Death of Hypatia®

Author: Death of Hypatia Inc.

  • Know Thyself Post #81

    Know Thyself through your Birthday:

    What day of the week were you born on?

    Mine was a Monday, or per Greco-Roman, the ‘day of the moon’.  Here are the meanings of the other days per Wikipedia: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

    Did you know:

    • the month you were born has a tie back to a Greek god?
    • Besides a birthstone, each month also has a flower and two zodiac signs?
    • The zodiac for your birthday has a symbol (usually an animal), constellation, element (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water), a sign ruler, a Detriment, an Exaltation and a Fall?

    I share my birthday with one of my favorite historic humans of all time. But my birthday also shares the day with many bad moments including, in my opinion, a Death of Hypatia moment.

    What do YOU know about your birthday?

     … more “Know Thyself Post #81”

  • WIBCI Post #80

    WIBCI we had roasts instead of debates before elections?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If when choosing between candidates, you could base it on how well they performed in, reacted to, and came off in their own roast?

    Think about it:

    • You would be able to find out if the candidates had a sense a humor?
    • You would get to see how they handled being purposely insulted by the best, professional comics of the day, live on camera, and to be rebroadcast relentlessly.
    • You would get to see if they could laugh at themselves.
    • You could judge whether the on-camera reaction was genuine or differed greatly from that which you imagine happened off-camera. Aka are they phony?
    • When they spoke, you could tell if they were in touch with pop culture, current events, and public opinion.
    • You could judge how articulate, smooth, quick, and witty they were?
    • Most importantly, you could see if they were funny.

    To me, that information is of more valuable than canned campaign promises and mud-slinging.

     

    Pick someone in government, alive or dead, and imagine how they would perform/react in their own televised roast.

    Gandhi and Honest Abe would slay…..Hitler, not so much.

     … more “WIBCI Post #80”

  • Know Thyself Post #80

    Know Thyself through PHILOSOPHY:

    Failure to cultivate virtue, failure to ponder what I have learned, inability to stand up for what I know is right, inability to reform my defects, these are the things that worry me.

    -Confucius

     

    Can you teach virtue? This was the question posed in a lecture by Daniel N. Robinson Ph.D. Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University in the video – The Great Ideas of Philosophy S1E9: Can Virtue be Taught?

     At the conclusion of the lecture, the answer to this conundrum was…. depends.

    His position is that some people are predisposed and therefore able to learn virtue or proper conduct, but some people cannot. No matter how many acts of selflessness/courage shown to them, they don’t learn the lessons within them; they just don’t get it. He likened it to playing a variety of symphonies to someone who cannot hear.

    “…not all are ready for it, and many are never going to be ready at any age. The students for this instruction must have already been prepared by the right sort of nature, at the right stage in life. Then indeed you might find within such persons something that will resonate when a virtuous act presents itself… you cannot present … actions that are, indeed, understood to be virtuous actions but presented to a person whose soul has been so corrupted… The point is: This is a two-way street. It’s not just a matter of holding up something. You’ve got to know who is on the witnessing side of this example and if it’s the wrong sort, no number of examples will get through to it.”

    To further stress this point, there is the discussion of Protagoras’ maxim ‘Man is the measure of all things’. SIDE NOTE: the actual quote from Protagoras is: “Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not” which explains the abbreviation and, no offense to Protagoras, sounds more like something I would hear at 3am in a dorm room with a black light than from a great Greek philosopher and rhetorical theorist. Professor Robinson goes on to poke a considerable hole in this condensed maxim, in the vein of…You can’t possibly mean ALL men?!

    “Why not just say: ‘I will act according to my caprice. I will do things that please me, and the reason I’m going to pay any attention to you at all is because you might be in a position to undo me, etc., etc. I’ll play the game in such a way as to keep you distracted, or keep you at arm’s length, but I say, at the end of the day, it’s my game that counts, and if that means you lose, so much the worse for you?’ – After all, if man is the measure of all things, then that becomes one acceptable answer to the problem of conduct. The way we solve the problem of conduct is for everybody to solve it for himself.”…

    Professor Robinson goes on to say verbatim what Socrates’ reply was when asked what he thought of this maxim. Socrates’ retort is over my head, but the professor sums it up as follows:

    “At the end of the day, the problem of conduct is a problem of principle, and if the principle is right, the principle is universally right. It is not tarnished nor is it reduced to something else by the mere showing that large numbers of persons don’t embrace it…No. Each man is not the measure of all things. There is a measure of things, and it is the task of the individual to come up with the means by which to understand that measure and apply it properly.”

    What do YOU think? Who do YOU consider virtuous?… more “Know Thyself Post #80”

  • WIBCI Post #79

    WIBCI we supported FREE PRESS?

    On 10/1 all Federal funding will end for Public Broadcasting.

    We are better because of PBS.

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If our government thought so?

    Maybe millions of people with little wallets and/or hundreds of people with big wallets will pick up the slack, but it would be cooler if we didn’t have to.… more “WIBCI Post #79”

  • Know Thyself Post #79

    Know Thyself through QUESTIONS:

    Have you ever noticed that there are some people that when you speak to them, they don’t ask you many questions? Perhaps an insincere ‘How are you?’, but no follow ups, no scoping out further details, no deep diving examination?

    Have you ever noticed that when some people ask you questions it does not seem to be because they wish to know what YOU think, but more for them to tee up a flaw with your baited answer?

    Next time someone asks YOU a question, see if you believe they are asking because they want to know what YOU think?

    Next time YOU ask some a question, ask yourself the same.

     … more “Know Thyself Post #79”

  • WIBCI Post #78

    WIBCI Questions were more honest?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If instead of someone asking you a question as if they wished to know what you thought on the subject, when they were really goading you into saying something they are prepared to dismiss with great flourish, they actually gave insight into what they really thought?

    Like if Person A, instead of baiting Person B said: ‘I hear this argument all the time that _____ is _____ but I believe this argument is flawed because of _____. What do you think?

    Person A has jumped to the punchline and it may not be as rewarding as a contradictory and/or condescending retort, but Person A might actually learn something about what Person B thinks and this could add to Person A’s knowledge on the subject. If Person A didn’t want to learn, don’t ask.… more “WIBCI Post #78”

  • Know Thyself Post #78

    Know Thyself through THE 1ST AMMENDMENT:

    The cable package that I pay for monthly carries a separate charge for a ‘news’ channel that I do not care for and only watch occasionally to see arguments from another POV. I do not like HAVING to pay for this channel, but there is no way around it. It is there and I choose when I watch it and I know myself enough to call a duck a duck.

    Recently a late night show host was pulled from the air because the network was pressured by the administration. The network came to its senses and reinstated the show in its lineup. But, over 20% of the country cannot see this show. This was decided for them by the network. These people can no longer choose what they wish to watch because their local affiliates decided for them. These public broadcasting outlets have decided what information the people that live in these areas can see and hear.

    What do YOU think?

     … more “Know Thyself Post #78”

  • WIBCI Post #77

    WIBCI we noticed acts of POLITICS?:

    COWARD (Webster): /kou-erd/n/: a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.; a timid or easily intimidated person.

    DICTATOR (Wikipedia):/dik-tey-ter/n/: In modern usage, the term dictator is generally used to describe a leader who holds or abuses an extraordinary amount of personal power.

    CULT of PERSONALITY: /kuhlt/uv/pur-suh–nal-I-tee/n/: is the result of an effort which is made to create an idealized and heroic image of an admirable leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Historically, it has been developed through techniques such as the manipulation of the mass media, the dissemination of propaganda, the staging of spectacles, the manipulation of the arts, the instilling of patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established through the use of modern social engineering techniques, it is usually established by the state or the party in one-party states and dominant-party states. Cults of personality often accompany the leaders of totalitarian or authoritarian governments. They can also be seen in some monarchies, theocracies, failed democracies, and even in liberal democracies.

    • Juan Peron, 3 time elected President and arguably, dictator, of Argentina, built a personality cult around he and his wife, whose effects are still felt in Argentinian culture today. This dictator should his cowardice, in part, best put by Wikipedia: He often showed contempt for any opponents, regularly characterizing them as traitors and agents of foreign powers. Those who did not fall in line or were perceived as a threat to Perón’s political power were subject to losing their jobs, threats, violence and harassment.
    • Mussolini exhibited his cowardice by instructing the press what to write and what not to write about the fascist.
    • One of Hitler’s initial task of cowardice after assuming power in Germany was to extinguish all rights of the German Press.
    • US government showed its when it defunded PBS and pressured TV networks to silence….. comics?!
    … more “WIBCI Post #77”

  • Know Thyself Post #77

    Know Thyself through LITERATURE:

    Think about the following quote:

    Which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for others and how selfish our love is?

    – William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

    Think about someone you truly love.

    Is vanity there?

    Is there an aspect of selfishness?… more “Know Thyself Post #77”

  • WIBCI Post #76

    WIBCI we knew more of our LITERARY HISTORY?

    In Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller there was the following quote that struck me. It struck me because it made me realize I didn’t know anything about Walt Whitman which started this cool stream of consciousness/domino effect which I will continue after the quote…

    Often we sat by the fire drinking hot toddies and discussing the life back there in The States. We talked about it as if we never expected to go back there again. Filmore had a map of New York City which he had tacked on the wall. We used to spend whole evenings discussing the relative virtues of Paris and New York. And inevitably, there always crept into our discussions the figure of Whitman. That one lone figure that America has produced in the course of her brief life. In Whitman the whole American scene comes to life; her past and her future, her birth and her death. Whatever there is of value in America, Whitman has expressed; and there is nothing more to be said. The future belongs to the machine, to the robots. He was the poet of the body, and the soul, Whitman. The first and the last poet. He is almost undecipherable today; a monument covered with crude hieroglyphs for which there is no key. It seems strange to almost mention his name over here; there is no equivalent here in the languages of Europe for the spirit which he immortalized.

    So the realization ‘I don’t know anything about Whitman’ started me off…..

    Here is what I learned:

    1. I don’t know anything about Walt Whitman
    2. I should get over my ill founded dread of poetry and try to read Leaves of Grass
    3. Whitman wrote a novel in 1852 called The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle. BUT according to the Audible title description: No one laid eyes on it until 2016, when literary scholar Zachary Turpin, at the University of Houston, followed a paper trail deep into the Library of Congress, where the sole surviving copy of Jack Engle has lain waiting for generations.
    4. He was pro-temperance and anti-slavery
    5. He believed that Shakespeare did NOT write all that is attributed to Shakespeare
    6. (Wikipedia) Whitman’s poem “I Sing the Body Electric” (1855) was used by Ray Bradbury as the title of a short story and a short story collection. Bradbury’s story was adapted for the Twilight Zone episode of May 18, 1962, in which a bereaved family buys a made-to-order robot grandmother to forever love and serve the family.
    7. He was a ‘major figure’ in Transcendentalism which according to Wikipedia is on the first philosophical currents that emerged in the US and is considered: a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the New England region of the United States. A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, people are at their best when truly “self-reliant” and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday. They thought of physical and spiritual phenomena as part of dynamic processes rather than discrete entities.

    I kinda dig when something I don’t know, begets something, that begets something, that begets something.… more “WIBCI Post #76”

  • Know Thyself Post #76

    Know Thyself through POLITICS:

    Know when your freedoms are being taken away.

    (Wikipedia):

    “In Mills v. Alabama (1943) the Supreme Court laid out the purpose of the free press clause: … there is practically universal agreement that a major purpose of [the First Amendment] was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs. … the press serves and was designed to serve as a powerful antidote to any abuses of power by governmental officials, and as a constitutionally chosen means for keeping officials elected by the people responsible to all the people whom they were selected to serve.”… more “Know Thyself Post #76”

  • WIBCI Post #75

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If: WIBCI: we learned from LITERATURE?:

    Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray follows the lives of the anti-heroine Becky Sharp and milky vanilla Amelia Sedley  during and after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. This biting portrayal of early 19th century British society only sits in the backseat to the snarky presence of the omniscient author, and the titillating immorality of almost all its characters.
    Below comes from Vanity Fair  and is a line I initially blew off as filler, but after I thought about it, I believe Thackeray meant more:

    When a traveler talks to you perpetually about the splendor of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my son, beware of that traveler, he is, 10 to 1, an imposter.

     

    At first I thought this was literally about traveling and luggage. But now I think it is more like this: if you communicate with someone whom persistently talks about the wonderful things they have and do, wonderful things that are never present, a person who says a lot of pretty words with no substance, no proof – ask yourself if they are compensating for something. Good people are just good people and often don’t need to lead with this, or pre-empt any discovery of such a personality trait that you might make on your own.  I think it is a cautionary tale, telling us to be wary of people who talk as though they are marvelous rather than showing you they are marvelous by just being marvelous.

    What do YOU think?… more “WIBCI Post #75”

  • Know Thyself Post #75

    Know Thyself through 1980’s POLITICAL satire:

    I saw an old SNL Weekend Update from 1988. Dennis Miller was solo at the desk with a banging mullet and making snarky jokes per the upcoming 1988 Presidential election between George Bush (senior) and Michael Dukakis. One particular quip struck me as timely:

    ‘You know I don’t even think the Presidential system works anymore, I’m advocating a new system, the volleyball-tocracy, we elect six men, one of them serves until he screws up, they rotate, and somebody else takes it for awhile.’

    I know this was said in 1988, but not bad….six guys trying to one up each other, probably better checks and balances than we have right now, no? Thoughts?… more “Know Thyself Post #75”

  • WIBCI Post #74

    WIBCI if we learned from LITERATURE?

    I re-watched the 2016 movie Love and Friendship staring Kate Beckinsale recently. This movie is based on Jane Austen’s epistolary novel Lady Susan. An epistolary novel is a story solely consisting of letters between characters, and this one is basically an 18th century satirical rom/com. In the movie, at the end there was the particular mention 0f one of the 10 Commandments; Thou shall not bear false witness. Why was this in the script? I like when there is a little unformed seeds that are dropped in movies, a thin Ariadne’s thread that not everyone notices.

    Wikipedia describes the 10 Commandments as: ‘religious and ethical directives. The canon ‘To Bear False Witness’ in particular, is described as ‘widely understood as (a) moral imperative in Judaism and Christianity‘. This is the commandment against false testimony, and further defined as:

    ‘Offenses against the truth express(ed) by word or deed, a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God, and in this sense, they undermine the foundations of (the) covenant with God.’

    Further down under the heading: ‘Ancient Understanding’ it says:

    ‘You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.’

    — Exodus 23:1-

    This explanation seems to make this commandment much broader than I first thought. The shall-not part about – ‘spreading a false report’, aka, voluntarily lying…. like almost everything on the internet? Spoiler alert for those that wish to get ahead in politics, breaking this one may be unavoidable. The shall-not part about – ‘join hands with a wicked man’….. for those that wish to get ahead in many appendages of the business world, breaking this one may be unavoidable. Don’t ‘join an evil group’, like what? A cult, most religions, or maybe upper management of any corporation? And no lying in the law?! I mean come on, this was obviously written a long time ago, lying seemingly happens all the time in courtrooms with little to no repercussions. You don’t even have to pay fines when found guilty anymore right?! Let me clarify; you don’t have to pay if you’re rich and/or infamous anymore right?!

    It seems rather difficult to not do this shall not…. So why was this Commandment so prominent in the film? The woman asking the priest about it at the end particularly disliked the woman to whom this question seemed to be concerning – Lady Susan (who was pregnant and the baby is NOT new husband’s). So…..was she asking because SHE wanted/did not want to spread a rumor about Lady Susan if it is offensive to God, OR, does she wish to know if she is beholden by this commandment to commit oneself to moral uprightness and therefore expose Lady Susan, OR, does she feel that some of her own conniving, albeit well intentioned, has broken this Commandment? I really don’t know which it is…what do YOU think?

     … more “WIBCI Post #74”

  • Know Thyself Post #74

    Know Thyself through Language

    Entmology /ET-im-OL-ə-jee/ n./: the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning across time.

    Language has always fascinated me. Words have little stories within them, if you know how to read them, or, if you notice them. I find I use words and phrases reflexively, sometimes without knowing the real meaning behind the words. I’m using them correctly, usually, but it is knee-jerk more than saying them because they fit the situation better than other words would. Or I’m so comfortable with a word that I didn’t notice there was a meaning there, often pretty obvious, that I had taken for granted.

    For instance: I love the movie Caddyshack but it wasn’t until I watched it last week for the, at least, 59th time, before I realized that the name ‘Caddyshack’ referred to the structure the caddies hang out at beyond the sight of the members of the gold club. It was just the name of the movie to me.

    I have used the phrase ‘Suffice it to say’ incorrectly….recently.

    I didn’t consider where the names of the months come from. I knew July was renamed in Julius Caesar’s honor after his death, and I knew Octavian, aka Augustus, named August after himself. But I didn’t know that Caligula, Nero, Domitian and Commodus named at least one month after themselves. These reboots didn’t stick as these men proved to be profoundly unpopular after they were murdered or committed suicide. Side note: Commodus renamed all 12 months after himself, the end of his reign was thought of as increasingly dictatorial, he created a personality cult or cult of the leader where he deified himself, and went so far as to perform as a gladiator in the Colosseum. Ironically at the age of 31, he was assassinated by a wrestler named….and I’m not making this up….Narcissus. Yeah history!

    I knew Benedict Arnold was a traitor, but not specifically what he was a traitor for, till I looked it up.

    Did you know that the word Jesus means Christ? So his name is Christ Christ. Repetitive, but spiced up with a synonym, like the 80’s band Mr. Mister.

    I thought I knew what being ‘Machiavellian’ meant….I didn’t.

    I’m going to keep noticing words/phrases that just tumble out with little to no known backstory, and learn about them.

    I like (knowing the) meaning (of) what I say.… more “Know Thyself Post #74”

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