Quotables
"Why do we laugh?"
- There are those who suggest that laughter is a social phenomenon: if nobody is around to observe us, we do not laugh. I am incline to believe otherwise - I laugh even when I'm doing a solitary activity, like reading or watching TV. Laughter, I think, is a physical purging of our mental "stress". I think when we, in our mind, find something funny, a kind of tension is build up, and we need to release that tension; hence laughter. Think of the opposite situation: why do we cry? Surely, tears are not necessary a social phenomenon. I'm sure lots of people have cried before when they are alone; and they cry only when they are alone.
"These Korean dramas are garbage...after you watch it, you forget it."
- My friend does not believe that Korean dramas can be extremely profound. If she is talking about authorial intention, then I have to agree that they are not meant for critical analysis. On the other hand, since we as audience are as much the creator of the drama as the director or the actors, it follows that we can easily create meaning to something that might seem mundane. If you do not buy this argument, think of it in another way: what we consider as "profound" is not necessary an profound answer to a question, but it can also be a profound question. Korean dramas, upon critical reflection, most certainly can raise some very profound questions. Ultimately, it really depends on whether you put in the effort to think about these questions or not.
"...without emotion, we are robots."
- For me this statement is not quite right because it neglects the idea of free will, creativity and historicity, of which historicity is the most important. You can assume that both free will and creativity are innately "programmed" by some higher power (just like a robot) and that we are programmed to think that we are free and creative. But history is something outside of the programmer: it is not merely a succession of one human being generation to another...[to be continued]
"no, i'm not [going to IB]...don't want to seem dumber than I already am in a class full of geniuses."
- With the assumption that I'm talking to the top 20% of the highschool population who are capable of going to university and are actually planning to go to university, I'll list out the few fallacies in the quote by another of my friend:
1. Geniuses do not require training or mental development - that is definitely not true, especially in the Arts. Do we see young famous literary critics or historians?
2. All people going into a specialized class like IB are smart - that is also definitely not true; what is true is that some people think they are smart, or that they are mislead by the arbituary marks they received at school.
3. There is something wrong with being seen "dumber" than other people - well, that is a more difficult point to address. Let's think of it this way: unless you know that you are a genius, otherwise you are bound to be dumber than other people; and since even if you are a genius, you will probably be good at one or two subjects, you are bound to be "dumber" than a lot of people in many regards. If this is the case, why worry about that?
- There are those who suggest that laughter is a social phenomenon: if nobody is around to observe us, we do not laugh. I am incline to believe otherwise - I laugh even when I'm doing a solitary activity, like reading or watching TV. Laughter, I think, is a physical purging of our mental "stress". I think when we, in our mind, find something funny, a kind of tension is build up, and we need to release that tension; hence laughter. Think of the opposite situation: why do we cry? Surely, tears are not necessary a social phenomenon. I'm sure lots of people have cried before when they are alone; and they cry only when they are alone.
"These Korean dramas are garbage...after you watch it, you forget it."
- My friend does not believe that Korean dramas can be extremely profound. If she is talking about authorial intention, then I have to agree that they are not meant for critical analysis. On the other hand, since we as audience are as much the creator of the drama as the director or the actors, it follows that we can easily create meaning to something that might seem mundane. If you do not buy this argument, think of it in another way: what we consider as "profound" is not necessary an profound answer to a question, but it can also be a profound question. Korean dramas, upon critical reflection, most certainly can raise some very profound questions. Ultimately, it really depends on whether you put in the effort to think about these questions or not.
"...without emotion, we are robots."
- For me this statement is not quite right because it neglects the idea of free will, creativity and historicity, of which historicity is the most important. You can assume that both free will and creativity are innately "programmed" by some higher power (just like a robot) and that we are programmed to think that we are free and creative. But history is something outside of the programmer: it is not merely a succession of one human being generation to another...[to be continued]
"no, i'm not [going to IB]...don't want to seem dumber than I already am in a class full of geniuses."
- With the assumption that I'm talking to the top 20% of the highschool population who are capable of going to university and are actually planning to go to university, I'll list out the few fallacies in the quote by another of my friend:
1. Geniuses do not require training or mental development - that is definitely not true, especially in the Arts. Do we see young famous literary critics or historians?
2. All people going into a specialized class like IB are smart - that is also definitely not true; what is true is that some people think they are smart, or that they are mislead by the arbituary marks they received at school.
3. There is something wrong with being seen "dumber" than other people - well, that is a more difficult point to address. Let's think of it this way: unless you know that you are a genius, otherwise you are bound to be dumber than other people; and since even if you are a genius, you will probably be good at one or two subjects, you are bound to be "dumber" than a lot of people in many regards. If this is the case, why worry about that?
posted by Tristan at 11:28 p.m.
1 Comments:
My comments (and my personal opinions) are as follows:
1. "why do we laugh". I asked that. and I never said that "if nobody is around to observe us, we do not laugh". I said that we are less inclined to laugh (and yes, it has been demonstrated in several studies that this is so) and that perhaps laughter has a social function in that it has the potential to serve as a form of acknowledgement or validation. In any case, I never said that laughter is purely social. I think any answer that hints at only one underlying factor is kind of shallow. Instead, I meant that laughter does seem to serve a social function, but really I think it's quite context dependent. As there are different types of laughter, there are different reasons as to why we laugh. Other instances may include a reaction to a surprising event, a release of physical tension (as you mentioned), etc. And anyway, by saying "I am inclined to believe otherwise" do you mean to imply that you believe laughter is NOT social? at all? Because you seemed to have stated the previous statement as some sort of absolute, so the opposite would be the other extreme, wouldn't it? And .. hm .. I wonder if you can draw such a direct analogy to crying. That would kind of imply that crying and laughing have the same basis. And .. how would you know that? I'm inclined to think that the quesiton "why do we cry" is a different question completely. perhaps with different answers.
2. I have no opinion on korean dramas.
3. I'd like to hear the rest of your thoughts on history.
4. hm .. I agree with your first point .... and your second (throw in the quesitonable quality of some ib teachers + the trend of increasingly biased marking practices in BC, and the idea that everyone in an ib class is smart is kind of laughable)...in terms of your third comment, perhaps you only feel this way because you were always near the top of your class. I wonder if your thoughts would different had you been less academically successful in the past (they may be? I don't know). I think all of us engage in social comparison in one way or another, and I think one is more likely to engage in it with our peers (I mean I'm not going to compare myself with someone extremely brilliant becuase I agree, what's the point? we are not at the same level). In some ways I think it allows us to gauge our competencies (although not always accurately) and determine our strengths and weaknesses. And while you may be strong enough to confront your own weaknesses, not everyone is.
anyway ... you have interesting entries. =)
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