The New Home
Posted on 2004-08-26 at 08:02
Closer Still
Posted on 2004-08-26 at 08:01
The screen has been hung and the floor has been carpeted in the Caudroplex. Soon enough, there will be a 9 foot screening of The Lord of the Rings!!!
Human Nature: The Fifth Assumption
Posted on 2004-08-25 at 08:05
Man tries to reach, but cannot achieve, a vantage point of personal reflection which allows him to fully apprehend the nature of his own being and thus he cannot fully know or judge himself and can only speculate on the details of his nature.
Human Nature: The Fourth Assumption
Posted on 2004-08-25 at 08:04
Man is not necessarily a fundamentally good creature, though man himself may seek to shift responsibility of the evil, or sinful, to outside sources such as history or the abstract and faceless society rather than seeking to bear the brunt of that responsibility.
Human Nature: The Third Assumption
Posted on 2004-08-25 at 08:03
Mankind exhibits a discreet uniqueness, centered on the individual and not found in other organisms, which allows for variations beyond the capricious as found in other organisms, and which has its basis in that spirit, mentioned above, which allows for self transcendence, thereby enabling man, unlike other organisms of the natural world, to become an individual.
Human Nature: The Second Assumption
Posted on 2004-08-25 at 08:02
Humanity is a spiritual creature and it is this spirit which primarily distinguishes him from other forms and unities in nature, and thus assumption one is further compounded by this assumption to allow Humanity to transcend its own form, order, and unity to live an examined life in which he may recognize and control, to an extent, the impulses and drives which nature imposes upon him as a natural creature.
Human Nature: The First Assumption
Posted on 2004-08-25 at 08:01
The human species has a raison d'etre, and though this purposefulness does not separate him from nature, it does distinguish him in nature, and it is that very point which underlies the concept that there is a why to the universe which transcends and does not conflict with the how that modern science is trying to resolve.
Caudroplex update
Posted on 2004-08-24 at 08:05
Work is underway. All the equipment is in place (excepting the screen and projector) and I should be able to watch a movie on this beast within the next couple of weeks. Oh, I so can't wait!
Christina and the Red Eye Cafe
Posted on 2004-08-24 at 08:04
We had a good waitress while we were there. Christina works at the Red Eye Cafe. She was nice. If you are ever in Indianapolis, the food there is great and Christina is a good waitress and a nice person. Highly recommended! Here is a pic of her and I. She was gracious enough to pose for a pic. Again, a genuinely nice person.
Dave and the Art of Argument
Posted on 2004-08-24 at 08:03
Dave went with us to GenCon and got slammed the whole time he was there. There was constant and fun debate. He was crushed, but it was all good. College does not make you more stupid.
And the winner is...
Posted on 2004-08-24 at 08:02
Me, Will, Daren, and Bryan all made it to the semi-finals for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Tournament. Our teams winning streak ended there, but I got to advance with the winning team anyway (they had a dropout). That team and I continued on and took the Gold. I got a cool trophy, some loot, and some prestige. Neat. The tournament was run by Goodman Games. They do good work.
GenCon
Posted on 2004-08-24 at 08:01
It was fun, but I'm back now.
GenCon
Posted on 2004-08-17 at 08:01
I'm leaving for GenCon tomorrow morning! Sweet! I won't be blogging til I get back. That'll be on Sunday. See ya then. Time to pack.
The Wrath of Voom
Posted on 2004-08-15 at 08:03
OK. Voom guy has come and left. Problem still exists. Can't totally blame him, though. The roof is steep and wet. I wouldn't go up there today. The tropical storm just ended late last night. He says he'lll call back to reschedule. Let's hope he does.
The Return of the Son of Voom
Posted on 2004-08-15 at 08:02
So, in theory, today sometime the Voom install guy should show up to fix things up. We shall see. I don't wanna have to call back and bitch again. That would suck.
Stagnation of Language
Posted on 2004-08-15 at 08:01
An article on German spelling reform makes an interesting comment:
"Languages change over time and they change in a number of different ways. [...] Thanks to the effectively universal use of a single word processing suite, English spelling is what Bill Gates says that it is."
Sleep, precious sleep
Posted on 2004-08-13 at 08:03
Well, I went to bed last night around midnight. I had to get up at 3:30AM to take Denise to the airport (she's going to Disneyworld with her mom) and I got no sleep in between. I came home and had to wait up for a repairman to show up (damn you, Voom!) who waiting til the last minute and rescheduled on me for Sunday. Now it's 2:19PM and I've still had no sleep. I've written a linux/c# app, argued human nature with Will, and volunteered to do editing work on a Ufology project. Damned if I'm not far more productive half asleep than I am awake.
And speaking of .NET development in Linux
Posted on 2004-08-13 at 08:02
I've drooled and waited, and yet still after all this time still no Fedora install packages for MonoDevelop. Who do I gotta smack to get this done?!?
My First Linux App
Posted on 2004-08-13 at 08:01
Having now written an app for Linux, I am left wondering what I should use my newfound great powers for. Forthwith, I present to the world, the "Click the Damn Button!" application written in C#, using GTK#, and compiled to run in mono on Linux:
using System;
using Gtk;
public class ButtonClicker
{
public static void Main()
{
Application.Init();
Window window = new Window("Click The Damn Button!");
Label label = new Label("Name");
Entry entry = new Entry();
Button button = new Button("Click Me!");
window.DeleteEvent +=
new DeleteEventHandler(window_DeleteEvent);
button.Clicked += new EventHandler(button_Clicked);
VBox vbox = new VBox();
HBox hbox = new HBox();
hbox.PackStart(label, false, false, 12);
hbox.PackStart(entry, false, false, 12);
vbox.PackStart(hbox);
vbox.PackStart(button, false, false, 12);
window.Add(vbox);
window.SetDefaultSize(200, 100);
window.ShowAll();
Application.Run();
}
static void window_DeleteEvent(object o,
DeleteEventArgs args)
{
Application.Quit();
args.RetVal = true;
}
static void button_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine("You clicked the button!");
}
}
Where is the proof that it works, you ask? Well, suck on this screenshot, bizzotch:
Where's my campaign at?
Posted on 2004-08-11 at 08:04
I want a campaign with details and plot and stuff. Bryan, where did my mid-week writeups go? You were doing that for a couple of weeks and I liked it. I want more. Write, monkey, write!
Hip T's and Supporting the Artist
Posted on 2004-08-11 at 08:03
I decided to throw some support toward DJ Dangermouse for being willing to make the Grey Album and take the heat for it. I bought his shirt. It arrived yesterday. Signed and numbered, too. Neat. Number 48, by the way.
My Planetarium
Posted on 2004-08-11 at 08:02
I can't do it in Round One, but for Round Two, I'm thinking a nice telescope in a glass dome on the roof, running to a computer in the Caudroplex and from there to the big screen. Sweet! Must. Have. Home. Planetarium.
May I recommend "Asshat the NarcoWeasel"
Posted on 2004-08-11 at 08:01
The BSA is soliciting names for it's new anti-copyright mascot.
Me In South Park
Posted on 2004-08-05 at 08:04
Me as a South Park character:
Now you try.
DnD Withdrawal
Posted on 2004-08-05 at 08:03
We need to play this weekend. I need my fix.
DJ Danger Mouse
Posted on 2004-08-05 at 08:02
Dude. The Grey Album is sweet! It's a banned remix taking the full lyrical content from JayZ's Black Album and the music from the Beatles' White Album and making something new and cool. Good work!
Poor Moore Floored as More Proof is Poured.
Posted on 2004-08-05 at 08:01
Um, seriously, I think I made the right decision in abstaining from the Bash-Bush fest of F911. In case the full article goes away (links tend to do that), here is a local copy of the PDF summary. Really, the country does not need this sort of spin doctoring. Deceipt is deceipt and I don't like it no matter whose side the deceiver is on. Can't we do better than this? It's the OJ trial all over again. Why do people feel the need to frame a guilty man?
Milton's Satan - Lucifer's Symbolic Meanings in Paradise Lost
Posted on 2004-08-01 at 08:03
Abstract:
Concerning Milton's portral of Satan in his work, Paradise Lost. I wrote this paper for an English class called Milton and Spenser. It makes the argument that Milton may have been trying to offer insight into our Western understanding of Hero and Villian with the Satan figure.
Paper:
In Milton's Paradise Lost, the character of Satan plays an interesting, if sometimes, ambiguous, part in the whole of the mythos being related. He is, at once, the epitome of the struggling individual fighting against oppression, the dark figure culled from our own religious experiences, and the cynical yet almost innocuous troublemaker who seeks to betray God while inadvertently doing His bidding. The question is begged by the text: Who is Milton's Satan? Most people are somewhat familiar with the biblical Satan---the Satan character as found in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures sometimes called the Old and New Testament. In general, people also seem familiar with the later interpretations of the character as a pitchfork-wielding, horned and tailed, shoulder-sitting tempter. In fact the typical reader of Milton's work is likely to be familiar with many different and often conflicting views of the Satan character. It is this historical and literary ambiguity which helps make Satan so delightful to the Miltonic reader. Satan, in Paradise Lost, is a character whose symbolic meaning, it will be argued, is manifold. He is the portrayal of a theological concept as well as a political ideal. Gerald J. Schiffhorst, in his work John Milton, discusses Milton's propensity to assign symbolic meaning to his characters.
Spenser was Milton's principle literary mentor, as he acknowledges in Areopagitica, and the first to treat epic material allegorically. [And b]ecause [Milton's] personified characters and events stand for moral, religious, or political ideas, he was able to combine classical and Christian elements in a single poem as symbols of truths beyond the literal level of the story [sic]. (Schiffhorst 70)
Certainly Milton was capable of imbuing Satan with even more plurality of meaning, and it is likely he did so, however the above two metaphorical roles---that of a theological and a political symbology--- stand out as significant and reoccurring themes within the text.
Before a study of Satan's metaphorical or allegorical meaning is begun, it would behoove the student to first look at the simple, literary, plot driven Satan as portrayed in the actual events of the story behind Paradise Lost. In this strictly literal interpretive sense, Satan plays a huge role. Created by God, Satan, an archangel in Heaven, becomes jealous and discontent with God's rule and His Son's glory. For these reasons he chooses to revolt against God and His faithful after inciting a large group of compatriots to join him. Once defeated by an angelic army of the remaining faithful, he and his fellow revolutionaries are cast into hell---a place of unending torment. Here the plot thickens. God, upon seeing His heavenly creation marred, seeks to repair the damage done by building another world. His reasoning in this is best left to His own words:
But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Already done, to have dispeopled Heaven,
My damage fondly deemed, I can repair
That detriment, if such it be to lose
Self-lost; and in a moment will create
Another world, out of one man a race
Of men innumerable, there to dwell,
Not here; till, by degrees of merit raised,
They open to themselves at length the way
Up hither, under long obedience tried;
And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth,
One kingdom, joy and union without end. (Paradise Lost Book VII, 150-161)
Suddenly Satan is given (or so he believes) another indignity by God. This new creation, too, will be a source for jealousy and hatred against the God from which Satan was and still is rebelling. Satan then schemes to destroy God's new creation by tainting it with the seed of doubt and hubris to which Satan himself and all his horde had already fallen. The two separate stories of Satan's fall and Man's fall become parallel. This parallelism runs its course through the work until the end when the differences appear sharply to the reader. Satan does eventually tempt Man and Man does fall, just as Satan did before Him, yet Man, unlike Satan, learns from the error. Adam and Eve, in fact, suppliantly apologize to God for their transgression against Him---a step taken by neither Satan nor his crew. The story ends not with Satan centered in the conflict but with Man, as portrayed by Adam and Eve, moving into a new life in God's service. In a literal sense, Satan is the antagonist who drives the plot with his machinations. In a non-literal sense, he is far more.
Satan is the great adversary. He is the archfiend who we are to loath for his rebellious nature. Many have argued that this negative and contemptible Satan is non-existent within the text. To justify this position, those persons often refer to Satan as the hero figure of Paradise Lost. Ralph Waterbury Condee describes this heroic Satan in his work Structure in Milton's Poetry: From the Foundation to the Pinnacles.
I propose that Satan is not the hero of Paradise Lost, but that he is in a very significant way one of the heroes; ...Satan fades and Adam emerges as a hero during the course of the poem. Underling this fading and emergence are concepts of heroism which Milton presents, juxtaposes, and brings to fruition, as he moves through the story of Adam's creation, fall, redemption, and exile. (Condee 7)
He is most certainly correct in that assessment just as are all others who proclaim the characteristics of Satan to be categorizable as the Heroic ideal. Satan is a hero figure in the vein of all great Western epics. That fact is undeniable to anyone reading the text. To suggest, however, that merely being the stereotypical Western ideal of a hero makes a character positive is to assume a universal truth that Milton is pointedly showing to be false. Milton portrays him as the adversary to a powerful and, by Satan's account, tyrannical God.
...[Satan was] aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. (Paradise Lost Book I, 38-44)
Satan fights the valiant fight against this Oppressor and yet ultimately loses to Him. Some might argue that Satan knew all along that he could not win---but he fought and that is heroic. The reader might say so, at least. Milton, it seems, had another idea of heroism in mind though he never outwardly defines it. What, then, is it?
Milton defines heroism negatively by contrasting it with what it is not. It is not, as Satan repeatedly reveals in Paradise Lost, physical valor or military adventure. The very fact that Satan is given some traditional heroic attributes reveals Milton's dissatisfaction with the heroic tradition of the epic. (Schiffhorst 70)
Milton, rather than accepting standard interpretations of the heroic figure, chooses to reinvent the ideal by first showing the flaws in the older ideal, hence he chose to portray the hero, Satan, in a traditionally villainous role---that is, working against God. Milton creates for his audience a character who is at once someone we want to appreciate as heroic and valorous and someone we desperately want to see lose. For Milton, it appears that a hero is not that which has been described in Western literature for centuries, but rather someone who would defy that stereotype for God. Milton, repeatedly throughout the text, explains his reasoning in this. This is evident, for instance, in his punishment to Adam when God proclaims that "Because [Adam] hast hearkened to the voice of [his] wife, / And eaten of the tree, concerning which / [God] charged [him], saying, Thou shalt not eat thereof," Adam was punished. Adam, in choosing to be with his wife was acting as heroic as Satan ever had, but he was reminded of his duty to God first. Likewise, Satan is acting constantly in opposition to God, when, if he were to be a Miltonic hero, he would follow God regardless of heroic inclinations. Satan acts as God's adversary and by virtue of that fact he is not a hero but rather the Satan of Old and New Testament fame used in Paradise Lost to represent the theological heroic ideal by opposition.
The character of Satan also works within the poem to achieve a politically metaphorical objective. Before discussing this Miltonic objective, it is important to be familiar with the socio-historical environment out of which Milton is coming. Milton existed in a time of civil war and internal strife in England. In essence, there was a strong movement away from English governmental loyalty towards personal freedom. The Anglicans (the official church of England) sought to impose their doctrine onto other sects such as the Puritans (of which Milton was a member) and the government itself sought to impose its authority onto the lives of its citizenry farther than many of the citizenry wished. Nobles and Kings were impeached and in some cases killed. Religious wars began cropping up, such as the first and second Bishops' Wars in 1639 and 1640. Ireland rebelled against England in 1641. English civil war began in 1642. Nowhere was safe from this unrest. Marston Moor, Newbury, Naseby, and even Oxford and London were torn apart by warfare. Milton chose sides. He wrote his anti-prelatical pamphlets in 1641-1642, shortly after the Bishops' wars, as answer to propaganda literature from the opposing side in those wars. Later, Milton would go a step further. He took an interest not only in the ecclesiastical in-fighting but in the political wars as well. His works Defensio pro Populo Anglicano and Defensio Secunda, his first and second defense of the English people, published in 1651 and 1654 respectively, defended the drastic actions of his fellow revolutionaries---specifically in the regicide of King Charles I. Clearly, Milton saw himself as a revolutionary fighting against an oppressive ruler. Thirteen years later, in 1667, Paradise Lost was published detailing a Satan figure in much the same position as Milton himself. Free will became the paramount ideal that Satan represented. It could be argued that the free will being expressed in the story is a theological concept rather than a political one, but since it is Milton's political problems which help drive the creation of Paradise Lost, it is more likely that this free will is a refutation of royal and Anglican ecclesiastical authority more than a continuation of the ages old Augustine/Palagius theological free will debate.
The groundwork for Satan as representative of the struggle for free will is laid in his opening speech.
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reigh secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell... (Paradise Lost Book I, 257-262)
Satan uses such words as "free" and "choice" in the face of a God who is described here as being in charge, not because of His divine glory, but because of His divine might ("...Thunder hath made [Him] great....") G. Rostrevor Hamilton, in his work Hero or Fool: A Study of Milton's Satan, addresses the issue of free will in heaven and why Satan rebelled against God.
...we may question whether the angels ought to be quite so completely happy as they are. They are not allowed to forget the merciless doom that awaits them if they fail in the test of prompt obedience. (Hamilton 36)
How bold and ironic that Milton, a Puritanical devotee, chose to represent the Puritanical movement with its own mythology's worst villain! And yet he did. Satan is no more or less a revolutionary than Milton himself. In fact, it is Satan's character who so poignantly expresses that which Milton would have wanted the world to know of himself against the powers-that-be.
...What though the field be lost?
All is not lost--the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. (Paradise Lost Book I, 105-111)
So too does Milton express this self-same sentiment in his political pamphlets. Milton and Satan are not so different in this respect. Satan is purposefully represented as the more tangible, the more real, of the spiritual hosts. He is whom we are to identify with. Hamilton states, "[h]e wins our admiration the more firmly because he is intimately real, while the inhabitants of Heaven are remote and strange" (Hamilton 39). And it is he who preaches freedom. In his speech to the assembled fallen angels in hell, he talks of God and the punishment he dealt them.
This place our dungeon, not our safe retreat
Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt
From Heaven's high jurisdiction, in new league
Banded against his throne, but to remain
In strictest bondage, though thus far removed,
Under th' inevitable curb, reserved
His captive multitude. For he, to be sure,
In height or depth, still first and last will reign
Sole king, and of his kingdom lose no part
By our revolt, but over Hell extend
His empire, and with iron sceptre rule
Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven.
What sit we then projecting peace and war?
War hath determined us and foiled with loss
Irreparable; terms of peace yet none
Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given
To us enslaved, but custody severe,
And stripes and arbitrary punishment
Inflicted? (Paradise Lost, Book II, 317-335)
Again certain words stand out. "Dungeon", "bondage", "captive", "rule", and "enslaved" all seem addressable to Satan's issue of freedom and free will. This pattern of diction can be followed throughout the text. Satan is Milton's ultimate rebel and that fact shapes Milton's portrayal of him.
One cannot, however, escape the inherent problems there. If Milton were trying to show Satan as an anti-hero, in some ways he would be working against his own cause. Yet it is apparent that by placing Satan in the exact same position that he and the other revolutionaries were in, he must've intended to justify his own position. Satan's character may have been able to accomplish both goals well. Truly Satan was an anti-hero. Milton may well have been in the camp of Satan the rebel, but not of Satan the rebel against God. That he could not abide and the story bears that out. John M. Steadman in his work Moral Fiction in Milton and Spenser, writes:
Milton's poem cannot be reduced to a single epic stereotype or generic formula. On the contrary, within the framework of the neoclassical tradition it comprehends a wide range of other literary traditions. (Steadman 147)
Satan is not meant to be understood in only one way. Milton deliberately, it appears, portrays several different and sometimes incompatible Satans. He includes patterns of Hebrew understandings of heroism and Greek understandings of free will with the ideals and struggles of his own rebellious time. Whenever we may think we've begun to understand Satan, we are stopped by his own inconsistencies. We are forced to consider every aspect of him. As Hamilton put it:
...Satan in imagination differs from Satan in idea. In the abstract we may conceive him, whether actual or symbolic, as wholly evil, the negation of all good, but, when we try to imagine him, it will not be surprising if all kinds of elements---foolish, virtuous, heroic, human---begin to enter in. (Hamilton 8)
He is a contridiction. His own demeanor, in places, alters even the heroic qualities we wish to prescribe him.
Satan's heroic qualities are enhanced by this strain of something approaching tenderness in his character. We see it again when he is moved towards pity, and even love, by the first sight of Adam and Eve in their unsuspecting happiness, and once more when, on the very point of tempting Eve, he is disarmed for a while by her innocence. His courage and will-power are not the expression of a nature irrevocably hardened or incapable of gentle emotion. (Hamilton 25)
So finally we ask again "Who is this Satan?" the answer is that he is all these things. He is as multifaceted as the understandings of him in the real world. He is both hero and villain. He is both a pitier of the non-free and pitiable for his lack of freedom. He is both Milton and Milton's nemesis. To limit him to a specific, single definition would not only be a bane to Satan himself, but to Milton who preached a gospel of freedom through him.
Work's Cited
William O. Douglas, Judge (1898-1980)
Posted on 2004-08-01 at 08:02
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Posted on 2004-08-01 at 08:01
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."