"The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."

I would just like to take a moment and say that I absolutely hated that hell assignment. Now don't get me wrong, imagining how to punish people for the terrible shit we've all done is great, but it's all just a happy fantasy that ends as soon as you actually think about it. It's great to believe that in this big, confusing universe, there is some form of higher justice beyond it that can really make up for the evil in our world But that's where the fantasy stops. I would absolutely love to believe that some hell exists, but I can't. There is nothing after this. Good and bad people alike will cease to exist. once you die, you retain no memories, no emotions, no thoughts. Nothing. The only thing that remains of you is the rotting pile flesh and stink that used to be called by your name and the memories that you left in others, who also will end up rotting corpses indistinguishable from your own. And the assertion that life has a purpose, or that in turn hell has the purpose of canceling out all of life, is just completely wrong. All of life is just some accident of probability, some mistake that infinitely small chances in the universe brought forth. There is no higher purpose to our existence, except to quietly pass from the universe. And that's not even on an individual level: our entire planet's eventual destination is a fiery death in the heart of the sun. We can only hope that all of life is still on that boiling rock when it happens, and the human race, or any other race of creatures doesn't exist to parasitize and vandalize any other planets with our disgusting presence. "But what's the point of there being a universe if there is no one to observe it? I mean, the universe might as well not exist at all if there's no one there to see it." Exactly. There is no point to the universe. It's just some void with rocks floating in it that got there by some accident of the Higgs field changing states. It's meaningless.

And therein lies the curse of consciousness. To have an organism complex enough to know that it is itself an organism means to have an organism complex enough to know that it itself is pointless. This sensation we experience called thought is just some random mistake in the complexity of our minds that has somehow formed in a way that mimics a transcendence of the physical. We experience it as this higher form of conscious thought, captured in the illusion that this thought actually has any meaning. This consciousness gives us the hallucination that we can actually choose our own actions, our own thoughts, our own opinions, but in reality the only possible thing a conscious mind can do is ponder the fact that it is a conscious mind, and that it is ultimately pointless. And that thought is a terrible, terrible thought. If only humans were still just apes living in the trees, free of the realization that they will die, the people around them will die, and the entire world will end. And I suppose that we as a species have found ways either to regress to that ape-like state or to find some false meaning to our existence in the cosmos. Ignorance, religion, have become rampant in society as people try desperately, terrified, to justify their own lives so they can sleep at night. They sleep, and their minds dream of worlds where they mean something, ignoring the terrible conclusion that their prescribed self-worth is no more that a sleeping pill and a blindfold to cover their afraid and pointless eyes. But so the human mind creates these illusions for itself, trying desperately not realize the true nature of its existence, making and destroying its own purposes and destinations. If it stops, the world will become its own hell, full of people driven insane by the horrifying truth. If it continues, the world will become its own hell, full of people broken into delirious, depressed, psychotic beasts that desperately want to believe they have a purpose. Either way, we all die, and there is no meaning to conscious, and no destination for the dead to go and find it, and the world will turn to the very hell that people still believe could exist.

"All right, then. I'll go to hell."

Hell is a place where all of evil resides. It is a place where, after death, human conscious goes to recognize all the evil they have done in the past. All evil people are there, taking their turn. It is a place full of fire and lava and rock and ice and wind and all terrible things. The sun burns overhead, the hellfire boils the skin that no longer exists. The biting cold freezes the fingers and toes and noses of souls. But that's just the line. The main point of hell is some sick form of justice - giving the evil what it deserves. We'll look at this from an individual level: a soul dies, and goes to hell, and waits in all that burning and freezing and whatnot for about eternity. Everyone goes through that, regardless of what they did in life. Then they get to their actual "treatment". It's basically just sitting in a room, strapped to a chair, and the entire events' of the souls life are played out. It ignores the good, righteous, whatever, parts of life and goes to everything the soul had done wrong and draws it out infinitely. The theory behind it is that the soul will feel some remorse for those bad things, some regret. It has learned its lesson. After that, justice is served. Hell for that individual has served its purpose, and the soul ceases to exist, no memories no emotions, nothing. There is no heaven, no paradise. That's the fairytale told to grown ups so they can sleep at night. There is only infinite suffering. But you can't say that's unfounded. The afterlife parallels the world. The only reason infinite suffering exists in the afterlife is because there is infinite evil in the world to supply it, justify it. Hell exists to rectify all the evil we humans produce.

You literally just need to exist in an intelligent, self-conscious mind to go to hell. Generalizations are just about exactly what I don't stand for, but I'll just quietly ignore my own value systems I hold for other people and say that everyone is evil on the inside. Not on the individual level, but as a whole society, we are all terrible. We all do things that are bad. My definition of bad is essentially it affects negatively someone else somewhere in the universe. So basically everything can be considered bad, which is why everyone is in hell. But the thing is, that while the entire "hell process" I maintain is a generalization, it is even more specific and personal than any system that groups people by the blanket sins they have committed. Each individual sees exactly what they themselves have done, and their level of torture is proportional to what they have done in life. If someone has actually done nothing wrong, they will merely by presented with moments when they were apathetic to some cause or instance repression - "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis" - (Dante). And of course in that sense then all people are damned to the worst tortures. 

The punishments in hell are all one and the same for each person. After standing for eternity in a long line (wait the DMV is hell!) while being buffeted by hellfire and burning cold at the same time, you get to a room where you review your entire life. The images of your life are sent into your brain, so you may experience not only sight and sound, but all the senses and thoughts, to share in the emotions of the people that surrounded you your whole life. It speeds up the parts of life that were devoid of wrong, but spreads out, slows down, and painstakingly repeats over and over whenever the individual did something bad. Eventually, after repeating the life over and over, the hope is that the soul will show some sort of remorse for each and every thing they did. At that point, hell has run its course and the soul ceases to exist. No paradise, no heaven, nothing. Only hell and then cessation of existence. That's all the punishment necessary. 

Hell looks like every single Judeo-Christian depiction of hell ever. Lots of tinged-red rocks, stalactites, stalagmites, fire, bones, but at the same time is freezing cold and the burning sun shines overhead. Not a friendly, nice, yellow sun, but a terrible, harsh, unforgiving red behemoth so close if you reached your hand up it would be set ablaze in the fire of the sun above and the ground below. The rocky path stretches down and down, farther into the abyss, until you get to the viewing room, which is a lot like those time travel machines in Twelve Monkeys. The line stretches out forever. How people view it is interesting. Most of the detail stuff is hallucinations by each and every soul. None of them actually retain their bodies or their flesh, they are just manifestations of their conscious minds. But to their minds, they have their bodies and as they stand in line forever, their skin and flesh slowly melt of their bodies. They can see and hear the souls in front of them one step further in decay, screaming in agony, and they can hear themselves screaming too as they catch up to the people in front of them. 

No one does escape hell, because there is no place to escape to. Obviously, ceasing to exist is an escape from being strapped to a chair and reminded of all the wrong you ever did in your life. And being strapped to a chair and reminded of all the wrong you ever did in your life is an escape from waiting for all eternity in a line while slowly decaying in hellfire. But no, there is no redeeming place for good souls. There is no place for good souls period, as good souls do not exist. Everyone is subjected to the tortures of hell. There is no way to avoid it, no place to go instead. 

The symbol for this version of hell would be a bloodshot eyeball. Most people would think that out of the two things, waiting in line burning in hellfire is the worse of the two. But that's not true. To relive every moment of your life, every hour, every terrible decision and bad choice replayed thousands of times with no reminder of any of the good that came with life. Sleepless, without food or an sort of comfort or release until the end, the psychological torture of that would be far greater than any physical pain you could endure. Just watching, over... and over... and over...

Every person who has every existed and will ever exist is in hell. Ever since man first realized he was a man, he has been going to hell after death. It would be far easier to specify who's NOT in hell. Only people who were literally powerless to prevent any evil of the world and that did not contribute at all to the evil of the world would just cease to exist immediately after death. 

"I believe that... myth is more potent than history... That hope always triumphs over experience"

I'm really curious as to the origins of the story skeletons like the Tragic Hero and the Hero's Journey. It's obvious that these base story lines are present in almost all of fiction, but it seems curious that storylines such as the Hero's Journey and the Tragic Hero are the ones that form. The Hero's Journey consists of being called to action, a road if trials and tests, a pit or deepest cave, and a return to the world. The Tragic Hero starts at a place of high status and as a result of some terrible character fault, falls to suffering, never to return. They are both very specific - and very peculiar - story lines that seem to permeate all of myth. The question though, is why those stories? Why are they the ones that people keep gravitating to, listening to, eating up and retelling?
My own answer to that is as follows. For the Hero's Journey, it's all about the identification with glory. The Hero's Journey is amazing, and everyone wants to live the life and journey and glory of the hero, so the Hero must start out as some ordinary person, called to act by some extraordinary force (a possibility open to all). They travel down the roads of trials, victory after victory to finally arrive at the centermost cave, the ultimate trial. We all love the story of the last-minute victory, the comeback, the underdog. So the Hero must embody all of those things at once and return to the world no longer the average joe we all associated with, now someone extraordinary, something everyone else wants to be too. Everyone out there could possibly be this hero, it could be any of us. That's why we love those stories, we believe in our minds that we ourselves could be that same person. The Tragic Hero is basically the educational what-not-to-do-now story that comes after the Hero's Journey. The Tragic Hero starts at the place of status attained by a Hero. We all love to see how others make the mistakes we know we could never make, and in a fashion opposite of the Hero's Journey, we automatically don't associate ourselves with the Tragic Hero. We see ourselves as the version of the Tragic Hero that attains the initial success of him but we don't lose it. We immediately gravitate towards stories we want to be ours, without the possibility of the story ending badly. They are all of our stories, to ourselves, in our imaginations. That is why we, as a society gravitate towards those story arcs.

"You gonna bark all day little doggie, or are you gonna bite?"

I would like to take this moment to talk about the movie Reservoir Dogs, and many other of Quentin Tarantino's works beyond merely the story of the tragic hero. His movies are all so incredible: the depth of the characters, the witty dialogue, the raw violence and showing of humanity's true colors are just awe-inspiring. The thing I almost like the best about Tarantino's films is that they focus on the "bad guys", people that for the most part are considered exclusively to be bad. They focus on robbers and bounty hunters and assassins and people that just kill a whole lot. But something that many of us forget is that just because something is considered to be bad or evil or wrong, not every single aspect and every single thing associated with it is also bad, or that it will not have any good qualities or depth. The dialogue in Tarantino's films reveal depth, compassion, and humanity in characters considered everyone to be exclusively evil. For example, Reservoir Dogs focuses on a bunch of criminals, one of them an undercover cop, in the planning and immediate aftermath of a diamond heist. Not good people. But the opening scene shows the entire group at breakfast, talking about music, and the radio, and old friends. Their conversation eventually turns to the fact that one of their group, Mr. Pink, does not tip. They go into how waitresses need the money and it's all very compassionate and considerate and logical and friendly, showing that these people have integrity and kindness in their hearts.
Of course, the movie has to show the exception to the rule of friendly criminals, and that is Mr. Blonde, or Vic Vega. In stark contrast to arguably the best of their group, Mr. White,  Mr. Blonde is completely crazy and violent and psychotic. He starts off on a poor note by starting to shoot up a group of civilians during their heist and ending (literally) having cut open the face of, cut the ear off of, and almost setting fire to, a police officer he had hostage in his trunk. He is shot by the other criminals before he has the chance to set fire to the officer. The rest of the men, however, all show compassion and remorse for the people Blonde shot, and all made sure they didn't themselves kill any civilians. Mr. White himself prides himself and his team on their openness, and has immense faith for and compassion in his injured compatriot, Mr. Orange. It is however revealed that Orange is an undercover cop, and White, finding honesty the most important thing and not considering cops to be real people, shoots Orange in the head. Oh well. No one's perfect.

"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils (capitalism), namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals."

One thing I'd especially like to reflect on about the past week is our research into ancient greek theater and myth, specifically Aristotle. He was a really influential philosopher of Ancient Greece. Personally, I love his teachings, especially the political. He believed that there were basically three good forms of government: monarchy (rule by king), oligarchy (rule by elite few), and constitutional rule, or a democracy (rule by the people). he said that the first two were easily corruptible, and power would go easily to the ruler's heads in those systems, so a democracy is best because it is less easily corruptible. "The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little” (Aristotle). He also believed that within a democracy, the ideal leaders that inevitably come forth would be a well educated middle class. He said that the rich could not lead, because they know the taste of wealth well and would exploit their rule to gain more wealth, and they would not understand any state of being that consisted of an overbearing need of wealth. He said the poor, also, could not rule because they would be resentful of the rich and would aim to take from them as much as possible. He thought that since the middle class knows a little of wealth and a little of want, they would be able to rule fairly and rightly for both ends of the spectrum, especially if educated. 

It is a bit confusing, though, the thought that even in a true democracy, there would still be an individual class of leaders that form, but Aristotle knew that leaders will naturally come forth from a group of people, as evident in all society: that a hierarchy of some form forms even from anarchy and that in a society with projected equality, people will want to be led and the ideal people to lead will be an educated middle class. Unfortunately, as he also recognized, the people that will come forth will not be fair leaders, as the people that strive to be leaders therefore are at their heart bad, "...it is all wrong that a person who is going to be deemed worthy of the office should himself solicit it... for no one who is not ambitious would ask to hold office” (Aristotle). So we do see that Aristotle's teaching were slightly idealist, hinging on the fact that even though the people that come forward to lead are the wrong people to lead, that the right people to lead will come forward. It is, however, slightly less idealist as him just teaching some form of anarchist communism, so he did at least recognize there must be some separation from the ideal in the real world. 

Oedipus Rex Inventory

Sophocles

Sophocles was born in 496 BCE in Colonus, a Greek village outside of Athens, and he died in 406 BCE in Athens. Sophocles was very lucky: he was born into a relatively rich family, the son of an armor smith, and received a very good education, as well as having great beauty, physique, athletic prowess, and musical skill. He was well known for his plays and his intimate connection to the government, leading families, and religious centers of Athens.

Oedipus Rex

The Man
As a man, Oedipus is was pretty good guy. The only arguably bad thing he did was kill a stranger at a crossroads, Laius, out of anger, but through the entire play his motivation is the welfare of his people. He's trying to free his people of a terrible plague brought on by the wrath of the gods, and is trying to find justice for the murderer of the previous king. Only problem is, the murderer is him.

The Myth

The myth centers around a boy named Oedipus, a child of the king and queen of Thebes, Laius and Jocasta, who was prophesied to one day murder his father and marry his mother. Because of this terrible prophecy, Laius and Jocasta had him killed, but instead of killing him, he was taken to Corinth and he ended up as the adopted son of the king and queen there. He grew up and travelled back to Thebes and unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, while meeting a sphinx and becoming the new king along the way.

The Play
The play begins 20 years after he marries his mother, and the city of Thebes is under the effect of a terrible plague, brought on by the gods. He sends a friend to Apollo, who says the only way to lift the plague is to find the murderer of Laius. Through trying to find the killer of the old king, Oedipus finds out that it was indeed him that killed his father, and he gouges his eyes out so that he may no longer see the evil in the world.

Aristotle

Aristotle was a famous greek philosopher that lived in the fourth century BCE. He was taught by the famous Plato, and was the teacher of Alexander the Great. His studies included works regarding literature, poetry, astronomy, rhetoric, geometry, biology, and logic. His ethical teachings essentially founded the framework of all basic ethical principles including those used by the Christian church and the American Judicial System. His studies of logic created the basis for almost all logical thought to this day, and his writings outlined almost every logical or argumentative flaw to date, giving modern logicians the title of Aristotelian Logicians, even drawing parallels to the most modern mathematical logic.

Tragedy

Tragedy, or tragic drama, is any piece of literature in which a central character called a tragic protagonist or hero suffers some kind of serious misfortune that is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected with the hero's actions. Its origins stem from the singing a dithyramb, a choral lyric in honor of Dionysus, and it was revolutionized by Aristotle, who evolved tragedy to the story of the tragic hero.

Hubris

Hubris is a trait that eventually leads to downfall that basically means arrogance and pride to an extreme level, and ignorance of any possible obstacles. Greek-wise, it's mostly used to mean believing you can do something better than the gods. This is a big no-no in ancient greek culture, which is why hubris is always linked eventually to downfall. It is what's called a fatal flaw, an attribute that condemns one to failure in the future. Greeks thought that everyone had one, and if they couldn't identify it, they would die due to it.

Dramatic Irony

Dramatic Irony is a form of literary irony in which the reader or audience or listener or or whatever knows something the characters do not. It is very common in tragedies, as the audience will know some approaching or underlying factor the tragic hero does not, and it (the audience) will have to watch helplessly as the hero keeps trundling onward toward the tragic end. It is also common in modern horror: knowing the killer is there, there is something under the bed, is always scarier as you scream silently at the character not to do whatever they're about to do than knowing nothing.

Teiresias

Teiresias was a legendary prophet in ancient greek mythology. He once accidentally came across Athena bathing, so she blinded him. As his mother pleaded for Athena to forgive him, Athena gave Teiresias the gift of prophecy to make up for his loss of sight. His prophecies range from warning Pentheus to recognize and welcome Dionysus, a prediction of the greatness of Hercules, a warning to the parents of Oedipus about what he would do to his parents, and advice to Odysseus about how to placate Poseidon.

Fate

In Greek philosophy, fate was a concept of unescapable destiny that ruled over all, even the gods. Delphic oracles once said in greek legend "no one, not even the god, can escape his appointed fate". The fates of men were determined by many different beings, Delphic prophets, Apollo the patron of Delphi and the oracular god, or the 3 Moirai, or Fates. The Moirai were three beings with the great power of deciding the length of man's life: Clotho, the spinner, that spins the thread, Lachesis, the measurer, that decides the length of the thread, and Atropos, she who cannot be turned, that cuts the thread.

Greek Theater

Greek theater originated as festivals to the gods, in which plays would be performed in the name of and to honor the gods. Thespis was the legendary first actor and is the namesake for Thespians, people of the theater. The venues played in were usually massive open-air amphitheaters built into the side of hills, with seats going up the side of the hill and a stage down at the bottom in the center. Plays themselves were normally based on already known myths, usually involved the use of messengers to relay messages, and took place in one or two main places. The more comedic plays usually involved contemporary, relevant political issues and were often simple satires on society, politics, and literature relevant at the time.

"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in all its beauty."

The movie Baraka teaches a lesson of compassion, unity, and empathy for all humanity normally only achieved by the finest of World Literature. It is rare that a film can present such a message in a meaningful way, as the deepest most big box office movies normally get is about to the level of intellectual stimulation achieved by Donnie Darko or Memento. In this way Baraka becomes more of an item of World Literature than one of the cinema. Its strong images provoke compassion and bring revelation for all aspects of our society, from the poverty and yet intimacy with the earth achieved by many still undeveloped cultures from Australia to sub-saharan Africa. It is indeed moving to witness this connection still very much alive in these cultures while almost the entirety of the rest of the world has left that far behind.
A second very moving and meaningful image was the people moving through the subway, all sped up. I actually disagree with Brussat's assertion that those images were included with the purpose of merely showing the value of only efficiency and compulsion in society, pushing compassion to the side. I would say that those images, interspersed with images of small chicks being tumbled through machines, being catalogued and handicapped and shuttled into incredibly confined spaces to work tirelessly for some corporation, providing their eggs and meat for people to eat, were meant to be drawn a parallel to the chicks. The images are meant to show how the people ferrying through the turns and doors and checkpoints and turnstiles of the subway system are identical to the chicks, the only difference is that the people maintain the illusion that they are doing it of their own free will. Powerful message.