Reflection on the Class

Once again another semester comes to a close. I have really enjoyed the class with Professor Wexler at the helm. This is the third time I have had a class in which Professor Wexler was the instructor. His classes are free flowing with thought and all are welcome to participate. I look forward to hearing what the other students are thinking. Sometimes the class debates, and other times it is as though we are all walking together down a pathway of discovery. I sometimes wonder if our class mentally ventures down pathways that have never been thought of before. I have had so many intellectually stimulating thoughts from these sessions that I never would have had if it weren’t for this class and I am thankful for the experience.

Babel Essay Final

Stephan Harder

Babel Essay Final

Professor Wexler

12.12.2012

Utopian Babel on a Global Scale

The movie Babel, which is directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, wrenches at the very fabric of humanity. The movie illustrates that even though human kind completely blankets the globe we are all threads stitched together to create an eclectic quilt of diverse colors, shapes, and ideas. The movie weaves a tale from far corners of the globe and brings four groups together through the barrel of a gun. The story follows the lives of four families from various cultures. The movie shows the viewpoint of each family allowing for those that watch the film to get a strong sense of the intricate emotions that take place between them. Many movies show us only one side of the story, allowing for the viewer to comfortably make judgments and choose the side that the author intended to be chosen. Babel is a tale that leaves the viewer to struggle with judgment. There are so many questions as to the responses made by the characters, the choices they made, and the punishments they received. The audience viewing these situations, as they unravel, is left to wonder about their own moral character: what choices they would have made and what they perceive as justice. Now more than ever we live in a global society. This is a world in which cultures swirl together to, not only reveal our similar humanistic traits and traditions, but also our immovable differences. Has the inevitable path to globalization enhanced our world or will it lead us to an unavoidable demise? Have we confused globalization as a necessary goal towards the achievement of a utopian society, or are we simply fools chasing after what can never be attained? By taking a closer analysis of the movie Babel, the meaning of utopia, and what it means to become a global society, a better understanding of this ever changing complex world we live in can be achieved.

As we watch the film it is not difficult to understand the emotions and experiences of this diverse list of characters. Each of the characters is in search of their own personal utopia. The American couple is in search of utopia in another land. A land, unknown to them, they are drawn to through curiosity and the desire to experience another world. They are fairly wealthy and have basically achieved what many may consider to be utopia. They have two children, a house, cars, they are Americans, and they have more freedoms than most in the world. They live at a level that many would hope for themselves. Perhaps this is why the couple has chosen to seek out other places on the globe: utopia never rests even once it is achieved. Utopia is complete satisfaction; however, one humanistic quality is that we seem to be geared in a way which never allows for us to be completely satisfied. We always want more things, love, knowledge, money, laughter, power, and the list goes on, and on. Utopia is a many sided undetermined shape that encapsulates every mental and physical state that a human experiences, needs, and feels. When one or more sides are satisfied, the other sides become more noticeable, and demanding, almost like an itch that moves to a place on the body that is hard to reach. While reaching to scratch the unyielding itch, the satisfied sides are no longer focused upon and therefore begin to fall out of utopia. Finally reaching the itch, we find a moment of satisfaction, and therefore we have scratched out another utopia. Thus begins the process again.

If each of us has a different view of what utopia is, then how can it be achieved without true meaning? So what is utopia? The American Heritage Dictionary defines utopia as “an ideally perfect place, in its social, political, and moral aspects” (Dict.). From an article called “The Politics of Utopia” written by Fredric Jamison we learn another viewpoint of utopia. The article suggests “that utopias are non-fictional, even though they are also non-existent” (Jamison 54). This seems to link utopia to not be a place, but it is more equivalent to a state of mind. Jamison also suggests that “something is to be said for the proposition that the fear of utopia is intimately linked with the fear of aphanisis, or loss of desire” (Jamison 53). This equates utopia to existing as an emotion or feeling rather than to an actual place.

So what is Utopia? Even if one were to achieve utopia would they even know that they had achieved it? Adam and Eve were said to have lived in utopia, but as long as the human mind is not completely satisfied, utopia cannot be fully experienced or achieved. In other words, as long as there remain any questions, doubts, or curiosity, utopia can never be fully achieved. In the movie Babel the Sheppard boys with the rifle loved each other, but were in a competition that is as old as the first brothers that walked the Earth. Their goal to achieve utopia was to be recognized as the dominant brother and they placed a great importance on this competition. Although they were pitted in this rivalry of brothers that is as old as the story of Cain and Abel, they had many moments together that may have satisfied a different utopian quest. There is a brief scene in the movie Babel where the two Sheppard boys are standing together; their arms fully extended, with smiles on their faces. They stand side by side in a sustained updraft that blows back their hair and supports their weight. They trustingly lean into the wind, and for this moment in time they share something together that is priceless. They look at each other and seem to realize this experience is theirs, and at this time and place they share a moment of utopia.

 Globalization is civilization on a global scale. So is globalization a good thing for humanity? This is a question that can lead great minds to madness. It seems that globalization would be a natural step for humanity to not just survive, but advance. Humans have always counted on groups to develop, survive, and even thrive in this unpredictable and dangerous world. However, throughout recorded history we have seen what happens when a group becomes too big. Rome, for example, was one of the most powerful nations ever known. However, when Rome reached a certain size it imploded in on itself.

In the more recent past we see colonialism. Was this an attempt at globalization? With so many cultures, beliefs, and traditions how can we agree on one particular way of life? Wouldn’t a dominant culture have to take the top rung of society’s ladder to maintain some kind of order in the land? There is no way that all nations around the globe would willfully participate in becoming a state to a global nation. The only thread that brings the entire globe together besides humanity itself seems to be capitalism. Capitalism is far from perfect but in a world of seven billion people there is no other way to sustain these numbers. If capitalism can be improved and used as a vehicle to bring humanity together to form a more perfect society doesn’t that therefore bring us all one more step closer to utopia?

Globalization, in some ways, is a vision that brings all humanity together.  However, the Earth is not big enough to sustain the growth that humanity has been experiencing. According to the US Bureau of the Census, in my lifetime alone, the Earth’s population has doubled. Eventually humans will have to venture into space for the next phase of existence. Once humanity has spread throughout the solar system, we will once again be separated, not just by oceans, and boarders, we will be separated by light years. If humanity survives long enough to achieve such lofty visions then further speculation perhaps illustrates that humanity will always develop in separate tribes that may never fully understand one another in a way that a utopian society demands.

In the world in which we live today we can reach out to every corner of the globe. In the movie Babel, we see people from the four corners of the globe being capable of forever changing and affecting each other’s lives in the short span of a two hour movie. Only one hundred years ago these people from the four corners of the globe could have lived a lifetime and never seen an individual from a thousand miles away.  The world is much smaller than it used to be. We are going to need technologies to expand faster than our population. It could be argued that the engine of technology is capitalism. Capitalism funds entrepreneurs, businesses, and invention. It feeds the hungry, supports the family, strengthens education, and builds powerful nations. On the other hand some hold strong negative views of capitalism. An article by Randy Martin titled, “Where did the future go?”  seems to hold some very negative views of capitalism. In the article, Martin states that “the past was littered with the corpses of colonialism, slavery and genocide” and seems to put the blame on “those…who could secure a seat on the bus” on a “trip…to a market utopia” (Martin). Martin then states his beliefs with a tone one may recognize to be a form of academic elitist sarcasm by saying “The fortunate would be freed from work in the form of retirement and leave the earth secure in the knowledge that their kids would do better than they had. The passage of biological time between generations would be reinscribed as upward mobility” (Martin). Martin is quick to imply that those who may achieve a goal of financial stability for future family generations to come are in some way incredibly selfish, and greedy by suggesting that they have forgotten,” most of the world’s peoples–still awaiting their moment of development to come” for they “never got to live the dream, or pursued another under the banner of socialism” (Martin).

Martin’s article dovetails nicely into the topic of the movie Babel for capitalism is the springboard of a globalization with negative outcomes. Martin could argue that the four families from the film were negatively impacted solely due to the expansion of this evil weed known as capitalism. These families’ lives were altered by one of the biggest money makers on the globe…guns. If there was no money to be made on guns then perhaps they wouldn’t make them. If they didn’t make guns then the woman would never have been shot on the bus while driving through the desert on her vacation. However, it’s more than just guns because its capitalism that bought the ticket, which built the plane that brought her there which built the bus that, took her through a land where she probably should not have gone in the first place. Martin would probably use some very big words in a confusing string of mind-numbing “babal” to make an opinionated speculation sound like fact to make his point that this disastrous stream of events is the direct cause of capitalism. Most people would probably see that these lives in the movie were simply affected by an accident that set into motion a sequence of mishaps that lead to each family from the film to have their own personal conclusion. None of which resembles anything like a utopia.

The movie Babel illustrates our rapidly developing global society with great detail, exposing our similarities and differences. It is our similarities that give us hope that one day our humanity will allow for us to harmoniously live together. However, it is our differences that will forever keep us apart. No one knows humanities destiny, but some things we can be sure of, and one of those is that we shall never achieve an absolute utopia, but we can only strive for moments that resemble it.

 

Works Cited

American Heritage Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin: n.p., 2000. Print.

Jameson, Fredrick. “The Politics of Utopia”. The New Left Review 25. Jan.-Feb. 2004.

           < http://moodle.csun.edu/file.php/37095/http_www.newleftreview.pdf>.

Martin, Randy. “Where Did The Future Go?”. Logos 5.1, winter 2006. Web. Dec. 12, 2012.
           < http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.1/martin.htm>.

United States. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Projections. World Population      1950-2050. Negative Population Growth, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. <http://www.npg.org/facts/world_pop_year.htm>.

Super Villain

Meltdown Super Villain Height 6’ 5” Hates money, Likes to create financial crises.  Once he was a financial wizard on Wall Street, but on his way to work two years ago he passed an “Occupy” Wall Street rally and the next thing he knew was he was no longer a wall street executive for he had become Meltdown Strength: Knows how to damage economies, and cause financial chaos. Hates the sight of money and finds great pleasure destroying it. Weapon: Money burning torch  Weakness: Bongo drums and hacky sack   Scenario: He robs the bank and is trying to get away from Financio.

 

Group Project Super Hero Creations

We have a group project for class to teach 8th graders new media and how to implement it in constructive ways. We chose a super hero creator for the students to utilize so they can develop a super hero or villain. Create a scenario for the characters to be in. To create a story line for the new characters to exist. This is to develop creative writing skills in an interesting way.

Financio   Height: 5’ 10’ Weight: 185lbs Mission: To stop monetary waste, and find best investments for every single cent to grow from which in turn helps to create good jobs, and give people the financial security and freedom they may choose to have.   Weakness: High interest rate credit cards, loans from China, Big Government wasteful spending, the sight of burning or wasting money make him weak and vulnerable to attack.   Strengths: High closes on Wall Street, Strong Dollar, Good Investments   Story Example:   A villain is burning money that he just robbed from a bank! Financio is getting weaker. He is almost too weak to fight! Quick read him the closing numbers on Wall Street for today because it’s up 200 points!   Finacio’s strength returns and he stops the bank robbers from burning the money. He captures them and returns the remaining money to the bank. Financio tells the bank owner how to safely invest in two upstart companies in need of a loan. Two weeks later four hundred people are hired at the new upstart companies. Now they can feed their families and pay for their kids to go to college! Thanks Financio!

Girth Height: 5’ Weight: 500 lbs   Unusual muscle density gives his short stature great weight.   Only person born on planet Jupiter. Parents were stranded there for fifteen years. They were smashed by their own weight under the gravitational pull of Jupiter. Their son Girth was unaffected and rescued years after his parents had past. On Earth Girth is very strong and his bones are stronger than titanium.   Weakness: eyesight

 

Project Poem

Start at The End

A thousand thoughts threaded through the theory

Winters wild winding wind weaves one weary

All aware unfair without care they dare

Gather to speak what needs to be spoken

Awaken the weak grow strong once woken

Troubling time tunnels turning churning soil

Cool fresh water springs, freeze up, and then boil

Suffering defeat, at feat, vipers coil

Gone and Never to be heard from again

Searching for kindness and only find sin

To start at the end is where to begin

But all have left and forgotten what’s right

Cowardly fools their eyes see without sight

And run to darkness to hide from the light





Timed

Mow lawn, get mail, take out trash, write poem

The Clock tick tock in the corner tock tick

Feed Kids, change baby, wash clothes, write poem

The clock tick tock in the corner tock tick

Clutter on the island, Dishes fill sink

Six trash cans sit in the hot sun and stink

Weeds grow high in vegetable garden

Aging man feels his arteries harden

Try to get it all done, impossible

The Clock tick tock in the corner tock tick

Chased every moment, throughout the days and nights

The Clock tick tock in the corner tock tick

So much to get done, to get through the day

And when it is all finished, write a poem

The Beatles Eleanor Rigby Remix

Ah, look at all the lonely people Ah, look at all the lonely people   Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice In the church where a wedding has been Lives in a dream   Waits at the window, wearing the face That she keeps in a jar by the door Who is it for?   All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?   Father McKenzie, writing the words Of a sermon that no one will hear No one comes near   Look at him working, darning his socks In the night when there’s nobody there What does he care?   All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?   Ah, look at all the lonely people Ah, look at all the lonely people   Eleanor Rigby, died in the church And was buried along with her name Nobody came   Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt From his hands as he walks from the grave No one was saved   All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people) Where do they all come from?   All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people) Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the grown up people Ah, look at all the grown up  people   Eleanor Rigby, Picks up her toy From a box and it breaks on the scene Let’s out a scream   Wanting another, sad little face Waits and sit as she glares at the door Always wants more!   All the grown up people When will you sing this song? All the Grown up people How can we get along?   Eleanor’s father, gets home from work Then goes straight to the fridge grabs a beer No one comes near   Look at him drinking, let’s out a belch Friday night TV light unaware Sits in his chair   All the grown up people When will you sing this song? All the Grown up people How can we get along?   Ah, look at all the grown up people Ah, look at all the grown up  people   Eleanor Rigby, cries for a toy To enjoy and there’s no one to blame No new toy came   Eleanor’s Father, was not alert And got hurt and falls fast to the floor He drinks no more   All the grown up people (Ah, look at all the grown up people) When will you sing this song?   All the grown up people (Ah, look at all the grown up people) How can we get along?

 

Reflection

           Reflections from yesterday’s class ran through my head all night. Our assignment was to choose a song and basically make a parody of it. I had some trouble choosing a song, but other students seemed to shine on this particular task. Some of the students literally sang their parodies to the music of the actual song. It was a really fun class and I was very impressed with some of the work that was presented. Some students wrote poems and other wrote parodies. The class is beginning to bind with one another and by the end of the semester many will be good friends. I am looking forward to the topics from the Myth and Knowing book. The classroom is a great place for discussion and debate, but it is difficult to be creative in a room full of people.

Shelley the Eternal Traveler

 

Eternal Traveler

 

The sonnet Ozymandias was written by a poet by the name of Percy Shelley (1792 -1822). The poem was published in a newspaper called The Examiner in 1818 when Shelley was only twenty-six.[1] Shelley lived a very brief life, but he has and interesting story. Percy was the “eldest son” and first in line to “inherit not only his grandfather’s considerable estate but also a seat in Parliament”.[2] He attended Eton College for six years starting in 1804 where he learned the love for the written word.2 He was first published in 1810. Shelley then began his education at Oxford, but his stay there is short and he is expelled for writing and distributing a pamphlet titled “The Necessity of Athiesm”.2 This pamphlet caused a “complete break between Shelley and his father” and he was cut off from the family fortune.2 This did not stop Shelley and within two years he was back on his feet.2  He married the author of “Frankenstein”, hobknobed with Lord Byron, and wrote numerous popular reads. Shelley mentions an “ancient traveler” in his sonnet Ozymandias, but when Shelley himself, attempted to “sail from Leghorn to La Spezia, Italy”, he was caught in a storm, his schooner, the Don Juan sank, and Percy Shelley drowned. Ozymandias is one of his more visible works read to this day. There are many observances to be made on the structure, the history, and the message this poem holds. The poem Ozymandias, has travelled through time, been read by countless minds, and interpreted, inspired, and looked upon as a repeating prophecy in this endless expanding and contracting world in which we exist.

              Ozymandias

        By Percy Bysshe Shelley

10 (1)  I met a traveler from an antique land
10 (2)  Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
10 (3)  Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
10 (4)  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
10 (5)   And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
10 (6)   Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
10 (7)   Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
10 (8)   The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
10 (9)   And on the pedestal these words appear:
10 (10) `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
10 (11) Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
10 (12) Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
10 (13) Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
10 (14) The lone and level sands stretch far away".

 

This may be one of the faces of a “traveler from an antique land”.[3] His name is Diodorus Siculus and he was a historian from Greece that was thought to have lived within one hundred years before Jesus Christ. Siculus wrote for over thirty years a history of the world encyclopedia called the Bibliotheca Historica.[4] It is presumed that Percy Shelley had read Siculus’s work and it perhaps inspired him to use the name Ozymandias.4The poem Ozymandias contains fourteen lines, but what is really interesting is that Shelley was able to keep ten syllables in each line. This fourteen line iambic pentameter poem is called a sonnet and was a popular practice in Shelley’s time. [5] The number of syllables per line in a poem is known as syllabic verse.5 Syllable count became a useful tool for English speaking poets because English can become very “awkward” due to its “heavily stressed” form. By using syllabic count patterns, “the masters could count the syllables” to “produce admirable cadences”.5The poem uses a limited amount of rhyme like a light seasoning on a delicious meal.

The tone throughout Ozymandias is cold and straight forward, as though the traveler was the voice of justice pronouncing a sentence, carried out by the scolding hand of God. The head of the sculpture of Ozymandias is broken off from the body and rest “half sunk” into the sand:

“Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command”

This image of the head of Ozymandias barely sticking up out of the sand evokes a scene from Dante’s Inferno from the “lowest region of Hell”[6]. This place in Hell is called “Antenora, the second ring” from the “Ninth Circle of Hell”.6 This is where “those who betrayed their country and party stand frozen up to their heads” in a solid lake of ice for eternity. Antenora is where “Dante meets Count Ugolino, who spends eternity gnawing on the head of the man who imprisoned him in life”. 6 Ozymandias’s eyes are forever wide open and fixated on those that stand before him to read the arrogant inscription at the base of his statue that reads:

“`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'”

 

This is Ozymandias’s Hell. His head unable to move, his eyes unable to shut, and his words lay before him, to be read by unknown travelers for eternity. It’s almost as though his own arrogant words and ego is forever to “gnaw” on his head.

A poetic technique that seems to encapsulate Ozymandias’s full meaning is Shelley’s use of irony. The sonnet Ozymandias is fairly straightforward with its story line. It is the story of a traveler that comes across a land where a great civilization once stood. With this great civilization, comes a powerful ruler who is blind to the possibility of his kingdom’s demise. The arrogant inscription at the base of Ozymadias statue fully illustrates the use of tragic irony.

The use of imagery by Shelley is incredible. Shelley is able to clearly open the reader’s mind to a place where all senses come to life, as if entranced by a vivid dream. When reading the sonnet, one can imagine the wasteland where the traveler has been. Shelley is able to do this without a long detailed description. From Shelley’s masterful use of brief description, one can imagine this wasteland of sand swirling through the air, the hot sun relentlessly pounding down upon one’s head, unable to quench the persistent thirst weakening all the internal mechanisms that enable one to keep moving forward. This vivid dream unfolds into a deeper one. The reader squints the eyes to see through the swirling sand and begins to see what once had been. The blowing sand subsides, stone walls rise and the statue of Ozymandias is once again to its original glory. The sound of people, the smell of livestock, and the great civilization once again stands before the reader. Just as quickly as grand vision fully develops, it collapses upon itself and the swirling sand once again stings the eyes.

This sonnet tells the story of a civilization that, at one point and time, was one of the most powerful in the world. However, this story can be applied to many seemingly impervious civilizations in human history. It is a story that repeats itself over and over again. From civilization’s very beginnings, great nations expand and contract, never learning, always forgetting, becoming overzealous, or complacent, and then crumble upon their own weight, to be buried by the sands of time.

 

Where will the great nations of today stand two thousand years from now?

 

  

Works Cited 

Deutsch, Babette. Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of terms. 4^th ed. Harper Perennial. 1974. Print.

Parr, Johnstone. Shelley's "Ozymandias" again. The Modern Language Review, Vol. 46, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Oct., 1951), pp. 441-442

Poets.org. Percy Bysshe Shelley. © 1997 - 2012Academy of American Poets. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/179>

Shelley, Percy. Poem of the Week. Ozymandias. PotW.org.  1996. <http://www.potw.org/archive/potw46.html>

Sparknotes. Inferno:Dante Alighieri. 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/inferno/summary.html>

---

[1] Shelley, Percy. Poem of the Week. Ozymandias. PotW.org.  1996. <http://www.potw.org/archive/potw46.html>

[2] Poets.org. Percy Bysshe Shelley. © 1997 – 2012. Academy of American Poets. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/179>

 

[3] Shelley, Percy. Poem of the Week. Ozymandias. PotW.org.  1996. <http://www.potw.org/archive/potw46.html>

[4] Parr, Johnstone. Shelley's "Ozymandias" again. The Modern Language Review, Vol. 46, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Oct., 1951), pp. 441-442

 

[5] Deutsch, Babette. Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of terms. 4^th ed. Harper Perennial. 1974. Print.

 

[6] Sparknotes. Inferno:Dante Alighieri. 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/inferno/summary.html>