Moon’s Day, February 17: Why We Fall: Reason and the Integrated Self
EQ: How do Reason, Words and Truth build Integrity (or not)?
- Welcome! Gather paper, pen/cil, wits!
- Notebooks/Journals
- Pick up if submitted
- Submit if still need to
- New Unit Cover Sheet: Reason, Truth, and “Monstrous Designs”
- Integrity
- Structural: Pantheon vs. Gallopin’ Gertie
- Existential: Hannah Arendt, Soren Kierkegaard,
- Personal: Words, Thoughts, Acts, Truth
- Rhetorical: John Milton
- Freewrite: Integrity
ELACC12RL-RI2: Analyze two or more themes or central ideas of text
ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop
ELACC12RL4-RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text
ELACC12RL6: Distinguish what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant
ELACC12RI6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text
ELACC12RI8: Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal British texts
ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently.
ELACC12W9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis
ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions
Integrity: Standing In Stress
The Pantheon in Rome (Italy!) has stood for 2,000 years because its parts work together to distribute stresses, giving it what engineers call “structural integrity”
(photo by Corbin Saunders … I’m so proud!)
(Did I mention my son took the picture?)
Without structural integrity, you get this:
The self is the conscious
synthesis
of infinite and finite, temporal and eternal, freedom and necessity.
Not to be oneself is to despair.
–SørenKierkegaard (1813-1855)
The Sickness Unto Death
Existential (Personal) Integrity
So, following Kierkegaard –
A Self is strong when there issynthesis between
thoughts, words, actions, and Truth.
A Self is weak – literally, lacks integrity – if there is no synthesis – a disconnect between thoughts, words, actions, and Truth.
Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart(thoughts)
be alwaysacceptable in thy sight, O Lord(Truth)
(Psalm 19:14)
A thinker/speaker/writer is strong if words, thoughts, actions, and Truth
exist in synthesis.
John Milton: Right Reason
Rational, logical, ethical thought seeking Truth, resulting in proximity to Good and God
- Areopagitica
- Right Reason, strengthened by vigorous “trial by what is contrary” (reading/rejecting Evil), allows a moral synthesis which gives one integrity to withstand stress of temptation
- Words must be judged in terms of Right Reason
John Milton: Right Reason
Rational, logical, ethical thought seeking Truth, resulting in proximity to Good and God
In Paradise Lost,
- Satan’s thoughts are anchored not in Truth but in Self (“The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a Heaven of Hell”);
- So Satan’s words do not connect to Truth (“from terror of this arm doubted His empire”);
- Satan’s words do not even connect to his Self (“Vaunting aloud, but rack’d with deep despair”)
- NO SYNTHESIS, NO INTEGRITY; without integrity, Satan falls like a bad bridge.
So – do YOU have “integrity”?
Have you achieved a “conscious synthesis” – or do you even seek one?
Do your thoughts seek truth – or comfort?
Do your words reflect your true thoughts, or the needs of the moment?
Do your actions align with your thoughts and words?
Being brutally honest with yourself, freewrite 100 words trying to answer this. Quote from something you’ve seen today.
This is your first assignment building toward the Spring Project Essay, so be so honest it hurts.
DO NOT TURN THIS IN – just show it to me.