Opus 30: Oscar Wilde as a Satirist: Part VI

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Wilde does not consider himself as a satirist, I have shown that The Importance of Being Earnest can be read as a powerful satire on Victorian high society. The play contains the three elements of satire that are readily traceble with a deconstructionist reading. I have attempted to demonstrate that all of the characters in the play are representatives of a group of people within the Victorian society, and that each of them is profoundly influenced by the dominating capitalist ideology, from an economic, social and gender viewpoint. I have also attempted to show that Wilde's play is an exaggerated mirror of the Victorian's game of marriage. Wilde, by exaggerating the elements of the Victorian institution of marriage, implies the business-like style of the Victorians' approach to marriage. Finally, I proposed that Wilde explicitly satirizes the dominating triviality of the Victorians, their obssess focus on food consumption and unimaginative and unartistic entertainment.

While this satirical reading of Wilde's play is supported by the text, there are problems to this reading. I've already mentioned that Wilde does not necessary see himself as a satirist: while one can satire, it does not necessary make one a satirist, for the satirist has satire as an end, while other artists, like Wilde, will use satire only as a means to achieve his aesthetic goal. However, authorial intention is hardly a significant problem to both modern literary criticism and Wilde himself. The bigger problem is Wilde's realism: Wilde has no explicit moralization anywhere in the play. This is unlike neo-classical satires, like Pope's The Rape of the Lock, where the explicit statement of the author is made in somewhere in the poem, even if that statement is ridiculed. Nor can we be sure not to take Wilde's play seriously, like Swift's A Modest Proposal or Gulliver's Travel. We know that we are not supposed to eat babies to solve famine problems or believe in Gulliver, who, at the end of his voyages, goes insane and talks to horses. In Wilde's play, every character is just so believeable; every action (with the exception to the ending, where Jack finds out his real name, which "miracleously" coincides with the name he desires) not without justification to realism. How can something so real be called satire? It would be like watching a conversation between a few modern university students and calling that a satire. But satire or not, Wilde's play is definitely a masterpiece, for its serious reflections as well as light (but never trivial) play on language.

Opus 30: Oscar Wilde as a Satirist: Part V

The Serious and the Trivial

Given the fact that we are reading The Importance of Being Earnest as a social documentary on Victorian high society's decadence into absurdity, as caused by the social and economic influence of the capitalist ideology, we cannot safely say that this is Wilde's intention. Wilde certainly did not consider as a satirist, like Pope or Swift; he only states that morality and virtue are necessary ingredients of great art. Hence the first two sections of this essay are non-authorial interpretations of the text. But the last part element of satire - reversal of the serious and the trivial - does seem to have authorial grounding in the play. From the text we explicitly can determine Wilde's two major concerns: the value of human life and the value of art.

The serious issue of the value of human life is reversed in the play with the trivial humour of food consumption. We can quickly note that there are actually quite a few "deaths" in the play: "Ernest", "Bunbury" and a few of Lady Bracknell's friends' husbands died. However, nobody really seems to care if anybody dies; in fact, all of these deaths are rejoiced and celebrated. Chasuble and Miss Prism definitely shows no concern for the death of "Ernest"; Lady Bracknell congratulates Bunbury for making the correct choice with "medical assistance" and is happy for his death; all the ladies whose husbands died seem to get younger and live "entirely for pleasure". These are all humourous but obvious signs of a society where human life is no longer significant. The focus is shifted to the trivial pleasures of life: food. Algernon is touchy about his cucumber sandwiches (which has no cucumber in it) and obssessed with Jack's muffins. Gwendolen is a lover of bread and butter. Jack comments that Cecily "has got a capital appetite" (and one can notice the language of Wilde reflecting the influence of capitalism). This kind of reversal of values is unacceptable for a moral artist like Wilde, and it is made absolutely ridiculous by Wilde's staging. The most serious conversations are interrupted by the consumption of food, as in the beginning of the play, when Jack is talking about marriages and picks up a sandwich. The battle for "Ernest" in the Second Act (who at that point is already supposedly killed by Jack) between Gwendolen and Cecily is fought metaphorically with food. At the beginning of the Third Act, the ladies think that the boy's eating muffins is a sign of repentance. Wilde chooses to use humour to engage his audience with the problem of reversal of values, and it is done very effectively.

Perhaps a more important reversal of values Wilde wants to point out to his contemporary audience is the reversal of artistic values. What he considers as true artistic values are abandoned by his society; instead people buy into trivial novels and diaries, magazines and music. Wilde would not be the first one to criticize, in George Eliot's words, "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists", but in the play, through the diaries of Gwendolen and Cecily, the novels are shown to be just plain, trival and stupid. The educational or aristic constitution of other characters also manifest Wilde's concern for a lack of artistic grounding of his contemporary society. For example, Algernon cannot play the piano correctly, and instead excuses himself as a sentimentalist. Algernon also points out that literary criticism right then is done by people who have not attended universities - in other words, uneducated people. Chasuble, probably the most intellectual character of the play, does not publish a single work, and hence we are led to question his intellectual abilities. When Chasuble alludes to mythology, we see that Miss Prism entirely missed the allusion. We also see that Cecily abandons her German studies, and German is a highly intellectual language, with many famous poets such as Goethe, Schiller and Heine. Gwendolen is a subscriber to "expensive monthly magazines", which talks about things like displaying affections publicly. Nowhere in the play do we find any traces of artistic sparks; everywhere is signs of triviality. Lady Bracknell's last line, "you seem to be displaying signs of trivality", is most certainly ironic - the entire play is a sign of the trivality of the high society, its lack of cultural grounding, its artistic decadence.

Opus 30: Oscar Wilde as a Satirist: Part IV

The Game of Marriage

I've mentioned that Satire is not only an accurate mirror of its contemporary society, it is also an exaggerated one for the author to highlight certain issues which needs to be emphasized and magnified. The most important concern of The Importance of Being Earnest is the game of marriage, hence it is the issue of "marriage" that is being exaggerated in Wilde's play. Wilde is not making any philosophical, ground-breaking insights into the sacredity of marriage; his object of satire is specifically the Victorian's attitude to marriage and its rigid social rules. Even though the play is exaggerating the mechanics of marriage, Wilde's play, like Jane Austen's novels, must contain some elements of truth, and it is those elements of truth which one can derive from the play that is the object of a careful study conducted in this section.

At the beginning of the play, Jack says that he is in love with Gwendolen and is going to propose to her. Algernon immediately retorts: "I thought you had come up for pleasure?...I call that business." Algernon adds, "I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal...The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact." Indeed, it is perfectly fine to have a little fun with flirting and romancing; but when it comes to marriage, it is strictly business. Marriage is used as a tool for a family to form a favourable alliance with another family. "Favourable" can mean many things, but these many things definitely have nothing to do with the vague and unpragmatic notion of "love": marriages are often a solid way of seeking social, economical and political alliances. I have already mentioned how Jack blackmails Lady Bracknell for his own marriage; this kind of bargaining is definitely part of the pragmatic notions of marriage. Or consider how Lady Bracknell seizes on the wealth of Cecily: Algernon is a man who needs wealth to complete his social hierarchical security. Wilde, of course, embellishes this kind of immoral business tendency with his sophiscated humour. Jack is made into an Ernest so that he truly deserves Gwendolen even despite his blackmailing; Cecily is indeed young, pretty, rich and in love with Algernon, and so Lady Bracknell's materialistic motive is temporary relieved. But there is hardly any doubt that marriage is strictly business.

Since marriage is strictly business, it is best to approach the matter as scientifically as possible. I do not mean that Lady Bracknell should conduct certain experiments with control and variable subjects; rather, by "scientific" I mean to study the matter in an objective, quantatitive manner. This means two things: 1. it is entirely possible to give a certain man or woman a certain score or ranking, based on one's social status, connections, age, wealth and political orientation; this means it is entirely possible to have a so call "perfect" man, like Jack by the end of the play. The selection process for a partner becomes formulaic, and we know that Lady Bracknell and her buddy the Duchess of Bolton have the same formulas in mind. 2. It is entirely unnecessary to consider one's feelings, for feelings can affect one's "rational" judgement. Long engagments, according to Lady Bracknell, "give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage." In any case, it seems entirely possible to artifically create one's own feelings, and we can see this in both Cecily and Gwendolen: the name Ernest is enough to stir the greatest passions from the bottom of their hearts.

If marriage is proper, serious business, then it becomes very easy to see why Gwendolen insists to Jack on the proposing to her, even though the outcome is determined: as serious business, everything must be conducted accordingly. All businesses have their rules which cannot be broken; if the rules are not followed, one has metaphorically broken the contract, and the cost of breaking a social contract is unimaginable (see Lydia and Wickham in Austen's Pride and Prejudice). Obviously, Wilde is mocking that with his play, for we, as audience, must find it absolutely absurd to perform a proposal as Jack does in the play. Algernon's proposal is even more ridiculous: apparently he has proposed once already, but the "engagement" is broken off. Cecily's proposing adventure is a way to augment the value of her own marriage, which, as marriage is a business, is very desirable. On the other hand, we can contrast the high class' strict adherence to the rules of marriage to the lower class' lack of rules. Lane comments at the beginning of the play that his marriage was a based on a mistake. Whatever "mistake" Lane means is up for inconclusive speculation, but it seems to imply that Lane's marriage, unlike Jack or Algernon's marriage, kind of just happened, without expectations, and hence without consequences.

Not only does marriage need to be conducted properly, it must also be public. Since marriage is a business, all transactions must be made public. The appearance of social and economic power after an alliance is most important; the business contract must look successful, even if in reality it has already deteriorated into a state of indifference (like the one between Lord and Lady Bracknell). To publicize one's marriage contract, some of the rules of the marriage game requires the couple to make visits to society, publicly flirt, putting up with relations, publish any diaries or correspondences, not getting caught with adultery, etc. We can see all of these rules being played out in the play. Lady Bracknell visits her friends often to have tea and cake; Algernon comments on his disgust on seeing Mr. and Mary Farquhar flirting with each other across the table; Algernon and Jack would both have to put up with Lady Bracknell after their marriage; both Cecily and Gwendolen intended to publish their diaries; finally, Algernon has already announced that if he is to marry, with a little help from his friend "Bunbury" he would certainly forget that fact.

After the wedding, marriages are expected to fulfill its contract and are expected to be maintained unless cut short by death and divorce. Affections make no difference in a marriage, and this point is exaggerated by Wilde to the point that affections coming out of the two marriages are almost expected to change. Already mentioned is the fact that Algernon will forget the fact of marriage; Gwendolen, too, says that "I never change, except in my affections." How will the couples handle this quick change of affection is up for speculation, but it seems that given the high social status of the couples, divorce seems very unlikely: there are too many advantages coming out of this marriage besides mere affection; Jack will need the connections of Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell, and Algernon will need the money of Cecily. Their future relationship might not be a happy one, but, after all, marriage is a huge, capitalist business; one must be perfectly rational and therefore economical, and it is precisely this kind of thinking that Wilde exaggerates and satirizes in his play.

Book Review: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

The Jane Austen Cycle: Pride and Prejudice

I will not waste my time doing Marxist and feminist criticisms in this review. It is all too easy to fall into that mindset and stop appreciating the wit, humour and elegance of Austen's writing. I will spend my time talking a little bit about all the memorable characters (and one not so memorable) Austen created in her delightful novel.

With this second reading, by the end of the novel, I find myself not so much in love with Elizabeth Bennet as before. But I think this is a reflection of Jane Austen's power to create real, rounded characters. As the focus of the novel is on Elizabeth Bennet, so she is by far the most real of them all. Indeed as we are reading the novel we are witnessing first hand the growth and development of a young lady. We find that all that she accuses of Fitzwilliam Darcy - especially pride - applies to her as well. The title of the novel - Pride and Prejudice - is exactly the character of Elizabeth. True enough, Elizabeth recognizes her own error, and true enough, Elizabeth is a character who has both sense and sensibility; yet she never gets away from her pride; rather by the end of the novel it is moderated by her marriage to Darcy. While I would not go so far as to say that Elizabeth is a big snob like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Elizabeth does bear some of her characteristics, which makes me shy away from her a little bit in this reading. But Elizabeth is not perfect, nor is she meant to be a perfect creation of Austen. She is extremely amiable, but the statement "all men like her, and all women want to be like her" now needs to be reconsidered carefully.

Of the character Darcy I won't say much other than this, that he is truly a subtle hero. Not only does he possess qualities that would make him an ideological ideal, but he has the rare quality of self-reflection (just like Elizabeth). The proposal scene nearing the end of the novel is absolutely amazing, not only because Austen allows us (the readers) to conclusively decide on the character of Elizabeth, but that of Darcy. Through out the course of the novel, we, like Elizabeth, are pre-judging the character of Darcy; we have been seeing Darcy's character from other character's point of view, many whose opinions we soon find out are untrustworthy. Inthe two main passages in which we see the true Darcy - the letter to Elizabeth and the marriage proposal, the self-criticism and self-reflection of Darcy is powerful and insightful. He knows exactly his own behaviour and his own disposition, and he knows how to make amendments, as we can see from the closing scenes of the novel, in which he tries his best to please his mother-in-law.

The quality of the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth, however, begs some serious questions. The main question is: what is love? Does Darcy really "love" Elizabeth? and does Elizabeth really love Darcy? No doubt Darcy's character is rescued from all the terrible names; but does this follow (in Elizabeth's mind) that she is in love with Darcy? What does gradually happen in the course of the novel is this, that Elizabeth becomes intrigued with Darcy and acquires a most favourable opinion of him through his actions. But that still does not solve the problem of "love".

But let us not apply the modern definition of "love", which has a romantic leaning. We must remember that Austen writes from a neo-classical point of view, in which Reason reigns. Given that, I suppose the idea of being "in love" comes down to the idea of a projection of the probability of future happiness, meaning, if you think you can be happy with that person, then you are "in love". Can Elizabeth be happy with Darcy? The answer is a confident "yes", as Elizabeth herself said so. Can Jane be happy with Bingley? The answer is also a "yes". This idea of "being in love", however, can take on a quite shallow turn, as in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Collins, or the case of Lydia and Wickham: in the first case fortunate plays a huge part; in the second, hormones. But perhaps if realized correctly (like Jane and Elizabeth), this kind of "being in love", without all the Werther-like romantic leanings, is more preferable to our modern concept of "love".

Let us return to other characters. There are so many memorable characters in this novel that I'll just mention their names and briefly comment on them. First of all, I find that I like the characters Bingley and Jane more than Darcy and Elizabeth. Jane deserves a little more of my comments. In this reading I have fallen in love with Jane instead. I like her for her optimism and her willingness to give the benefit of the doubt. Sure enough, it makes her a little ridiculous at times, but it also makes her one of the most easy going of all characters in the novel. And Jane is not by any means lacking sense or sensibility, like Lydia or her mother. Having said that, since the focus of the novel is on Elizabeth, it is necessary for Austen to make Jane a little more simple, and perhaps superficial. If we are allowed to eavesdrop on the conversation of Jane and Bingley, perhaps my opinion would change.

But what about the second-tier characters? The contrast between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet is unbelievable: how on earth did these two get together? What about Lady Catherine de Bourgh? What a snob! Jane Austen cleverly mocks her by having her come over the Pemberley at the end, which is "polluted" not only by Elizabeth, but also the rest of her family! Yet there are plenty of people in this world who can tolerate snobs like Lady Catherine, like Mr. Collins. It is astonishing that anyone could find any good in Lady Catherine, yet Mr. Collins is a most ready worshipper. Or can anyone be as evil as Miss Bingley, faking all her behaviours and lying in order to attempt to achieve her goal? Thank goodness this is a Austen comedy; but it certainly makes one wonder just how many of these people trampled upon others in order to achieve their own ends.

I do want to take this opportunity to talk a little about the character of Mary. If you cannot remember who she is, I do not blame you. She is the third daughter of Mr. Bennet and is almost non-existent in the novel. I was struck by one sentence that Austen tries to explain the lack of Mary in familial activities: while her sisters are beauties, she is plain. Perhaps beneath all the glow and fun of Austen's world she subtly asserts a dark point: Mary is forced to become accomplished in other activities - she is by far the most educated and philosophical one. Her speeches makes her rather "unfeminine". Her absence in the novel speaks a lot about Austen's contemporary society: due to the ideology of the time, normality is rigidly defined and obssessively upheld. Those who have no qualities to be accepted into society are simply left to rot on their own. Mary, however, seems to be "rotting" in a rather intellectual way, which is not necessary a bad thing. Is Austen herself like Mary? That I cannot tell; but what about a woman like George Eliot?

Overall, I think I've benefited a lot from this second reading of Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Austen's setting of her works might be restrictive, but the observations she derives from her society is certainly universal.

"Is it the case that the Chinese have no science?"

Article is selected from Ming Pao from the columnist Richard and translated at sight by Tristan

"This is a question that is not settled in the past hundred years. Do the Chinese have science? Why is the Chinese's science so far behind [with respect to the West]? [But the Chinese have] Written and published many essays and books.

"But the direction of this question, is not a correct one. Because, it is not that the Chinese have no science, but rather [they have] no knowledge. What Confucius and Lao Zi both monopolized as "knowledge", is but a special organization method. Or perhaps it is not even a method, but it is a "rule" that is to be followed by the common people. Confucius is one without any thirst for knowledge. What is the universe? Is the earth a square? Confucius has absolutely no interest. For two thousand years, the spirit of knowledge of the Chinese, it has been suppressed to nearly nothing. Hence, the question is [or should be]: why cannot the spirit of knowledge of the Chinese develop, [not the question of] why do science does not develop.

"The knowledge of humankind, from a micro point of view can be generally detailed, but from a macro point of view, it can actually cover the whole of space and time. When knowledge is arbitrarily being categorically controlled, the whole of spirit of knowledge, no longer exists."

Well, somebody is Eurocentric...What difference does it make if our world is squared or rounded? Science is not the only knowledge, is not the only symbol of progress, is not the only way we engage reality. For most of us, reality is a human affair, and hence Confucius' primary focus on Ethics remains the truest of all types of knowledge. The lack of "progress" that Richard is refering to is a 18th Century European Enlightenment philosophical fallacy.

Opus 30: Oscar Wilde as a Satirist: Part III

Continue on with "Satire as Mirror"

Chasuble: "I am a celibate, madam."
The character of Dr. Chasuble can be seen as Wilde's subtle critique of contemporary Anglican Church. We can see this from both his actions and others' reactions to him. Again, going back to the Victorian's obsession with appearances, Chasuble is a character who appears to be doing his job. But upon a closer inspection, we find that he has lots of poor qualities. He is not exactly knowledgeable. In Act III he claims to have "completely refuted" the "heretical views of the Anabaptists", but we are told that he has not yet published a single work. He is not humble, as he flowers his common speech with classical allusions ("Egeria") to show off his education. He is not chaste; he pretends to be a chaste celibate, but obviously (as we can see by his actions to Prism, her reactions, and the ending of the play) he has been flirting with Miss Prism for a long time. He is neither charitable nor caring. When he learns from Jack the death of "Ernest", he did not offer a single word of pity for Ernest, and instead takes the occasion to compliment Jack as "the most generous and forgiving of brothers"; afterwards Algernon arrives on the scene, which reveals the falsity of the death of "Ernest", Chasuble takes no notice of this gross "revival" of Ernest. He is not serious. In Act II, after he has learn that "Ernest" died of a chill, he tells Prism to be charitable to the dead, yet he blows the seriousness of his speech with "I myself am peculiarly susceptible to drafts." At the end of the play, it is reasonable that the two pairs of lovers embrace each other, but why on earth did he and Miss Prism embrace each other? This shows the unserious nature of Dr. Chasuble. With all these poor qualities Chasuable is hardly a good clergy. But other people's reaction to him is even more revealing to the general character of the Church for the Victorian high society. Let us consider Jack and Algernon's christenings: they did it entirely out of convienence. Not only did Chasuble oppose them; they did not even expect an opposition from Chasuble. This shows that the general attitude towards religion is hardly a religious one. Again, Lady Bracknell's casual question for Chasuble: "May I ask what position she holds in your household?" shows just how common it is for church servants to step out of their bounds. From The Importance of Being Earnest we can see that the Church of England has some serious problems.

Prism: "Mr. Worthing! I am unmarried."
Miss Prism represents the girl who is stuck between the upper and the lower class. Being educated and sensible to high society's values, she cannot accept a "fall" out of society. She has two paths: either marry into the upper class, or remain as a second-class servant, barely surviving. Since Miss Prism is not married, then as a servant she must serve the upper class ideology; very clearly, Prism's role is to transmit upper class capitalist patriarchal values to Cecily. She trains Cecily in a absurd and repetitive manner; she protects her patron, Jack, from negative comments: her defense "You must reemmber [Jack's] constant anxiety about that unfortunate young man his brother" is hardly true; she serves to perpetuate masculine values by becoming an object of desire to Dr. Chasuble. Curiously enough, it seems that within the superficial character of mere servant there lies a crack of light that makes characters like Prism a victim of high Victorian society in another sense: she might be a woman of real power who is ruthlessly suppressed by her society. She could be a Dorathea from Middlemarch. Prism, afterall, does know her German and geology (or else it would not have been possible to be a tutor); she also wrote a novel, which, according to Lady Bracknell, is absolute vulgar and revolting - but we should know better than to trust the opinion of Lady Bracknell. Whether Prism is a victim in the sense of surpressed social movement or surpressed genius is up for idle speculation. The point is that in Victorian high society there is a class of people like Miss Prism to help perpetutate the high class ideology.

Lane and Merrimen: "I do my best to give satisfaction, sir."
The two male servants are differed from a character like Miss Prism in the sense that they properly belong to the lower class, wage earners who do not really care about the affairs of upper class society. In the opening dialogue of the play, Algernon asks Lane "Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?" Lane replies, "I didn't think it polite to listen, sir." Piano playing is a symbol of class, and Lane does not have the class to listen to Algernon's supposedly sentimental playing. Servants like Lane and Merrimen are waged slaves who serve as a "lane" for everyone to caprices except for themselves; around them are full of "merry men", but they themselves are not merry. They lack the economic power to even achieve the status of "human" in the upper society; throughout the entire play Lane and Merrimen either say "yes" or they are transmitting other people's messages. For Algernon and Jack, Lane and Merrimen are convienent but replacable tools; for Lady Bracknell they do not exist.

Jack: "...the name Ernest...I don't think the name suits me at all."
By the end of the play, Jack has become the ideal man in an unideal society: he is rich, with several thousand pounds in investment; he is young, just twenty-nine years old, occupying his time with smoking and possessing the "delicate exotic fruit" of ignorance; he is class, as he is the elder brother of Algernon and nephew of the socially powerful Lady Bracknell; he has even got the perfect name, Ernest, a name that kills so many young ladies in society. Jack understands the high society perfectly, knowing that morality is a "duty", as well being perfectly capable of appearing very attractive, as his clever answers for Lady Bracknell testifies. He seems to be a genuine person; from the dialogues we can tell that he is sincerely in love with Gwendolen, honestly happy about knowing his true identity, and candidly sorry for his previous Bunburying experience (with his "brother" "Ernest"). This seems to shed some favourable light onto Victorian high society: if there are more people like Jack, perhaps the immoral spirit of capitalism will find its compromise and balance with some genuine ethics. Lady Bracknells, our Algernons, our Chasubles will continue to exist, but they will be checked by the few but acknowleged-ideals like Jack. All these propositions, however, contain the important word "seem". Jack seems genuine; but how can anyone not be disturbed by his action in Act III, when he blackmails Lady Bracknell, withholding consent to Algernon and Cecily's marriage unless she grants his own? This is exactly the capitalist calculative way of thinking that we are trying to keep in check. However, in the play, Jack hardly cares about the happiness of Cecily; the goal is to obtain his own satisfaction at whatever price necessary. In deed Jack treats marriage as business; indeed marriage is a business game. The play ends optimistically as Jack realizes the importance of being earnest. But it is hardly safe to say if Jack has indeed learn his lesson. I am skeptical as to whether Jack or the entire Victorian high society can be earnest at all.

A Fan of Poetry

I've just finished Sir Philip Sydney's short treatise A Defense of Poetry. He has argued quite convincingly (at least for his time) as to the superiority of poetry to all other fields of knowledge. What is striking is his conclusion to those who do not love poetry:

"But if (fie of such a but) you be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry...then, though I will not wishunto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself, nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must sent you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet; and, when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph."

Thank goodness I, a love of poetry, am not cursed by Sir Philip.

A Clarification on the Wilde Essay

"Wilde derides the action of criticism" is hardly a correct statement. In his work "The Critic as Artist", he writes "[Criticism] treats the work of art simply as a starting point for a new creation. It does not confine itself - let us at least suppose so for the moment - to discovering the real intention of the artist and accepting that as final", that indeed, "[t]o the critic the work of art is simply a suggestion for a new work of his own, that need not necessarily bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it criticizes." For Wilde, "the highest criticism is, the record of one's own soul." Wilde's criticism of Victorian high society is, of course, hardly bitter, but the Marxist who takes on Wilde's work will see it with bitter eyes. I am aware that a Marxist criticism (such as this one) is ideologically oriented, and it is meant to be ideologically oriented, for criticism must have its grounding on something, and it is as much a reflection of Wilde's play as it is a reflection of the Marxist theory. To "truly establish Wilde as a canon beyond his era" is not the goal of this essay. The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of how ideology (specifically capitalism) grounds and operates itself in the Victorian high society. I have no intention of getting an accurate picture of Oscar Wilde himself; rather, I want to get an accurate picture of Victorian high society.

I realized that I have given the wrong impression that Wilde means this or Wilde means that, but one must read my thesis statement carefully: "...we can see The Importance of Being Earnest...as a extremely critical satire beneath its virtuosic wit and memorable fun." I never said that "Wilde is subconsciously a Marxist critic who satirizes Victorian high society because of its immoral capitalist ways of acting"; rather, the play can be seen as a satire because one can readily trace the three elements of satire.

Admittedly, the clarification above is not consistent. On the third point, "the reversal of the serious and the trivial", I do mean to give Wilde's concern with textual support; but before one gets all angry at my inconsistency, let me just say that the third point is not meant to be a sharp Marxist criticism like the first two points; the third point has to do with Wilde's own artistic views, which happens to be expressed in this final element of satire, and so it must be included in this paper.

Opus 30: Oscar Wilde as a Satirist, Part II

Satire as Mirror

To what extend can we view The Importance of Being Earnest as an accurate miniature of Victorian high society? If "[a]ll art is at once surface and symbol", then the comical characters in Importance are surprisingly representative of the different types of players in high society. While I do not possess the exact and specific details of how Victorian high society is like, Wilde writes that "[i]t is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." With this in mind, we can safely say that Wilde is indeed describing the reality of society. Each character in the play can be seen as a representation of a class or group of people; each event, a minumized actuality; each prop, a symbol of the material reality. Importance is a most carefully constructed play; it illustrates very clearly how each type of person is affected by the dominance of capitalism and the social, class and gender forces that are effected by capitalism.

Algernon: "He has nothing, but he looks everything."
One of the most striking characteristic of the high society is its obsession with appearances. The appearance of being wealthy, educated, tasteful, kindhearted and moral are the necessary assets for the survival of people in high society in general. This fundamental obsession comes from the philosophy of capitalism, which puts its emphasis on business transaction and individual satisfaction. Algernon is the kind of young high class man who internalizes this "capitalist mentality". He thinks that money can solve problems, so when Lane fails to buy cucumbers, he is "greatly distressed...about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money." If money solves all problems, then for Algernon, the object of his life is to acquire as much money as possible, with as many means as he can find. His life becomes a business depot, constantly weighing profits and losses. Familial relations, personal relationships or even morality becomes "duties"; as long as he appears to be dutious, he will survive. Hence he will entertain Aunt Augusta and various familial dinners; he would have taken money from Jack for the cigarette case had Jack offered it; he requires a Mr. Bunbury for him to properly escape society for personal fun. Lady Bracknell comments that Algernon is full of debts, but that is perfectly fine because he does not appear so. As for personal fun, he admits that getting into trouble is his personal enjoyment; the truth of "Ernest"'s identity, what Jack calls "a ghastly state of things" is "a perfectly wonderful Bunburying" for Algernon. Algernon subconsciously understands that a man like him, who appears to be everything, will never get into real trouble, for his ways of actions are in exact conformity with the dominate forces of capitalism. Hence he can always sit back, relax, and tell Jack at the end of Act II that he hasn't "quite finish [his] tea yet! and there is still one muffin left."

Gwendolen and Cecily: "I am very fond of being looked at."
The two young ladies have also internalized some aspects of capitalist mentality. But specifically for women, the system of capitalism, aided by the patriarchal thinking from antiquity, requires women to fit into their "feminine" role of the beautiful ornament. The perfect young women are to be objects of value; at the same time, they are also conscious of their own objectivity and accept that as ideality. The French feminist Luce Irigaray once wrote: "men look at women; women look at themselves being looked at." This holds true in Victorian high society. Throughout the entire play, dramatic actions and dialogues, Wilde tells us the requirements of the "perfect" lady in his time. Actually, both Gwendolen and Cecily can be considered as models of the perfect lady. A lady of good society should be educated, but not properly: we can see that Gwendolen knows the word "metaphysics", but does not know how to use it, as she ironically becomes "metaphysical" in her next line; or that Cecily's lessons do not get anywhere, as Miss Prism said at the beginning of Act II, "We will repeat yesterday's lesson." She should be humble: Gwendolen hopes that she is not perfect, for "It would leave no room for developments". She should appear polite and insult politely: Cecily's cutting a large piece of cake for Gwendolen when Gwendolen requested butter and bread is an example of refined, polite forms of expression. She should as many connections with high society as possible: Gwendolen follows her mother day in and out of parties; she has enough "fame" to win an entire list of men who are willing to marry her. She should keep a diary to record her thoughts, regardless of their factuality, since it proves them cultured and educated; both Cecily and Gwendolen keep diaries. She should be loyal to her man (or at least appear loyal in public); Cecily and Gwendolen are quick to become friends, but as soon as they realized they are apparently after the same "Ernest", they quickly turn against each other, guarding their possession; or again, at the beginning of Act III, the girls give up their "dignified silence" and readily submit to their men. Most importantly, all of these feminine qualities must be public; they are intended for the gaze of the male: both Cecily and Gwendolen are beautiful girls; both intend to publish their diaries; both submit to their men in their presence. The femininity of ornamentation is nothing aesthetic; rather it is a powerful method of the capitalist patriarchy to subdue and control the female sex.

Lady Bracknell: "I hope you are behaviouring very well."
As we have seen previously, one's social and economic power has huge influence upon one's morality. Not only does one have to appear moral; rather, morality is a kind of commodity which can be bought through the acquisition of social and economic status. This is the case for high society people like Lady Bracknell, who possesses enormous wealth and huge networks of connections. Her economic and social positiongives her a power to judge and condemn others morally. She has high control over the conduct of Algernon and Gwendolen (restricting their marriages, for example), and she has the power to condemn Jack and Cecily. Inevitably, she condemns Jack not for moral reasons but for a lack of social position. She compares Jack to "the worst excesses of the French Revolution" and tells him "to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible", for no "affectionate mother" would allow her only daughter "to marry into a cloak room, and form an alliance with a parcel". On the other hand, in Act III, as soon as she realizes that Cecily has a hundred and thirty thousand pounds, Lady Bracknell is no longer a skeptic, and Cecily, immediately "a most attractive young lady." Predictably enough, nobody complaint of Lady Bracknell's own hypocrisies. She congraduates on the death of Mr. Bunbury, saying that he has made the right choice with the doctors; she scolds the boys' christening as "grotesque and irreligious", but adds that Lord Bracknell will be disappointed in the christening's wasting of time and money (the wasting of "time and money" are hardly irreligious; it is, however, not economical). Lady Bracknell often mentions the pleasing life of all the older ladies whose husbands died gives the impression that she too wants her sick husband to die so that she can always look thirty-five. The ladies of high society are the ones who are truly "grotesque and irreligious"; but since they are at a position of social and economic (and therefore moral) power, nobody dares to condemn them, and they go in happily in their wasteful lives. Their assumptions as moral judges are aggrevatingly ironic; Lady Bracknell's line, that feeling well and behaving well "rarely go together", applies as much to Algernon as to herself.

Opus 30: Oscar Wilde as a Satirist, Part I

In his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde famously wrote: "All art is quite useless." From this one can see that Wilde's artistic theory would not allow him to moralize his stories and plays. However, this hardly makes Wilde a socially unconscious artist, who only strives for those "higher truths". Wilde wrote again in the preface, "Vice and Virtue are to the artist materials for his art." Even if the object of Art is beauty, it does not necessary mean that it is entirely removed from social criticism. From this point of view, we can see The Importance of Being Earnest, his most popular comedy, as a extremely critical satire beneath its virtuosic wit and memorable fun.

Elements of satires first found in the works of the Roman poet Horace, perfected by English poets like Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and Lord Byron can readily be traced in The Importance of Being Earnest. I will first, very generally, trace the three major elements of the genre of satire by briefly examining another famous satirical work, Pope's Rape of the Lock. After coming up with three general elements of satire, I will then proceed to examine Wilde's treatment of the three elements in his play.

For those of you who have not yet read Pope's wonderful poem, I will take this opportunity to briefly summary the poem. The poem, written in 1712 in a mock-epic style, is about a gentleman who has cut a lock of hair from a lady named Belinda. The action takes place at an afternoon tea party. Belinda has many immaterial gods (the sylphs) who tried to protect the lock of hair from the gentleman's scissors, but, since they are immaterial, they failed their tast. The "rape" of the lock of hair turns into more or less a pillow fight between gentlemen and ladies, "killing" each other with gazes and smiles. The lock of hair, at the end of the poem, rises to the heavens and turns into some kind of constellation.

Here we can see three satirical elements at work. Firstly, a satire is a reflection of contemporarily society. In Pope's case, this reflection is seen from various points of views, but all points of view are rooted in Pope's critique on capitalism; Pope comically portrays the effects of capitalism on class, social, economic, gender and moral issues. Hence a satire acts as a kind of mirror for a supposedly disinterested reader. Secondly, a satire, although a reflection, is often an exaggeration of the actual. Specifically, Pope is recreating an actual event that occurred around his circle of friends; obviously, the actually event is very much different from Pope's recreation: one can be sure that there were no sylphs, pillow fight or new constellations. Generally, Pope is taking some aspects of the real situation and magnifying it for the reader so that reader to judge the ridiculousness of the situation easier and with greater understanding. In fact, satires do require some exaggerations in order to achieve its function; one only has to think of the other great satires (Gulliver's Travel: Guillver is insane by the end; The Dunciad: Dullness as Goddess reigns over England; Don Juan: human beings eating one another after a shipwreck) to understand this point. Finally, satires meaningfully reverses the serious with the trivial. Pope's choice of form - the mock epic - is a deliberate choice in order to juxtapose the noble epic battles and the deathless gods with the adventures with the trivial "battles" between cards and the immaterial sylphs. This authorial choice creates a sense of absurdity for the readers when they examine the poem and its story, which further brings out Pope's point: Belinda is no Helen of Troy, nor is Arabella Fermor, the real Belinda; it is absurd to have a family feud over a lock of hair that was ultimately lost. The aristocracy had confused the trivial with the serious, and Pope, by reversing that in his poem, shows exactly this ridiculousness of the confusion.

In the next parts of the essay, I will examine each element of satire individually and carefully. In "satire as mirror", I will discuss how each character in the play is a reflection of a certain type of person in Victorian high society. Each type of person will have his or her own relationship to high society as influenced by capitalism and its effects. In "satire as a mirror of exaggeration", I will explore the game of marriage as portrayed by Wilde. In "the reversal of the serious and the trivial", I will talk about Wilde's concern for his society, that what is serious (the value of life and Art) is replaced by what is trivial (food and illiteracy).

On Same-Sex Marriage

The MingPao Columnist Sekki has written an entry expressing his opinion on same-sex marriage. I'll first give a translated version of his entry, then give my own opinion. (The wording of the translation might be strange, since the grammar structure of Chinese greatly differ from that of English; I've chose to maintain the Chinese grammar structure.)

Against Same-sex Marriage

Marriage to be a couple, is the privilege of a man and a woman, or even a sacred right. Mankind has always been paired up by the two sexes, hence divided into husband and wife, must this law be broken? This is why I disagree with same-sex marriages, and I had talked about this before in this column.

To say it again, this is not discrimination. The gays can very well "freely live together", set down a contract for the sharing or not sharing of properties, and also fight for a legally familial position, receive certain familial rights. However for the same-sex relationship and different sex husband-wife to be equal, is not reasonable, is crossing the boundary, because the two "essences" are different.

As long as there is a difference between male and female, and it requires male-female reproduction, there should maintain heterosexual marriages, husband-wife, father-mother these special definitions, which is not wise to mix with same-sex relationship. Improper terminology thus leads to impropriate communication, I don't disagree same-sex partners searching for an alternative legal name [for their relationship], but why should they insist on an ancient privilege [that is to say, marriage] that is only for male and female to be husband and wife?

However, rebellious confusions are the modern ways, the world has also greatly changed, the constitution of marriage itself is in great danger. In the future world, perhaps men and women will not marry at all, allowing only same-sex lovers to be husbands and wives. Marriage may not be restricted to human beings, those who love cars may marry legally with their cars, those who love books may ask books to be wives, and also be married with computers, or even marriage with chickens and dogs.

In the future human reproduction as due to the advance of technology, will have no need for a male-female cooperation, all will be test tube reproductions, the manipulating of genes, the changing of seeds to reach its goal. In the future humankind will be asexual, nor do we need the hassles of marriage, which will of course mean that the joy of marriage will be lost.

I have spoken too far into the future, actually I believe a one-male one-female system of marriage is still full of life, others are not exactly marriages.

I was furious after I had finished reading the entry. For some one who claims to be non-discriminatory this is a pretty discriminating entry.

We can divide this column into roughly two parts, separated by a "however" in the fourth paragraph. In the first part, the columnist Sekki is confused about what is biological and what is social. Sexual reproduction is biological: that is an undeniable fact. Marriage, however, is artificial and entirely a human-made action. There is no ultimate Platonic "essence" to what we call "marriage" (unless you are religious, in which religious doctrines may define "marriage"; in that case I entirely respect this definition; but Sekki is hardly religious in the column entry). Just because marriages have always been male/female does not make it its "essence". Sekki may define marriage as a union between a male and a female which results in reproduction of children, but that is only his definition, not the definition. After all, lions mate and have little lions, but they do not get married. Hence his argument against same-sex marriage because it cannot reproduce a new generation fails. Part of his argument calls for respecting the antiquty: "marriage" is "an ancient privilege" for heterosexual couples. But what "privilege"? Is it a privilege when one arbitrarily and forcefully exclude the Other? Certainly, but an unjust one. In this modern age should we allow this injustice to continue on? However, it is not the first that makes me made; the first part is merely an argumentative mistake, which we all commit and is acceptable.

The second part is a satire, illustrating what will happen if same-sex marriage is allowed. The satire is certainly inappropriate: on the one hand, this is not the kind of matter to be joked about, anymore than an issue like interracial marriage; on the other hand, Sekki can give the impression that 1. homosexuals are animals or inanimate objects and 2. same-sex marriages are going to lead to the end of the human race. How are these words not discriminating? The fact that Sekki is "othering" homosexual in something as artificial as marriage is already discriminating; his argument, flawed; his humour, disgusting. If, however, an article as such gets published in a major newspaper in HongKong, I think this is an accurate portrait of how the mainstream population sees homosexuals, and this portrait is not at all pleasant.

Opera Unlimited

I have been on an opera frenzy lately. In four days I've watched four operas: Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses, Debussy's Pelléas et Melisande, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Richard Strauss's Salomé. As I watched the four operas, I was tremendously moved by the power of music to assist the drawback of our spoken language. The spoken language, in short, is two-dimensional; it has rhythm and meaning, but it also has the physical limitation of needing to be spoken quickly; it is also not made for repetition. Words or phrases repetited can become tedious. Music, on the other hand, covers this third temporal dimension. A musical phrase can be compressed or lengthened (and is usually done so); it can also be repeated and often is repeated. The art form of opera is thus the happy marriage that gives the human intellect the most powerful way of expressing itself.

The spoken language is not made for the most powerful and sublime human expressions - love and despair. Phrases like "I love you" are too trite; they have seem to lost their meaning and seem to become mere words. With music (composed by the best composers, of course), however, these phrases revive and are born again. Let me give some examples.

In Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, the prelude establishes a "Tristan" motif that lends itself to continous variations and transformations throughout the opera, both musically and verbally. One of the most powerful transformations of the motif occurs in Act II: musically, the motif doesn't change at all; but Wagner has written a vocab melody that sings first "Isolde", then "Tristan". This simple move changes the entire nature of the motif: the music phrase is no longer just a beautiful melody; everytime the motif sounds the names Isolde and Tristan are attached to it together. This is Wagner's way of musically illustrating the powerful love between the lovers.

In Strauss's Salomé, again there is an undevelopped musical motif, introduced at the beginning, that gets its full development at the climax of the opera. This point is significant because the fully developped motif becomes an illustration of Salomé's love for John. Her love is very difficult to perceive if we only take Wilde's words:
"There was nothing in the world so white as thy body. There was nothing in the world so black as thy hair. In the whole world there was nothing so red as thy mouth."
These words, in fact, are trivial taken out of context, strange within the story. But with Strauss's music they become central to the story; from his music the words grow a new set of meaning.

In Debussy's Pelléas et Melisande, the music, while it does not play as much of an important role as in Wagner and Strauss' music dramas, still serves a significant role in propelling the story along and illustrating the psychological landscape of the characters. The climax of the story is when Pelléas tells Melisande that he loves her. At that moment it was complete silence. That is much more powerful than the full bloom Wagnerian orchestra (especially when Tristan is dead in Isolde's arms, the orchestra basically takes over the music and one can hardly hear what Isolde is singing). The mere phrase "I love you" is augmented to power beyond the stretch of the (musical) imagination.

I'm not quite sure why until now did I become interested in opera. For the longest time I've neglected vocal music in general. My main musical reportoire consists of sonatas, concertos, string quartets and symphonies. But now I have realized the power of syntheized Art.

PS: A couple of things: 1.) I'm very sadden to realize that my instrumental heros are not exactly opera composers: Beethoven wrote one opera, Schubert wrote 17 neglected ones (in fact I didn't even know that he had written operas until recently), Brahms wrote none, Mahler wrote none, and I'm not entirely sure if Elgar had written any. 2.) I was surprised after I had read Wilde's French version of Salomé that a highly philosophical and academic composer like Strauss can set this rather lighthearted, absurd drama in music. The liberetto from Strauss' opera is almost exactly the same as Wilde's words, which makes Strauss's task even more amazing. I would think a composer like Ravel would set Wilde's play in music; instead, Ravel prefered Mother Goose.

An attempt to clarify Heidegger's philosophy

A friend has said that Heidegger's philosophy, being anti-logical, is instinctive. At the time I agreed with her, but was very disturbed by it - why in the world would Heidegger spend his entirely life devoting himself to a philosophy of instinct? Therefore something is very wrong about this "instinctive" interpretation of Heidegger's philosophy. In this entry I attempt to clarify Heidegger's philosophy.

Heidegger's philosophy centers around the notion of Being, not in the sense of a being or an object, but Being in the sense of be-ing (paralleled to work-ing or walk-ing), meaning "emerging" or "presence". "Truth" is the way we experience Being of the world, and the articulation of "Truth" is done through "logos" or language, for language at its inception gathers Truth into spoken words so that it can be communicated or re-experienced. As time progresses in the intellectual/spiritual history of the West, this view of Being-Truth-logos is misunderstood and misinterpreted, forming the scientific systems and logic we now have. Base on this misunderstanding, Heidegger downplays logic, calling it a "mere correctness" towards reality.

The concern here is this: if Logic, which is our way of thinking in the modern West, is a misunderstanding, then is the correct understanding of Being anti-thinking, anti-logic? Do we instinctively understand Being and lost that ability through systematic, scientific education? If we are a child again, would we have understood Being as Heidegger would like us to? Afterall, the poet William Wordsworth expressed something similar:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light...(Ode: Intimation to Immortality, 1-4)

I now think to use the word "instinct" to describe Heidegger's philosophy is very wrong. Instincts are innate; animals have instinct. To pull away from fire is instinct; to understanding, however, is not. Heidegger's philosophy attempts to make us be aware of our own frame of reference towards reality, that things can be otherwise. The scientific way of thinking is not the way of thinking; it is just one way. Whatever that is anti-logic does not necessary mean that it is instinctive. If to understand and communicate Being requires language, then it can never be instinctive - language is something that is natural, yes, but also entirely man-made. With different language reality will be different. The use of language is a far more intimate way of thinking than the calculating logic. The western way of thinking in a logical and systematic fashion has convinced a lot of people that this is the only way of thinking. (My former summer school professor is one; he thinks Heidegger's philosophy is trash.) But I'm convinced that that is definitely not the case; how we relate to reality is a much more complicated issue than the stupid epistemology of the Anglo-American school.

On the bus

I went to UBC today, and on my way back I was eavesdropping on a couple of chinese girls' conversation. (The girls were sitting behind me.) One of the girl was telling her friend (who's also a girl) how to dress in a fashionable style. She was offering advice on the kinds of dresses or tops to wear, the kinds of pants to go along with the tops, the kinds of bras (did I hear that wrong???) to match the top, etc. Her friend seemed to be entirely ignorant of the fashion trends that the girl was describing; the friend was agreeing to every point the girl was saying. When the bus got back to Richmond, I saw the two girls getting off the bus. I assume the girl continued to give her friend advices.

The irony of that conversation is that the "ignorant" girl dressed a lot more fashionable than her friend.

Perhaps it may be the case that I am just as "ignorant" as the friend.

A Passage from Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics

"The opening up of beings happens in logos as gathering. Gathering is originally accomplished in language. Thus logos becomes the definitive and essential determination of discourse. Language, as what is spoken out and said, and as what can be said again, preserves in each case the being that has been opened up. What has been said can be said and passed on. The truth that is preserved in this saying spreads in such a way that the being that was originally opened up in gathering is not itself properly experienced in each particular case. In what is passed on, truth loosens itself, as it were, from beings. This can go so far that saying-again becomes mere hearsay, glossa. Everything that is asserted stands constantly in this danger.

"This implies that the decision about what is true now takes place as a confrontation between correct saying and mere hearsay. Logos, in the sense of saying and asserting, now becomes the domain and place where decisions are made about truth - that is, originally, about the unconcealment of beings and thus about the Being of beings. In the inception, logos as gathering is the happening of unconcealment; logos is grounded in unconcealment and is in service to it. But now, logos as assertion becomes the focus of truth in the sense of correctness. We arrive at Aristotle's proposition according to which logos as assertion is what can be true or false. Truth, which was originally, as unconcealment, a happening of beings themselves that held sway, and was governed by means of gathering, now becomes a property of logos. In becoming a property of assertion, truth does not just shift its place; it changes its essence. From the point of view of the assertion, the true is attained when saying holds on to that about which it is making an assertion, when the assertion directs itself according to beings. Truth becomes the correctness of logos...Logos is now...saying something about something...

"Because, as ways of Being-said, they [truths as correctnesses] have been created out of logos - and because to assert is kategorein - the determinations of Being of beings are called kategoriai, categories. On this basis, the theory of Being and of the determinations fo beings as such becomes a theory that investigates the categories and their order. The goal of all ontology is the theory of categories. Today it is taken to be self-evident, as it has been for a long time, that the essential characteristics of Being are categories...

"In the form of the assertion, logos itself has become just another thing that one comes across. This present-at-hand thing is something handy, something that is handled in order to attain truth as correctness and establish it securely. So this handle for attaining truth can easily be grasped as a tool, organon, and the tool can easily be made handy in the proper way...The true as the correct is now merely spread about and spread afar by way of discussion, instruction, and prescriptions, thereby becoming ever more leveled out. Logos must be made ready as a tool for this. The hour of birth of logic has arrived."

First day of training at Condomania

We did a fairly interesting activity, which I'll repeat here.
1. List your own views and values on sexuality.
- natural equality between sexes
- friendship
- a demystified sexuality
- heterosexual
- rigid family structure
- pleasure and happiness in sex and relationship
2. List factors or sources that form or affect your values and views
- cultural beliefs, traditions
- parents, family education, childhood
- language
- discussionwith friends
- readings
- school
- philosophy, critical thinking
- media and stories
3. List the things which can hinder your role as a discussion leader in a classroom setting
- clash of values and grounds
- bias on heterosexuality
- bias on relationship or family structures
- overlooking of religion
- male point of view
- theoretical point of view

Hmm. I'm struggling a bit with my own views. For sure I'm tremendously influenced by Western "deconstuctionism" (Monsieur Derrida I'm sure will not be very happy with me abusing his term); that's my reason for believing in natural equality of the sexes. On the other hand, from my own traditional education and cultural setting, I also believe in a rigid family structure, and that (given the Chinese family structure is patriarchal) presents some problems when it clashes with deconstructionism. The word "friendship" is interesting here because I think that in dealing with the issue of sexuality, it must be an intimiate discourse between two or more people; how we treat our friends in terms of sexuality will be how we treat strangers according to their sex, so the issue of sexuality must grounded on "friendship". "Please and happiness" is a weird proposition; but too often we feel the need to make sacrifices for the sake of "love"; there are many stories of how one sacifices "sex" for "love". For me, they must go hand in hand; it's ridiculous for one person to ask the partner for sexual favours to show one's love (in my little research last week I've seen a few of these articles).

We'll see how in the upcoming weeks, after more sessions, if my opinions and views have changed.

Funny Authors

I am trying to come up with a list of writers who writes with extraordinary wit and humour. Here are a few (in chronological order):

1. Aristoplanes
2. Ovid
3. Chaucer
4. Shakespeare
5. Pope
6. Swift
7. Voltaire
8. Austen
   
9. Byron
10. Wilde
11. Beckett

It's interesting to see that over the ages the methods of humour doesn't really change - it's always something about sex, making fun of someone/something, exaggerations or absurdity. Yet humour remains the most powerful way of criticizing someone or something.

Anyone can suggest any other funny authors?

Assumptions of Scientific Method and Knowledge

This marks the beginning of a philosophical journey in which I will attempt to undertake as I explore and undermine what is know as "science" in the modern sense. On and off I've been thinking about the philosophy of science, and the more I think about it, the more I had convinced myself that the task before me is to critique the system of science and to bring it down to the level of mythology. This is because science is a myth, a very pretty and correct myth that is in the end without any meaning. It is a myth, however, that has certainly benefitted the capitalist ideology. But we don't need this myth of science. Things can be otherwise; if we are to change (that's a big "if" though), it must start with active questioning, and we must question the assumptions of scientific method and knowledge.

In this entry I want to list out the assumptions of scientific method and knowledge. In later entries, I will attempt to deconstruct these assumptions and perhaps come up with an alternate outlook on science. Here are the assumptions:

1. There is a difference between appearance and reality.
2. Reality is governed by sets of natural laws.
3. These natural laws are uniform over time; they did not change and will not change.
4. Reality is quantifiable.
5. Only through quantitative, systematic analysis can these natural laws be known.
6. Mathematics can enter the sphere of science.
7. The goal of science is to tame nature - to use natural laws to produce something practical for human affairs.