Week 2

Bacon

When it comes to Bacon's four Idols, the first thing that popped into my mind was the movie 'Mean Girls'. I know this movie is about teenage popularity, however, I will make it relate to the 4 four Idols of Bacon.

Tribe:

When it come to the tribe aspect, Bacon describes the tribe as; people trying to make things fit into patterns, people looking for evidence to support their conclusions, people who don't like to think deeply, that people are affected by what they want to believe, that people have senses that can fool them--they see what they expect to see not whats actually in front of them.

Relating this to the movie, a school can also be seen as a tribe. People are all in one location ultimately doing the same thing, learning. They don't do this by choice, they are pressured to go to school by their elders. It is a learned concept, once you finish middle school, you move on to a greater place of education. This would be a part of making things fit into a pattern. Now when it comes to the students, there was a particular group in the movie called the "plastics". These girls would be seen as a higher power in a group or tribe. They didn't earn this so called 'power'; they got this power through other people thinking that they are the cool ones. Once they received the title of plastics, the student body placed them on a pedestal and convinced themselves that they were the ultimate description of what a girl is supposed to look and act. Their senses played tricks on them making them believe false thoughts, which no one ever challenges. It then creates a false reality the is generally accepted through out the tribe or school.

Cave:

The cave deals with individuality. Bacon said that; individuals favor ideas that support previous conclusions, and some individuals favor differences; others favor similarities, some individuals favor antiquity; others favor novelty.

In the movie, anything that the plastics do just solidifies their position in the tree of power. The student body supports basically anything and everything the girls do, not because it right or it's the ethical/moral thing to do, but because of their position in their tribe or school. However, as you see in the movie, there are several groups within their school. They have the preps, Asian nerds, band geeks, junior varsity jocks, and the "cool" kids among others. However, each group ultimately tries to imitate the plastics in some way or another. This is why all the groups are interrelated in many ways without knowing it, creating one unit.

Marketplace: Words that have a range of meanings.

A perfect example of the marketplace would be the scene when Cady (played by Lindsey Lohan) is new to the school and is asked but the plastics to sit at their designated lunch table, which is reserved for only them, unless they invite someone to sit with them. When she is having a conversation with the main character, Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams), Regina blurts out "Shut Up!" meaning in her terms Now Way! or Oh My Gosh!. However, in Cady's definition of "Shut Up!" mean be quite or stop talking. One of these meanings is positive and one is negative. However, if not exposed to a certain meaning, one might take is offensively, just as Cady did. This is a perfect example of Bacon's marketplace.

Theater: Understanding based on a system of philosophy, theology, or tradition.

Through out the movie people never question the popularity pf the plastics. This is so because a certain level of hierarchy must always be attained to have a working system. There always has to be someone better, until ultimate perfection is acquired. This can also be viewed as a tradition. In every school there is always one group that has greater popularity then others. In this movie, it happened to be the plastics.

Montaigne:

His essay was on the education of Children. His philosophy, as I understood it, stated it is better to teach a child the essentials that they need for survival then send them on a journey to find them and acquire knowledge through experiences and challenges. He was very opposed to just forcing information into a child's head expecting them to learn and understand everything. He is also an advocate of a physical journey along with the intellectual journey.

Montaigne's concept can be related to the "College experience". When one goes to college, they escape all of the rules set forth by their parents and become free. When they move away, they are independent to do whatever they choose. Through experiences, good and bad, they learn valuable lessons of life. The choices the students make will determine the direction of their future. Students also have a physical journey once they have reached College. Many students are potentially meeting their future mates and need or want to portray a certain image. By having a certain image of themselves in mind, they may choose to go to a fitness center, run or take aerobic classes to reach their goal image. This will also help them in determining their future.

Plato

He wrote the Allegory of the Cave. In this essay 2 main concepts were the analogy of the divided line and the metaphor of the sun. I would relate this theory to something in my life, however, I don't completely understand the concept that Plato is trying to explain.