Lesson 35 Assignment – “Was Lady Macbeth correct? ‘What’s done is done.'”

“What’s going on, my lord? Why are you keeping to yourself, with only your sad thoughts to keep you company? Those thoughts should have died when you killed the men you’re thinking about. If you can’t fix it, you shouldn’t give it a second thought. What’s done is done.”

The Shakespearean play, “Macbeth”, is about a Scottish general who’s given a prophecy by three witches that he would soon become King of Scotland. In the story, Macbeth is persuaded by his ambitious wife to commit regicide in order to fulfill the prophecy. He is morally skeptical of this but does it anyway during the King’s visit to Macbeth’s castle. He murders the King in his sleep, and after the corpse is discovered, also murders the guards who were there during the scene but had been drugged by Lady Macbeth. Funnily enough, there was never any proof that Lady Macbeth (in terms of historical accounts) had anything to do with helping Macbeth murder King Duncan. It’s all a lie and was created as a fictitious plot for the play, but must not be taken as historical fact. Was she correct in her statement, though? Certainly, once something is done, there is no going back. Do not trouble yourself over things you have no control of, rather live the present, look towards the future and exclude the past. The only use one may have of events from the past is not that of grievance, but of reflection to help you do better in similar circumstances at any given time in the future.

Lesson 30 Assignment – “Why has this theme (Dr. Faust, Crossroads, Pact with the devil, etc.) has remained popular since 1587?”

Decisions are an intrinsic aspect of life, every waking moment we have on this earth is one where we act upon our own instincts and thoughts driven by our perceptions and values on what is good and what is wrong. Any biological being capable of rational thought, as are humans, will stumble upon (certainly multiple times during the course of his/her life) an important moment in which the decision between good and evil must be made. The most popular portrayal of this dilemma in contemporary culture can be represented in that of music/acting celebrities. It’s simple, the person sells his/her soul and sacrifices certain aspects of his life and sovereignty for fame, fortune, talent, etc. Terms such as the soul and the devil can be perceived as metaphors that represent aspects of our lives. The soul meaning our values, morals, and good traits, whereas the devil is representative of the complete opposite of that. This is why we call it “selling your soul to the devil”, as we are signing ourselves into a world of sin & evil, and everything bad that comes with fame and fortune.

This doesn’t have to be specifically about fame & fortune, I’m just citing it as the most common example of the theme in the discussion. Dr. Faust, for example, was a man who mingled with spirits and the occult, treading lightly as he went yet succumbing more and more to degenerate behaviors, temptations, etc. It’s a slippery slope, the more he wanted to know about the meaning of things, the more he asked, but the spirits demanded compensation which at the end was every shred of decency and morality inside him. Nowadays, we have a pretty clear understanding of what is moral, and what is not. It is worse to know of what is good and not strive towards it than not knowing what is good and unknowingly acting against it.

In a nutshell, the theme is based on sacrificing something good and humane inside you, in exchange for something you may want.

Lesson 25 Assignment – “Now that I have finished the section Montaigne, would I read any more of his essays? Why or why not?”

Michael de Montaigne was, without a doubt, one of the most interesting figures from all the French renaissance writers. His style of writing was what he categorized as “essais”, meaning attempts, and this meaning as attempts to put his thoughts into writing. He was avidly skeptic about everything and had a way of expressing his views in an eloquent yet intelligble way for the average reader to understand. His essays cover a vast array of topics, each with its own uniqueness, analyzed and concluded through the ideas of skepticism. As any good philosopher, he had a couple of contradictions, in my opinion, as well as many good ideas. One would argue that his takes on certain topics seemed strange, outlandish and out-right flawed, yet this does not rid him of the statements I consider to be within the sphere of reason. Would i read any more of the essays? Yes. Even though i sometimes find them baseless and without any central focus, they are still useful food-for-thought types of advice and information. The problem with his form of skeptical writing is that he does not trust any of the arguments he writes, and it is evident as he tries to continously explain what he’s getting at.

Lesson 15 Assignment – “Was More risking persecution by the church because of this book?”

I don’t think he was risking persecution in the slightest from the book. It’s a work of satire with the main subject being an island somewhere in the New World where everything worked oppositely to how things have worked throughout human history. There is mention that God in Utopia is important and that there is a religious authority similar to that of the clergy in Europe. This, however, doesn’t, directly or indirectly, show any form of criticism towards the Catholic church. The religious institution in Utopia doesn’t have a clear set of values, nor does it have any texts or guidelines for its people to abide by. We also have to take into account that Thomas More was venerated as a saint by the Catholic church, and was loyal to it more than he was to the King he counseled.

Lesson 10 Assignment – “Why does More present the traveler as a sensible reformer early in Book I, but not later?”

In the book ‘Utopia’ by Thomas More, a traveler is a Portuguese man who’s ventured through every corner of the known, and the unknown world at the time. He is physically described as a man with a tan, and a long beard, dressed in tattered clothes. Thomas mistakes him for a sailor, but his colleague is soon to correct him, as the man is described by the latter as a wise traveler who has devoted his life to philosophy, and whose council any King would be fortunate to have. As the story progresses, the traveler tells the tale of his experience in the New World during his voyages with Amerigo Vespucci, particularly in the Island of Utopia.

As he goes along describing the social, political and economic structure of the island, he shows great admiration for the former and the way it is set up in all aspects, while being highly critical of European circumstances and the way everything is set up. As any good sophist, the traveler is convincing everyone in the room as to how amazing it is over there, and while not expressing it literally, of how it would be even better if we apply it here. Of course, there are so many contradictions and naive statements as to how the social order of things is maintained, and how practical human nature actually works, and the author uses this as an expression of satire in his work. That’s the whole point, after all, that the reader understands and reasons on his own accord from the statements made by the traveler of how silly these ideas really are. The reason it all seems insensible as the book progresses is that the reader starts to realize that all of these ideas are, in fact, a fairy tale.

The amount of work that has to be put to achieve the results of utopia, will never truly be achieved. This is because it goes against human nature, and requires a highly centralized entity that curves the freedoms of its people while at the same time advocates for it and permits the ownership of slaves? People move freely between occupations, need not of currency and own nothing but leather clothes which they are content with. Everyone works for everyone, and the state invests their resources in war and is in a state of perpetual war. There can be no more than 10 members per family, and if there is a surplus then the extra children will be given off to families that don’t have as much. Those are just a few examples, it’s quite funny when you actually read the book.

Lesson 5 Assignment – “Do you think that Luther really believed that Pope Leo X did not know what the indulgence salesmen were saying?

In 1513, Leo X replaced Julius II as Pope. Julius II had begun a huge, expensive reconstruction of St. Peter’s Church in Rome. He hired Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel. Leo X wanted to complete the project, but he soon ran out of money. To replenish the treasury, he authorized the sale of indulgences on March 15, 1517. These indulgences promised remission of past sins. Buying one would enable the purchaser to escape purgatory. Indulgences had been authorized in the late 14th century. Julius II used them to finance St. Peter’s, beginning in 1510

In my opinion, Luther was well aware that the pope knew and incentivized the clergy to offer the sale of indulgences as a means to replenish the Vatican’s dwindling treasury. Whether he thought it was correct or not is out of the question, as he wrote the ’95 theses’  which were propositions and arguments offered to the clergy as to why indulgences were contrary to Christian Theology. He did not criticize the pope, rather recognized his role as an authority figure throughout Christian Europe, as Luther himself was a devout Catholic ordained as a priest and a monk for the time being. The purpose of his ’95 theses’ was not to criticize church authority, but rather to try and convince the local bishop through theological reason and argument to forbid the sale of indulgences. The outcome wasn’t as expected, and the Catholic church didn’t take this as constructive criticism, but rather as a challenge towards their authority.

And if we delve even deeper, we’ll find that the backlash from the church authorities wasn’t based on theological reasons, but on the fact that Luther would be disrupting the corrupt system in which the clergy operated. The Bishop who first received the ’95 theses’ ( Albrecht of Maintz) wasn’t even an ordained priest,  a man who bought the position so he could get a high-return investment. This was not allowed by the Church. Leo X allowed him to do this in 1514.
He purchased the office of Archbishop of Maintz. Local church officials at this time also owned properties, estates, land, and material goods which set them at the top of the socio-economic hierarchy at the time.

Luther knew the power and authority the pope had, but if we’re being reasonable here we’ll come to the conclusion that he was well aware of what was going on. There was naivete in what he did, and maybe he didn’t know the corruption was that bad on a local level, but he certainly knew it was there due to the sale of indulgences being a thing in the first place.