Tuesday, November 11, 2008

10-10-08

Chapter 9
Quotation: "With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway."
-This quote means that he made it easy for people to talk to him but nobody wanted to talk to him.

Chapter 10
Quotation: "There is no light. I don't feel like starting my generator. I used to get a kick out of saving people's lives. Now I wonder what the hell's the point, since they all have to die anyway."
-This quote means that he has giving up hope. He feels useless like why should he save anyone when in reality we live to die.

Chapter 11
Quotation: "The important thing is to keep them pledging," he explained to his cohorts. "It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not."
-This quote means that everyone should pledge out of respect rather they mean it or not.

Chapter 12
Quotation: "The enemy ... is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live."
-This quote means that everyone is out to kill and if you keep that in mind then you'll live longer than those who won't.

Chapter 13
Quotation: "You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail."
-This quote means everything will be better if you take up for it. Act like you care about something that isn't good.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The only freedom we really have is the freedom to say no

1. If I was Yossarian, I probably would make the same choices as he did but not for the same reason. See he did not want to fight in the war because he believed that everyone was out to kill him when in reality they wanted to kill everyone not just him. If I was to lie to keep from going to the war, I wouldn't want to be in the hospital the whole time. I'd probably lie like I got asthma or something of that nature. It doesn't make sense to fight powerful systems because we suppose to be free anyway so we shouldn't even have to fight powerful systems. One good reason that might be worth fighting for is more freedom and for a better life.


2. "The only freedom we really have is the freedom to say no." I think this statement means exactly what its saying. We're told that we're free but what does being free really mean. To me being free is saying and doing what you want, when you want, and how you want it. We really can't do that. Most things that we can't do, we can't do it because of rules. My rules may not be your rules so to you killing someone and getting a life sentence in jail would be justice but to me killing someone and you getting killed in return may be justice. As a matter of fact in different customs the rules are different. So I agree, the only real freedom we have is the freedom to say no but then again I disagree. If your being drafted, you can't just say no and if your selected for jury duty, you can't just say no. Everyone is curious about some things and other people want to know why some people act the way they act. so one might say..... This person seems happy hungry and relaxed all the time while another is stressing, going through bad times and hard ships and is curous to know how this person is so happy hungry yet relaxed all the time so person 2 asks person 1 what's the deal? and the person 1 says I smoke weed so I'm high. So person 2 in returns wants to be happy as well so when asked "Do you want to hit it?" How could they just say no.

4. The rapid shifts between the base and hospital keeps the reader into the book so they won't still be thinking base when its in deed at the hospital. At the same time it could confuse a reader whose attention spand is short. The base represents a more serious place than the hospital because the hospital seems to be a joke. I mean one ward is filled with liars and cowards. Liars because they're not really sick and cowards because they're lien because they're scared to fight in the war.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Orr and Yossrian

1.Orr and Yossrian was talking about Orr eating apples and chestnuts. Orr said he eat them to make his cheeks big. The big cheeks thing was handled during the conversation. Yossrian and Cleninger was talking about people trying to kill Yossrian. Cleninger was telling Yossrian that people are trying to kill everbody not just him and that this is a war. In the conversation with Cleninger the only thing that was handled was that everyone who knew Yossrian as the assyrian thought he was crazy. I think that Orr is a good friend of Yossrian. I think that Cleninger is Yossrian worst enemy.

2. I think Colonel Cargill meant that men from the other countries are only here to kill people and win the war. Soldiers are not trying to befriend you only to kill you. They just want the war to be over so they can go home to their families.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Paradox

In The Superstition of School the paradox was saying that people don't really need education and that its basically knowing about society is the education that we actually need. I think we need both school education and society education because we need to be educated period point blank. Those who are uneducated are the ones that are poor(not meaning money wise). I feel as though the educated ones are rich as Lil Wayne says "bank full of pride" or education in this situation.
In the Paradox and Dream the paradox appeared to be complaints about the government. I think that we all have governmental ways. What I mean by that is if I dress a certain way I'll want to pass it on kind of like setting a trend. Also another example is people who are racist, its passed on from someone else. The people complain about the government all the time but still try and pass there judgement onto others.

About Joseph Heller

I find Joseph Heller, the author of Catch 22 very interesting. He's a very complex individual and also very talented. Here's a little about him and his novel Catch 22.

The renowned American author, Joseph Heller, died last month at the age of 76. He is best known for Catch-22, a hilarious and moving novel set in Italy during the Second World War. The phrase ‘catch-22' has entered American English, used to describe an absurd and no-win situation. His other novels include Something Happened (1974), Good as Gold (1979), God Knows (1984), Picture This (1988) and Closing Time (1994). Now and Then, his memoirs, was published in 1998.
Heller was born in 1923 in Coney Island, a neighborhood in the southernmost part of Brooklyn, New York. He lived there with his family (his mother and two siblings) throughout his childhood, in a Jewish working-class neighborhood. While his family lived only upon the meager income earned by his mother as a seamstress during the years of the Great Depression, Heller got through childhood without ever feeling the effects of extreme poverty. He writes in his memoirs that the social upheavals of the time—lynchings, strikes, Hoovervilles, mass poverty and unemployment—were distant from his secluded neighborhood. “Somehow, we, on that minute parcel of seashore at the lower tip of Brooklyn ... managed to escape the worst of the consequences of the stock-market crash and the Depression.”
The times were, however, hard on nearly everyone, and Heller came out of his childhood with a markedly ‘left' political orientation. But it is perhaps his relative seclusion from the worst of the depression that separated him from the dominant mass movements of that time and of the postwar period. “The occasional neighborhood Communist proselytizer got nowhere with us. Neither, I must record, did the dedicated anti-Communist ideologue, not then or later.” His political heroes were F.D. Roosevelt and the New York Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia. Increasingly during the postwar era, Heller, while maintaining disgust for social inequality and injustice, developed a cynical attitude towards all social movements. This pessimism towards attempts at social change colored all of his writings.
At the age of nineteen, Heller enlisted as an air force bombardier in Italy. Experiences that he had during World War II formed the basis for Catch-22. After the war he studied English at the University of Southern California and New York University. Before Catch-22 was published in 1961, Heller taught at a number of institutions, including the City College of New York, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. His first novel achieved great success, and by the time of the publication of his second novel, Something Happened, in 1974, his financial situation was secured. He went on to publish six more books before his death in December.
Catch-22 is a brilliant satirical critique of a number of modern social phenomena. It is generally referred to as an antiwar novel, but Heller's criticisms extend beyond the absurdity of war to capitalism itself and the social relations that arise from it. To be sure, his analysis is at times confused, and is often directed at surface elements while neglecting more fundamental issues. Nonetheless, Catch-22 stands as a strong protest against the conditions of modern society.
The novel focuses on a bombardier named Yossarian who, after flying 60-some bombing missions, is sick of the war and afraid of death, and desperately wants to go home. There is a set number of missions required before discharge, but every time Yossarian comes close to completing his duty, the number is raised, and he has to fly again. Within this context, Heller creates a number of memorable characters—from the petty and vain officers, whose only aim is to advance through the ranks, to Yossarian's roommate Orr, who crashes every time he goes on a bombing run to practice for his planned escape to Sweden. The novel is a loosely connected series of events and character descriptions without a single unified plot. While this is no place to go in to a detailed exposition of the long book, there are a number of characters who deserve to be discussed here. Unfortunately, I cannot convey the humor that pervades the novel.
First, there is Milo Minderbender, Heller's prototypical capitalist. Milo is the mess officer for Yossarian's squadron, who develops a trading “syndicate,” out of which he makes huge profits. Gradually, as the syndicate grows in power, Milo includes in his operations the armies of the rival nations. For one battle he gets paid by both the US and German armies—by the former for organizing the attack, by the latter the defense. On another occasion the Germans pay him to use his planes to attack his own squadron, which he does “for the sake of the syndicate.” Milo claims that all the actions of the syndicate are beneficial for everyone, for all the profits go to the syndicate “and everyone has a share.”
After cooperating with the German troops, Milo runs into trouble with his superior officers. “Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.... And the sweetest part of the whole deal was that there really was no need to reimburse the government at all [for the damage he had done]. ‘In a democracy, the government is the people,' Milo explained. ‘We're people, aren't we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middle man.... If we pay the government everything we owe it, we'll only be encouraging government control and discouraging other individuals from bombing their own men and planes. We'll be taking away their incentive.'”
Elsewhere Milo attempts to raise the prices of food at his mess hall to exorbitant levels. When the officers intervene, Milo gives way, “valiantly defending the historic right of free men to pay as much as they had to for the things they needed in order to survive.” The rationalizations for greed never seem to change. “Milo had been caught red-handed in the act of plundering his countrymen, and, as a result, his stock had never been higher.”
And then of course there is Yossarian himself, who in many ways embodies Heller's political outlook. Yossarian wants to get out of the absurd situation in which he finds himself, but he can't. He is trapped in the war—and in modern society in general—by ‘catch-22'. What is catch-22? In the narrow sense, it is the “catch” that keeps Yossarian and the others in the war: If a soldier acts irrationally he has to be sent home, but if he asks to be sent home and therefore out of danger, he is acting rationally and therefore ineligible to get out of the fighting!
More broadly, catch-22 is a metaphor for the ordinary person caught up in the madness of war or modern social life in general. Heller boils his catch-22 down to this, that “they [i.e., whoever has control] have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.” Yossarian cannot go home because the people who run the war won't let him, and it makes no difference what justification they might give for making him stay.
In one of the final chapters, Heller provides a powerful depiction of poverty and destitution in war-ravaged Rome. Why does this misery exist? Why are children hungry and the poor thrown out into the streets? Why do men fight in wars and die by the hundreds of thousands? For Heller the answer is ‘catch-22,' i.e., the dispossessed have no control over the situation, and therefore cannot do anything to change it. “Catch-22 did not exist, [Yossarian] was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up.”
Catch-22 stands as a symbol for relations of power, relations that exist even if they are nowhere put down in writing, and it is these relations that are responsible for the misery and senseless death of millions and millions of people. In essence, Heller is pointing to the fundamental nature of modern politics, that, in spite of all talk of democracy and freedom, it is the Milo Minderbenders, in collusion with the petty officers and politicians, who run the show. “When I look up,” Heller says, speaking through Yossarian, “I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.”
Given this state of affairs, what can be done? Here neither Heller nor Yossarian has a viable answer. In the end, when faced with the choice of either ceasing his protest and accepting the way things are, or else going to prison, Yossarian chooses to run away. Why does he run? For the simple reason, that as a single individual there is nothing else for him to do to protest against catch-22. He feels helpless and powerless to do anything to change things for the better.
In many ways Heller faced the same dilemma as the principal character in his most famous work. After achieving success with the publication of his writings, Heller drew further and further away from the mass movements of the time. He participated ever so briefly in the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, but stopped after finding them distasteful. He continued writing novels of social criticism, but did not take any active role in an effort to change social conditions. “I can't create a revolution in the country,” he said in a recent interview, “We don't organize well. And unfortunately I think it may be the best of all possible worlds or political systems. It's terrible, and it gets worse with every election. But if you asked me to sort of conceive or construct an alternative I could not do it.... What happens does happen, and what does happen in life is that the virtuous usually do not triumph, and those who are triumphant usually lack virtue.”
It would seem that the high point of his artistic life was the writing of Catch-22, and that he poured what was most critical and perceptive in himself into that work. He could see no alternative to the wretched conditions that exist in the world and eventually more or less disappeared into the liberal milieu. He will be remembered for the biting social criticism of his novels, and, of course, for his riotous sense of humor.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Paradox & Catch 22

Paradox
One definition of paradox is a statment that is totally absurd but true. Another definition would be a conclusion statement that doesn't make sense.
To me..... Paradox is simply a false statement.

Catch 22
Catch 22 originally came from a book entitled "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller. I was told the book was interesting but not easy to read. Catch 22 means that it doesn't matter which way you go an undesired result will be conclusive.
To me..... Catch 22 simply means that you don't know the outcome until after it has came. My definition may not be a clear definition to some so here's an example.
Example: Sally reached the end of the hall only to find two doors that she did not know where they lead to. She was told they lead to the same room but the only way to find out would be to go through a door.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Which view is best?

One's view of life could be either pessimistic or optimistic. A person with a pessimistic view of life see's the negative side of everything.
Example: Erica had $20 but bought a shirt that cost $10. She was upset because she only had $10 left.
She had a pessimistic attitude because she thought about it as only having $10 left when she just had $20. If Erica would have had an optimistic view she would have been happy that she still had $10 left after buying a shirt.
Some people have optimistic views of life while others have pessimistic. The reason is undetermined but someone can make suggestions. Maybe people look at things in an positive or optimistic way because its makes them feel better. Maybe they can't see the negative or dont want to. Maybe seeing the negative side is hard for those who can't handle the truth.
I don't think anyone really knows why people have pessimistic views of life except those who are pessimistic. Maybe they think about the worst that can happen so when something not as bad as they thought happens happen, its easier to deal with. It could even be that more bad things has happened in their life than good and thats how they see everything.
Say for instance your significant other says those three words "I love you". A person who is optimistic would love the fact of being loved while a person who is pessimistic would respond "for how long".
Which view is the way to be? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Who's to say? Can you be both? Who can decide which is the best view and wouldn't most people say the view that they are? What would I say? What should I say? Who am I or anyone else to decide which view is best?