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Today we had a brief discussion about consciousness and animals, but I think the real ethical dilemma that plagues Elizabeth and the reason for her deep empathy and concern is the question of whether or not all animal life forms (includes humans, excludes plants) have an "immortal soul". I am leaning towards the opinion, assuming that evolution of animals and humans is historically the same, that all animals and all humans either have immortal souls or they do not. This is idea equates humans and animals, essentially placing them on the same level. So, then, is is morally right to systematically slaughter beings with immortal souls? This is Elizabeth's primo concern. But do we agree? Animals eat other animals, animals have been known to eat us. Is Elizabeth advocating against the killing of all animals, or just the ones that we actively farm? Is farming and domestication morally objectible, even if the process is "humanely" excecuted? What is the difference between domestication and slaughter, if we are talking about things with immortal and feeling souls?

What has been on my mind about this novel is the implication when Coetzee mentions the mother’s aging and her son's consolation that “it will be over soon”. We said in class that it means either the heavy days they have been experiencing are going to an end or Elizabeth’s mortality will soon take her sufferrings away. Elizabeth Costello is approaching death and so she will not have to endure “the crime of stupefying proportions” - which has formed the basis of her lectures. I wonder what its broader implication might be, to use the image of an aging woman to prosecute the case for compassion as a core value. The first lecture ended with a strange closing remarks: “we can do anything and get away with it, that there is no punishment.” Might it suggest that Elizabeth’s mortal ache represents a broader premonition of our humanity’s extinction, prompted by humans' institutionalised anthropocentrism in the face of such tragedy?

I'm conflicted about the result of our trip, so my reflection may be a bit scattered. There were some things I really liked and some that I didn't like so much, but overall I think we made the right decision to experiment with this alternative class structure.

Still, I think we failed in our objective to connect with water. I spent a lot of our ramble looking into the water, but I couldn't find much except for mossy rocks and trash. The water itself seemed a bit dirty (probably due to the trash surrounding it), and I think that may have been why I didn't see a lot of people doing what I was doing. Most people I observed were talking in groups or exploring the plant life around the banks. I'm completely okay with this, but I think if our intention was to explore in this way, we should have chosen a different location. 

The water was cold and contrasting with the overwhelming (to me) surprise of Monday's heat, and I enjoyed being able to sit on a stone in the center of the creek, surounded by water on all sides, and look for frogs or minnows in its slower parts. I didn't find any, though. I guessed that this might have been because of the conditions of the creek area which, again, weren't very good. In result, my individual ramble was a time of pastoral reflections shadowed by the real, ecological concerns of litter and irresponsible human behavior. I don't think I did much connecting in result, but I do think my experience was important.

The book The Lives of Animals is ingeniously written and surprising compelling, although Coetzee used a lot of layers to “cover” his true feelings toward contemplation of animals.

Besides human’s cruelty toward animals, I see another “tension” in this book: the alienation between vegetarians and meat-eaters. In the books, the ageing mother’s ardent vegetarian conviction put a lot of tension on her son and her daughter-in-law. In some parts of the books, to me, it almost seemed like the mother and her meat-eating daughter-in-law had nothing in common to discuss about. However, at the end of the book, the son consoled the distraught mother, “There, there. It will be over soon.” Could it mean that the tension between the vegetarians and the meat-eaters will be over soon? As meat-eaters learn to respect animals more ardently, there will be a bridge that will connect in the gap between vegetarians and meat-eaters?

While reading The Lives of Animals, I thought to myself, "Well this is a let down.  I thought this was going to be more of a novel.  It's just a lot of little essays crammed into a book with a sham of a narrative to bookend them." However, having accepted this about the "novel", I began to see the genius of the author framing his argument in this way.  

I see the son as neutral.  He is in the middle of the extremes of his mother and his wife.  Sure, he argues against them, but he does so as much with his mother as with his wife.  This is why he is the narrarator.  He should be likened to us, the persuadable.  Then Coetzee spews many arguments at us, from many different sources.  The constant debate makes the overall book very neutral.  We should identify with whichever of the arguments makes the most sense to us.  

Most of the arguments are based on reason, except for Elizabeth Costello's.  So, while the narrative is a forum for all ideas (past the first lecture) to be debated, it also establishes that the emotional argument should be considered when we are making up our minds about what we think about the lives of animals.

In Coetzee's novel there seems to be the controversy over whether or not animals are on the same level as humans. Whether they have the same type of conscience as us or whether or not they think as we do. Elizabeth Costello seems to think that since we are all beings that we should be able to put ourselves into the thoughts of an animal and understand how it is thinking. This way we can understand where certain animals are coming from and how they think. I do not agree with this. How do we know that animals have a conscience that is simlar to ours? Couldn't they have a conscience except it is structured differently than our own? Are we as humans so closed to other possibilities that animals may in fact actually have a conscience that we just cannot understand. Just because we cannot prove something does not mean it was true. In Elizabeth Costello's speech she proposes that Descarte did not have sufficient information about Apes and Dolphins and was therefore only capable of making his assumptions based on what he had. In the future we may in fact prove that animals have a conscience adn can think, except they may just think differently than us. It is possible that we just haven't prgressed that far to prove it.

Last week we were talking a lot about "play" in class and this ended up seeping into another conversation in one of my other classes outside the 360 with Anne. Here's a link to that conversation if any is interested/wanted to further our conversations about the links between play and learning: /exchange/divergent-thinking#comment-139691

I think some of these comments are relevant to our voice discussion about what play means or does not mean!

So the Lives of Animals got me thinking about the wealth of animal videos available to watch on the internet. I admit, I'm definitely guilty of watching hours of back to back YouTube videos of cute puppies, kittens, hedgehogs, etc. I'm starting to wonder what the fascination is with cute things that struggle. I was watching this adorable bulldog puppy struggle to get off his back, I was struck by how many people where so delighted with how cute and funny this video seems. A few commenters called the owner out on it, calling it animal abuse. As I looked at the description, I noticed that the owner of the video had included a response to the angry comments, stating, "All bulldog puppies have to deal with this problem, they have to learn to get up on there own. If the owner helps them, they won't learn and the owner can't be there to help flip them over 24/7. It is a common thing you see when around any bulldog puppies. Due to their odd body shape, yes it is difficult for them to get up. Everyone seriously needs to calm down, the owner of the video was actually doing the right thing, and people will realize this if they think about it hard enough." While I see the reason why the bulldog puppy needs to learn how to get up on his own, is it really necessary for the puppy's efforts to be posted online for everyone to laugh at? I kept wondering if he was scared and suddenly watching the puppy turned from cute to agonizing.

My initial interest was the “rules” of Bryn Mawr Campus and ways in which students either resisted or followed these rules. I eventually narrowed my focus to smoking on campus, after coming across a series of correspondences through student publications in regards to Student Government Association’s involvement in determining the social regulations of students’ lives. More specifically, these “correspondences” focused on campus drinking and smoking amongst students. In the Spring of 1944, the Lantern, one of Bryn Mawr’s student literary magazines, issued an aggressive editorial calling upon the student’s radical abolition of the Student Government Association. Students who crafted this editorial were tired of staying “silent” when it came to rule breaking, writing that, “Rules are being broken. Those who find the rules unreasonable to maintain soon find that the risk of being caught is considerably reduced by discreet silence.” They claimed that Student’s obvious resistance to the rules was indicative of unfair policy and too-strict rules. Without restrictive policy governing their conduct, student would no longer have to remain silent or risk categorization as “rule-breakers.” 

Going into this field placement on Friday, I knew exactly what the problem was. Though I had been deterred from going into the classroom, I finally understoof why. These teachers were most probably amazing teachers, they were capable of engaging their classroom and using innovative tools to get their idea across. However, there was NO technology in the classes, but this was not a random occurrence. This was the result of hesitation from the teachers because of their lack of experience in the field of using computers. Therefore, I finalized a script and began my camtasia video on how to create a google calendar