It was going to be a great episode, full of questions! But then we got into a talk about language… then art… then what makes something good or bad… why people confuse opinion and fact… and eventually, we remembered to start the episode. But there wasn’t much time left, and besides, we’d both seen movies. Still, pretty good talk. Enjoy!
QUESTIONS:
None. Sorry.
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I think the “evil” connotation of scheme comes from the verb form. To scheme or scheming doesn’t just mean to plan, it usually means to plan with evil intent. When it’s used as an adjective, I think it always has the manipulative meaning.
I think I do agree with Jas that the verb means you’re up to something evil and as an adjective is intended to convey some sort of manipulation. When used as a noun, it may or may not also include a negative meaning, but the more widespread the verb and adjective use, the more negative the noun meaning becomes.
I like this idea. My whole premise was falling apart.. but this might save it.
Hmm, I don’t think the right/wrong stuff is completely universal ’cause what I know of Japanese culture seems to not quite fit with what you’re saying. Shintoism, for instance has no scripture and no moral code. And this does seem to affect child-rearing in that children are taught to behave not so much based on rules, but on trying to intuit someone else’s feelings/intentions (kimochi-shugi). An example given in one of my texts says that if a child was kicking a door and damaging it, a Japanese parent might say–“The door is crying,” where an American parent would say, “It’s naughty to kick the door.” So this seems pretty related to animism maybe vs. monotheism?
I am really gonna have to revisit Shintoism. It’s awesome!
I’m just prepping a paper topic for class and am reminded that there’s also something related to Buddhism that connects to right/wrong and knowledge. In the history text I’m using, the writer mention two aspects of Buddhism that influenced Japanese Art:
One influence shows up in the use of space in landscape painting to show man as a small part of a greater whole. This is in contrast to the Western idea that man dominates nature. One way we can see this domination is in the story of Genesis in which man has dominion over nature by naming it. That is, knowledge=power in Western Culture.
The other influence shows up in the idea that emptiness does as much to create meaning as the thing being represented. In Western culture we are more concerned with the representation of the thing, rather than the space around it. These two facets are related because a name=a representation. So in Western culture, our ability to represent something, to name it, to know it, is very powerful because we imagine it gives us control. In Japanese culture, this control is denied and meaning comes just as much from what is not known, from what is empty.
I think all of this relates to morality because in the West we tend to emphasize that a person can be judged according to their knowledge and control. If one imagines that everyone has less knowledge and control, then judgment is more problematic. Again, it’s less about knowing a set of rules and following them, and more about trying to connect to one’s place in a whole that is much vaster and ultimately beyond the knowledge/control of the individual.
I really liked “The Favourite” a lot. I saw a play with the same title (and same subject matter) in London which was also really good but much more of a straight-forward historical piece so that’s what I was expecting too. Then when I was watching the movie I remembered that the same director did “The Lobster.”
I thought it was one of the first movies I’ve seen that was about power and political intrigue, but with all the important relationships being between three main female characters and the power/intrigue stuff wasn’t particularly about their gender.
I read an interesting review that was about how the actors moved in the film. It’s pretty spoilery though so caution about reading before seeing the movie.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/the-favourite-women-walk-move-olivia-colman-rachel-weisz-emma-stone/581020/