Literature & Philosophy
INDIVIDUAL
STATE
Consciousness and Knowledge
Memory: Involuntary and Voluntary
Gender and Gender Identity
Good and Evil
Utility and Utilitarianism
Judith Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: an Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory “gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo" Butler argues that gender is an identity repeatedly constructed through time and society. 
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex excerpt "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Beauvoir establishes the idea that a woman is “the Other”, or lesser position to a man, of a man. Beauvoir discusses how this idea of subordination, or being second to a man, occurs in the mind of a woman and in the ranks established by society.
J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." In this essay, Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory derived from happiness as pleasure (many pleasures of which differ in quality and quantity) and the absence of pain.
Ursula Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas" Le Guin creates a model Utilitarian society in which the majority of its citizens are devoid of suffering. However, she climaxes and concludes with how most of the adolescents are extremely burdened with the fact of how there are individuals suffering horrendously for the well-being of their state.
Duty to State and Duty to Self
Sophocles, Antigone The main theme of this Greek tragedy is the conflict between man's moral sense of what is right, and the law. The duty of family is adhered to by Antigone, clashing with Creon's absolute rule of governing law.
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem excerpt This text focuses on the duties of a law-abiding citizen. Appearing in court, Eichmann states himself that it was his duty to follow Kant's categorical imperative. As a result, he committed unspeakable crimes against humanity in his duty to the State.
Joshua Oppenheimer, The Act of Killing Oppenheimer's film blurs the good versus evil narrative often seen in movies. The audience gets the opportunity to understand and at times sympathize the perpetrators in a society where unorthodox actions would be deemed normal.
Dividing Line: How the State Sees You and How You See Yourself
W.E.B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk excerpt This excerpt focuses on the idea of double consciousness. Here, the idea is highlighted that one sees oneself as one is seen by others. Social and historical structures were constructed though how one looked at oneself through the eyes of others.
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Throughout the film, the director Jordan Peele uses the sense of sight and point of view(ex. close-ups of subject eyes) to amplify imbalances of power and control drawn along racial lines in society.
Charles W. Mills, But What Are You Really? The Metaphysics of Race Mills highlights the conditions for racial identification: appearance, ancestry, public awareness of ancestry, self-awareness of ancestry, culture, experience, and self-identification. He concludes with the idea that race is a social construction of the state.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals Kan stresses that the fundamental principle of morality – the categorical imperative – is the law of anautonomous will. Kant determines what it is to have a good will : to be morally good, an action must be done for the sake of the law – and not just in conformity with it. One must act as duty requires, because duty requires. An action has moral worth only so far as it is done for the sake of duty.
Beyond Good and Evil "Life is will to power, and will to power is exploitation." Society exists in order to create the few exceptional individuals that are its crowning glory, that justify any sacrifice or hardship endured by that society.
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Marcel Proust, Swann's Way In this text, Proust stresses that memory is essential to personal identity. Through reordering and recreating memory both actively and inactively, it is possible to reclaim the past. Sleep, in this text, is an engine with great power that has the power to awaken different selves - forming indentities.
Existence and Essence
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism Sartre states, "Existence precedes essence". Sartre argues that each individual has a unique existence and their essence is the gradual and ever-changing product of their existence.
Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis: The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, “seems” to be in charge of his own life and the decisions, but his existence ultimately falls apart. His actions portray existentialism and how existence precedes essence and how we are the sum of our decisions and conscious choices.
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding excerpt Locke illustrates consciousness as a mental state inseparable from an act of perception. He argues that at birth the mind is a tabula rasa, or blank slate, and that humans fill their being with ideas as they experience the world through the five senses.
Voluntary Memory: intelligence/ thought, (volitional) calling a memory according to will
Involuntary Memory: encapsulates sensations, surprise, insignificant memories
Existence: We first exist as humans
Essence: We become whom we decide through our free will and choice
Utility: actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain
Utilitarianism: whether actions are morally right or wrong depends on their effects
Duty to State: authority, human law, man
Duty to Self: familial duty, kinship, divine law, woman
How the State Sees You : a veil divides the individual self and the community as a whole
How You See Yourself : recognition and intersubjectivity
Evil: this term it not the opposite of Good, according to Nietzsche - it goes beyond that definition
Good: nobility, everything which is powerful and life-asserting
Gender Identity an individual's internal, personal sense of being a man or woman. This is undetermined by sex.
Gender denotes women and men depending on social factors such as social role, position, behavior or identity.
Knowledge: comes to us through the senses, experience
Conciousness: dualism, materialism, thinking, judging, acting
Good and evil also applies to the individual - humans are complex and inscrutable.
People affected as individuals - they would show mercy
Antigone is "the Other".
Dualism: good and evil in an individual and in society - Anwar is capable of repenting for the atrocities of his past, despite the number of individuals he has killed.
René Descartes, Meditations Descartes presents the concept of knowledge as something that is to be revised, assembled, and built upon. Descartes clearly identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the brain as the seat of intelligence.
Conciousness: All individuals are aware of the constructs
Memory: Anwar's suppression of the horrendous acts he did leads to a development in his identity
Issues of form: Metaphor and figurative language ex. cabinet and house of knowledge Shared school of thought: rationalism
Issues of Form: Narrative perspective 1) allows the reader to build an understanding of Gregor's changes as he comes to understand them.
2) the narrator knows about what happens in Omelas, and is able to see why the people of Omelas keep one child locked in a cellar, but can also see why this could be considered wrong and can understand how people on the outside could view this.
Shared schools of thought: dualism, skepticism