still has its after-effects on people.  I agreed with Machiavelli that even religion is a mere instrument of political domination and exercise of power, whether or not Man is aware of this.  After all, Machiavelli stressed that the interest of the prince was to be identified with that of the community, and the “the thing to be left out of a consideration of politics was morality.” (Bronowski and Mazlish, 1975)

There is nothing wrong of Machiavelli’s idea of virtu – men and power in the sense of masculine force, as long as we’d use the political power and use it well, as long as we don’t engender hate and just induced respected fear.  Machiavelli, for me, does not really advocate absolute power for he believes it would incur hatred.  Machiavellian’s prince is not immoral, for me he is just pragmatic.

The problem in the government that Machiavelli envisioned are those people who think that a man can get by sitting calmly and be ignorant of other people’s capabilities to be wicked.  The conflict will arise only if we study and hope for the ideal and neglect the real.

The Strength of Minor Characters: The Function of Chorus in the Play Agamemnon

The character of ‘the Chorus’ in the play Agamemnon play a very huge role.  The Chorus in the context of the play is a group of elder citizens of Argos who play significant multifaceted roles like advisors, commentators, narrators, etc.

The chorus give us the context and the necessary information as seen in the earlier parts of the play – the background story of the Trojan War, the abduction of Helen and the ten years of war between Greece and Troy (“Ten years the great contestants of Priam’s right / Menelaus and Agamemnon, my lord / … / put forth from this shore / the strength and the armies.”) It also give us either detailed or lengthy descriptions of the important events that didn’t happen within the context of the play, like how Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia in vivid details (“Her supplications and her cries of father / were nothing, nor child’s lamentation / to kings passioned for battle.”) how Menelaus and other Greeks were lost in the sea (“Ship against ship the Thracian storm shattered us / and gored and split, our vessels, swept in violence / of storm and whirlwind, beaten by the breaking rain…”) as well as the lengthy descriptions of the destructive and powerful presence of the beautiful Helen of Troy “so fatally in every way” or “the bride of spears and blood”.  The chorus act like omniscient characters who know everything that is significant for the audience to know and the job is to convey it to the spectators.  Definitely the chorus work like a narrator, but only differs in the fact that they don’t have limited appearances or they don’t serve as mere introductions to jumpstart the actions or the movements of the play.

Another significant role that the chorus play is the fact that they are capable of giving us commentaries about a certain event or a character.  The chorus can also ask the main characters what are their motivations for their actions.  They judge the behaviors of the characters geared in an objective point of view, but nevertheless supplying us with its own biased opinions sometimes.  The chorus tells us first of Clytemnestra (“But you lady / … / What is there to be done? What new thing have you heard? / what report do you order such sacrifice?”) as the chorus demand to know why the queen has ordered sacrifices to all the gods and celebrations throughout the city for the coming of his husband Agamemnon when in fact he sacrificed their own daughter.  Such inquiry to the main character gives the Chorus the respected dominant stance in the play.  Even the chorus have already biased the audience about the title character Agamemnon who only appeared briefly on the play by their own descriptions about him: his tragic flaw in the form of excessive pride ‘hubris’ (“the sinful Daring”) and the lengthy and gruesome information about Iphigenia’s sacrifice.  The chorus are capable of analyzing characters through words as seen in the eyes of others, and this is probably the earliest extant technique of limited or peripheral point of view that is common in some stories or other forms of narratives.

Other functions of the chorus – they give us the sense of foreboding especially when the chorus converse with another character Cassandra and the sense of premonition when the chorus say that Orestes will return from exile to avenge his father’s death.  The chorus are capable of debate, and the chorus can deliberate among themselves what is the best thing to do, as seen in the scene when Aegisthus and Clytemnestra finally triumph to kill Agamemnon.

I feel that in this play the chorus is seen initially as minor character but when I read the text it feels like they play an important role as much as Clytemnestra or Agamemnon did.  The chorus embodies a whole, a oneness in character of the elders of Argos, and stand as a very powerful character for they act like an all-knowing people.  They can debate, discuss, comment, advise, and converse among other characters and most of all, they are the carrier of the narrative string of the play.

The Importance of Burial in Antigone

The concept of ‘body’ in Greek culture is very holy that the Greeks deemed the physical body as something to be taken care of.  More so of the concept of burial, where it is a belief that without proper ritual or burial or any form of memorial service the body of the deceased will doom to wander in the River Styx in Hades.  The Greek culture puts a higher premium that the deceased should merit solicitous attention from the relatives.

This custom is very much exemplified in Sophocles’Antigone. The main character Antigone buried his brother Polynices “with a little dirt” despite her sister Ismene’s warning not to defy Creon’s orders.  Usually women in Greek culture are expected to mourn over a dead relative but because Creon forbids the burial of Polynices, Antigone must have felt like she was robbed of her duty to pay her last respects for her brother.  And so, the very courageous act of burying her brother Polynices “with a little dirt” jumpstart the first movement of the play.

Antigone’s decision to defy Creon’s orders does not mean that she wanted to be a martyr, or act heroic in any matter, but I think her decision to bury her brother is motivated because of filial love for her brother, the sincere outpouring of her loss.  This act also exemplifies the culture of honoring the deceased, a typical Greek custom.

Callinus of Ephesos’ poetry

The poem by Callinus of Ephesos expresses the poet’s personal feelings and yet he talks about universal themes on subjects like war, honor and death.  The poem is about encouraging the Greek soldiers to stand up and fight courageously against the enemy; in doing so these soldiers will be able to achieve the highest honor and reward and will be forever loved by the Greek people.  The poem also encapsulates some important Greek concepts: that of kleos as a reward from fighting and the idea of nostos, the return home of a Greek hero/warrior.

I like the poem very much because I feel that it is so sincere; if this is spoken by a very charismatic speaker it would be very striking to hear the sense of immediacy that is innate in the poem and it would come out to be very convincing and inspiring.  While the poem rouses the Greek citizens to fight, I don’t feel any aristocratic tone in his lines, just professional and trustworthy attitude.  I am also amazed of the poet’s art of the rhetoric: his style in argumentation and persuasion is logical – the poet does not readily speaks his mind needlessly but he sets out to explain first the well-defined situation and the stakes that are associated with it before stating the clear and concrete heart of his argument.  Because of this, the poem becomes compelling to its readers.

Kleos, in Greek Poetry

Kleos is a Greek term associated with glory and fame and it can only be achieved during a heroic battle or war.  In Greek literature, the concept of kleos is fully emphasized by the Greek warrior Achilles in the epic, The Iliad, but kleos is also emphasized in some of the early Greek poetry.  Either there must have been a familiarity in this concept as influenced by the Homeric epic tradition or the concept of kleos is just considered to be a valuable asset in the Greek culture for it to be apparent in their poetry.  The poet Callinus exemplifies kleos as a greater reward for a man – one of his poems rouses his fellow Greek citizens to stand and fight (“…when will you find some courage / you young men? Have you no shame of what others cities will say?”).  The kind of persuasion and the sense of immediacy in pursuit of kleos is evident in the later part of the poem when he writes: “…a man who has fled from flight/ …/ such a man is not loved or missed for long by his people /… / for the high-hearted warrior / after his death; while he lives, he is treated as almost divine.”

Qualities associated with this concept include bravery and an overt display of masculinity.  In the earliest Greek poetry, framed against the context of Greek war culture, it is emphasized that warriors are roused to be strong and never show any kind of weakness.  In the poems of Archilochus this is evident: “Tomorrow it will be others who grieve, not we.  From now on / act like a man, and put away this feminine tears” or “Stand fast among the beamlike spears / Give no ground.”  Another poet Tyrtaeus says that “…no man ever proves himself a good man in war / unless he can endure to face the blood and the slaughter / go close against the enemy – and fight with his hands” and according to him when that man died “…his tomb is pointed to with pride, and so are his children / … / his shining glory is never forgotten, his name is remembered / and he becomes immortal.” In another poem entitled To the Soldiers, after a Defeat Tyrtaeus addresses the young men and warriors never to lose hope and stand together in fighting the enemies, and never walk away “For once a man reverses and runs in the terror of battle / he offers his back, a tempting mark to spear from behind / and it is a shameful sight…”

Glory is given to those who have the courage to fight without any flinch of fear and hesitation, and some of the Greek poetry celebrates this noble quality.  Greek poetry, with its high style language in the art of persuasion, successfully able to express this idea.

Odysseus’s Concept of Cunning

One distinct characteristic of the epic The Odyssey is that it is a showcase of sharp intellectual skills of the main hero Odysseus, rather than a showcase of strength and power that is apparent in The Iliad (through Achilles character).  The Odyssey is written in high style, full of landscape grandeur and an incredible journey– it is about Odysseus’ wanderings and adventures into foreign places and lands and meeting fantastic characters like one-eyed monsters, tempting sirens and uncivilized giants.  Odysseus undeniably has the necessary strength to go through with these adventures but most of the time it is through his cunning and strategy that leaves him unscathed.

In The Iliad, Odysseus is famous for his brilliant concept of the Trojan horse – a disguise gift to attack the Trojans, which gave them victory.  But in Inferno this in turn gave the poet Dante to place Odysseus in the 8^th circle of Hell because of this treachery.  The kind of cunning that Odysseus possesses is always associated with disguise and dishonesty which gives a negative implication on his character no matter how amazing or heroic he is.

In relation to this I find Odysseus’ character harsh sometimes.  Everytime they went from city to city he and his men always raid the lands for food (“I stormed that place and killed the men who fought / Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women /”, Book IX) or by the time when his secret was revealed by his old nurse Eurycleia, in which Odysseus threatened to kill her if she won’t keep it to herself (“Be quiet; keep it from the others, else / I warn you, and I mean it too / if by my hand god brings the suitors down / I kill you, nurse or not, when the time comes – when the time comes to kill the other women / .” Book XIX).  The latter really shocked me – it is too un-heroic that Odysseus has the drive to threaten his already-old nurse as if without respect.   But in the end it’s as if the epic always calls for a need of trickery to prevail in order for Odysseus to present to the readers his cunning.  Other example of this contention would include his disguise as a beggar when he arrives at his own palace in Ithaca and when the right chance of time comes, Odysseus brutally kills all the suitors and the unfaithful women servants.

But what really moved me in the epic is the unforgettable chapter of Odysseus meeting the Cyclops Polyphemus.  There Odysseus presents his amazing tactics and cunning when he tricks the Cyclops Polyphemus in a clever and humorous way.  But after this lighthearted scene where Polyphemus shouts “Nobody is killing me!” I felt a jolt of sympathy to Polyphemus afterwards because he is just this tragic character who is ignorant of Odysseus’ cunning (and trickery).   And Odysseus seems like he is too full of himself that time (“And I was filled with laughter / to see how like a charm the name deceived them. /).  Even though Polyphemus is brutally violent (as he devours two of Odysseus’ men on the spot), I find him tenderhearted when it comes to animals – “the master stroke each ram, then let it pass…” “Sweet cousin ram, why lag behind the rest / … / Why, now so far behind? Can you be grieving / over your Master’s eye?”

Moreover, Odysseus taunts the giant as if he is such an arrogant brat.  Although Odysseus only wants to revenge the death of his friends, I still don’t know why I find Polyphemus sympathetic.  He lives there alone in his place, contented and peaceful with a company of rams, and here comes Odysseus in the picture who disturbs him (and probably unleashed his brutishness) and blinded him all of a sudden, poke fun on the stupid Cyclops because he has the necessary tricks and tactics to do so.  Because Odysseus is too preoccupied to achieve his own glory or kleos (he tells Polyphemus his real name so that the Cyclops will never forget) – I feel a certain kind of redemption that is due to Polyphemus when he prays to his father Poseidon because I know his father will do the vengeance for him.

This is Why I Tweet

I’ve been addicted to Twitter these past few months. I can send 18 tweets per day; when I used to send only a single tweet when I was still a newbie.

The thing about Twitter is *initially* it’s not really that overwhelming and it’s as simple as sending short text messages online to your so-called legions, who are your own followers. It’s not like there’s built-in multi-applications in there – for one thing, the only way to customize your page is through changing the Twitter template or background. The rest of the fun like Twitpic or longer notes like NotePub can be incorporated through shortened links to get past through the 140-character count.

But why do I like Twitter, even better, say, than Facebook or Plurk?

The thing about Twitter is that it’s very simple. It doesn’t demand too much for you, just ‘tweet’ what’s happening around you and then that’s it. It’s free, it’s text-based, it’s so short it doesn’t take too much of your time scrolling down through tweets of your favorite people, whom you follow. It’s the new gateway for news, gossips and it’s probably the easiest and the fastest information highway – it’s like reading through headlines, one-liner rib ticklers, or nuggets of wisdom.

And there are lots of *role-players* in there, which I find really amusing. Have your read Leo Tolstoy’s tweets? You can follow him @leotolstoy and see what are his tweets like. Some interesting famous people and figures I follow are the following:

1. @tinybuddha – for short dozes of Buddha’s thoughts

2. @alberteinstein – “I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious.”

3.  @gandhi_bot – Mahatma Gandhi’s tweets

4.  @dostoyevsky – Russian novelist and writer of Crime and Punishment!

5.  @sfreud – I’m not really a fan of Sigmund Freud, but just to see what kind of tweets he is sending…

6.  @holdencaulfield – the celebrated and one of the famous literary characters, created by JD Salinger in Catcher in the Rye

7.  @batman – Batman at Gotham.  But he’s so busy saving the city he doesn’t tweet that much

8.  @Socrates – LOL. the Greek philosopher

9.  @jesuschrist – doesn’t tweet in English

10.  @Jose_P_Rizal – the Philippine national hero on Twitter.

11.  @LdeLioncourt @lestat_lebrat @LestatQuotes – anything that concerns with the Vampire Lestat

12.  @mortal_passion – Louis de Pointe du Lac (wooo!)

It’s really amusing. To read their tweets.

For the meantime, LET ME KNOW who are the other interesting people there are to follow.  SHOUT out your suggestions here!

Bye bye!

8.

Christmas Broke and Must-Do’s Over the Break

Christmas break doesn’t necessary mean you have all the money, because in the first place, you are not in school and so you don’t have the usual allowance for your day-today expenses. Same situation where I’m in now – when I usually spent an ordinary day surfing the net, reading and watching TV in the house, surviving on a few crackers and mom’s cooking.  I don’t fancy going out either because I don’t have the money, so it’s enough for me to surf the net and look out what’s happening in the outside world.  Then again, (come to think of it) I’ve got lots to do over the holiday season which has nothing to do with Christmas and New Year celebrations, but something to do with academics and school.

Okay, as usual I’m making lists again.  Here’s one, my must-do’s over the Christmas Break:

1.  Read Jarhead by Anthony Swofford – As what Enterntainment Weekly claimed, it’s “… a brutally honest memoir…” and I agreed to that statement by the time I’ve read the first few pages.  Anyway I’m reading this memoir for my Creative Nonfiction class where I’m going to present a sort-of book report for the class.  I highly recommend this book, very searing and funny at times.  This one rocks.

2.  Write preface for my creative thesis – Probably the most important thing to do over the break – confront my thesis.  Well, the creative preface would mean sharing my writing experiences and the writing process, the process of revision and my take on the whole literature.  Not to forget, the thematic concept, the unifying principle for my stories.   Mind you, it’s not that easy, and to tell you the truth, I’m still groping on what to write and how to write this one.

3. Read The Odyssey – not necessarily required, but why not read the next reading material in advance?

4.  Write reaction paper about a paper about Rizal – totally complicated the way I put it but just to sum things up, it’s like that.

5.  Write a reflection paper about kinds of thinking species for my philosophy class

6. Make a report about Thailand – this one’s for my Southeast Asian literature class.

So I think that’s it.  Anyway, that’s what I remember as of the moment.

Wishing you happy holidays!

Things That I Got This Christmas

Whew! Christmas! This is why I love the season very much. I get to received some stuff.

So these are the things that I got this Christmas:

1. a new pair of jeans from sister

2. a thick blue green jacket from brother (forced him to give the jacket)

3. 2 pink hello kitty hair clips from sister

4. a usb mouse from myself

5. The Odyssey study guide book from mom

Cute things. But the gifts made me happy because I was not expecting them.

Happy holidays!

How Are Women Represented in The Iliad?

“[Achilles] will kill me, unprotected as I am /

my gear laid, defenseless as a woman.”  Hector to Andromache

Different types of women are represented in the epic poem The Iliad: strong-willed and shrewd women, damsel-in-distress types, wicked and vengeful women, or even women who cause the downfall of the protagonist male hero.  Moreover, there are also women depicted as possessions (war prizes) or women who have little or no control over her destiny.  The epic poem, generally regarded as “a male-dominated world” focuses centrally on the rage between men but it also happen that most of the time this rage is affected, initiated, and inspired by a woman.

Take for example the case of women characters such as Chryseis and Briseis, considered in the epic poem as “war prizes” – captured maidens and spoils of war, with little control over their destinies.  But in Book 1, the major conflict was fueled due to some concerns about these two women – since Chryseis (Agamemnon’s war prize) needs to be returned to his father to stop the plague sent by Apollo, Agamemnon demands in exchange Achilles’ war prize Briseis which angered the warrior Achilles.  Thus Achilles after the incident withdraws the battle, leaving the Achaean army futile against the Trojans’ assaults.

There are also women who are the stereotyped mothers, like Thetis (Achilles’ mother) and Queen Hecuba, who in the course of the epic poem are seen to be either weeping or troubled with the affairs of their sons.

Some women in the epic poem serve as the “partner” of the male hero, like Helen of Troy to Paris and Andromache to Hector.  Although they don’t have the power to dominate over their lovers, these characters are sometimes used by Homer to portray a more human side to the male characters – Paris is vulnerable with Helen, Hector is both a sympathetic husband to Andromache and a heroic father to their son.  These women does not wholly affect the male characters (even Andromache fails to convince Hector not to fight Achilles) but with their presence, the male character assumes a multidimensional persona (Paris, a coward who indulges on pleasures than fighting in the war).

Another set of women characters in the poem are the women gods – the wicked, shrewd, vengeful, or the women who has too much control over the mortals and over other gods.  Hera in the epic is seen as a strong, dominant character and at some point she even tricked Zeus through her forceful and cunning attitude.  Athena is endowed with wisdom and skill, capable of inspiring Achaean warriors.  Aphrodite rescues Paris and sends Helen to his arms in Book III, sending the conflict to a higher notch.  These women are considered to be the powerful forces of the book – their decisions and their control over mortal affairs sometimes change a course of plot, conflict and action.

But the most celebrated woman figure in the poem is probably Helen of Troy – her illicit love affair with Paris is one of the most distinct events of the poem unforgettable.  People around her sees her as the cause of the war (Antenor suggested that Helen should be returned to Menelaus to end the war) with exception of King Priam who welcomes her like his own daughter.  But even Helen knows that she is the reason for the downfall for the male heroes, and considered herself as a wanton (“that man is Agamemnon…brother to the husband of a wanton.”).

Whether it is a dominant, powerful kind of woman in the form of gods, or submissive, damsel-in-distress types in the mortal world, the concept of a woman is explored very much in the epic.  There is a clear-cut definition between the two sexes but at times there are certain ambiguities that cloud over these distinctions.  Even though the deeds of men dominate in the work and mortal women are protected from the wickedness of the world by these heroic men, women in the Iliad serve a much greater role in humanizing the male characters, advancing the course of plot, and sometimes they play pivotal roles in inciting men into action, without them knowing it.