Groundhog Blog 1

                                                           Groundhog Day Stages of Grief

                                                                                               

Stage- Denial
Event-Tried to figure out solutions to the problem like going to a therapist.
Explanation- Going to this therapist and trying to figure out his problem was admitting that he still believed he was still in the normal everyday world when it was very clear that he was not.

Stage- Anger 
Event-Punches Ned in the face
Explanation- Physically attacking someone is one of the biggest and most obvious signs of anger and aggression and clearly after days and days of repeated Ned encounters Phil loses.

Stage-Bargaining 
Event - Starts to become a good person just because he knows it feels better than being a bad person over and over again.
Explanation - Once Phil realizes that nothing can help his situation he begins to realize that being nice and helping people like the homeless man and other people around the town.

Stage- Depression 
Event-Phil kills himself.
Explanation- There is perhaps no better sign that someone is very depressed than them seriously considering or actually committing suicide which happens to Phil after many a groundhog day.Phil became severely depressed and tried really every form of suicide possible to no avail.   

Stage- Acceptance 
Event-Uses it to his advantage with picking up Rita
Explanation-  After so long Phil eventually became accepting of his prison inside February 2nd and started using each day to learn more about Rita and then use that the following day to impress her and continue to win her heart day after day.
  

Phil during his heist of the groundhog

Truman Show

                                                             


                                                                    Truman Show
Truman Burbank always believed he was born into the real world but that was very far from the truth. Truman was not born into reality at all but a completely controlled false reality. The deceiver according to Descartes is an omniscient,all powerful being that has the ability to control everything humans believe to be true. That is exactly what Christof is to Truman. He created this world and then deceived him into believing that this was all real and that everything about it was normal. Christof was a godlike figure who was all powerful and controlled everything that everyone did. The only thing that both Truman and Descartes can believe in is their minds and their existence and nothing else because is anything else really real?  If they lose the believe that they themselves are real then life will lose all meaning so they must believe in themselves at the very least. This however can not be achieved easily there are many obstacles. Descartes says that you must remove your mind from your body in order to not end up being deceived. Truman accomplishes this by not focusing on his day to day routine but more on the future and big picture plans as well as changing everything and moving. When he starts acting on his impulses the show starts to fall apart around him and Truman is freed. 

Truman beginning to discover the truth.

Mini-Blog

Plato's Cave

     Plato's allegory of the cave describes what life could really be like. It describes how people are born into a prison they are forced to stare at a wall their whole lives and this becomes their reality when actually it is just whatever the free men want to show them. It talks about the mental challenges of facing reality that the one freedman faces in regards to accepting it and the physical pain of the sun hurting his eyes. The allegory of the cave describes a scenario of a human's journey to find and accept  reality.                                              

Machiavelli

The Hunger Games is a book and movie series full of philosophical ideas. One of the main ideas though is Machiavelli's rules for being a leader. Machiavelli says that the ideal leader is both feared and loved but if you can only be one you should be feared. I believe that President Snow fits this description to a tee. Obviously the people in the outlying districts fear Snow because of the insanely rough lives they lead with little to no help from him or the capitol and the constant shaming they receive for the revolt so many years ago. And the fact that every year he takes 2 children from amongst them and basically has them murdered in front of the whole country. But Snow gets the people in the Capitol to love and revere him which they demonstrate by going absolutely insane when he takes the podium at the start of The Hunger Games. He lets them live these lavish lifestyles and provides them with these Games they love every year. The games in that way serves as a double effect by causing fear in the districts but love in the Capitol.  Snow really is the perfect leader because he is feared mostly and everybody knows he is powerful but there is still some love there by who Snow deems to be the more important people in the country. However, being the perfect leader by Machiavelli's standards did not stop the people from eventually revolting. Snow may have been the perfect leader in Machiavelli's eyes but over time the fear turned into a smoldering  hatred waiting to be sparked which is exactly what Katniss Everdeen did.  


President Snow greeting the people

 

Beginning of the revolts in District 11

Bergson Blog

                                                             Frank The Tank

An example of Henri Bergson's philosophical ideas about comedy promoting social and moral values would be Will Ferrell's character of Frank the Tank in the movie Old School. In the movie Frank is recently married and is trying to settle down and adapt to married life. But then his friend Mitch (Luke Wilson) buys a house extremely close to a college campus and it turns in to a disaster for Frank. Another friend of theirs Beanie (Vince Vaughn) implores Mitch to turn this new house into a party house so they can relive their college days. Mitch agrees and this is nothing but trouble for Frank who can not control himself while intoxicated. Frank tries to keep himself under control by letting his fellow party goers know that he can not drink because him and his wife are busy the next day going to Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond if there is enough time. Once Frank starts drinking he becomes the epitome of Bergson's ideas. He becomes belligerent and takes his shirt off and starts dancing around. Everyone at the party is laughing at him because he looks so ridiculous but everyone is silently saying that they would never want to be like him. He crosses the line when he takes Snoop Dogg's microphone from him and then he crosses it even further when he began streaking throughout the town. Frank gets caught by his wife and it ultimately leads to their divorce. Frank's antimoral and antisocial behavior are hilarious from afar but it does make everyone think about how much they would never want to be in his position which in turn promotes social and moral values.                                                                      Frank the Tank mid-party

Thanksgiving Blog

                                            My Perfect Friendship

I would say I have a perfect friendship with my friend Lexi. While I don't think Aristotle's friendship categories are perfect I feel our friendship is most closely a perfect one. A perfect friendship is defined as one this is not fleeting and very strong.  I believe that Lexi and I are all of these things. We have been best friends since freshman year which proves that our friendship is indeed strong and definitely not fleeting. It also characterized by if you want what's best for one another. I believe that over the past 4 years if we had not done what was best for one another at least most of the time we would not be as close and as great of friends as we are. Our friendship has the right amount of utility as all perfect friendships do. The utility in our friendship may not always be beneficial for both of us at the time but the other person is always happy because we want what's best for each other at all times. Me and Lexi's friendship has the perfect amount of pleasantness and the perfect amount of utility reaffirming that we indeed have a perfect friendship.

Aristotle Friendship Blog

Utility Friendship- Aristotle describes the Utility Friendship as one where the people are only acquainted because they need something from each other. Once this need is met the friendship deteriorates because there is nothing holding it together except the need.

An example of a utility friendship would be Terrell Owens' relationships with his quarterbacks. T.O. was one of the best wide receivers of his time but like most receivers of his time he was very self centered. Owens wanted the ball on every single play whether he was actually open or not. He depended on his quarterbacks to get him the ball and because he was so good his quarterbacks needed to get him the ball thus a utility friendship was born. As long as T.O. was getting the ball everything was awesome but as soon as he wasn't things blew up. He fought with Jeff Garcia in San Francisco and got released then he fought with Donovan McNabb in Philadelphia and got released from there. Owens and his quarterbacks are the perfect example of a utility friendship.

                                                      T.O. fighting with Donovan McNabb


Pleasantness Friendship- Very similar to the utility friendship friendships for pleasure do not have very strong long term bonds. But where they differ from the utility friendship is that they are not for a need they are simply for pleasure and what is making the person happiest at the time. Once this person no longer finds this common interest pleasurable the friendship will again most likely dissolve. An example of this in my life would be the Lowell High Fan Section that I am very rabidly apart. Most  of the people other than a select few I have no contact with outside the student section but in the fan section I am friendly with everyone. Right now in my senior year the student section is insanely important and means a lot to me but as soon as I graduate I will no longer have any connection with the student section because I will not be attending Lowell High. The student section is a great example because right now it is a huge deal but once I graduate it will not be at all.


  Lowell High vs Central Catholic

         
Perfect Friendship- Aristotle describes the perfect friendship as one that is not fleeting and is very strong. It is the complete opposite of  utility. The people in the perfect friendship want what's best for each other and have nothing to do with utility. The people must have similar values or they'd have nothing to base their friendship off of. Obviously there is pleasure in the relationship or it wouldn't be a friendship at all but it is totally not for utility.

A great example of a perfect friendship is Will and Chuckie from Good Will Hunting. Chuckie and Will are the best of friends and do everything together. From working together at a construction sites to drinking together at a Harvard bar to fighting Wills kindergarten bully they are inseparable. But they do deep down just want the best for each other. This is clear when Chuckie tells Will that if he doesn't use his gift of genius to get out of Boston that he'd kill him. This really exemplifies Aristotle's main points of a true friendship because they were never using each for anything and deep down they really did just want the best for each other.



Ben Affleck as Chuckie Sullivan and Matt Damon as Will Hunting