Musings!

The most infamous line of Friedrich Nietzsche comes out of The Gay Science [1] on the account of ‘The Madman,’ which reads, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” [2] The death of God comes about as the lack in belief in the deity. God, of course, is associated with the religious realm, in that the deity is an omnipotent being that has the power to create humankind and to guide man. By diminishing the role of God in life, Nietzsche sees that life is still able to continue, but the goals of humanity become altered. For Nietzsche, “God” means the foundation of everything around us and the source of our ideals, tenets, as well as our ends. The goals then become an emphasis on the perfectibility [3] of man, in relation to each other. By vanishing God out of the human equation, it is humans—through the concept of history and the sciences—that will enable man to become his own God. [4] The areas that religion dominated in the life of man previously, now shift (becau...

The United States Senate has one of the most powerful tools known in a democracy; the use of the filibuster. The filibuster is a way to simply extend debate, primarily used by the minority party in the Senate, to limit or halt the procession of a bill sponsored by the majority. It is seen as a protection, and it distinguishes the Senate from the House. The use of the filibuster arises by the Senate’s authority to determine its own procedures and rules outlined by the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 5. However, since the 70s, the use of invoking a filibuster has more than increased bringing into question the constitutionality of it and the gridlock in getting anything done that seems to go with it. However, this problem was addressed early in the 20 th Century with the adoption of Rule 22, which introduces the motion of cloture, where the Senate by a 60 member vote can overstep the filibuster and proceed with the bill. The articles by Gerhardt, Koger, and Binder tackle the pr...

                            The nature of the ancient Greek concept of the heroes, is something to be critical about, in that the homogeneity in what the hero is and does, is not the same across the board. In comparing the works of Virgil, Philostratus, and Homer, we get a depiction at the end of the hero in either a forgiving manner, or someone who enacts their vengeance against something or someone that has done something to offend them, just as a deity would do (alluding to their respective role in the afterlife). The comparison of these works is important in understanding the role of the culture of heroes, in that they demonstrate the forces that drive them to do good or bad. In Homer’s Iliad [1] , we see how in Book 24, Achilles comes face-to-face with his foe, Priam, and the tension that arises from this meeting and the nature for the hero to be empathetic towards those who have wronged him. In Virgil’s Ae...

                            In “ Goodbye to All That ,” Joan Didion professes a reality in which the façade that is New York, is not what it seems like, nor what it eventually comes to mean to those who try and hold on to the glamour and richness associated with the city. She arrives like so many have before her to a place that seems out of this world and that continues moving and changing, leaving some people behind. Didion challenges that notion by exemplifying the loss of innocence and naiveté that comes with an arrival in New York and, in that regard, a new environment. Isolated and wary of what’s to come, she is able to gain control of her life and to see the reality that New York represents. Through the loss of innocence comes maturity and a development in experience that allows her to escape the redundancy that envelops her everyday life. In the essay, Didion presents the perspective of a nostalgic, ideal...