This week we focused our attention on our group project.
Everyone who read the book should have paired up with a presenter. Presenters should take the readers' notes and put together a Power Point based on the info provided. Let's try to make them fancy with pictures and videos and stuff. Wednesday, we'll discuss compiling all the Power Points into one big Power Point for our presentation Monday.
If you didn't pair up with a presenter, ya need to sort that out, or do as I'm doing, make that portion of the presentation yourself. Whatever you wanna do, just make sure it's done one way or another by Wednesday.
And remember there's a test Wednesday. Do your best and stuff.
- John Connor Coulston
@jccoulston
Alright, so I was going to post a quick summary of the part I wrote, which Zach will be presenting.
ReplyDeleteThe section of the book (Breaking Bad and Philosophy) that I wrote about was "What's So Bad About Meth." It had three essays which were titled "Now You're Cooking," "It's Arbitrary," and "Does Cooking Make Walt a Bad Guy?"
"Now You're Cooking" was focused on how adults make their own decisions, which in some cases may result in the use of illegal drugs. It also discusses how the drugs cause humans to act animalistic and lose most cognitive ability. It ends by referring to instances about how drugs like meth not only destroy the user, but the world around them as well.
"It's Arbitrary" was about morality of using meth and other types of drugs. It relates meth to legal drugs (tobacco, alcohol) that cause may more deaths than meth and also relates it to less harmful drugs such as caffeine. The main point behind it is that even if a drug is not lethal and can actually be beneficial in certain amounts, those that cloud the mind are immoral.
"Does Cooking Make Walt a Bad Guy" was literally about what the title asks. It brings up the point that Walt doesn't force anyone as a defense for him being moral, and being a cook would mean he is just as responsible as a tobacco grower is for the death of people from tobacco. It also makes a point, though, that "standing by" as Walt does can be immoral too, because he is enabling people to destroy themselves without intervening. It finishes by referring to the strength of the drug culture, saying that if a cook is taken out in an attempt to improve morality, then someone else will always take their place if there is money to be made.
I wrote 5 pages of notes total and have them typed. I sent them to Zach along with an 18 slide powerpoint that I made so that he can prepare his presentation. If we want to compile everything, just let me know who/where to send it to.
So just so Dr. Phil can see what I did as a writer (since he is grading us on what we did):
-Read "What's So Bad About Meth" Chapter (made up of three essays, approximately 30 pages)
-Took notes on each essay (5 pages in total)
-Created a powerpoint for the presenter (18 slides)
-Sent all of the work to the presenter so that he can prepare.
So yeah, we need to decide exactly how we are going to compile it and present it before we have class Thursday (even though I'm sure most of us are going to be studying for that exam more than anything) because the class is going to be the exam and group 1's presentation, so we may not have much (if any) time in our group.
February 21, 2014
ReplyDelete4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. —The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Walt too has a lot of regrets about his life, and appears to be a victim of circumstance: he’s an underpaid, over-educated chemistry teacher, whose promising career was cut short by greedy, fair-weather friends; he works part time at a car wash to make ends meet; he lives with an overbearing wife, a disabled teenage son, and a new baby on the way; and he’s been told he’ll die soon from cancer. Existentialists like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre would say that Walt, like Prufrock, is living deeply in something called bad faith, which is a bad thing (which you probably gathered, given the bad part) whereby someone adopts false values and doesn’t live a rational and truly free life. Walt fails to see the absurdity of it all, that
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
the universe is silent, purposeless, and ultimately meaningless.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
According to the existentialists, Walt’s life lacks
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Walt takes his cancer diagnosis as a wake-up call to become a free individual and define what remains of his life
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Believe it or not, when Walt becomes Heisenberg, the meth cooker and dealer, he becomes an authentic individual—the ideal person Camus and Sartre speak of—finding the balance between defining himself and the role others play in shaping him. He acknowledges the absurdity of the universe and his inevitable death, and he takes hold of his freedom and responsibility for his choices.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
The slogan of existentialism is “existence comes before essence.” A person comes into existence, and only after that, through free will, choice, and responsibility, defines their self, creates meaning in their life, and continues the search and discovery of who they are until death comes.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Existentialism isn’t purely philosophical business because many of its contributors wrote plays, fictional novels, and short stories, and so it is also a literary, social, and cultural movement. Famously though, it was part of a political movement. Existentialism was born a rebel, the “James Dean” of philosophy or the “bad boy in the black beret,” and the themes of subversion and rebellion are key characteristics of its philosophy, whether political, social, moral, or religious in nature. It started in the underground resistance movement of Paris during World War II, with a group called Socialism and Freedom,
Existentialism offered people a defense of individual freedom during the time of, and later the recovery from, Nazism and Fascism. It also heavily criticized authoritarian dictated social norms and religion, and was a voice for men and women alike. Existentialism would later play a key role in the feminist movement of the 1960s,
ReplyDeleteFebruary 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Walt wears a black pork pie hat and sunglasses to the scrapyard drug deal with Tuco. Heisenberg as we know him is born. As Heisenberg, Walt is a meth cooker and businessman, with little patience for error and drugged-out associates—a man who isn’t afraid to injure or kill someone to get a point across. However, this scheme of two different identities doesn’t work for long, and Heisenberg slowly seeps into Walt’s life and takes over. We see Walt standing up to his wife and being more sexually aggressive with her, we see him communicating more directly with his family and friends about his wants and feelings, he confronts students and strangers who try to disregard him, and he even occasionally wears the black hat at home. Heisenberg isn’t an alter ego or by-night personality—he’s Walt transformed existentially
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who was punished by the gods for trickery and hubris; he thought he was smarter than Zeus. His punishment was to roll a large boulder up a steep hill for eternity: every day would begin the same with him rolling it uphill, but before he could reach the top of this steep hill the boulder would always roll back down, and he was forced to start again. This task was meant to be an eternity of frustration for Sisyphus, a punishment of hopeless, meaningless, futile labor. Camus, however, sees Sisyphus as an absurd hero and not a defeated man. Sisyphus was rebellious during his life; he scorned the gods and defied their will. He had a passion and love for life, and he hated death. Sisyphus knows at every moment rolling the giant boulder that this fate was his own doing
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
When Walt becomes Heisenberg, he also becomes like Sisyphus. Walt has a silent joy in his rebellion: he rebels against death, societal laws and norms, and his demanding wife, and he owns his fate. Walt, like Sisyphus, is an absurd hero.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
The biggest source of absurdity for Camus is death since it negates any aspirations and achievements. It destroys any meaning we have created and any importance we give to things, and this means that all human desires, goals, and achievements are irrational.
Camus sounds a bit like Dylan Thomas in his famous poem, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, because one must always “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
ReplyDeleteFebruary 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
once you acknowledge the absurdity of the universe you must also accept that your fate is your own matter to handle and belongs solely to you.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
The person who acknowledges and accepts the absurdity of the universe becomes like Sisyphus, a happy rebel with his own rock, owning his fate.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
When Walt becomes Heisenberg, he accepts all the absurdity in and around his life, the biggest of which is his impending death: he accepts his cancer diagnosis and the reality of how treatment cannot help him long-term, and he knows that everything he does leading up to his last breath will be extinguished once he dies.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
he had a position of power and control over his lab and product; he was appreciated for his skills and high-quality product; and he was rewarded with large sums of cash and demand for more. Cooking meth wasn’t the thankless job teaching high school chemistry was, and it was always exciting and intense. Being Heisenberg became less about making money and more about feeling an ownership over his shortening life
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Walt is being authentic. Authenticity is being true to your self as a free individual. For Camus and Sartre, to be authentic involves acknowledging and exercising the freedom you have to direct your own life
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Walt’s meth cooking is a rebellion in every sense of the word, and we must imagine him happy as he struggles onward, creating more meaning in the end of his life than he did during the rest.
February 21, 2014
4. Finding Happiness in a Black Hat
Existentialism sounds very much like Spider-Man here: with great power comes great responsibility, and freedom is a great power.
Hi.
ReplyDeleteSo this is what I did for the group project:
Read: Three Chapters. 39 pages.
Walt’s Rap Sheet (David R. Koepsell and Vanessa Gonzalez)
In this essay we take a look at the nine people that Walt feels moral culpability based on his “Actions, inactions, or orders.” (Page 13) Those nine people are Emilio, Krazy-8, and Jane, the two guys he killed with his car to save Jesse, Gale, Gus, Tyrus, and Hector “Tio” Salamanca.
Heisenberg’s Uncertain Confession (Darryl J. Murphy)
In this essay Murphy takes on the question of a particular scene that happens within the show. That scene is when Walt and Gretchen talk about the chemical composition of the human body. This is 63% Hydrogen, Oxygen 26%, Carbon 9 %, Nitrogen 1.25%, Calcium 0.25%, Iron 0.00004%, Sodium 0.04% and Phosphorus 0.19% giving us the total of 99.888042%! So, where is the other 0.111958 %? Well, that’s the question Murphy attempts to answer in this essay but later on starts to look at Walter White’s philosophical insight.
Was Skyler’s Intervention Ethical? Hell, It Shouldn’t Even Be Legal! (Dan Mori)
In this essay Miori takes on the question “Is Skyler’s intervention ethical?” a scene from the show that comes up in season one.
And I have three pages of notes.
About to send them notes to Jasmine.
Cool. Good luck to everyone on the exam today!