PASSAGE FROM SIDDHARTH READING

He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmans had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied. The ablutions were good, but they were water, they did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart. The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent—but was that all? Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune? And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not the Atman, He, the only one, the singular one? Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal? Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods? For whom else were offerings to be made, who else was to be worshipped but Him, the only one, the Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught. So, where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs! They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much—but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?

 

Interpretation

The passage is explaining Siddhartha’s  initial quest for spiritual enlightenment .he actually believe to have acquire all the necessary knowledge from his father and other teachers, hence he needs to make a spiritual exploration of seeking knowledge and wisdom.

   Even though, most people in his community believes Siddhartha to be a successful Brahmin like his father. He performs all the rituals of religion, and he does what religion says should bring him happiness and peace. However, he feels something is really lacking and also believes His father and the other teachers have still not achieved adequate enlightenment. He believes his father has already passed on all the wisdom their community has to offer, but he seeks for something else ,hence the journey to seek meaning in this life.
Moreover, the passage explains how siddhartha has some traits of nihilistic behavior as he turns to rejects the existing values,and also continue to  qeustioned the doctrines that his father and the fellow teachers who control the community at that time,which he concluded that they had already offered all that they know and he needs to seek for more.

 

The reason why i choose this passage is the message of seeking knowledge in the passage, the eagerness within which Siddhartha needed to seek knowledge, this tells you how important knowledge seeking is ,he literally abundant his family just to go on knowledge and wisdom expeditions.

Pursuance of knowledge is worthy of search. Knowledge is something that all religious sects recommend. As the saying goes’ knowledge is power’.

PASSAGE FROM SIDDHARTH READING

He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmans had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied. The ablutions were good, but they were water, they did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart. The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent—but was that all? Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune? And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not the Atman, He, the only one, the singular one? Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal? Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods? For whom else were offerings to be made, who else was to be worshipped but Him, the only one, the Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught. So, where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs! They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much—but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?

 

Interpretation

The passage is explaining Siddhartha’s  initial quest for spiritual enlightenment .he actually believe to have acquire all the necessary knowledge from his father and other teachers, hence he needs to make a spiritual exploration of seeking knowledge and wisdom.

   Even though, most people in his community believes Siddhartha to be a successful Brahmin like his father. He performs all the rituals of religion, and he does what religion says should bring him happiness and peace. However, he feels something is really lacking and also believes His father and the other teachers have still not achieved adequate enlightenment. He believes his father has already passed on all the wisdom their community has to offer, but he seeks for something else ,hence the journey to seek meaning in this life.
Moreover, the passage explains how siddhartha has some traits of nihilistic behavior as he turns to rejects the existing values,and also continue to  qeustioned the doctrines that his father and the fellow teachers who control the community at that time,which he concluded that they had already offered all that they know and he needs to seek for more.

 

The reason why i choose this passage is the message of seeking knowledge in the passage, the eagerness within which Siddhartha needed to seek knowledge, this tells you how important knowledge seeking is ,he literally abundant his family just to go on knowledge and wisdom expeditions.

Pursuance of knowledge is worthy of search. Knowledge is something that all religious sects recommend. As the saying goes’ knowledge is power’.

"Dada Manifesto" by Hugo Ball. Passage, Interpretatio/ Artist movement

"Dada Manifesto" by Hugo Ball,

Passage 

Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly simple. In French it means "hobby horse". In German it means "good-bye", "Get off my back", "Be seeing you sometime". In Romanian: "Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right". And so forth.

Interpretation:

Hugo is basically announcing the emergence of a new art movement called Dada and their intention to defy conventional notion of artistic beauty and correctness. And politically showing his dislike for a terrible state of society, however, Hugo is trying to tell people how simple Dada is but it hurt him that people do not want to understand, for instance as they are small voice protesting against the war yet the war went on for long period of time against humanity.

 I chose this quote because it means a lot of things, for instance a lot of people simply follow the mass for things they do not carefully give it a second thought.

  Moreover, I do agreed with the quote to the level of my understanding, for instance in the contemporary world  you can see a clear example when republicans consistently embarking on war,people gave them support without thinking of the repercussion which had an adverse effect on the economy for almost a decade now.

 I personally see DADA to be as an anti art as its main principle was to ridicule what its participants considered to be the insignificance of the modern world. 

 
SECOND ASSIGNMENT:  
George Grosz (July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959)

 

George Grosz was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1893, he is the son of a pub owner. His parents were devotedly Lutheran. He grew up in the Pomeranian town, where his mother became the keeper of the local Hussar's Officers' mess after his father died in 1901.he was  encourage by his cousin to  begun attending a weekly drawing class taught by a local painter named Grot. Grosz developed his skills further by drawing careful copies of the drinking scenes of Eduard von Grützner, and by drawing imaginary battle scenes. From 1909–1911, he studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. He subsequently studied at the Berlin College of Arts and Crafts under Emil Orlik. After studying art in Dresden and Berlin he began contributing cartoons to German journals such as Ulk and Lustige Blatter.

in addition, on the outbreak of the First World War Grosz accepted to be conscripted into the German Army In June 1932. He was eventually released as unfit for duty. However, the following year, desperate for soldiers, Grosz was called up again. Kept from forefront action, he was used to transport and guard prisoners of war. He was later discharged from duty due ill health.

Moreover, His earliest oils that can be identified today date from 1916.By 1914, Grosz worked in a style influenced by Expressionism and Futurism, as well as by popular illustration, graffiti, and children's drawings. Sharply outlined forms are often treated as if transparent. ‘The City’ (1916–17) was the first of his many paintings of the modern urban scene. Other examples include the ‘apocalyptic Explosion' (1917), Metropolis (1917), and The Funeral, a 1918 painting depicting a mad funeral procession.

After his emigration to the USA in 1933, Grosz "sharply rejected previous work, In place of his earlier corrosive vision of the city.  And became a citizen of the United States in 1938, and made his home in Bayside, New York. He taught at the Art Students League occasionally until 1955.

   Furthermore, he determined to make a sparkling break with his past, and changed his style and subject matter. He continued to exhibit regularly, and in 1946 he published his autobiography.  Though he had US citizenship, he resolved to return to Berlin, where he died on July 6, 1959 from the effects of falling down a flight of stairs after a night of drinking.

 

 

Friedrich Ebert: Life of a Socialist (1919)

The paints  depict a man sitting comfortably while being served drink by a servant, with a crown on his head which looks like an expensive treasure, it also shows greed, lies, dishonesty, selfishness and power. I believe George Grosz is trying to let us know the lies of the socialist leaders in Germany who are advocating common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises which in turn they rather follow their greed and self-centeredness .

 

 

 

 

 Cain or Hitler in Hell (1944) is a depiction of a huge Fuhrer sitting on a pitch in a blackened hellhole with sweat running down his forehead, in front of a mass of small skeletons. I believe  George Grosz is trying to express his hatred for the Nazi party and the Hitler himself for the atrocities he has caused .This painting clearly exhibit the eventually demise of Nazi and the end to Hitler. I believe Grosz is trying to tell the world how Hitler is going to end. I strongly agreed with Grosz because In life they say you reap what you sow.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eclipse of the Sun depicts a scornful critique of the military industrial complex that controlled Weimar Germany where power and greed, reigned supreme.

The sun, a symbol of life, is eclipsed by a dollar sign, a symbol of greed. The donkey has blinders on shows the mass ignorantly. A small child is kept underneath them signifying the ignoring future generations. The convoluted perspective of the image underscores the instability of Weimar Germany.

George Grosz will always be remembered as a cheerfully hurtful satirist of bourgeois satisfaction and political corruption during the years of the Weimar Republic. Yet for more than half his artistic life he lived in the United States, returning to Berlin just a few months before he died.

german economy

The German economy is the fifth largest economy in the world; it is however, the leading exporter of machinery, vehicles, chemicals, and household equipment and benefits from a highly skilled labor force.

 Also, low fertility rates and declining net immigration are increasing pressure on the country's social welfare system and necessitate structural reforms. Reforms launched by the government of Chancellor Gerhard SCHROEDER (1998-2005), deemed necessary to address chronically high unemployment and low average growth, contributed to strong growth in 2006 and 2007 and falling unemployment. These advances, as well as a government subsidized, reduced working hour scheme, help explain the relatively modest increase in unemployment during the 2008-09 recession - the deepest since World War II - and its decrease to 6.0% in 2011. GDP contracted 5.1% in 2009 but grew by 3.6% in 2010, and 2.7% in 2011.

   Moreover, Germany's central bank projects that GDP will grow 0.6% in 2012, a reflection of the worsening euro-zone financial crisis and the financial burden it places on Germany as well as falling demand for German exports.  Stimulus and stabilization efforts initiated in 2008 and 2009 and tax cuts introduced in Chancellor Angela MERKEL's second term increased Germany's budget deficit to 3.3% in 2010, but slower spending and higher tax revenues reduce the deficit to 1.7% in 2011, below the EU's 3% limit. A constitutional amendment approved in 2009 limits the federal government to structural deficits of no more than 0.35% of GDP per annum as of 2016.

the will to power

My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (--its will to power :) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on-from The Will to Power, s.636, Walter Kaufmann transl.

   Basically, Nietzsche is trying to say that the 'will to power'  is the main instigator for humans to persevere   to become predominantly great and to exercise dorminant over others.
  
However, I understand this to be ‘will to survive’ which could be negative or positive, the typical example is the story of our current president Obama and the ordeal he pass through before he became who he is presently  exercising control all over the world positively…that’s ‘will to power ‘.

   On the contrary the ex president of Hosni Mubarak  of Egypt slowly rise to power to become the head of state for more than three decade refusing to step down peacefully until he was compelled to step down and this is also ‘will to power’.
moreover,looking at the ancient kingdoms like the British,Mughals,Mongols etc all these kingdoms have mision and vision to spread as far as they can reach inorder to increase thier control.