#6

Yesterday in class things got a little heated, I agreed with both sides of the arguement to an extent. What makes America great is that there are opportunities to better yourself, traditioanlly we have come from a generation who worked very hard and made sacrifices, and our paretns have certainly made sacrifices for us, should we feel bad about having two cars and a house that was worked hard for NO, but that does not mean screw everyone else. What we are doing is destructive and it will take time to transition, the best thing we can do is be aware of what we are doing. Unfortunately we can not sit on a moral high horse, though we would all like to, just because we recycle and are aware of environmental issues, I still use a computer, I still drive a car, live in a house, consume consume consume, though I am taking steps to cut back on it. Unfortunately we are trapped in our culture and assumed to live a certain lifestyle, If i could, I would love to live in a tree house and have a horse and wagon..you get the idea. but it is just not practical. Hopefully Obama will truly bring change for us to make it more practical for us to be more responsible world citizens. As for being perceived as American I have had neutral positive and negative encounters, we are not all screaming spoiled little MTV brats and not all foreigners judge individuals based on where they are from , I think that if everyone could just see and understand the individual, if more personal connections were made there would be less violence, terrorists do not act out out of nowhere, if your entire family was blown up in their sleep by somebody(america), if your town was destroyed, freinds dead, if you are lving in constant fear..who knows how you would feel, you might do something drastic...Im not saying it makes it OK but violence begets violence without a doubt and that needs to change.

#5

Our visit to the Holocaust Museum was beautiful, terrible and emotional. I thought a lot about how we make monuments and create experiences. The third floor was very touching, I thought it was such a beautiful way to bring life and joy to the faces of those who were murdered, depicting them as angels, the children were especially upsetting. The sweat and tears that must have gone into carving each portrait is a healing process somehow. Its a way to pay respect to countless victims. It is a way to materialize something that with time has become increasingly a memory, instead of a physical happening. The danger is when something becomes an idea, ideas can be forgot and to forget something is to condone it.

The qoute at the end by Wiesel was very powerful "For the dead and the living we must bear witness" Elie Wiesel has made it his personal responsiblity to share with the world, including eckerd college personally, his story. I respect and admire him with the outmost reverence. What he is trying to tell us is that, not only does he, as a survivor bear witness, but we, altough removed by time and space from the Holocaust, must bear witness, for him and all those lost. We must acknowledge and remember to honor the past and out future. We must witness the trauma becasue through this healing occurs. I found the Musuem, although extremely depressing, to give healing.

This is a link to website about remembrance and the importance of the past on the future

http://isurvived.org/Holocaust-definition.html

If we give into despair, if we are completely consumed by the trauma, if we become overwhelmed by the evil, then we will allow it to happen again, I think that that is how one has to come to terms with what they have seen, to hope for a better future in light of being unable to change to past. The best way to honor the dead, all that we can do for them, is to protect the present and future.

#4

"The place looked as if it had been hit by nerve gas. Everything was still and lifeless, even the people. The town could not talk and would not listen. “how would you like to hear about the war” he might have asked, but the place could only blink and shrug. It had no memory, and therefore no guilt."

I really liked this quote and the notion of memory and guilt, Vietnam was a war that Americans were ultimately notoriously against, as Norman said, it was not a good war for stories. It was a quagmire without a doubt. This idea of remembrance denotes a kind of fondness and sorrow for at the same time, and like Winter said, requires an effort. An effort that was not felt by all. This is a
great Rambo first blood sequence that better gets at what I am trying to point out with the readings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R7-KQwITN0&feature=PlayList&p=6D1A646891FD85C8&playnext=1&index=8

PTSD is also a major part of remembrance. The paring of childhood with war is very interesting, and the philosophy of romanticism which I experienced in the O'brien reading makes interesting parallels, as Norman repetitively drives by the two young boys, almost longing to regain something.
Freuds game of departure and return, what comes up must fall down, we are repetitively playing the came of here and gone in our minds, the motion of the hand is like our mind, our conscious, we bring thing back into our mind and then release them, and then bring them back up again, whether it be a traumatic event or a happy memory. The binaries of here and gone along with violence and glory seen to come together.

#3

This is a link to the trailer from Platoon, if you have not seen it in whole, I really recommend it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1A6S-B6cs

This is a link to the Pearl harbor trailer, interesting differences! are they different because of the times, the directors(I think so), or the wars that they portray? Or are they completely different stories all together that do not serve the same purpose. Is Pearl harbor and anti war film?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPBtP02yKc

In class we talked about how others trauma can be exploited in the media, for examples in movies. It was impossible to reach a consensus on what purpose war movies serve, certainly they are a part of history and help explore emotional identities. When we were discussing this I thought about who the movies were meant to be watched by, war veterans? history buffs? teenage boys with a thirst for blood and guts? average citizens with a curiosity for their past and the identity of their nation? I don't know, probably all of these. We talked about the difference between historically accurate movies and love stories and where we draw the line to discern our level of desire for destructive spectadorship. Is it a primal thrill or a cautionary, do we do it to re affirm good and evil? It could be a combination.

The Lessing discussion was interesting and the notion of being the black sheep. We don't really understand mob mentality but I am sure at one point or another we have fallen under its power. I thought about the case over thanksgiving where a Wal MArt employee was trampled to death, unspeakable and unbelievable. large groups have so much power and depending on the case they have the ability to commit great evil or do great good. This brings up the issue of who is the "they" in mobs is it so abstract ideal or phenomena, in the case of war, is it the commander, the country?

I enjoyed the Hemmingway reading and the discussion on coping and the things we do to "fix" ourself, like getting married. Things that society expects to us to fullfill, having a house, a stable job, raising a family. What really makes us happy? Is it our desire to conform what traps us and causes unhappiness, do we have to embrace "happy thoughts" how long can we do this before we realize that we may not be getting anywhere?I have been reading this book about Mayan shamanism and from reading Camus I took the notion of the "absurd" as Camus took it to be and used in my final for my philosophy of love and death class, this is a paragraphy from it:

The mundane and the extraordinary, the beautiful and the ugly, the joy and the sorrow all are encompassed by the absurd and these opposing forces must be accepted together, if not, we are overwhelmed and discouraged. By rejecting the less favorable aspects of the human condition in others and in ourselves there is an irreprehensible split in our souls that denies the very essence of the human condition and arguably leads to neurotic psychological distress and trauma of the psyche, leaving us in constant war with ourselves.

#2

I had never seen Life is Beautiful in its entirety before, I really enjoyed it. It shows the difference that one person can make, it shows how sacrifice is awarded. I think one of the most interesting parts of the movie is when guido is reunited with his old "friend" the doctor. He thought that he and his family would be helped but was devastated to realize how selfish the man was and that he only wanted help with a riddle and cared nothing about Guido and the fate of his family. I suppose they included that to show what institutions do to people and maybe help to explain how these atrocities happen, people whom seem kind are engulfed so easily by rhetoric and their mission. the same is seen in the women's bunkers with the guard who was so kind and after a day become the cruelest one. Maus is a two part series that tells the struggle of the authors father during the Holocaust. It is intriguing because it is crafted using the what his father told him about his experience but it is written by someone who did not "see" the war or experience it directly. It is a survivors and his sons story and I recommend it, it is an easy good read.

I really enjoyed the museum, it truly did stir up feelings of gratitude for what individuals were willing to risk. I do always agree with American policy,especially lately, but I am a patriot and am so grateful and proud for what has been done to protect myself and my past generations. I really enjoyed looking at the the displays with all the artifacts because I feel that they help to connect you to your past. My great grandfather fought in WW II, I never got to meet him but I keep the bag that was issued to him with his initials and the date. Being able to hold something that he held is an amazing feeling. I have a lot of love and respect for our solders in service now, and am awaiting the safe return of my friend and all others. Emotions aside, I found the rhetoric and advertising very interesting. Visual posters and such were the main forms of media and the images are chosen carefully to inspire patriotism, machismo and honor. They are all glorified. I was not surprised really that the museum was an American experience but I did enjoy that they did include artifacts and information about other countries. I included these patriotic pictures, I find the paralles in the first intriguing, the second controversial, and the third I beleive represents what we are fighting for and pure love of ones country, I dont beleive that it has an angle(the farm one).

I love Vonnegut , I read slaughterhouse 5 for the first time in high school. Something about it grabbed me, I would like to read more of his work. There is a great moment where Billy, instead of time traveling as usual, faces his pain head on. It is a beautiful moment of self awareness and acceptance. He is facing his biggest fears and by taking the pain, he is healing himself. His narrative is a constant battle between the past and present and dealing with trauma just like in caruth and Craig and Egan. Who are we really telling these stories to and why? Is it for ourselves, do we need to vocalize our thought? When are we ready to let it go? if ever?

#1

"His normally well-fed, relaxed and rosy cheecked face looked, not frightened or worried, but extraordinarily shocked. he wore the expression found on people who have died in an accident, in a matter of seconds, without having had time to be afraid or suffer. They would be reading a book or looking out of a car window, thinking about things, or making their way along a train to a restaurant car when, all of a sudden, there they were in hell" Nemirovsky

These two images to represent our identities before trauma and during. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the scream. The style of the two pieces , the color choices, the abstract and the realistic, I think that it shows the surrealism of traumatic events.

"It took the war to teach it, that you were as responsible for everything you saw as were for everything you did. The problem was that you didn't always know what you were seeing until later, maybe years later, that a lot of it never made it in at all, it just stayed there stored in your eyes." Herr, Dispatches

These images represent the isolation that one feels once the actual event is over, as in our readings we see that it is never over, and sometimes does not even begin until the event has past. this is trauma, whether it is experienced by an individual or a collection of individuals, there is an inescapable pain that leaves the person feeling alone. I found the quote very powerful because by saying that we are responsible for everything we do, as we are for what we see, it shows the power of trauma, it equalizes the actor and the observer. No one can escape catastrophe, no one is left unmoved.

This may be a stretch but when we talk about abject moments and the lapse I thought about soldiers returning from war. This two images represent to be a binary opposition of glory and valor and the horror and cruelty of what war also entails. On the right is the valiant solider, on the left is a painting of Saturn devouring his son by Goya. He was told that one of his offspring would overthrow him, and so ate his children. It is an eat or be eaten mentality, kill or be killed mentality that soldiers must adopt to be effective. The terrible image shows the grotesque, the hideousness of murder, and if you look in the eyes of Saturn I think that their is a shame and a terror in his eyes, a deep fear. I think it is impossible to reconcile what becomes a necessary evil, if there is such a thing.