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Engl 2120 Paper One

Instructions

For this paper take at least two of the texts that we have read and put them into conversation around a
particular topic or problem. A good paper will show an engagement with the texts but will also put
forward an argument in regard to the material. Assume the reader has read the texts and understands
them and avoid providing simple summary. While some summary may be necessary, it should not
represent a large part of the paper.

Where possible bring the material we studied into a contemporary context or show how it can apply to
a contemporary problem. This opens door for the texts to be appropriated for a wide array of purposes
and students are encouraged to find creative applications and creative connections to their own
experience.

Requirements

 1000 words.
 11 or 12 font.
 Formatted according to MLA guidelines.
 Works cited page included
Prompts

1. The idea of education and/or self-knowledge figures prominently in Plato’s Cave, Oedipus Rex,
Confucius and Augustine. What are these texts telling us about the educational process? Are
these ideas applicable to today’s context? If so, how? If not, why not?

2. Violence appears in these texts in many places serving many different purposes and having
many different affects. Isolate some of these moments of violence and use them to make a
thesis about violence and society. What are some of uses of violence within the texts? Are these
practices still around today? How do these texts help us to understand or think through these
practices.

3. Some of the texts we read emphasize reason as the means through which society should be
organized others focus on the things like ritual, kinship and hierarchical obedience. What are the
assets and the liability of each approach and what we can they learn from each other?

4. Find something interesting in these texts, produce a thesis and develop an argument.

William P. Krier
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Professor David Stubblefield

English 2120

19 September 2014

What defines the limitations to human civilization? The emphasis on human denotes

humanity’s emphasis on itself. But, don’t all organisms necessitate such a tendency to survive

and thrive to advance its species? Though, it is the appearance that humans are self-aware that

this tendency is exaggerated. Self-awareness produces a controllable progression manipulable by

its manifold of paradoxically derived attributes such as: altruism and egotism, curiosity and

temptation, courage and doubt, loyalty and dishonor, etc. What manifests from this spectrum of

contradictions are fluctuating comforts and discomforts in society. Now, in contrast, the

progression of the “lesser” animals is not self-controllable, they appear unknowingly well-

oriented in the natural flow of the universe—the initial state of existence—with conflicts strived

to overcome. It may take prolonged meditations to realize that the innate exaggerated tendencies

humans have to progress is an obsessed illusion of a self-imposition of intellectual obstacles

through consciousness by the natural flow explaining social conflicts, yet the same innate

exaggerated tendencies can also give self-awareness an optional-imposition through

consciousness, called free-will, to elude the relationships between humanity and its limits

through movements of confession, enlightenment, or self-mastery. What to be discussed is how

these self-impositions create civilizations’ limits—such as violence, institutionalism, and

perception—and how free-will makes the important realizations and solutions using examples

from historical works of world literature, namely: Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Plato’s Cave,

The Analects by Confucius, and Augustine’s Confessions.

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Violence acts as a natural condition of humanity or as a reactive resultant from a natural

condition. Original sin is a well-known concept in Christianity and was mentioned as a grieving

of flesh in Augustine’s Confessions (Damrosch 865-6). This is interesting first for that humans

have a self-imposed discomfort of preceding evils attached to them; meaning the presence of

consciousness gives them the idea of the past and what is to come in the future from the past,

creating a range of conflicting emotions determined by the circumstance. An example of this

took form in Oedipus the King, where Oedipus flees from a fearful future only to learn of his

dreadful past. The second interest in original sin is that his infirm flesh around his swollen feet

symbolizes an imbalance toward eventual grief. Free-will in this example is usually discussed by

analysts concerning Oedipus’ own decisions to commit his crimes while blinded by tempted

rage. Whereas free-will was performed just as well in his present moments of realization and

solution when Oedipus decided to blind and banish himself when he was blinded of truth no

more—an act of true moral progression (Damrosch 536). Secondly, original sin originates from

humanity’s error with wanting the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of God, an emotion of desire

and mimicry. Rene Girard, in his essay of the scapegoat, explains how society develops a

common desire to minimize survival effort which builds mimetic tension of homogeneity, and

when differentiation is violated society must persecute a scapegoat to purge the stress to retain a

temporary equilibrium of relief (Girard 24). These forms of violence limit progress because they

are cyclic, constant, and solutions are either scarce or hasty. A progressive remediation may

require a more active understanding of natural conditions rather than reactivity toward

uncomfortable ones.

Two major forms of institutionalism surface in each culture: religion and education. Both

are extreme constructions of self-imposition onto the individuals of a society. From youth only
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innocence is known then cultural foundations are engrained to become all what is to know and

accept. Symbolic blindness and darkness found in Oedipus and Plato’s Cave represent the

limited range of perceptive due to a boundary feared to cross. Plato describes how optical

perceptions alone serve as an analogy to the illusionary realities humans face every day among

human interactions, cultural customs, knowledge base learning, and nature itself. He shows how

the light from the darkness pacifies from achieving understanding, not dependent learning. But it

is comfort and enjoyment in the belief a false superiority that fetters us in the cave and keeps us

from attempting. So, courage and action will eventually lead to enlightenment. However, in

Plato’s Cave, education must be enforced and tutelage could be dangerous, but realization could

be miraculously wonderful (Hamilton 747-50). Conflict will not give realization only harmony

will. Harmony with community can be found through the Way, as discussed in The Analects

where Confucius describes like in 2.14 where gentlemen must follow the Way and be broad not

trivial (Damrosch 670). This is how cultural systems get established. Confucius preaches an

extension of filial piety resulting in hierarchy whereas Plato calls for Philosopher-Kings to rule,

establish the conformations of their societies, and to prevent conflict. Another important self-

imposed institution is the politic—those who control the controllable progression mentioned in

the introduction. But again, with dependence on enforcement or ritual by others, self-mastery is

not achieved and a self-imposed barrier of a truer reality diverges, limiting civilizations from any

further capabilities.

This can be related to contemporary issues as well. Wars occur because of differences in

the perceptions of reality—realities that are self-imposed to homogenize a social system that is

designed or evolved to maintain order. Random crimes occur when the higher officials persecute

those who corrupt that order based on their guidelines only. But free will—the other half of the
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innate tendencies humans adapted to have in order to survive—is not ordered, it’s a random

distribution of options called freedom of dignity. The universe tends toward increasing entropy,

or disorder, and thus free-will is the natural flow, not determinism. Free-will developed from

self-awareness, and a universe flowing with free-will from self-awareness could resemble a God

or whatever a religion calls their divine figure. Augustine discusses what God may be: an

overflow of life—a force of tendencies to survive, including free-will—encompassing everything

entirely (Damrosch 849-53). This is similar to views of the New Age which has taken a foothold

in many communities today. This goes full circle here though because complete chaos is unstable

socially, economically, politically, and morally. That is why there will always be limitations to a

civilization seeking progression. A community can respect each other, have peaceful gatherings,

and never need to purge; though because nature has its own obstacles, despite any defeat of

human obstacles, and survival is the natural tendency, the two will always conflict—that is what

keeps everything in motion.

Works Cited
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Damrosch, David. "Augustine: Confessions." Longman anthology of world literature + new

myliteraturelab: compact edition.. S.l.: Longman, 2013. 846-879. Print.

Damrosch, David. "Confucius: The Analects." Longman anthology of world literature + new

myliteraturelab: compact edition.. S.l.: Longman, 2013. 667-681. Print.

Damrosch, David. "Sophocles: Oedipus the King." Longman anthology of world literature +

new myliteraturelab: compact edition.. S.l.: Longman, 2013. 500-538. Print.

Girard, René. "What is a Myth?." The Scapegoat. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

1986. 24-31. pdf.

Hamilton, Edith, and Huntington Cairns. “ Republic VII.” Plato: Collected dialogues of Plato.

Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Random House, 1963. 747-752. pdf.