Observations:

• The men (usually the defendants) are always trying to prove that they pay to support the child.
• When the mother attempts to get child support, the defendant says the money is for her.
• When the mother attempts to get custody, the defendant says its about the money, or trying to win her back.
• When a woman is filing for protection, the defendant says that its about the custody, or the money.

What I learned from my service learning:

Why can’t the defendants (men) stop trying to CONTROL women through 1) money and 2) their kids. I want to scream: YOU ARE THE PROBLEM HERE.

…and performing emotional labor all the time, sometime makes me feel that all the emotions i have towards people are fake.

The type of madness I find most compelling is the fourth kind, inspiration. What I glean from the meaning of the boy-philosopher relationship is that the boy learns from the mature one, and the mature one is invigorated. Its also dependent on knowledge that the boy and lover is not a permanent relationship — all these feelings, pain, release, pleasure, are temporary. It becomes hard to weave virtue and the pursuit of virtue into both a rhetorical analysis and a thoughtful discussion on love…. It’s a little overwhelming, much like Rachel said.

Similar to Heather’s mulling, I was intrigued by the conflicts between Aristotle’s, Socrates’s first, and Socrates’s ideal relationship. Socrates’s second speech deals with some of the grey area — I’ve been wondering for a while what is the state in-between the lovers and the friends. There are, for instance, “friends with benefits” or maybe those “who live in mutual friendship (though weaker than that of the philosophical pair)” (256c). This couple are constant  “while they are in love and after they have passed beyond it”. This contrasts with what we’ve read in Aristotle, that friendship only brews when people are equals and also begins to address how to explain the friendship that is the foundation for many love-relationships. At 256e Socrates even goes to say that “a non-lover’s companionship…is diluted by human self-control” suggesting that love is not only inspiration, but may be a guide.

I had never thought of applying Phaedrus to rhetoric as explicitly Dr. McBride challenged us on Tuesday. Anyways, it seems that the passionate part of Socrates’s second speech is an example of how every good movie (and so it should be with any story) has tension and release. I’m not really sure how that could be applied to writing, although I’d guess something like the building of tension and the “climax” of a story. Phaedrus’s ignorance (at 258a)  about the difference between legislation and a speech demonstrates the difference between the smooth, building tension of Socrates’s stories and the disjointed way Phaedrus writes. Having had the opportunity to write legislation for USG I understand that the purpose of legislation is to be clear and supportive, not persuasive on an emotional level. It’s interesting to me that we expect politicians to do both — appeal to pathos and spout out legislation. I guess when devoted to the pleasurable part of writing only, that’s when one’s writing disintegrates.

Today’s practice at Lafayette went fairly well, despite my worry that teaching them about the health care debate would be too much for the 5th graders. They did great with the topic… we sort of eased them in to it, first by asking what they knew about health care and asking them who needs health care. While I think we were a little biased in favor of universal health care, I think it was inevitable because we need to establish why it is an issue in the first case, since the status quo is the opposition side. We didn’t get to the game we had planned, but we were so fortunate to have a strong flow of ideas that it was best not to interrupt the Muses!

In Phaedrus, we watch Socrates and Phaedrus flirt under the tree, supposedly giving speeches to one another. Its evident, though, that Socrates is not only trying to persuade Phaedrus, but lead Phaedrus away from whatever made him swoon for Lysias. The real test – is Socrates guided by his attempt to flirt with and persuade Phaedrus or is his aiming for some sort of truth?

If we take Phaedrus’s and Socrates’s speech at face value, well, there’s still a lot to discuss. But first, Aristotle. I think it’s appropriate to talk about friendship first because it’s the first non-familial relationships we have and what romantic relationships eventually become (at least in part).

Friends have to worry less about those mistakes because it affects a friend less so than a lover. This idea that you can be goofy and dumb in front of your friends (harmless faults in the long run) or run around and do silly stuff with your friends is addressed by Aristotle when he says, “We need not blush before them for doing what is conventionally wrong: as well as towards those before whom we should be ashamed to do anything really wrong” (1382a25). For once, I feel like the philosopher’s are making room for a moral middle ground, where things like getting drunk at Disney World is acceptable while cutting in the lines… maybe not. (Just going for some real world application.)

Aristotle makes it clear that competition between friends… is a recipe for disaster. It’s best to avoid the “potter against potter” relationship (1381a18). Being sentimental, about-to-graduate state right now, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes my Frisbee team work so well together. It goes back to this idea of “healthy competition”. What we compete for – winning tournaments – and the nature of the team sport encourages us to push each other to become better athletes. Whereas the potter against potter relationship doesn’t work because their living from the same source, an athlete’s source is herself… that was we can “desire the same things as we desire, if it is possible for us both to share them together” (1381a19). Sharing victory and sharing the credit is something our team does well… and it’s what makes our friendships maybe even virtuous.

Last Wednesday at Lafayette the kids were in a crazy mood. When we walked in and there were only four kids, I assumed that we were going to have it easy. I’ve been having a hard time trying to figure out why things were so rowdy with only four kids. Were we too disorganized? Was working one-on-one a bad thing? Was it the weather that was making them crazy? My hypothesis is that the group we had, which was constantly picking fights with one another, doesn’t seem themselves as a team. If we could reorient them towards the topics and showing them that they have a shared investment in helping each other get better at debate and at understanding the topic for a joint desire in doing well… essentially make them friends of utility and, by emphasizing respect, maybe even friends of pleasure… then we can have a good debate team.

I think that Heather is on to the purpose of Meno when she said that “knowing virtue comes from living it”. When Socrates differentiates between a good man and a good guide, he functionally cleaves what we can gather from knowledge (wisdom) and what we can only gain from nature (virtue). The good who are useful in guiding us then live out their nature. Backtracking, if we learn from someone who has/lives a virtuous nature we “recollect what (we) do not know”, which is different from this wisdom/knowledge based learning. It begins to get into this fuzzy part about whether people have a moral compass/soul. Even for those who are arguing for different definitions for virtue might consider where these personal definitions come from…. maybe we could use Meno to argue that the definition of virtue is personal, but constant.**

I got a little lost when Socrates spoke with Anytus and what the function/place of “true opinion” was in contrast to knowledge’s function/place. Let’s discuss this in class?

** Whoa. This does not reflect my education, which is focused on social constructions… although you might notice it leaks through…

These are the vibes I try to send out when I’m at the park! It’s just soo awesome when we all get out there and do our thing!

Part One »> <!— @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } —>

I wanted to follow-up on our discussion from the first part of Quintilian before addressing part two. While I participated in Drama and Speech competitions in high school, speaking aloud and performing was not the issue with my public speaking – it was was the discomfort of using my own words and making them available for critique and the difficulty in improvising a strong speech. Thus, I found it exciting that Quintilian in chapter 6 (and I forget where in Book 1) recommends students read Cicero and Demosthenes for the experience of declaiming. This way, “if the pupil is correct in public when he makes a mistake in declaiming” it is not their own probably faulty speech that would be corrected (307). The results are “more effective, and indeed pleasanter” (307). This sort of imitation is praised in 1.2 in regards to teaching literature for similar reasons: it’s important to have the best models for imitation to start anyways in addition to these more self-conscious reasons for employing others’ work for practice. I think this would be a great way to introduce some of our students, especially for any who are a little shy or are having trouble with the presentation part of it to ease their way into debate.

It’s also important to open up how we think of competition when dealing with the kids. Again, reflecting on my experiences, I am not particularly competitive with anyone but myself. Quintilian commentary on competition lends itself to supporting self-competition. In chapter 8, he speaks of how “some will be incapable of somethings; they must concentrate on what they can do”. He follows up with this idea that “diverting the pupil from what he can do best to something for which he is less well suited” should be avoided. Because these assertions follows his repeated belief that “Reason as [man’s] special gift” (375), it seems to me that Quintilian would support me in saying that an obsession with competition can distract someone from what they’re best at (323). Chapter 6 also makes it seem that self-confidence must be built up by a teacher. This goes and in hand with the concept of using other’s speeches first and working up to using their own material and being critiqued, reigned in, and supported to teach before being thrown into a forum where they are critique openly by judges and independently by peers.

Part 2 »»

What Quintilian discusses in chapter 11 seems to follow the lessons instilled as I went through my secondary education – there were smart kids and there were hardworking kids, and it was the kids who knew how to work (the smart, hardworking kids) who would really succeed. The man with a natural gift for speech would be the lazy, smart kid in high school. Segueing into chapter 12, I found it persuasive that rational method is more than accessory to good speaking (although the natural orator may treat it like it is). Rational method was the skillful practices that replaced strength. Vigor and strength these natural responses to things are much like the strength of someone who is naturally talented at speech – it can accomplish some (bursting open the door), but not as much as the one who is skilled (unlocking the door). While occasionally impressive, without being able to explain their position or delivering a speech in an indecent way one is not likely to attain success repeatedly or consistently (338-339).

I don’t believe that there is any conflict between these discussions of natural talent in Book 1 and Book 2. In book 1, honing the skills that someone expresses is the goal, as is the goal in book 2 with the orator. The best orator would be one who is taught well and has natural ability (could not find the specific line quote for this).

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I was reading through Rachel’s and Hannah’s posts anticipating the first day as tutors, I thought of chapter eight. What qualifies us to be tutors of rhetoric? In chapter eight, Quintilian considers whether employing a mediocre teacher to the earliest parts of rhetoric. He decides that although the mediocre teacher is easy to understand and to imitate, the best teacher should be employed because it is hard to “eradicate faults” (277) after bad habits have cemented because pupils reflect the teacher often times.

As chapter eight draws out what it means to be the best teacher, Quintilian recommends approaching students clearly, sensibly, and to never go “beyond what his companion can manage” (279). I don’t think we need to fear about any of us thinking that we will not “condescend to lesser matters” like teaching children, but I worry about my own understanding of eloquence (275, 277). I think Rachel’s reflection that “no one excels at big things who fails in small things” is on the right track … and can be flipped to read by focusing on small things we can work towards excelling in the larger goals. Not the same sentiment, but more reassuring than the idea that we’re novices and are going to ruin their understanding of debate.

Made cheesecake for the first time today… which was breakfast.

And mad a delicious sandwich too. Would’ve been better on something besides pita, but I don’t know if I could have fit spinach, tomato, sour cream, pepper jack cheese, and TURKEY BACON all in between two pieces of bread, :/