Waiting for Death

Once talking with my mom I told her that if I ever get alzheimer’s or start losing my mind,  I just want someone to shoot me. But when I thought about it more, I can’t really deny that death scares me. I think, even with religion, death scares people to some point. Which is why when we are in wheelchairs and slowly losing our mind and bodies, we still want to be alive. There may not be a reason in the grand scheme of things, but we don’t want to miss anything. Even with religion to lean on, even a pastor mourns when a loved one is gone, partly because they can’t enjoy that persons presence anymore, but because nothing after life is really guaranteed; humans don’t really know what will happen. Thinking about the Eskimos or Native Americans walking off once they reach a certain age kind of represents death because you know they are leaving to somewhere else, but you just don’t know where. Despite all this, we do love our grandparents, and great grandparents, and are happy to have them. But we cannot deny the burden they are, but everyone is a burden to a point. Even though I promised myself I won’t die until I reach 100, I don’t want my death to just be a relief to those around me. 

Lecture and The Book

Today in class one of the things that we discussed was how Dostoyevsky and many others view being old as a burden. It is not a burden on the person who is aging but on those around them. However, I sort of have to disagree with him that it is bad to be aging and negative on those around you. Some of the students in class today acknowledged that when their grandparents got older, their parents started to have to take care of them. In my opinion, isn't this just paying them back for all the years that they took care of your parents? Taking care of your parents when they are at an older age (probably will be for 3-7 years) is the least you can do considering the fact that they cared for you and took care of you for 18+ years.

thursday blog

I've always been conscious of the idea that we are the most important people to ourselves. I have always acknowledged that. But the example of telling/asking your friend about the christmas break really ended up standing out most to me. I noticed it in myself countlessly, but never really came to terms with myself about it, as I thought that I was one of the few to actually notice that within ourselves. The idea that we care about ourselves has been growing on me quite a bit today. I found myself questioning why I did everything that I did today. To me, this is a clear contradiction to the way religion and society is presented to us. They promote sincerity, contribution to others, and the idea that selfishness is inherently evil. Moreover, I believe that the reason why Dostoyevsky emphasizes so much on the contradictions of the underground man is to parallel the contradictions in our society. We are inherently selfish, adaptive creatures.

The underground man says that although people tell him that he should leave Petersburg, he stays. He knows that he should leave (because he's a burden), but chooses to stay because he wants to make the point to the reader that we are selfish. To me, Petersburg in the book is a direct parallel to Earth and our society. He says that he knows that he needs to leave Petersburg (Earth), but that he stays anyways. He is expressing the idea that after 40, we should just leave, but can't because society is a contradiction.

Thursday Post

Today we discussed how Dostoevsky’s work is influence by Darwin and his theory of evolution. This influence was expressed in a passage from Notes from the Underground that claimed how living beyond a certain age is “bad manners” and “vulgar”. People who live longer then 40 are “fools” and “useless”. We discussed how evolutionarily the eldest and weakest perish because of natural selection, but because of modern medicine and moral ethics, a lot of money and resources are diverted from today’s strong and healthy youth to the same weak and older people that natural selection would have gotten rid of.  We talked about how the elderly, sick and mentally handicapped are a burden on society. While in a logical and evolutionary sense this maybe true, I am morally obligated to disagree. I think these people who “burden” our society also makes us better. The elderly provide wisdom, guidance, and experience. Mentally handicapped people provide many healthy and strong indivduals with a certain unconditionally love that can come from nowhere else.  Maybe these people seem ‘”dispensable” to those who have never experience the love or guidance that comes from these people, they might not understand, but those who have will understand that these people often make the world a kinder place. I think they give civilization a type of compassion, respect, and genuine loving community that perhaps would be impossible without them.

thursday

Wendell Pfeffer

1/30/14

            Now that I am really beginning to understand the novel I’m really starting to like it now. We discussed in class Dostoyevsky’s idea that an intelligent man cannot be successful only a stupid man can. I now understand this perfectly because Dostoyevsky relates this back to himself and his intelligence. He has such a high IQ that he can see both sides with clarity and thus cannot choose what path to take in life. While those people like us only choose one side or the other and once you choose that specific side you shut the other one out completely – Dostoyevsky cannot do that. Dostoyevsky also contemplates about his age and states that people who live beyond that age are “fools and worthless fellows.” When I was reading I thought he wrote this because he is too old and is not satisfied with his life or maybe he was just complaining how he never took the bold daring chance to become successful, which is why he his hating on himself. But no, now I know the meaning behind what he says. Dostoyevsky relates this back to Darwin’s theory of evolution and the circle of life. I can most easily relate this back to wild life or a herd of lions. If, perhaps, a member of the pack becomes to old to progress through the wild then all of the members of the pack leave it to die alone. The reason behind this is that they cannot have a member place a burden on the whole pack. So instead of taking care of the sick old member they leave it to die, which creates a stronger pack. Dostoyevsky relates this same idea with humans. If a person gets to old then the best choice would be for them to die because they become completely useless. Unfortunately, instead of allowing these sick old people to die quickly we are inventing ways to keep them alive which is a costly thing to do. The government should be pouring money into the new young generation, but they are diverting that money to the elderly and the result of that is we are getting weaker, slower, less powerful etc.

Analysis Day 2 Reaction

During today’s lecture we spoke about the underground man’s belief that living after forty is “vulgar” and “bad manners.” The rest of the class had an interpretation of this much like mine; once man has hit forty, (in that time, as the age of forty is what we would now view as the age of 60 or 70), they do not contribute to society in any way and simply take up space. From a logical and objective point of view, once a person becomes old, they have no more use in society and do actually require money and care, yet they do not do anything to provide and improve our society. Though this all makes sense, the reason we keep these people alive is because of our emotional attachments, and it is because of this that the elderly will forever remain a part of our society. Man is incapable of being fully logical with no emotionally driven actions and opinions. The underground man’s battle between rationality and emotion is an accurate representation of the struggle that humans endure during their management of society 

Thursday Post

      During our class discussion, we related the underground mans theory on aging to the "circle of life" we discussed earlier in the year. The underground man states that living past forty years old is vulgar, rude, and immoral. The reasoning behind his statement has to do with the idea that once you grow old to the point that you can no longer work or support yourself, you become a burden on society. The old people incapable of contributing to society use up resources and money without giving anything back in return. In yesterdays discussion we argued that the underground man is an inactive man do to the fact that his ability to see with clarity keeps him from making any decisions. The underground man claims that he will live past forty, but if he is inactive and unable to make any decisions and become a successful man, he isn't contributing to society either. He is technically another body in the mass using up resources and watching society from the undergrounds.

Selfishness

                During today’s discussion, the point we made as a class that humans are selfish by nature really stuck in my head. Although I agree completely that all we do is in one way or another for our own benefit, we do not always get mad if people do better than us. In other words, when speaking about how one feels when they receive a lower grade on a test than the person next to them, they tend to feel anger or jealousy. This is very accurate, except I think it depends on who the other person receiving a better grade is. If a friend of mine does better than me on a test, obviously I would have liked to do as good as or even better than him, but I would not be mad at him for doing so, in fact I would be happy for him. I think that everything we discuss in class can be interpreted differently depending on perspective due to the fact that we all have different opinions on different subjects. Not to mention, I do think that the elderly, are in some way a burden to society because they are not giving back. As cruel as it seems, they are just taking up space. Even though one would think it would be better to let them all die or get rid of them, it is a touchy subject for everyone because, at least for me, I would do absolutely anything for my grandparents. 

NFTU 2nd Discussion Day

Today was my first turn and it was not bad at all like I expected. I was actually happy because an idea from the recent paragraph lead me to create my ideas and conclusion for the next paragraph, which, I guess, is the whole purpose of what we’re even doing. I was actually happy to see how insightful it is to discuss the paragraphs as a class because I would have never been able to deduce the correlation between the dying cats and the old men by myself. I also agree with everything we’ve been saying, and this might sound harsh, but in a way, the elderly are the “scum” of society, (sadly including my own grandparents) unless they provide something for society. This problem will never be fixed because human compassion is not going to let us just kill off anyone who is a burden for society. We won’t let other hurt our loved ones and we must be really determined to rid society of them to actually do something to them. This will get even worse when the life expectancy increases and we have even more people in retirement homes and doing nothing but sitting around.

Thursday

We continued our discussion today, and the further that we continue diving into this work, the more I am coming to the realization that this author is splendidly intelligent in the comments that he is able to make. Today, the theme of our discussion revolved around something that we have discussed before in the Kafka lecture. Vero compared these few paragraphs to the themes discussed in The Penal Colony. The author stated that it was immoral to live beyond forty. He seems to have said this because he is so intelligent that he is able to see, with clarity, what role the elderly truly play in society. He seems to believe that they are nothing but a burden and funnel resources that ought to be used for the young for their own purpose. Granted, all society does this because we all know that, someday, these elderly people will be us. 

Evolution

I'm enjoying the fact that when I first read this book, I only scratched it on the surface and thought I had it all figured out, but upon further discussion, I realized I wasn't even close. 

"To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral." I didn't think much of this line but relating it to Darwin's Evolutionary Theory actually makes perfect sense. Although it sounds harsh, it is true that those who live to become old and incapable of serving a purpose to society, do essentially become a burden (although I doubt that the marking point would be age 40). We discussed in class about how in animals, the weakest link in a pack gets killed off because they are the least capable to survive, and if you look at human society logically, it would make sense that spending so much money on life support and medicine for those who can't even contribute is a waist of time. However, you can't look at human society the same as you would animals; there are other factors. Humans are obviously more sentimental and emotional than animals so having your mother, father, brother, sister, in a hospital bed wouldn't make you the happiest person in the world. Due to our own selfishness (which some people will never admit that saving someone else is for their own benefit) we keep them alive and drain money for keeping a vegetables heart beating. Even when it is you yourself who are dying, and you know, deep down in your heart that you are becoming a burden to those around you, you won't be able to just walk off into the distance until you die. You find yourself to be too important. 

Thursday Post

I have live most of my high school life with the mentality that I am the most important person for myself. It is true, it is true for all of us and we can't deny it. As much as we refuse to accept it, we are inherently selfish individuals, and that is what Fyodor is portraying in part 1 so far.

When he says to live beyond forty is "bad manners, is vulgar, immoral", he is basically part of that group since he is forty! However, due to his inherent feeling of being the most important, he does not want to admit to it, and will live on for much longer. This shows how the human mind works.

Whenever one has to answer or respond to a situation that has negative connotations to it and it deals with other people other than himself, he has the ability to allow them to be punished, suffer, or blamed for doing something wrong. On the other hand, if it has to do with himself, it is a complete different story.

Be the most important person to yourself, and stand by and protect your life since everybody else is doing the same.

Survival and Seclusion

            Today in class we touched more on the Underground Man’s views on living past forty. In the context of the book, the man is saying that if one is to live past forty, he or she is a burden on society.  The man wants to live past forty solely to be a burden to his society. He wants his society to suffer as much as he has the majority of hi life. When we compared our society today to animals and to the Native Americans, it was strange to think that we have detached ourselves from natural selection and survival of the fittest. As Mr. Shapiro said, we fight against ourselves to protect ourselves. Even though we want world peace we still have wars. These wars are due to our faith in religion. After our discussion in class, I realized that religion is just our way of having an excuse not to do something. When doctors and health care professionals state the oath at graduation, they are promising not to take away the life of someone even if they themselves want to die since we perceive it as inhuman.  In way, it makes the human race seem cowardly and selfish. We do want anyone to die at our hands but if they themselves want take their own lives, and we as group contribute to their self hatred and loneliness, we do not want to say we were involved with that situation because we do not want to believe that we could be that cruel.

            We also touched on the fact that the man views himself as higher than everyone else but yet views himself as a mouse, which is lower than a human. He compares himself to a mouse because, like a mouse, he was ridiculed by others, taunted, and forced to live by himself. He does not have anyone to comfort him. He lives on his own and cares for only himself. The man listens but does not utter a word out of fear, the same way a mouse only leaves his hole at night and avoids any direct contact with any other living thing.

Reaction

In class, we talked about humanity’s current deviation from Darwin’s theory of evolution and our innate behavior to make ourselves more important than others. The story about the 8 year old boy who saved several people from a burning building and died while attempting to save more people was really bittersweet. It supports the idea that our perspectives become tainted as we become more experienced and we lose clarity yet it contrasts Dostoyevsky’s idea that we favor ourselves over others. Maybe this boy is like the men who choose a path rather than consider both sides of a conflict. He devotes his life to a threatening decision while there were safer options available. Where would society be without the men of purpose and action who the narrator seems to despise? I think that the narrator lacks bravery and respect for individual differences because he is so obsessed with what he thinks, which in turn returns us to the idea that we consider ourselves more important than others. 

Darwin and Dostoyevsky

The paragraph about the forty years of age makes much more sense now. Though I had related it to the season and the circle of life, I see that it was not related to that circle of life but rather the evolutionary circle of life. After a certain age, in Dostoyevsky's time about 40 years, your body is no longer able to function in the same way it once did. Without these functions you are not able to contribute to society as much as others or as much as you once did. You are essentially rendered incapacitated and worthless. All you are really doing is eating up tax dollars that could be going into educating the youth, the people that are actually worth something in this world. You are a fool to live anymore than forty because you cannot really do anything useful. You take up space, but since we are humans we believe that that is the reasonable thing to do because x,y, and z has taught us it is what you do. 

I thought it was really interesting how Dostoyevsky's work strongly reflects Darwin's theory of evolution in this section of the novel. It is nice to see how the different things that you learn about in school are related and/or influenced by one another.

 The sentence that Dostoyevsky writes about s being the most enjoyable things for ourselves to talk about is extremely accurate. We essentially "pay attention" to what other people say but care only about what we say. Nevertheless, I do not see anything wrong with this type of mentality. Though to day we would call it narcissistic and selfish, both terms with a negative connotation, I think it is just the way of life. If you do not care about yourself first and foremost you are going to lose and you will die. To care about yourself is to care about your survival. If everyone cares about themselves and solely themselves through nature only the fittest will survive. 

- Talia Akerman 

Number 6

Overall, this is the type of book where its ideas are thought provoking even when you’re done.  I feel like part two was just an example of how it was living with the effects of the disease of consciousness explained in part 1. With the amount of information Dostoevsky covered in such a short amount of pages is surprising because it seems like some of these topics are never ending, or can continued being thought of in multiple ways. The way the narrator planned out his interactions with the public, especially in deciding whether to move when walking past the officer, completely reminded me of Crime and Punishment. I feel like the whole time Raskolnikov secluded from human interaction, he was meticulously planning out the murder. Every question I have from Raskolnikov’s character I feel like could be answered from NFTU. It’s almost a paradox because I feel like Dostoevsky  defines human character by explaining that it cannot be defined or categorized in any one way. 

Wednseday post

I do understand what Fyodor is attempting to prove by saying that one is limited when active.One who follows the basic pathway of life and takes an option between life in a county has to live and is stuck with the limits society places on that pathway he/she has chosen to be part of. A characterless man is one who he free from society and free to do whatever he wants since it is impossible for him to choose between two options as he sees reason in both with equal and perfect clarity.   When one sees clarity and equality in everything in life, he stands motionless forever, unable to take any action, opinion or side in life, hence a characterless person who is considered smart by Fyodor. However, how is that person considered smart if she does nothing and is not responsible for anything in society? In my opinion, one who is successful and intelligent is that who can make a change for the better in society and has a direct impact on it with his actions.

Wednesday Blog

Wendell Pfeffer

1/29/14

            It was interesting to see different peoples ideas on the paragraphs we discussed today in class. Not only did it give me in insight, but now I understand why Dostoyevsky struggles so much within society and success. He is a brilliant man, yet he is too intelligent for people within his society. He is considered a genius among many of us, but those kind of people struggle within society and thus is one of the many reasons that it is hard for them to become successful. Dostoyevsky even states in one the paragraphs that we discussed in class that only stupid men can be successful like Zerkov who was discussed in part 2. Its not that they are stupid it’s just that they are able to interact well within society. We even discussed this notion in one of shaps lecture that those people with 160 IQ and above don’t interact well with people that have lower IQ’s. While those people who we consider successful within our society (have an IQ of about 130) and interact well with other people that have lower IQ’s then them. Another interesting idea was about his illness with his liver and a problem visiting his doctor. This was the first paragraph and when I was reading it I had such a hard time figuring out what the meaning behind this paragraph was. At the time all I knew was that he was contradicting himself, but later I learned that he was just not going to go because he wanted to be somewhat a little shit. Maybe he did it to piss someone off who knows, but the closest way I can relate to this is if my parents want to take me to the doctor and I just say no just to inflict pain on them.