#aristotelean

[trolledu]

nice how they placed the footnote at the bottom of the post = footpost

[summerhighlandfalls]

I want to kill him so bad

[intermundia]

i think the reason that i find the tragedy of the prequels so compelling is that anakin is such a good tragic hero. he's shown to be an intelligent man with a mature understanding of the world, who made catastrophic choices on purpose because they were easier and more personally satisfying to him. when fans deny him that agency, i believe they misunderstand the story in important ways. one can say that he was manipulated and deceived, one can diagnose him with every mental illness in the DSM (and people in my notes often do), but one cannot say that he wasn't fast to toss aside his moral values to lash out and to get what he wanted.

the fact of the narrative is that anakin knew better, and he chose the easy option (with full knowledge that it was 'wrong'), because he refused to accept core limitations of reality, namely the inevitability of death. he thought that having special powers meant the rules didn't apply to him and those he loved, and that's how he ended up killing kids and serving as a fascist enforcer for decades. one can contort themselves into knots to try to excuse that, and there were indeed many contextual forces that gave him so much power in the first place, but there is no real excuse for what he chose to do with that power.

without anakin being that kind of moral agent, there is no tragedy. tragedy in an aristotelean sense is a narrative designed to elicit feelings of pity and fear, because we the audience know that we too are doomed to suffer and all too readily make easy, bad choices to avoid pain. none of us want to accept that some parts of life include losing, and require sacrifice. anakin's greed was his undoing, as it is all to often our own. refusing to accept that the tragedy of the prequels, explaining away and excusing the fall of the hero, means protecting ourselves from accepting the painful truth that we are just like him, and can and do make the same kind of mistakes.

[woodsteingirl]

she says that “she employs a combination of clown physicality […] and peripatetic zaniness” and peripatetic means like. nomadic. i had just never heard it used in such a context…?

does helen shaw actually know what she’s talking about because she uses peripatetic in a really weird way that i only just noticed

[wishcamper]

Heavy Lies the Crown: Rhysand, greatness, and the pressures of power

Or: the librarian’s daughter, former playwright, licensed counselor mashup of my nightmares dreams because I am vast, I contain multitudes.

No content warnings and no real HOFAS spoilers, I don't think, other than that he's in it but I feel like you know that by now. Spoilers for Breaking Bad (lol).

---

In working on my current fic (on ao3 here!) I've been thinking a lot about Rhysand and how he really goes off the rails in ACOSF and HOFAS. It's easy to chalk it up to poor writing, but I like the challenge of trying to make it make sense. What are Rhys’ motivations, truly? What would explain the vast array of heinous shit he does the text tells us is justified?

Rhys is shown over and over to be quite Machiavellian ('ends justify the means' dude, who was maybe writing satire). It's easy to list the times he shows this. The 50 year Velaris hostage situation. The bargain UTM with Feyre. The Weaver's cottage. Stealing the Book from Tarquin. CLARE BEDDOR. Infiltrating people's minds. Torture. Assassination. Allying with Kier. Concealing his wife's medical information. Being an ass to people in general. According to Mr. Machiavelli, any action is warranted if it the goal it achieves is morally important enough.

It seems like Rhys can justify anything to himself if he believes it will serve the greatest good at the end of the day. He does so many things with the air of “it’s for your own good” or “you’ll understand why one day” but that day never.. comes? Not yet anyway, which begs the question: is he that unself-aware, or is there a longer game he’s playing that all of these minor skirmishes are leading up to? What if he knows what's coming? And what kind of cause or threat would feel so great he could justify everything he does up to this point?

Okay I'm gonna talk about Aristotelean literary structure, please don't leave me.

The idea of a tragic hero is a character whose downfall is inevitable but who fights against it anyway. Hamlet is a classic example of a tragic hero, Oedipus being the de facto first, Walter White from Breaking Bad a more modern version. We see Walt learn he’s going to die in the first episode, in the middle he does a bunch of stuff to prevent his physical death (cancer) and metaphorical death (failure/obscurity), and then both his body and reputation die in the last episode as a direct result of his attempts to avoid fate. It’s blissful Aristotelean symmetry. *chef’s kiss*

Every tragic hero has hamartia, more commonly known as a ‘fatal flaw’. In Hamlet, his fatal flaw is procrastination, and his delays create space for all kinds of the fuck shit he was trying to prevent. It’s important to note that hamartia is by design a neutral term - not so much a flaw, but a trait, motivation, or decision that sets off the chain of events the character is trying to avoid. Tragedies have occurred equally from too much love as too much hate, and doing nothing is just as much a decision as doing something. The word itself comes from the Greek for ‘to miss the mark’. To try and fail, the backbone of tragedy.

One of the most common hamartia is hubris, a modern synonym for arrogance but which more specifically means an outsized belief in one’s ability to affect and control the future. Well-known tragic heroes taken down by hubris include our boy Walter White, Tony Soprano, Viktor Frankenstein, Achilles, Jay Gatsby, Kendall from Succession. It exists in real life, too: Lance Armstrong is a perfect example of a modern tragic hero brought down by hubris. And what do all these men have in common? Power, via money, fame, strength, the state, intellect, violence etc.

I’ve been enjoying looking at Rhysand through this tragic hero lens because while it doesn’t really make him more sympathetic, it does make his actions easier to understand logically, which is its own kind of humanization. If Rhysand is aware of a prophesied or fated event sometime in the future and is pulling the cosmic strings now, it must be incredibly important, like annihilation-level important, which is so much pressure. 

So he grows to maturity with an understanding that he will one day have to face this intense evil that could completely destroy his world, and it plants in him a hubris. He believes that his immense power grants him a certain amount of influence automatically. And honestly, is he wrong?

And this is where it’s important to think about how power makes people weird. Power gives people a false sense of confidence in their actions and choices, because their status and privilege protect them from so many more consequences. In this way it’s easy to see how someone can get a big ego - no one is stopping me, so I must be doing well! Or: everything is going well for me, so I must be really killing it! I know I feel that way in the first tingles of hypomania, but hypomania is fundamentally a distortion of reality and I believe so is power.

Power not only gives people confidence but also access to make decisions for others. They begin to think they should share the success they’ve found by leading and guiding others to see how great it can be if you do what they say. Just look at one of those cringe 'billionaire morning routine' videos to see what I mean. It’s a very patronizing form of altruism, because the leader genuinely believes they have the people’s interest at heart. And I use the word patronizing intentionally - leaders have often referenced feeling paternal towards their people, Winston Churchill + FDR, 'God the Father'. Power and fatherhood have been linked for a long time. And direct from our girl Wikipedia, "paternalism is action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy and is intended to promote their own good".

I was talking with a girlfriend of mine recently about how I think some men don’t have the experience of other people depending on them in a significant way until they get married and/or become fathers. Like, afab and femme people learn very early to be considerate of others, to think about how others feel, to act in ways that keep others happy, etc. This plants in us a sense of duty to perform in ways that please others, to smile, to create comfort and provide caretaking in every environment we enter. So by the time we get to marriage and motherhood, we already know how to put others’ needs before our own because we’ve been doing it from the jump.

For men, however, this can be a completely novel experience. And it seems like it's SO HEAVY FOR THEM. George ‘Father of his Country’ Washington just wanted to go back to Virginia the whole time he was President. So many men talk about the pressures of being a provider and their families depending on them in a way women don’t, and I think it’s because for the first time others truly depend on them and they don’t know how to handle it.

In response, they either shove down their emotions as patriarchy demands and have a midlife crisis, or they abdicate that responsibility and go completely absent physically and/or emotionally to continue living for themselves. (Obviously there are good men and dads out there, and bless you if you’re lucky enough to know, have, or be one.)

And this aspect of power feels relevant because from the text it seems like Rhysand is unraveling. Between Feyre, the baby, the Trove, Nesta and being threatened by her power, Koschei, Bryce, the whole High King shit - I think he’s starting to crack under the pressure. And honestly, I’m kind of surprised it didn’t happen before now.

According to Aristotle, the tragic hero must:

Be significant (virtuous/capable/powerful/important etc.)

Be flawed

Suffer a reversal of fortune.

Rhysie boy definitely ticks the first two. I wonder what it would look like to get to three? I don’t think Sarah has the balls, but it’s definitely enhanced my reading experience and given me a lot of interesting things to think about.

Okay that's all I've got. Love ya, see ya soon xx

[l1tw1ck]

Also, Blade, Jing Yuan and Dan Heng are neither really daddy nor mommy to me. They're an aristotelean mesotes between these two, but in different ways

Jing Yuan is the facebook mom and the dad that takes the kids everywhere (e.g. to work, to school, to the supermarket). His kids will hate him when they're in puberty

Dan Heng is the overworked single mom and the diy mechanic dad. Also "hey, I was watching that" dad

Blade is an (evil) step-mom mommy and the beer drinker athlete dad that has the magical power of saving the kid when they do stupid shit

-⛩️

100%

[drivestraight]

Hey, I hope you don’t mind this ask but do you have tips for reading classics as like a newbie. Im taking this philosophy/discussion type course where we have to read some older books and im like really bad at doing that so… if it helps some of the books I’ll be reading is the Iliad, the good life, nicomachean ethics, Plato on love etc.

hiii sorry i’ve finally got the time to answer !! i dont mind at all haha i love philosophy and classics and love talking abt it so im happy to help!

so my most broad advice is that. philosophy is like really fucking hard and anyone who tells you otherwise either has only read pop philosophy or just is being a dick about it. its really tough especially if its your first time doing it. if it feels like its coming easy thats because you’re likely not reading it closely enough lol. tldr: it’ll be frustrating, esp the classics at first.

aristotle will just be unpleasant the entire way through, but one thing that helped me a lot is like - really thinking about what the concepts mean and trying to separate that word from whatever modern meaning it has. for example “function” and “cause” in aristotelean ethics is not what we would think abt when we think about function or cause.

often he won’t run through arguments closely - it’ll be interspersed throughout like. all of his works and he’ll draw from ideas ur already expected to know so its annoying. but i’d recommend like going online & looking up how the arguments flow while you read, to make things go faster + also make sure you dont get lost in the weeds. but also dont use online resources as a crutch - you might be reading something that’s just wrong/disputed - there’s modern philosophers who still disagree on how to read large portions of aristotle. anyway - basically with aristotle, a good mix of external help + thinking it through on your own will be good

plato is like - a pleasant read at first. until you actually try and figure out his arguments. and then its like very complex and subtle and annoying to catch all the moves he’s secretly making. basically, i’d try to map out the premises of the argument as much as you can.

i’m not entirely sure what you mean by the good life haha so idk which philosopher thats referring to

here are two really great resources:

the pink guide

how to write a philosophy paper

neither are by any means gospel or maybe even the best guides out there, but they helped me a lot when i was first starting/even by the end of undergrad when i needed a refresher on how to do philosophy lol

as for the iliad - this one isnt philosophy so pretty much i’d just say have fun with it! don’t be afraid to also look things up constantly/read summaries bc homer can be really daunting when you don’t already have a classical background/know who people are. like for the iliad pretty much just enjoy the ride :)

[thebimbowhisperer]

I’m sorry to ask this but ummm… could you like, dumb that down even more for me? All I understood is that bimbos are more fun, and that I like apparently identitfy as a “non Aristotelean conclusion” hehe

Dumbing it more down is a difficult task. It meant, less differentiated, it is complicated but solvable situation if done right.

She doesn't care though. She had a job and excel in it. She looked enticing, inspiring, and beautiful. So, non-Aristotelean or not, she is happy. End of story. Simply bimbo glory!

[gepgep2]

prrty ironic reading a book abt how jews for centuries refused to center methods of abstract logic in their interpretations, in direct counter-distinction to aristotelean procedures

then seeing jews look back to 100 years ago when a significant amount of deeply assimilated bourgeois jews devoted themselves intensely to 'science' 'rationalism' 'abstraction', and holding that up as if it were the quintessential, unmistakable evidence of their jewishness

consciously or not, those dudes were definitely trying to be jewish(colonized) aryans(colonizers).

[the-californicationist]

Random question of the day!

If you could choose one element to control, what element would you choose?

This is such a good question!! Thanks for asking me. <3

I think if we are looking at the traditional, Aristotelean elements in physics (water, earth, wind, and fire), I would greatly prefer water. I think it's the most versatile, and it's definitely the scariest. I thought fire might be my favorite, but that is very much a one-trick pony (in my mind).

If we are instead considering the six Aristotelean elements of drama (which are plot, character, thought, diction, spectacle, and song), I would absolutely choose diction. One, I'm a linguist by trade, and two, I'm in love with the way people speak to each other and how our own voices come out in our writing and our characters.

If you want to discuss control over the elements of the current periodic table, I think I would choose carbon. It would give me control over all living (carbon-based) things, perhaps?

Fascinating!! Hope this answered your question. <3 <3

[anakinskywalkerog]

EP. 6 RECAP

spoilers under cut read on if you want to hear my unhinged thoughts:

1. THE HISTORY OF THE GALAXY PARTS 1, 2, and 3?????? (“with 1 being the best part”) I’m sorry is this foreshadowing to the movie that we’re getting that tells the story of the beginning of the Jedi??? freaking out

2. I am so sad about Ray Stevenson. The world was deprived of a true talent and a fascinating character and the story he won’t get the chance to tell 😭 a loss of a talented human and a great storyteller.

“What I seek is the beginning” WHAT THE FUCK I’m so invested in this, thank god for Dave Filoni and his commitment to the well-planned, longform story (yes I’m subtweeting the sequel trilogy)

“Perhaps they flee a power greater than their own” LIKE WHAT OMG BAYLAN STOP

3. These nightsisters are a bit too “Dune” for my taste. I mean I recognize that Star Wars has copied Dune from the very first movie and also they are super cool but did they have to talk with that echo and be called “Great Mother”? it’s a little on the nose lol

4. THRAWN. THRAWN’s SHIP. The fucking KINTSUGI STORMTROOPERS OMGOMGOMG the QUALITY of the storytelling, the characterization, OMG

I’m sooooo glad they kept Lars Mikkelsen, Thrawn wouldn’t be Thrawn without that voice. and the Kintsugi is so in character for him, his appreciation for art, I love it so much.

5. ALSO, Enoch in the Bible DOESN’T DIE? (he is taken to Heaven and escapes death) so I feel like there has to be something significant about that. And the stormtroopers are clearly loading some kind of COFFINS onto the ship? Resurrection shit??? The Book of Enoch, as far as I know, is an apocryphal text—is that a signifier that whatever takes place in this other galaxy is sort of apocryphal compared to the original Skywalker saga? And, lastly, the book of Enoch is an APOCALYPTIC text—AHHHH what does it all mean, I’m so goddamn curious (this shit is back to the symbolic, Aristotelean tragedy Star Wars that I LOVE)

6. Baylan saying Ezra “comes from a breed of Jedi trained in the wild”

and Shin responding, “like me? 🥺” 😭😭😭😭

7. EZRA IS HERE EZRA IS LIFE EZRA IS EVERYTHING (also why is he kind of fuckinf hot? LOL fuck me honestly) did not have a crush on Ezra Bridger on my 2023 bingo card but here we are

I’m so happy he’s back and I feel like for the sake of the story Thrawn can’t make it back to the original galaxy, but if that’s the case can’t I please get a ghost crew reunion in some capacity 😭 I don’t know how this would make sense. but I have a feeling this is the start of a bigger story (and I wish Baylan could be a part of it 😭😭😭)

bonus I love the space turtles that look like little old men travelers this episode was so FULL of greatness wow. I watched this last week and just now rewatched it so get ready for my thoughts on the new ep TONIGHT if you read this whole thing you deserve a treat and a nap

[thunderandsage]

am finding it increasingly difficult to listen to my professor spin on about platonic and aristotelean and whoever’s ideals of goodness and nobility and the human experience when they REFUSE to engage with the modern world. mr. professor. you’re teaching us all of this but without concrete applications it’s not worth shit.

[chicago-geniza]

This talk was unfortunately brilliant and now I'm imagining how Agnes would respond to Sisko's "saint in paradise" speech from an Aristotelean standpoint. Also unrelatedly the only person I've ever seen who incorporates as much safety orange into her daily wardrobe as I do lol

[aboutanancientenquiry]

The Influence of Herodotus on the Political and Moral Philosophy of Aristotle (V)

Dimka Gisheva-Gocheva (Sofia) “The influence of Herodotus on the practical philosophy of Aristotle” (Labyrinth, Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 2016, available on https://www.academia.edu/37571279/DIMKA_GICHEVA_GOCHEVA_Sofia_The_Influence_of_Herodotus_on_the_Practical_Philosophy_of_Aristotle)  

“6. The just in the rule of the majority

The Aristotelean account of the great advantages of democracy, the rule of the many, called politeia in his typology in the Politics, is greatly influenced by Herodotus: 1.In the view of Otanes the inherent feature of the rule of majority is stated to be ἰσονομίη –literally, the equity of all in respect of the requirements of the laws; the germane idea of the rule of law; 2. What a monarch does, never occurs under the rule of the many. The bitter experience of Otanes and his childhood trauma obviously influenced him to insist on this, but in tens of other stories in the Histories Herodotus narrates that there are perilous conse-quences of the unlimited power of a person first on himself. The boundless power of a ruler leads him to madness and disaster. 3. Another valuable characteristic in the rule of the many, according to Otanes, is the distribution of many public duties, positions and responsibilities by the lot -πάλῳ μὲν γὰρ ἀρχὰς ἄρχει. 4. Even more important is the responsibil-ity for these responsibilities, or translated into our modern parlance, the accountability of the persons, who have been in charge: ὑπεύθυνον δὲ ἀρχὴν ἔχει – the power is held into account, it is responsible. 5. Last in the speech of Otanes is the mode of decision-taking: all problems are discussed and resolved in common βουλεύματα δὲ πάντα ἐς κοινὸν ἀναφέρει. This might be read as the first advocacy of the deliberative democracy.

Later on in the fifth book of the Histories, two other important factors for the democratic developments in Athens and its subsequent leadership among the city-states are mentioned:ἡ ἰσηγορίη ὡς ἐστὶ χρῆμα σπουδαῖον...ἀπαλλαχθέντες δὲ τυράννῶν μακρῷ πρῶτοι ἐγένοντο ( V, 78) 9. Firstly, ἡ ἰσηγορίη, the equity-and-equality of the citizens on the agora, the participation of the citizens in the arguing and the decision-making of the public matters; and, secondly, the abolishment of the tyrants' regime, the hostility and the resistance to many despotic authoritarian practices - these are the healthy strengths of the Athenians, which lead their city-state not only to the economic prosperity, but also to the military and the political supremacy among the Greek communities.

The abolishment of the tyranny, which is the worst of all political orders, made Athens the mightiest Greek polis in the military aspect. The freedom of the citizens and the chances they received to work for the fulfillment of their private entrepreneurships enhanced the economic prosperity of the city as well. The work for the family property and the personal household, and not for the tyrant, who would expropriate the gain, became the  basis of the Athenian polis. Another meaning of the concept ἡ ἰσηγορίη is to be pointed out. It means not only equity of the free men on the agora, the right to be equally eligible and to elect like all the rest free citizens. It signifies also the equity to participate and to cooperate in the exertion of the political power. Last, but not least it means freedom of speech, the equity of all deliberative positions of all free citizens, expressed in the public debates, in the discussions and the taking of decisions, especially the ones, passed by the assembly.

 All of them are marked as the inner engines of the glory and the positive changes inthe polis by Aristotle in The politeia of the Athenians. Once more we see how brilliant examples of stories, used as instruments by the narrative method in the History of Herodotus, become implicit concepts in an Aristotelian text. In the institutional history and the constitutional stages in the development of Athens, the warfare is just mentioned: the Greek-Persian wars and the Peloponnesian war are just referred to, because The politeia of the Athenians was meant to be a sketch of the successive forms of the institutional self-governance of the city-state and not a political history. In this brief survey of the constitutional progressive development of Athens many of the explanations of the political evolution of the city-state are in harmony with the ones, proclaimed as the most influential ones by Herodotus.

9 See the pertinent commentaries of Robert W. Wallace and Paul Cartledge on this subject in The Origins of Democracy in Ancient  Greece. (Raaflaub, Kurt A., Josiah Ober, and Robert W. Wallace2007).”

[two-crabs]

I saw hadestown today!! it was great! obviously it was so great. a gorgeous show, incredible performances, some of the best music on broadway in the last decade, and—

and.

the collective gasp from the audience when he turned around. all the air was sucked out of the room and i experienced true real aristotelean catharsis. we knew how it ends but we told it anyway. beautiful.

[37q]

was gonna make a post like. hot femme summer sweaty butch summer hot butch winter frizzy femme winter but i realized that id basically valued these personae on their heat and moisture like what the fuck kinda aristotelean lesbianism am i concocting. what made me realize that was i imagined my butch and like SHES sweaty (mostly alone) AND hot (alongside me) in the summer. and shes hot AND cozy AND her hair frizzes with mine in the winter. also im hot even when im not showing skin 😠 rosie!!!! tut tut