Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Dear Mexico,

Your people have forgotten you and I am frustrated for you. I believe its stupid to deny the blood that has made us. Why don't people recognize you and embrace you, Mexico? We find it so much simpler to identify as a Hispanic or a Mexican American rather than Mexican.

I don't know if what I am doing keeps us from being a part of society... I don't know if this alienates us but succumbing to words that blend us in is a sign of victory to a country that doesn't appreciate us. A country that enjoys breaking our identity.


I am Mexican.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Philsophy of Nature

List of Books to consider if I wanted to teach the class...

Man was appointed by God to have dominion over the beast, and everything a man does to an animal is either a lawful exercise, or a sacrilegious abuse, of an authority by Divine right. The tame animal is therefore, in the deepest sense, the only ‘natural’ animal—the only one we see occupying the place it was made to occupy… - C.S. Lewis

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons. - C. S. Lewis

1. The Problem of Pain (Chapter 9) C.S. Lewis

Friday, April 12, 2013

Graduation in 16 days!

almost there!

Aesthetics : 4.30.13 Final 15 page Research Paper

Nature : 4.30.13 Paper #3

Nature : 4.30.13 Bibliography assignment

American Philosophy : 5.7.13 final Project

Ethics : 5.7.13 Final Paper

Dystopian : TBA Final Exam

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Philosophy is everywhere?

Complaining about reading and writing philosophy blinded me of something that was revealed last night as I wrote about my personal ideas about having a moral responsibility to people who live in extreme poverty. Yes, three months later but its never too late to understand what I learned.

After squeezing in my creative flare into a big chunk of my essay, I realized that writing with a purpose is what I needed in everything I have ever written. There's an art to the mundane but sometimes I desired to move people or offend them but I couldn't. In class as we discussed Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands, a lot of people questioned whether Anzaldua should be considered philosophy. Many agreed that she wasn't. That she was clearly a folklorist and an artistic writer. I agreed instantly. She wasn't at all a philosopher because I finally felt at ease and comfortable.

There are clearly some philosophical ideas in Borderlands (as several of the excessive Talkers in class mentioned) but why weren't we giving her credit? Was it perhaps because she develops a style that masks what she wants to tell by creatively showing us through story? That's creative writing 101 for you, show don't tell... because it's boring! Personally, that's what I was missing all semester long. The only other writer whose form was admirable and poetic, in my opinion, was Henry D. T. There is something in Anzaldua's writing that I want to imitate because as creative as Borderlands may be in a philosophy class, the opening chapters are a collection of essays... period. There are philosophical ideas in a lot of things from art, poetry, music, politics, religion... Philosophy is everywhere! Actually, if philosophy is absent in writing then I believe its hard for the writing to be meaningful. There's a purpose in the Giving Tree, right? What about anything by Dostoevsky? Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World? Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol to make people want to give to the poor. (We could have read that for ethics!) These are all novels and have philosophy somewhere embedded in them. It's our job to go from there. I don't understand what the fuss is about. Ease up on the analosity. Just enjoy Anzaldua and all her spiteful brilliance.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Poverty paper...


"What is your personal moral responsibility to people living in extreme poverty?"