So today's notes are a bit shorter. Not because the lecture wasn't interesting, but because I was recording it and was hoping I could put in some sound bits this time around. Sadly, it didn't work the way I had hoped and the recording was unusable. I will be trying other methods to see if there is some way I can make it work. I'll keep you all posted.
- V. B.
A worldview is what gives a culture cohesiveness. Common
worldviews share common Philosophy, Religions, Political, Art
In the Middle Age these were Platonic, Christianity,
Feudalism, Art that wasn’t aimed at realism.
Plato was interested in the other world, Aristotle was
interested in this world. Take Aristotle’s ideas and “stir them around for a
while and you get Individualism, and put it on steroids and you have the United
States.”
In between times, you have overlap where there is change. We
are in a worldview shift right now. From Modernism (or Post-Modernism) to
whatever is coming next. Our culture no longer has a cohesive philosophy, just
like the Roman Empire. We have a lot of Perspectives, but not a common
worldview.
Art is a canary in the mine. If there are poison gases in the
air, the canary will die before the miners will. Art is a good judge of where
culture is going. If there is no worldview, artists don’t know what to do with
art. Art has never been the same after World War I. Art is the way we think of
the direction of our culture.
Up until the WWI, most of the world was run by monarchies.
During the war, Germany, Russia, Egypt, China, and the French (who couldn’t
really make up their minds if they wanted a king or not) lost their kings. We have had several types of art
arise since this time. Movies, sound recording, picture cameras are a blending
of art with machines.
In stories, a culture will show its values. In epic stories,
heroes will have good traits and perhaps a tragic flaw and villains will have
bad traits. Love stories only arose after the 11th century because
of Christianity and Paul in 1st Corinthians 7. Read The Allegory
of Love by C S Lewis for more on the
beginnings of romantic love.
Thomas Hardy tries to hold on to Christian values but
without the God that makes them possible. Thus his stories are doomed to pessimism.
Science fiction and Mysteries both became popular around the
same time. The 3rd mystery story written was The Gold Bug, and the tricky part about the book is that you had
to find out that there IS a mystery before you can look for the answer. Rowling
does the exact same thing with Harry. He has to find that there is a mystery
before he can solve it.
The Houses were then asked what the core values of Rowling's wizard world were. Here are a few of the things we came up with.
The core values of the wizard world are:
- Education (going to Hogwarts)
- Division from Muggles
- Ultimate truth – Rowling is not a relativist. There is
truth.
Harry’s biggest flaw is that he is dishonest. The Daily Prophet is
always shown in a bad light.
- Family is very important, even with people like the
Malfoy’s.
The Weasley’s are the model family because of their love. Harry
Potter
is very much about love and death.
- Choices have consequences.
Next time, we will talk about the founders of our "Houses."
No comments:
Post a Comment