Upon reading allegory of the cave, I could not stop thinking about Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude". In "100 Years of Solitude", Ursula believes her children will have pig tails becasue of her incestuos behavior and ultimatly reality conforms to her perceptions and she does. Plato, in "Allegory of a Cave", displays a vivid image of chained men watching the shadows of reality, however they percieve the shadows as reality and therefore, for each of the chained men, it is their reality.

I just thought this was interesting. Do ya'll think the idea of subjectivieness to reality is portrayed in a similar or different manner in both writings? Could it be somewhere in between?

Similarities between "The Apology of Socrates" and "The Bhagavad-Gita"

I also noticed similarities between "The Apology of Socrates" and "The Bhagavad-Gita.” The most significant example is the use of dialogue in both works. In "The Apology," Plato at times employs dialogue, the Socratic Method to be more specific, as a tool for Socrates to bolster his defense. Likewise, the basis of the "Bhagavad Gita" is the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna as the avatar of Vishnu attempts to justify to the warrior his sacred duty.

Similarities between Plato's "The Apology of Socrates" and "The Ramayana of Valmiki"

While reading "The Apology of Socrates," I came across some similarities between "The Apology of Socrates" and "The Ramayana."
For example, Socrates's sense of duty is similar to Rama's devotion to dharma. Socrates feels he has been ordered by the gods to examine people who think they're wise but aren't. Socrates's practice of philosophy is his dharma, and he is willing to die to fulfill it. Similarily, Rama feels it is his duty to carry out his father's wishes.
After Socrates is convicted and sentenced to death, Plato writes that Socrates proclaimed, "You see, it's likely that what has happened to me is a good thing and that those of you who suppose death to be bad make an incorrect supposition." Socrates does not mourn his imminent death, but rather accepts it and sees it as a possible path to happiness. Similarly, Rama is not perturbed by his father's order to give up the kingdom and go into exile.

Inaction as Action

Today in class we discussed the transmission of "inaction" in regards to following one's dharma. We can trace the nonviolent movements of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and even Thoreau all the way back to the Bhagavad Gita. How is this inaction considered an action? How do these nonviolent movements relate to Karma, Dharma, or Brahma?

Kama, Karma, Artha

We discussed how dharma works in the Ramayana today in class. Can anybody find examples of how kama, karma, and artha manifest in the text?

Gunther Grass's Creditability

As evidenced by the article "War and Remembrance" from The New Yorker, Gunther Grass was involved in the Waffen S.S. as a youth. Although this viewpoint may be very anti-Foucaultian, I believe Grass's involvement with the Waffen S.S. directly impacts the reader's judgment of the creditability of his discourse. Personally, because Grass has a first-hand perspective of the horrendous actions taken by the Nazi Germans, he, above others, is given the opportunity to critique these actions in a valid manner. And because he actually performed actions for the Nazis, he is in a way self-critiquing himself. I believe that a self-critique is more challenging and therefore more convincing than a critique of others. Do you guys also believe that Grass's participation in the Waffen S.S. makes his discourse more or less valid? Or is this information irrelevant because, in a sense, the author is "dead" after his work has been published?

Columbian/Venezuelan Crimes

I found this article and thought it was interesting. In  the "News of a Kidnapping", we learned about FARC's influence on the Columbian drug trade. It's amazing to me that such vicious crimes are still taking place in Columbia, and according to this article, Venezuela.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-22/world/colombia.venezuela.oas_1_roy-chaderton-revolutionary-armed-forces-farc?_s=PM:WORLD