Nothing Writes So Much As Blood

Nothing writes so much as blood.

The rest are mere strangers.

—corrupted from Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp, 1994

Dear Mother

Some twelve years ago, when I was working for Plan International Bicol, gathering information from the NGO’s beneficiaries-respondents in the upland barangays surrounding Mount Isarog and the Bicol National Park, I kept a notebook where I wrote the following verse for my mother Emma, who passed away in January 1996.

In that job, I kept a journal wherever I went—perhaps to relive the days with my mother whom I dearly lost during her life [I hardly had time for her when she was sick because my editorship in the college paper ate up my schedule] and tearfully loved after her death [after college graduation, there was not much to do aside from job-hunting and freelancing with media entities around Naga City]. And there was not much reason to hunt for jobs at all because there would be no one to offer my first salary.

The original scribbles below were written on a yellow pad paper.

The Sea House

For Emma, who loved so much

1996

Tomorrow 

I will build a house

by the forest near the sea

where

six palm trees 

will become 

brave bystanders by day—

and 

warm candles by night.

Pride from a Published Poem

After so many versions and revisions, a national magazine then edited by the National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin—published a longer submission (see below) before the end of the year. The publication of my poem in Philippine Graphic Weekly thrilled me to no end. I felt too lucky to have my [too personal a] sentiment printed in a national publication.

It even seemed like the tribute to my mother was more heightened. For one, she would have loved to see my work printed on a national paper. Sad to say, though, it is my contemplation on her death that would give [her or me] such pride.

The Sea House

Philippine Graphic Weekly, November 1996

I hate to leave really.

But I should go home tonight.

Tomorrow I will build a house 

by the forest near the sea 

where I alone 

can hear my silence.

For it, I gathered six palm trees

stronger than me, to become

the pillars, firm foundations

of my tranquil days to come

which I will not anymore hear.

I know the trees are good 

for they survived many typhoons in the past

which uprooted many others

and which made others bend,

and die.

I hope they become bright lamps

along the black road

where I will pass through 

when I go home tonight.

I hope they’d be there

and that they would recognize me.

And if they don’t, it wouldn’t matter.

I would not want any trees other than them.

For I know they are very good.

But tonight, please 

let them be 

my warm candles.

And when I’m home 

I will be certain:

Tomorrow, I will have built a house

in the forest near the sea where

Every palm tree can hear his silence. 

And the others can listen.

A Reader’s Response

Finding the poem in one of my diskette files when I applied for work in Quezon City and Manila, my brother Mente—perhaps to while away his time in SRTC [his workplace then where I typed hundreds of my resumes] in Kalayaan Avenue back in 1997—must have liked it so much that consequently, he translated it in Bikol, rendering a rather old, archaic Bikol version.

An Harong Sa May Dagat

(Para qui Emma, na sobrang namoot)

1997

Magabat an boot co na maghale,

Alagad caipuhan co na mag-uli 

Ngonyan na banggui.

Sa aga, matugdoc aco nin harong 

Sa cadlagan harani sa dagat,

Cun sain aco na sana an macacadangog 

Can sacuyang catranquiluhan.

Sa palibot caini, matanom aco 

Nin anom na poon nin niyog 

Na mas masarig sa saco, 

Na magiging manga harigi—

Manga pusog na pundasyon 

Can manga matuninong cong aldaw

Na dae co naman madadangog.

Ma’wot co na sinda magserbing 

Maliwanag na ilaw sa dalan

Sa macangirhat na diclom, 

Cun sain aco ma-agui 

Sa sacuyang pag-uli 

Ngonyan na banggui.

Ma’wot co man na yaon sinda duman 

Asin na aco mamidbid ninda. 

Alagad cun sinda malingaw saco, 

Dae na bale. Dae nungca aco mahanap 

Nin caribay ninda, nin huli ta aram co 

Na sinda manga marhay.

Alagad sa atyan na banggui, 

Hahagadon co na sinda

Magserbing manga maiimbong 

Na candela cataid co.

Asin cun aco naca-uli na

Sigurado aco na sa aga

Naca-guibo aco nin harong 

Sa cadlagan harani sa dagat

Cun sain aco na sana 

An macacadangog 

Can sacuyang catranquiluhan.

Asin an iba macacadangog.

My Brother, My Reader, My Writer 

Perhaps having the spirit of the classicists who dearly loved the classical age before them, for one, reinventing an old manuscript to serve their own purposes, Mente made an English version based on his English translation.

Perhaps wanting to relive for himself the memory of our dear mother who was rather fonder of him [than the rest of us], Mente turned in his own masterpiece based on the published poem. Notice how the versification has radically changed—from irregular free verses to a series of couplets—and ending with a one-liner which is supposed to be the poem’s closure.

In the process, the version he rendered would become totally his original work. Comparing his piece with the original published piece, I see that the new work now brims with new meanings and warrants a different, if not disparate interpretation.

The House by The Sea

(For Emma, who Loved So Much)

1997

I leave with a heavy heart 

But I need to go home tonight.

Tomorrow, I’ll build a house by the sea,

Where only I will hear my tranquility.

Around it I’ll plant six coconut trees

Which are stronger than I am.

Trees that will become the stable foundation 

of my quiet days, which I will no longer hear.

Undoubtedly, these coconut trees are of the best quality

Because they have overcome a lot of storm, that uprooted the others.

I want them to light the way through horrible darkness,

Where I will pass when I go home tonight.

I like them to be there and for them to know me

But never mind if they’ve forgotten me.

Nobody can replace them 

Because I know they are good.

But tonight I’ll ask them to be like candles,

Warm, beside me.

And when I am home

I will have surely built a house by the sea 

Where only I will hear my tranquility.

And others will hear it, too.

A Promise to Write (A Poem)

After having undergone a number of literary workshops, I realize that images, symbols and metaphors [if any if at all] I used in the first draft are confusing and too overwhelming—giving it a puzzling dramatic situation. Now, I realize that the poem published in the past and wholly appreciated by my dear brother—with my sister perhaps, my sole readers at the time—carried double and mixed metaphors which rendered the piece fragmented, incoherent and totally not a good poem at all.

And perhaps because it was dedicated to my dear mother, I never subjected this piece to any workshop which granted me fellowships. I submitted other pieces, and not this one, perhaps because I considered the work too sacred to be “desecrated”—or more aptly slaughtered by the write people.

The images in the poem were drawn mostly from emotion, not reason. There was not even a clear use of figurative language or tropes such as metaphor or irony, a fact that would be abhorred by the American New Critics (who espoused that everything that we need to know about the poem should already be in the poem itself—and to the very least, never in the author’s intention, never in my sincerest wish to dedicate it to my mother.

Mentor and pupil

Classical theory and criticism starts off with Plato and Aristotle. 

While both Greek philosophers were preoccupied with the concept of poetry as imitation, or representation of nature, it is interesting to note how their ideas collided, which started the ball rolling for the classic/al clash between poetry and philosophy, or rather which allowed for more beneficial concepts in the study of literature.

In his dialogues Republic, Ion and Phaedrus, Plato banishes poets from his ideal state, based on several grounds. First, according to Plato, the poet’s works are an imitation, twice removed from the Ideal World of forms. Second, poets are said to compose under inspiration, or even divine madness, and without using reason, which is instrumental in finding Truth. Next, poetry is considered to be ignorant of what it teaches and therefore teaches the wrong things. And last, poetry is dangerous to the soul, producing the wrong emotions in the audience, and interfering with the striving towards pure reason which is the proper conduct of the good soul. Plato did not see the importance of poets in the Republic because they are said to just evoke such pleasures and emotions in the audience and not at all benefit the state as a whole.

From these attacks on poetry— two challenges arise. First, Plato raises the question why representations of people [who are] suffering is a pleasurable experience. Second, because he considered the poetic pursuit as irrational, Plato has issued a challenge to those who would argue for a rightful place for poetry in his philosophical utopian state.

Now, taking off from what his teacher laid out, Aristotle comes to the defense in his Poetics. Like Plato, Aristotle believed that imitation is the basis of pleasure derived from all forms of art. But unlike Plato, Aristotle says poetry is more than a simulated representation of reality.

First, Aristotle considers poetry as a skill, with rational rules (like shipbuilding), and not really a process of inspiration.

In Poetics, Aristotle attempts to explain 'poetry' through 'first principles' and by discerning its different genres and component elements, with an analysis of tragedy constituting the core of his discussion. Such principles of poetic composition demonstrate that poetry is not simply inspired. It is rather a skill which can be learned, and has rules that are comprehensible by reason.

Second, for Aristotle, poetry represents reality in a useful way from which we can learn. While Plato says poetry does not teach practical wisdom, and—since the poet does not understand horse bits and reins—he is two removes from the truth, Aristotle counters that the poet is [even] the one who approaches the truth more directly because he focuses on what is universal—rather than incidental or particular—about human experience. While history represents particulars, poetry represents universals.

Then, while it is true that poetry evokes pity and fear in the audience—more important, it also arouses these emotions in such a way as to increase our ability to control them. Aristotle’s concept of catharsis—either purgation cleansing, or even now, intellectual clarification, rather validates why poetry is a more interesting pursuit because of its ability for moral instruction.

What follows is a graphical representation of their arguments and/or counterarguments.

PLATO vs. ARISTOTLE

1. Poet’s works are an imitation, twice removed from the World of forms.                
2. Poetry is a skill, with rational rules (like shipbuilding), and not really a process of inspiration. The principles of poetic composition demonstrate that poetry is rather a skill which can be learned, and has rules comprehensible by reason.
3. Poets compose under inspiration, without using reason.
4. Poetry is ignorant of what it teaches—it teaches the wrong things.         
5. Poetry represents reality in a useful way from which we can learn—the poet is the one who approaches the truth more directly because he focuses on what is universal.
6. Poetry elicits in the audience emotions that are not in accord with reason.           
7. Poetry arouses emotions in such a way as to increase our ability to control them.

With these two giant figures of the period, classical theory and criticism has mapped out two directions for consideration in the literary study—it emphasized, if not deliberately campaigned on understanding literature as a mode of representation; and it also highlighted didacticism, the property of literary works that seek to teach important tenets of life, hinged on its ability to render moral instruction to the audience.

I Dialogues

Enunciating Louis Althusser’s Theses on Ideology

I.
Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. (Lenin 109)

Whereas the old Marxist view showed how ideologies are false by pointing to the real world hidden by ideology, Althusser says, by contrast, ideology does not reflect the real world but represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to the real world. The thing ideology [mis] represents is itself already at one remove from the real.

Borrowing Jacques Lacan’s Imaginary, Althusser says we are always within ideology because of our reliance on language to establish our reality. This means—that different ideologies are but different representations of our social and imaginary ‘reality,’ not a representation of the real itself.

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II.
Ideology has a material existence. (Lenin 112)

It is so because an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. Ideology always manifests itself through actions which are inserted into practices—e.g. rituals, conventional behavior, and so on.

Citing Blaise Pascal’s formule for belief—“Kneel down, move your lips in prayer and you will believe, (Lenin 114)”

Althusser contends it is our performance of our relation to others and to social institutions that constantly instantiates us as subjects. (Refer to critic Judith Butler’s preoccupation with performance/ performativity is inspired and/or informed by this thought on ideology.)

What thus seems to take place outside ideology (in the street, to be precise) in reality takes place in ideology. Those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology (Lenin 118)

III.
All ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects. (Lenin 115)

Ideology’s purpose is in constituting concrete individuals as subjects (Lenin 116). So pervasive is ideology in its constitution of subjects that it forms our very reality and thus appears to us as true and obvious.

The rituals of ideological recognition guarantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and naturally irreplaceable subjects. (Lenin 117)

Through interpellation, individuals are turned into subjects (which are always ideological):

Police Officer: Hey, you there!

Assuming that the scene takes place in the street, the hailed individual will turn round. By this mere 180° physical conversion, he becomes a subject. (Lenin 118)

The very fact that we do not recognize this interaction as ideological speaks to the power of ideology.

IV
Individuals are always-already subjects. (Ideology has no history.)

Although his example of interpellation suggests temporality—I am interpellated and thus I become a subject, I enter ideology—Althusser says that the becoming-subject happens even before we are born. Not a paradox at all, even before the child is born—it is certain in advance that it will bear its father’s name, and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable.

 Before its birth, the child is therefore always-already a subject, appointed as a subject in and by the specific familial ideological configuration in which it is ‘expected’ once it has been conceived. (Lenin 119)

Most subjects accept their ideological self-constitution as reality or nature and thus rarely come into conflict with the repressive state apparatus, designed to punish anyone who rejects the dominant ideology.

It can be said therefore that hegemony is thus reliant less on such repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) as the police than it is on those ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) by which ideology is inculcated in all subjects.

Althusser says it best, thus:

“the individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandments of the subjects, i.e. in order that he shall make the gestures and actions of his subjection ‘all by himself.’” (Lenin 123)

Understanding Louis Althusser’s “Ideological StateApparatuses”
By adding the concept of ideological state apparatuses, Althusser complicates the Marxist notion of the relation between base and superstructure.

For Marx, various levels in society are the infrastructure or economic base and the superstructure or political and legal institutions (law, government, and the police) and ideology (religious, moral, political, etc.) In Marxist thought, superstructure is relatively autonomous from base—it relies on economic base but can sometimes persist for a long period despite major changes in the base.

Exploring the ways in which ideology is more pervasive, and more material than previously acknowledged, Althusser distinguishes between Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs).

ISAs include the religious (schools), family, legal, political (systems, parties), trade union, communications (press), and the cultural (arts, sports, literature). Less centralized and more heterogeneous, ISAs access the private, not the public realm. They work predominantly by ideology, including punishment or repression.

Schools and churches use suitable methods of punishment, expulsion, selection, etc. to discipline not only their shepherds but also their flocks. (Lenin 98)

State apparatuses (SAs), or Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) are agencies that function by violence, imposing punishment and privation in order to enforce power. Working predominantly by violence and secondarily by ideology, SAs include the government and administration, army and the police, courts and prisons, etc.

Though they are quite disparate, ISAs are virtually unified subscribing to a common ideology in the service of the ruling class. Indeed the ruling class must maintain a degree of control over ISAs to ensure stability of the SAs.

No class can hold state power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the ISAs.

It is much harder for the ruling class to maintain control over the multiple, heterogeneous, and relatively autonomous ISA (alternative perspectives can be voiced in each ISA)—which is why there is continual struggle for hegemony/domination in this realm.

In what may seem to me as the repute of schools being [re] defined, Althusser says, “what the bourgeoisie has installed as its dominant ISA is the educational apparatus, which has replaced in its functions the Church.”

Author! Author!

Literary Authorship through the Ages 

The concept of the author, the so-called originator of a literary work—has undergone mutation in varying degrees and periods in history.

In the Middle Ages, the concept was attached to the auctores, those authors of certain books trivium and quadrivium, which were vital texts for young men of learning. Trivium refers to the three subjects that were taught first in medieval universities, namely: grammar, logic and rhetoric; while quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in the Renaissance Period, namely: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.

Like Aristotle, Ptolemy and the writers of the Bible, auctores were in the truest sense of the word—referred to those writers “whose words commanded respect and belief.” They stemmed from some sort of supremacy, enacting and making possible Divine Revelation to those who read them. As such, auctores established the ruling order, and sanctioned moral and political authority of the medieval culture. In the feudal age, authority was limited to the people in hierarchy, and thus truth and order and meaning.

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Further on, the Exploration Age gave way to the existence of people who would later render meaning to Author As Discoverer, as a progenitor that explored the New World, and “brought home a quite different sensibility.”

Quite detached from the ruling order, making his own world overseas, and discovering different worlds away from the constrainingauctores-dictated culture, the explorer became an originator in his own right, adding to his vocabulary some new words discovered in his explorations.

They became so-called new agents within a culture, as they were able to describe things in the New World, much as they were bound to declare their right to be represented “on their own terms,” rather than in the world of the ancient books, which had so defined their society in general. Such set of connections afforded the rising middle class the opportunity to try to redefine ways of seeing in social contexts.

Civil wars were good examples of the educated, fortified class who were as very well convinced by their new ideas as they were torn by the oppressive monarchical rules and similar cultures. They would become the modern auctores, much as they were revered in more ways than one—since they presented a “cooler” alternative to a rather monotonous, perhaps stifling world view that bordered on tedium or commonplace-ness.

After the establishment of a new alternative order, the author later came to represent the emancipation from the political life—this was one whose works belonged neither to economic nor political realms—it rather explored a cultural realm, with the author heading the so-called Republic of Letters.

Later on, the Romantic Period and the expressive strains of creators of literature made possible the emergence of the Genius. Here the author’s function shifted. In the past, it helped usher in a political alternative, now it produced a cultural alternative to the world of politics. Then, we have to insist they were now the modern auctores because they were now the new order, with works being “elevated into exemplars and sources of value for the entire culture.”

To English critic Matthew Arnold, for instance, literature became what is best thought and known in the world. The primacy of great men with great minds had to be insisted as the thing to reckon with, if society were to survive. In the face of massive social transformation and industrialization, the author necessarily transformed into one whose works became rather self-conscious or extremely esoteric.

Before the twentieth century, however, literary critics became the new interpreters of the concept of authorship, because the discussion departed from the author to the text.  The trend would go as far as to become a rather convenient escape from the real circumstances of daily life to oblivion. The emergence of the critic at a time when the author is said to be separated from his work ushered in views so as to render the author new meaning, or no meaning at all. In effect, the author became the effect of critic’s interpretation; and most important, the author became “not the cause of the work.”

For the New Critics in the first half of the 20th century, the author was not the object of criticism. The so-called autotelic text (meaning:  “having a purpose in and not apart from itself”) is superior in itself—full of meanings or endless possibilities—because it is a self-contained universe.

Then, toward the 1970s, taking off from whatever was left of the author by the New Critics, French Roland Barthes, proclaimed that the Author Is Dead: there is no author—that means not the literal death of the author but that the author is not the writer; and therefore it is a matter between function or activity.

For Barthes, author is to function as writer is to activity—the former concerned with and identifies with the language; the latter on its means. Literature then became a discursive game always arriving at the limits of its own rule, without any author other than the reader who, as Scriptor, is an effect of the writing game he activates.

Really, Speaking Greek

Notes on Aristotle’s Poetics

While some critics primarily consider Poetics a counterattack to Plato’s banishing of poets from [in] theRepublic, Aristotle’s treatise on art, poetry, epic, and tragedy clearly marks out the history of literary criticism. Rather than concluding that poets should be banished from the perfect society, as does Plato, Aristotle attempts to describe the social function and the ethical utility of art.

Poetics places emphasis on the formative nature of art—while predecessor Plato esteems idealism and abstractions as the highest forms of truth to gain wisdom, Aristotle stresses the importance or primacy of the particular imitations of nature.

According to Aristotle, criticism should not be simply the application of unexamined aesthetic principles in its context within the work—but should pay attention to the overall function of feature of a work of art. Therefore, Poetics lays bare the anatomy of art, as in a scientist—carefully accounting for the features of each species cited in the text—most forms by the way are the ones that existed during those times.

Exploring the forms of art during Aristotle’s time, Poetics particularly discusses the practical details of the forms of imitation, which he termed mimesis.  The treatment of the forms or modes of representation is meticulous as Aristotle presents as many definitions as the terms themselves. For instance, Aristotle goes into detail, when he cites the types of tragic plots. He also names specific terms to explicate that unity of plot is indispensably necessary. In Book 17, Aristotle gives poets some pointers on how to construct a tragedy—or how tragedy is constructed by playwrights who were awarded in Dionysian festivals.

Especially drawing on Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Aristotle cites the six salient parts of tragedy in order of importance—plot, character, thought, diction, music or melody and spectacle.  Zooming in on the good plots, Poetics prefers the plausibility and logically connected order centered on one unified action, simultaneously frowning on multiple, divergent plots which it also deems unnecessary. Poetics suggests that the best kind of resolution to these plots is one that shows a reversal (peripeteia) of position for the main character—and a character’s recognition (anagnorisis) of his or her fate. For best effect, so to speak, characters should come from high positions in order to render remarkable tragic circumstances, and their fates must be linked to their own error, and not some accident or wickedness (hamartia).

According to Norton’s Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Aristotle’s seminal work on art renders us a number of implications for the modern critics.  First, its systematic categorization of genus and species and its comparison of tragedy and epic are said to now underlie all genre theory—“undergirding modern considerations of the historical movement from epic to the novel. Second, its systematic description of plot and its component parts basically ground contemporary narrative theory, especially the technical field of narratology. 

Third, its scientific examination of poetry—championed by the American New Critics—rather just validates it as a legitimate branch of study.  Next, it affirms that poetry is a source of universal knowledge of human behavior, i.e. unlike history that produces knowledge of specific situations, poetry describes actions of characters who might be any human beings.  Lastly, to which most critics agree, good poetry renders us catharsis, primarily read as purgation of unwieldy emotion. 

Through time, catharsis, roughly a sense of moral purification that arises in an individual from being exposed to tragedy has come to mean ethical or intellectual clarification.

***

Aristotle’s Poetics clearly marks out the beginnings of literary theory and criticism. 

In this age-old treatise, Aristotle provides both a history of the development of poetry and drama, and a critical framework for evaluating tragic drama. It is considered the first systematic essay in literary theory because it is full of insight and shows a high degree of flexibility in the application of its general rules.

More inclined to forming categories and organizing them into coherent systems than his teacher Plato (who highly esteemed a cerebral Theory of Forms), Aristotle conversely treated the discussion of poetry as a natural scientist, carefully accounting for the features of each “species” of text.

In the twenty six books perhaps gathered as notes by his pupils, three points stand out as probably the most important. First is the interpretation of poetry as mimesis. In Chapters 1–3, all poetry, Aristotle argues, is imitation or mimesis. Poetry springs from a basic human delight in mimicry. Humans learn through imitating and take pleasure in looking at imitations of the perceived world. The mimetic dimension of the poetic arts is always representational. As artistic representation, mimesis in poetry is the act of telling stories that are set in the real world. The events in the story need not have taken place, but the telling of the story will help the listener or viewer to imagine the events taking place in the real world.

Furthermore, representations of human beings in poetry can be sorted into three categories—depictions of humans as better than they really are, depictions of humans as they are in reality, and depictions of humans as worse than they really are. It then distinguishes three types of poetry—tragedy, comedy and epic poetry, perhaps just like an anatomist labels parts of the human body.

In particular, Aristotle focuses his discussion on tragedy, which uses dramatic, rather than narrative, form, and deals with agents who are better than us, ourselves. Aristotle writes the famous opening line in Book 6, which sums up the centerpiece of his work—

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

Aristotle lists six components of tragedy—plot or mythos,character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. While diction and melody are the style of the text or lyrics, and the music to which some of them are set; spectacle refers to staging, lighting, sets, costumes, etc. Thought refers to the indications, given primarily through words but also through other means, of what the characters are thinking.

Of the six parts, Aristotle insisted on the primacy and unity of plot.  While plot as representation of human action can either besimple or complex, Aristotle stresses that complex plots are required for successful tragedies. Here, the plot must be unified, clearly displaying a beginning, a middle, and an end, and must be of sufficient length to fully represent the course of actions but not very long that the audience loses attention and interest.

Unfolding through an internal logic and causality, a complex plot should consist of a hero going from happiness to misery. The hero should be portrayed consistently and in a good light (and the poet should also remain true to what we know of the character).For Aristotle, then, action—represented as the plot—must be consistent with character—and more importantly reveal character.

Furthermore, a number of terms can illuminate how complex plot works successfully for tragedy. Hamartia, translated directly as “error,” is often a “tragic flaw” on the part of the hero that causes his very downfall—this error need not be an overarching moral failing, rather only a matter of not knowing something or forgetting something. Employed along with it is anagnorisis or“recognition,” a part in tragedy—often at the climax—where the hero, or some other character, passes from ignorance to knowledge. This could be a recognition of a long lost friend or family member or a sudden recognition of some fact about oneself, as the case of Oedipus in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. Therefore, the concept of mythos is about how the elements of a tragedy come together to form a coherent and unified whole—in such a way that the overall message or impression that we come away with is what is conveyed to us by the mythos of a piece.

Equally prominent in the Aristotelian treatise is the notion of catharsis. For him, such tragic plot must serve to arouse the emotions of pity and fear and effect a catharsis of these emotions. While some critics forever debate the meaning of the term,Aristotle’s reference to the purging of the emotions of pity and fear aroused in the viewer always links it to the positive social function of tragedy—in general, the ethical utility of art.

Thus, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Aristotle’sPoetics established the beginning of literary theory and criticism, in that it started the discussion of poetic art as representation of reality, a contention held true even today.

Its “species-concerned” treatment of the components of poetic art also initiated the recent and ongoing discourses on the classification of literary forms and types or genres, or genre theory, a structuralist approach to literary, film and cultural theories.

Its concept of the three unities—those of action, place and time—was even taken to its most austere limits during the Renaissance and the succeeding European periods.

Above all, it ushered in for the succeeding eras the importance of the value of art itself, which is one of moral instruction, a concept taken always seriously in the discussion of literature.

Speaking Greek

Random Clarifications on Plato’s Republic

All art and poetry—representing what is already an inferior representation of the true original—only leads further away from the truth—and further into a world of illusion and deception.

The above statement is said to sum up Plato’s sentiment in the Republic, an age-old treatise on philosophy which does not recognize the importance of poets and artists in an ideal, well-regulated community promoting respect for law, reason, authority, self-discipline and piety.

Between his student Aristotle and himself, the great Plato is notorious for being the idealist, while the son of the medical doctor is the pragmatic theorist.

Infamous for attacking mimesis, Plato rather explores the nature of knowledge and its proper objects.

Plato thus proclaims that the world we perceive depends on a prior realm of separately existing forms organized beneath the form of Good. According to him, the realm of forms is accessible not through the senses [as is the world of appearances] but only through rigorous philosophic discussion and thought based on mathematical reasoning.

For Plato’s Socrates, measuring, counting and weighing all bring us closer to the realm of forms, and not poetry’s pale representations of nature.

In an effort to censor Homer, Plato’s Socrates often cites Homer’sIliad and Odyssey, calling for the censorship of many passages in these works [because they] represent sacrilegious, sentimental, unlawful and irrational behavior.

Through Republic and his other works, Plato insinuates that literature must teach goodness and grace. Such relentless application of this standard to all literature, however, marks one of the most noteworthy beginnings of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry.

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Heaven Is a Place on Plate

Dining Out and Other Cafeteria Eathics

Any sensible urban worker who is given no choice but fetch food from sources made accessible in a civilized jungle called a city or a university must acquire some neighborly ethics if he is to properly feed himself and achieve something through the day. Eating in cafeterias or similar types of food sources requires that he learn a number of things on how to feed on properly and hopefully be nourished.

Dito Po ang Pila

Kun habo mong dai ka matunawan, magsunod ka sa linya kan mga nagkaerenot nang nag-oororder. Dawa halabaon na an pila, dawa huri ka na sa appointment, dai ka nanggad magsingit sa iba, o samantalahon na magpa-cute sa kabisto mong crew just to get ahead. Mayong maoogma sa bentahuso kundi si Taning sana. Magsala, sa kagagama-gama mong maenot kang makakua nin kakanon, mataon lugod saimo an tutong na torta, tipo kan sinapna, o tunok kan lapu-lapu.

Patience is virtue—gustong sabihon, saro ‘ning timeless na kostumbre o pag-uugali na nakakapamarhay sa siisay man na tawo. Dawa idtong barbarong ninuno ta mga perang oras naghalat bago nagluwas an usa sa ampas saka niya nasilô ‘ni. Ngonyan na mga panahon, sa kadlagan na inaapod tang siyudad o unibersidad, dai ka na masiod nin manok bago makanamit nin tinola. Mahalat ka na sanang ilapiga an paa o mailatag an pecho sa saimong plato kaya dai na kaipuhan magpalakpalak o magputakputak ta ngani sana makapanogok.

Just follow the crowd, toe the line, keep your cool, then ask for what you want, and dine.

Bawal An Dagdag

Kun bisto mo an crew, pwede ka gayod magpadagdag. But unless you badly need that extra spare rib or cabbage leaves [which are probably pesticides-grown anyway], do not ask for extra amount of anything from the one that dispenses your food. So you insist, okay, ask if you can order half.

But you hard worker certainly do not deserve half serving of anything, unless you give your company or your country half of what it deserves from you. Scrimp and scrape you do. Perhaps save in other things like marked-down CDs or cheaper thrills or retail cellphone loads or bargained 3 for P100 FHMs—but for your food, spare this idea of saving.

 

Better yet, order dishes in full, so the idea of dagdag is out of question. The more you are inclined to haggling, the more it will appear to the crew that you are hungry—and this does not help because the crew will never be concerned with your hunger. They are just there assigned to portion and dispense properly for the business. And nowadays, the crew does not dispense the reasonable amount of food you are charged. But it is okay that the food given to you appears “unreasonable.” Just think you will be dispensed more amounts next time.

The cafeteria business, just like fast-food giants, places importance on one marketing aspect called food portioning. Because the prices of raw materials and ingredients required for preparing food will never be saved from inflation, profits from this business are sensibly drawn from the quantity of food the business prepares and the quantity of food it can save to feed its own staff. Well, you know. But the advantage here is that the cafeteria food can be assured of the presence of freshness and the absence of trans-fats.

Dahil kadaklan na beses bawal an dagdag, mag-andam ka na sanang mag-order nin duwa tolong panira, bako sanang saro. Kun habo mo nanggad mabitin.

Logically, when you do, you are not just paying for the food, but essentially the service, services? rendered to you—which includes, among others, a clean washed plate [hopefully free of the smell of dishwashing liquid], a properly bussed table, despite its being in a mess hall; ventilation or air-conditioning, whether or not you personally require it; and of course the food itself that has probably undergone some quality control in the kitchen.

No need to argue

Talking about quality control, consider the next ethical principle in cafeteria dining. By all means, despite all tensions and stress pressed on by hunger, never ever argue with the service crew. Certainly in no instance should you get disappointed or intimidated by anyone who gives you your food even though you find it unpleasant or disagreeable.

While not all of them are likely to be trained to suit your dining ethics, it is important to treat them as if they treat their food like it’s their own. Even if they don’t. Even if you found some foreign matter in your soup, or the dish you were served tasted like Tide or Ariel, deem it important to “suspend disbelief.” In a more familiar term, always give them the benefit of the doubt.

Do not raise your voice to complain. Simply reach out to them to query in cool and composure. Clarify that the service rendered is not generally acceptable. Ranting and raving about “some soap in the soup” or plastic straws in the pinakbet will not help.  Just suppose you are given imagination to transcend reality. Or remember one Holocaust survivor named Viktor Frankl famously used his imagination to transcend the tragedy he was forced to witness. In his story it can be deduced that perhaps imagination is more powerful than knowledge. But here in your story, ignorance is indeed bliss. Not having known that there’s a fly on your soup makes a whole lot of difference from having known it.

Although, sabi nga nila, Kung malayo sa bituka, okay lang yan. Therefore, check your system, whether your food indeed passes through your stomach. If it doesn’t, you are one lucky organism—feeding on using your other organs.

 

But seriously, consider this. Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is not about dining until the marlin is cooked by old Santiago [which he does not]—but it’s certainly about survival. There is a part there which says “a man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

 

The crew may poison you but it should not destroy your willingness to seek medication from the nearby doctor in case you get to swallow some plastic served with your pochero.

 

Ask For Receipt

Kun dai man kaipuhan na bayaran kan opisina mo an kinakakan mo dawa na ngani on official business ka, dai mo na gayod kaipuhan maghagad nin recibo. Dakula an karatula kan BIR na nakapaskil sa cashier na an sabi ASK FOR RECEIPT, alagad dai ka maglaom na tata’wan ka nin recibo pag bayad mo. Mag-andam ka na sanang sabihan kan cashier na hinahalat pa ninda an stub kan recibo hale sa BIR. Dai ka na magngalas dawa maaaraman mo ara-atyan na an kakanan na iyan since 1962 pa nagsisirbi sa mga employees alagad mayo pa nanggad recibo. If at all, you were taught in high school to be considerate. Think of good manners and right conduct. It is never good to intimidate people.

So unless it’s a matter of life and death, do not ask for a receipt. Mas orog na gayod kun cooperative an kinakakanan mo—such business involves benefiting a big number of underprivileged families and their sensibilities. Garo man sana naghulog ka na ka’yan nin pirang sensilyo sa lata kan Bantay Bata 163. Sabihan ka pa kaiyan, “an darakulang business ngani mga tax evaders, alagad mas concerned sindang magsingil sa mga small businesses na arog mi.”

Ano na sana an pulos kan nanu’dan mo sa social responsibility o sa moral philosophy? Think of social justice. It won’t hurt to give to small people. Dai ka ngani nag-aangal sa VAT kan bago mong Wrangler jeans. What right have you to question the purpose of this representative of the lesser evil? Sige lang, because the food you are about to eat is not evil. No food is evil. Unless it comes from one.

Hala ka.

Eating Utensils

A cafeteria is a public place, so don’t expect that the utensils you are using are germs-free. One pair of spoon and fork must have fed all types of mouths or more than you can count. Kaya Bawal an masiri pagkakan sa cafeteria. Wisikon mo na sana an kutsara sagkod tinidor na nakapalbag kairiba kan mga sanggatos na iba pa. Magpasalamat kang dakul kun an la’ganan kan mga utensils nabuhusan nin nagkakalakagang tubig, tapos napaso ka pa kan kapotan mo. Mainit-init pa pagkakan mo. Okun habo mong magkahelang ka, magkakan ka sa cafeteria nin aga pa, mantang an mga kakanon nag-aaralusuos pa. By the time, swerte ka ta pati an mga utensils tibaad maray an pagkakahurugas. Bagong karigos pa sana si naghugas.

Alagad dai ka maghadit dawa dai disinfected an kutsara sagkod tinidor mo. Kun may pag-alaman man na mag-abot, an magiging helang mo tibaad helang man kan iba, kaya mas makakaantos kamo—nin huli ta igwa siempre sindang maiimbentong bulong para sa helang kan kadaklan saindo. In principle, in order to sell, pharmaceuticals as business in themselves have ISO-certified R&D arms that know the needs of the common good. Here, think collective. Hindi ka nag-iisa.

Alagad. Sabi kan mga gurang, maraot man an grabeng pagkatubis o masirî (squeamish). Garo idtong nabasa mo sa Reader’s Digest kaidto na don’t be too clean; it impoverishes the blood. By being too squeamish and obsessive-compulsive (OC) about not catching dirt or germs, you do not develop immunities to germs. You don’t make your antibodies work. You reduce your own resistance to the world, which is one of dirt. But washing hands properly is enough. Proper is just enough. Over is more than enough.

Don’t Just Grab A Bite, Eat Your Food.

Any meal is the most important meal of the day—kaya dai paglingawing kakanon an inorder mong kakanon. Yeah, you cram to go somewhere: an appointment, a fieldwork, a meeting—yes, nourish your career, nourish your soul [araatyan masimba ka, makihilingan sa amiga, mayaba-yaba] alagad ngonyan nourish your body first—make your cells tissues organs systems work. Girisa an mahibog, daula an matagas, sapaa an malumhok, halona an saradit. Maaskad an adobo, malagtok an maluto o minsan parareho an namit kan tolo mong panira—kumakan ka sana. Mayo ngani kaiyan an iba. Sa pagkahapay ngani nagagadan an iba. At least ika igwa.

Eat, drink, with or without Mary—in other words, eat for the sake of eating, regardless of whether you like it or not. Pagkatapos mong magdighay, rumdumang marhay. Food alone can’t save you. It fills but it hardly nourishes. 

First finish or get done with your salivation; perhaps only after then can you start & think of your salvation.