I made a few mistakes in my previous post about Thoreau. First of all, I need to say that the long quote was not “about” Thoreau from Wikipedia, but that it was written “by” Thoreau himself and is a quote from “Civil Disobedience”. In this paragraph he talks about spending the night in jail. You need to know that when I was 15 in High School we had to read this essay and some parts of his diaries (which are too long to read entirely and haven’t all been printed). His ideas about travelling enormously influenced me and I wrote in my journal about the fact that I didn’t want to travel too much.
Today, I still think that humans need to “Connais-toi, toi-même” like Socrates said. So I encourage all of you to write and record what you think from time to time in a blog/diary/journal or whatever you want to call it. Some of the best travels you can have are to discover more about yourself.
Here is some more information about Thoreau from Wikipedia (which means that I didn’t write this):
“Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, and philosopher who is most well-known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Thoreau was famous for saying: “Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.” Thoreau’s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. His ideas influenced the development of anarchism, and are most evident with the American anarchists, the pacifist Leo Tolstoy, and the nonviolent activism developer Mohandas K. Gandhi.
He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism. His philosophy had tremendous influence on leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Like I said in my previous posts, I would be very interested in having you read the post with the quote from “Civil Disobedience” and giving me your reactions. The questions are there in the previous post. If you are too shy to post something, then just bring in your reactions on a piece of paper for class.
See you soon. –Your professor, R. Charbonnier
December 14, 2006 at 6:11 pm
playlist:
1- bang gang “find what you get”
2- babylon circus “Mister conqueror”
3- radiohead “Morning Bell”
4- Agoria “stereolove”
5- ParaOne “DUN DUN DUN”
6- TTC ” dans le club” (intro de ParaOne”)
December 15, 2006 at 7:49 am
Guillaume,
I don’t understand your playlist. It’s just a list. What do you want to say?
This doesn’t express anything, unless you hope that the bands express your opinions better than you can. Is that what it is? You don’t know what to say, so the bands’ music expresses it better than you?
Your prof.
December 15, 2006 at 8:40 am
it’s a melting of music, for differents feelings…
January 12, 2007 at 1:56 pm
ok, so in the last class, if we have time you have to put this playlist on so that I can hear it. I’ll tell you how it makes me feel….
January 12, 2007 at 2:27 pm
I thought about making another main topic post for the “Express Yourself” students, but I will just make a short one and put it here under all the others and inconspicuous.
Today’s class was really interesting. I enjoy teaching you guys and I learn things from you, because nowadays, no one person can be a fountain of knowledge. I CAN NOT know everything, my head would explose! I just try to remain curious. So, if any of you know things about the power of symbols or other other topics that we discussed like “Outsider Art”/”Art Brut”, Body Language, social protests and music, right brain/left brain, please feel free to blog about it.
In addition, you have to write a commentary about the class (30% of the evaluation). I think it is easier to do it here. Then you don’t have to print it out or handwrite it. Good luck with your comments.