The Life of Spock: A Tale of Two Ideals
Star Trek has always had a massive cult following and the reboot is no different. The character of Spock has some traits from Epictetus’s theory of stoicism. Spock has always had an internal struggle between his human side and his Vulcan side. Growing up, Spock has had difficulty preventing others from affecting his emotions and accepting his role in life. While the old Spock is mostly stoic, he still has trouble not blaming himself and accepting loss.
Epictetus’s twelfth rule claims “that your tranquility should [not] depend on him” (qtd. in Pojman 495). In other words Epictetus is saying that we should not allow other people to wreck our happiness. Growing up, Spock had trouble controlling his emotions and this affected his happiness. As a child, Spock was frequently bullied by the other Vulcan children. Once the other boys called Spock’s father a traitor and his mother a human whore, he could not control his anger any longer. The young Spock then proceeded to fight one of the boys (Star Trek). In this scene, Spock allows the other boys to provoke him. Spock losses control of his emotions because of what someone else said. Later in the film Kirk goads Spock into fighting him. Spock is then forced to “relinquish [his] command based on the fact that [he has] been emotionally compromised” (Star Trek). Just like when he was a child, Spock allows someone else to affect his emotions.
One of Epictetus rules to live a happy life is “to play the assigned role well, casting is the business of another” (qtd. in Pojman 496). Essentially, Epictetus is saying to accept your role in life. Spock has struggled with his place in life from the day he was born. Being a creation of two di...
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...n blames himself” (qtd. in Pojman 494). So according to Epictetus, old Spock is still struggling with stoicism. If Spock wants to completely adopt stoicism then he needs to blame “neither anyone not himself” (qtd. in Pojman 494). Epictetus’s eleventh rule says to “Never say about anything that you have “lost it” but that you have “given it back” (qtd. in Pojman 494). Spock needs to adopt this principle. He needs to think of his planet and the people on it as a loan. This will help him to accept the current state of his planet easier. Old Spock still has some aspects of stoicism to embrace.
Spock is the example of rationality in Star Trek. This is mainly due to the fact that Spock has learned to use stoicism in his daily life. Some aspects of stoicism have taken Spock many years to perfect and yet others may take Spock a lifetime to master.
In “Part 1: Life” of “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, she starts telling us the life of Henrietta, where she grew, that she married Day, and everything she went trough with her cancer. But, more than that, Skloot is trying to show us the ethical, social, and health issues black people had back in those days, and also she wants to let us know how lucky we are to live in this period where we have a lot of opportunities, racism is not a strong movement but still affects the society a little, and of course give thanks to the advances of the medical and science world most of it because of the HeLa cells.
temper is dangerous. He declares, "Ye gods! It doth amaze me, / A man of such a
He feels that his honor was besmirched when Agamemnon demands that Achilles relinquish his war prize, Brises "Are you ordering to give this girl back? Either the great hearted Achaians shall give me a new prize chosen according to my desires to atone for the girl loss, or else if they will not hive me I myself shall take her, your own prize?(Homer 1.134).
In Homer’s epic poem titled The Odyssey Odysseus faces abuse from the suitors verbal and physical. He is able to have self control and not say anything about it due to Odysseus not wanting to reveal his identity yet. Throughout the book we see Odysseus didn’t always have self control like when he taunted Polyphemus “Cyclops if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so- say Odysseus” here Odysseus shows unbridledly by trying to show who was the brave soul the blinded him(9.558-560). Odysseus caused the death of some of his crew mates for not having self control and insisted taunting Polyphemus to the point where he prayed to his father Poseidon who then brought waves of destruction to which it killed some
...l in that they make similar rational decisions like us. As shown in the case study regarding whether or not to send the patient to do the hip surgery or to test the two medicines that he didn’t try, the physicians chose to just send him off to hip surgery due to the complications they would face when choosing over which medication they should try. From this study, it shows that we, even the experts who seem to make rational decisions may actually not be as rational as we think they are.
Arrogance has been the downfall of many great leaders including Odysseus. Examples of Odysseus’s arrogance are clearly discernible at the Cyclops’s island. “Here we stand, beholden for your help, or any gifts you give – as custom is to honor strangers. We would entreat you, great Sir, have a care for the gods’ courtesy; Zeus will avenge the unoffending guest” (Homer 900). This exhibits Odysseus’s arrogance as he threatens a much stronger foe with the god’s power, not his own. “Cyclops, if ever mortal men inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye: Laertes’ son, whose home’s on Ithaca!” (908). This is another illustration of Odysseus’s deadly ego. Despite his crewmate’s suggestions, he taunts Polyphemus, almost
Achilles anger was a predominant theme in the Iliad. It led to Patrokolos, death, Hektor’s death and a great many other Trojan deaths. Achilles was a very powerful Greek warrior, he had many faults but one of his most prominent was his uncontrollable anger. Multiple times throughout the Iliad his anger had for reaching effects on the war and people around him. These effects were not usually favorable to anyone. There are three main occurrences that led Achilles’ anger down devastating paths. The first was when Agamemnon took Achilles’ girlfriend. When this happened, Achilles felt robbed because Brisies, his girlfriend, represented his might and the glory of his conquests. In the Greek culture, glory and honor were highly esteemed. This is why
Scotty emulates the virtuous character as he shows in his refusal to sign off on the missiles, knowing that their use could cause everyone on the ship to be killed. It would benefit Scotty to make the right decision so it therefor is in line with his appetite and he shows he is able to differentiate between the right and wrong choice. Therefore, since Scott does make the right choice he represents the virtuous character. Admiral Marcus represents the character type of incontinent, as his appetite is to start a war, which is not in line with reason. He also shows that he can reason right from wrong as he tries to trick Kirk into starting the war because he know it will be seen as wrong by the public and the people at Starfleet. He chooses to try and start the war despite reason, displaying him as the incontinent
Odysseus’ declaration to Polyphemus after stabbing the cyclops in the eye is a proud mistake that follows Odysseus for years. The King learns a lesson in humility in the journey that he couldn’t learn through any other circumstance. How much time and effort and men could have been saved had he not needed to secure the glory for himself from his clever act. When his men opened his bag of winds and sent their ship off course where they encountered yet more trials, Odysseus surely learned the value of trust and honesty, and the consequence of holding secrets. When Odysseus has returned to his kingdom disguised as a beggar, he says, “I, too, seemed destined to be a man of fortune once and a wild wicked swath I cut, indulged my lust for violence, staking all on my father and my brothers. Look at me now. And so, I say, let no man be lawless all his life, just take in peace what gifts the gods will send.” This passage shows how Odysseus has grown as a person throughout his journey, and learned how to become a person of piety. Odysseus was a reckless warrior and a reckless leader of the men he was trying to lead home to Ithica. He lived the punishments of recklessness and learned the importance of having Piety towards the gods. From humility to piety, the lessons Odysseus learned are as abundant as the hardships he faced, but each made him a better
The question "was Achilles' anger justified" brings up issues that seem to have little or no relevance to the war. In time of war I would expect the leaders to prioritize the groups interest for the sake of unity and cooperation rather than being entrenched in achieving their own personal goals. But my expectations are those of a modern day literature student, I'm inclined to think that the Greeks who first read this epic valued different things than myself. Another relevant question might be "were Achilles' actions justified". Anger can be easily justified, but the actions that anger might lead you to take are not as easily justified. Again I am not an ancient Greek and my opinions are irrelevant unless I open my mind to different viewpoints. Therefore I am striving to look into this issue through ancient Greek eyes where the principle of sacrificing ones own interests was apparently not valued, but maintaining ones honor, on the other hand, was greatly valued. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to answer these two aforementioned questions.
When you are smart you can find ways to get through an obstacle, they’re able to think outside the box. They need to be smart because a problem will not always be physical. If a leader is not able to think and just uses brute strength he cannot lead.You must think before acting, you have to have purpose. You cannot deal with problems blindly, if you do you will not succeed. A problem may not always be straight-forward and to the point.When problems like this occur you need a smart leader to help you get through them. Odysseus is a very smart man he knows how to get out of situations. When asked his name by the cyclops he says,”My name is Nohbdy”, this allows him to hurt the cyclops and keep the the other cyclopes from finding out,”Nohbdy’s tricked me, Nohbdy’s ruined me!” This kept the other cyclopes at bay and allowed Odysseus and his men to escape Polyphemus.Being able to think outside the box is the key to
Odysseus appears incapable of compassion or concern for others, as he continues scheming and doing harm to others with an idea of achieving success. This clearly shows that Odysseus is to use wits over strength to his best ability. Neoptolemus’ response highlights his morals and his urge to remain honest while also helping Odysseus and sticking to his word.
When Nestor comes to smooth the thick atmosphere they depart from each other. Upon returning to his ship, Agamemnon sends his men to “go to Achilles’ lodge [and] take Briseis at once” (line 378) illustrating how rude he can be. To take someone at once has an impatient type of connotation. Agamemnon has no intentions of keeping the peace with Achilles because he rudely disobeyed Achilles orders. Achilles tried to comply with Agamemnon, but he refused to do so. Regardless, Agamemnon resorted to his threat. When the men reach Achilles’ lodge, he is grief-stricken and allows for his wife to be taken. He is sad and reluctant, but lets them take her back to Agamemnon. No matter what he does, this event was inevitable. Agamemnon was provoking him making him “blazing … [to] [react] quickly” (line 341) showing that Achilles can be easily angered. Agamemnon tries to use Achilles rage and fury to get him to give up and retreat back to the army he left. Even though Achilles felt rage and sorrow, he keeps to his word. He wants to obey Athena’s orders of to not fight back. Although he is sad, he will not let Agamemnon’s threat get to his
The second example of when this case study involves the rational choice perspective is when Danny lied to Laura about having the job at GM. Danny used his rational thinking that if he told Laura he had a good job, that she would stay with Danny. Danny was desperate at this point and attempted to make Laura and the children stay. In his mind, he had to lie in order to gain his reward. He believed that the benefit of him saying he had a job would make his marriage
Here, Achilles talks about how much he loved Patroclus almost more than he loved himself. By what he is saying there, you can see that he is very sad, but that he will not just sit there, that something needs to be done.