April 25, 2012
just a thought

I absolutely loved this class and can honestly say that the material was enjoyable, thought-provoking, and great to discuss in class! One thing that I think would have been cool to cover would be the topic of go-getter students in middle school/high school/college. It would have been interesting to discuss the problems of competition among go-getters in an academic sphere.  A book that might fit with this topic is It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. I also would have really liked to discuss this topic because it’s something I’m sure all college students have to face quite often. But overall, I really liked what all the given material had to offer and am so glad I chose to be in this class!

-Sarah 

3:14am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKHmsum
April 25, 2012

I have to say that I loved this class.  We covered such an interesting variety of subject matter so I don’t really see how we could have fit in anymore.  :) I know the subject of the class is go-getters in AMERICA, and since we studied ambition as an inherently American trait, I think it would’ve been interesting to contrast with some un-American notions of self at the end of the class.  How does American individuality differ from individuality in other cultures?  Although this wasn’t the focus of the class, it could potentially shed further light on the American conceptions of self.

Really loved this class! Sad it’s over!

-Sami

3:14am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKHmrMl
April 25, 2012
if only…

Our little 112 section was a truly remarkable class (if I don’t say so myself). However, looking back, perhaps there are one or two things that I wish we could have covered. I think it would have been rather interesting to look at our own generation of young authors, artists, hackers, and entrepreneurs and examine exactly how they have managed to reach such high levels of success at early ages. We could have looked at Mark Zuckerberg and discussed some of the pitfalls of semi-instant success. How does the internet aid the go-getters of this generation? Does it separate us from enterprisers of an earlier age? Just a few things to consider. However, overall, I loved this class and was supremely content with the material.

—Estelle

2:04am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKHfyd2
April 25, 2012
Politics, Sex(uality), Power… these are a few of my favorite things!

Hope you all get the lame sound of music reference there. Anyway those are definitely things I feel we could’ve gone more in depth in.

Politics: is FULL of ambitious individuals, a previous post mentioned how crazy it must be to be that person who says “I want to be president” and what kind of an individual it takes to be that person. There are also plenty of examples from political history of ambitious figures, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Patton, Tojo, Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Kissinger, Nixon, JFK, Clement Attlee, Khrushchev, Monroe, Gorbachev…

… or how about Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich?

What does it mean that François “flanby” Hollande uses KANYE for his campaign ad?

Sex(uality): It’s something to talk about considering we covered Kanye and Mad Men and GHOST WORLD (HOLY HELL THAT THING WAS NUTS)… but more generally how about ambitious ladies, how about the misogyny/chauvinism that is associated and accepted with a lot of ambitious figures we look up to or idolized. How about the notion of a “sex icon” in pop culture?

Power: we’ve talked about what defines the individual, and what is the nature of ambition… but ambition implies yearning for power in some way or another… there could be an entire course revolving around what defines power.

-Alessandro

#random #ghostworld

2:04am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKHfxCq
April 23, 2012
Things I Wish We’d Covered

I would have loved to dive a bit deeper into the “perils of ambition and definition of an individual” as both related to 1) competitions (either between two, three, or four individuals OR between countries and economies at scale), 2) global or cross-cultural conflicts, 3) political philosophy, and 4) the pursuit of knowledge through science (none of which really are mutually exclusive). It would have been almost impossible to cover all of these in one semester, but I think they are, in many ways, the next steps. We’ve defined what it means to be an individual. Now I think the question should be: so what? How do you live as an individual amongst individuals? How do you govern individuals or non-individuals aspiring to be individual? How does conflict shape interacting, ambitious individuals? Etc. Etc.

Also, huge West Wing fan that I am, it would have been cool to look at that series instead of Man Men. Lots of similar themes. It’s been a great semester so far! Looking forward to future conversations with all of you about all of the above. 

-Cody

10:05pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKCtlWi
April 23, 2012
First, a poem.

The Donkey

A girl liked to explore the woods

And everyday she wore a red hood

She swore to never speak falsehoods

And hoped she could do good.

And there was a donkey who trudged in the forest

He lived in a cave, with no one to bother

he was a donkey on a mission, to be the boldest

Smart as he was, he could outdo any other

So bold was he that he proclaimed,

I will build a house, to withstand any rain!

And so he found wood, concrete, and nails

And he heeed and hawwwed until he prevailed

And one day, he finally shouted,

Appreciate greatness! Look at what I created!

Later that day, she skipped through the forest

And came upon this house, of wood, concrete, and nails

She gasped because it was the oddest

Of any and all homes, it was the ugliest

The donkey saw her from the southwest

And as bold as he was, he had to ask,

I built this home, aren’t I the best?

She wrinkled her brow, and looked in his eye

She could only hope to give false admiration

But true to her nature, she could speak no lies.

So she asked, why build this abomination?

She wanted to finish her sentence,

But the donkey huffed in arrogance,

I’MMA LET YOU FINISH

BUT I’M THE GREATEST DONKEY OF ALL TIME

At first she cried, and he didn’t care

Until she found a friend, a big green Ogre named Bear

Bear crept up and gave a dark stare

To the donkey who could never be scared

Bear charged, don’t be mean, you stupid donkey!

But the donkey taunted from his house, and giggled, “hee hee”

And Bear dismissed him, saying, “that shit crayyy”

And happily donkey lived, til the end of his days

And as for the girl, she seemed okay,

Until she met the big bad wolf, one warm summer day.

—-

It’s about Kanye and Taylor Swift…and the rest I’ll let you figure out.

-Dennis

8:27pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKCNpSa
April 23, 2012
Other Directions…

Race issues: it’s something we pretty much ignored in this class between Kanye, Mad Men, and Lancelot. It’s something I talk about in my later papers, but it’s still something we could have maybe talked about more.

Class issues: It wasn’t much of a focus, but I think the different treatments of individualism in our society depend on socioeconomic status. However, I could have seen this being a little too political for a non-politics oriented class, so it’s not as important as the race issues.

Given that our class time is finite, I’m pretty happy with what we did get to go over—and looking back on it, I think we covered a lot of ground.

I totally agree though with whomever said that the music and film portion of this course can be spun off into its own class—I definitely enjoyed having a balance of written sources, music, and film, and it really showed how the ideas of the past live on in the present.

-Dennis

8:27pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKCNgxo
April 23, 2012
Something I wished we had talked more about

Maybe this is just the young girl in me, but I wished we had talked a little bit about relationships and ambition. Not necessarily just romantic relationships (of course, those included) but friendships and parenting relationships as well. All of our male heroes (or anti-heroes?) that we studied this semester were basically alone in the end—no friends, family or significant other. Does this mean that there is no possibility for love if an individual also has unbridled ambition and self-reliance? Are no relationships allowed at the top? And is this a good thing—is Kanye really living the dream?

Also I wished we had touched on the portrayal of female ambition throughout the literature we read this semester versus the male ambition? Why is it that there is such a stark contrast between how female protagonists are portrayed in comparison to male protagonists? There’s much more of a sense of superficial desire and inner weakness amongst Faye Greener, Norma Desmond, and the Edie’s as compared to Kanye West, or Daniel Plainview… although maybe this is too much of a generalization. Is it simply the historical context in which the works were being written or are their other reasons?

Just some thoughts in my head!

~Carolyn

5:19pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKBUwEx
April 23, 2012
Perspective on previous post

To give a little perspective on the intrigue of Francois Hollande using Kanye West in a campaign ad, let me remind you that the Socialist Party (PS) is not a fringe party as it is in the USA. France is a multi-party system in which the election cycle has 2 rounds, the 1st round whittles the race down to 2 candidates from 2 parties (typically the UMP (Sarkozy’s right of center party, akin to US Democrats) and the PS) but the first round is meant to show a “truer” representation of the French people’s wills/beliefs.

This past Sunday (April 22nd) the first round took place, Voter turnout was at a somewhat low 79% (by french standards) and Hollande won with 29% of the vote, Sarkozy came in 2nd with 27%, Marine Le Pen of the neo-fascist FN party got 17%, Jean-Luc Melenchon of the Communist (PC) got 11%, Francois Bayrou of the centrist MoDem got 9%, Eva Joly of the Ecology Party got 2%. There were 4 other candidates who got 1% or less and they represented parties such as the “New Anti-Capitalist Party” a more militant breakaway from the Communist Party and the “Arise Republic” Gaullist party.

#random # french elections

4:15pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKBDUE_
April 23, 2012
Leading French Presidential candidate uses “Niggas in Paris” in campaign ad

This is an ad put forward by François Hollande’s camaign. He is the candidate representing the PS (Parti Socialist) and is currently leading against incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) 56% to 44% in the polls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rT5z_OMaQhg#!

-Alessandro

#random #kanyewest

4:15pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWM9FwKBDSCe
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