According To Plato, You Might Be A Sissy

Not comforting news, is it? That’s a powerful accusation, considering this man’s reputation. One of the several enlightening events of my first semester in college has been reading The Republic. I haven’t read anything else from Plato, so everything I will say here I say based on what he says in that one book. So perhaps I should fix the title, and switch The Republic for Plato. But when it comes to catchy titles, poetic license is indispensable, so let’s leave that alone and get to the point.

Plato talks some in The Republic about music and poetry. In the midst of describing the perfect city, Plato describes how to educate the residents. Note that this education, for Plato, was for the select residents he meant to defend his ideal city and keep it ideal. Also note that what he called music, we call media. Music for Plato, if he was alive today, would be not only our music, but also our movies, Internet games, and anything else that reaches people. Gymnastics is all athletic pursuits. While he’s talking about these, he mentions a danger.

“But if he keeps at it (listening to music) unrelentingly and is beguiled by the music, after a time his spirit is melted and dissolved until it vanishes, and the very sinews of his soul are cut out and he becomes a “feeble warrior””.

Too much music makes us weaklings.

The first thing I did after reading that was to look at my tummy. I have a rather round tummy, I’m afraid to say. I haven’t played serious sports in more than a year, and I’ve been living soft ever since. Naturally, then, Plato raises some pertinent questions for me. I’ve been listening to music way too much; I’m on YouTube right now listening to a catchy rap.

Not anymore. I just clicked out of it, and now I’m thinking. I’m hardly the only one who likes to do this. We Americans love music. We’ve wound it so deep in our culture and ourselves… well, I suppose all cultures do. Nevertheless, I observe…

Our most famous musicians are more famous than our soldiers in war. I can’t think of any man who ever earned a Medal Honor, and of Purple Heart winners I can only name John Kerry. And that only because of, interestingly enough, a political satire song.

What I can name in abundance are the most popular musicians and singers and bands right now: Black Eyed Peas, Zac Brown Band, Ke$ha, My Chemical Romance, Lady GaGa, Avenged Sevenfold and enough more to fill an orchestra. Pun intended.

I know more words to “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey than to my country’s national anthem. There are many, many people here who don’t know their national anthem at all.

Pop stars have to be protected in case the masses try to mob them, out of some mindless, crazed attraction to the pop stars’ fame, and their persona, and the songs that walk with them. Like a moth to a flame. A thousand moths to a flame.

I see danger here. Do you?

One of The Greatest Rock Bands Of Our Time

You read that right. My favorite rock band is one of the greatest rock bands out there right now. I am not sarcastic or trying for any vague, complicated metaphor. I speak directly and I blaze with confidence.

Say hello to House of Heroes. They’re an alternative rock band from Columbus, Ohio, currently signed with Gotee Records. No, you’ve never heard of them. Their genre… oh… let me tell it this way. Take the vocal harmonies from Queen. Throw them in with those magical melodies the Beatles had. Shake well, and throw in pop/punk from Relient K and Jimmy Eat World, rock from Weezer, and lightly sprinkle with Tom Petty and Muse. Bake to perfection. 

That is what I’m talking about, and if you’re licking your chops right now, you won’t be disappointed. 

They found out with this 2008 album, The End Is Not The End, that all four of them can sing. United they did things to their music that made them soar over everything I’ve ever heard. And the songwriting! I could write pages on just the songwriting. Add to how that works with the music, and how amazing the music itself is… I could write a whole book. The themes span love, heroism, redemption, remorse, and a host of others, with references to World War Two and wars in general. It’s the talk about the wars that give it an extra layer. There’s such a story in the music. Listen all the way through the album; you’ll find hints of it in the lyrics, since it’s not a concept album, but you’ll hear in it in the music. I can’t say exactly how. Each song begins and ends like how chapters in novels begin and end; just the right tone, just the right place. It leaves me spellbound every time. This is a sonical odyssey.

Suburba (that's how they spell the title) came out just a few months ago: August 2010.  And the vocals only got better. And the songwriting ventured into new territory. With the classic rock came a focus on youth and suburban America. And my, oh my, does it take your breath away. Gorgeous renditions in “Relentless” the first track, of a boy running wild in the suburbs; “God Save The Foolish Kings”, a gang preparing for a fight and looking for purpose; “Disappear”, a dark, driving reflection on mortality… you have to listen all the way through the album here. Even though, for this and the last album, any track will have you hooked on its own.

Oh! This barely scratches the surface of what I could tell you about this band. But I am a college student, and finals near; I’ve already taken too much time to tell you this much. Let me leave you with a music video for the band’s top single from The End Is Not The End: “In The Valley Of The Dying Sun”.

My First Kiss

Have you ever heard of 3OH!3? Yes, it’s spelled that way. I know at least one of my readers is out of my generation, so I’ll explain before I get to the main point. 3OH!3 is the stage name for a rapping duo that’s extremely popular. The beats are insanely catchy. That’s one part of their popularity; the second part is some sincerely clever rhyming; the third part is the recurring appearance of sex and swearing.

So why talk about them? They have this song called “My First Kiss” that I want to make a contrast with. Below I've embedded the song's music video. (WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT)

Now here's a different clip...

The second video is from The Princess Bride. If you haven't seen the whole film, you are in a critical state of cultural deprivation and you need to watch it immediately after you finish this post.

Think about these two videos for a minute. You see kisses in both them. They way they’re portrayed says something about kissing, and by extension love, and by extension ourselves. 

Which kiss looks happy?

Which kiss looks beautiful?

Which kiss do you want? 

A Life Is At Stake. No Jokes. Follow My Link.

It seems a couple has decided to leave the fate of their unborn child... to an Internet poll. "Give Birth" or "Have An Abortion". I have no way of telling whether they mean it, but I will not risk a life and assume they don't. 


http://www.birthornot.com/


Please vote "Give Birth". And please spread this to everyone who can help.

Puritans vs. Playboys

Puritans vs. Playboys. This has changed our nation in a way I find comparable to the Civil War, or World War II. From what I understand, it got started in the 1950s, when Marilyn Monroe took the nation by storm. Rising with her was a young publisher named Hugh Hefner. It was a racy centerpiece of Monroe in Playboy that shot him into infamy. I think of that magazine every time I think about the sexual revolution. Monroe, Hefner, Kinsey, and all the other people who got it started were fighting against the old moral order, whether they meant it or not. 

Clearly, they won. I'm assuming you're familiar with the popular culture in the U.S.A. of 2010. If you aren't, watch the film “Superbad”. Even better, take my word that my country is drenched in sex.

It's almost a total 180-degree spin. Only decades ago, husbands and wives on television shows slept in separate beds. Now unmarried couples make out in swimsuits on CBS. There seem to be two camps of sexuality in American history: harsh restriction, and total license. Puritans and Playboys.

Who’s right?

Neither. I’ve thought about both attitudes and decided neither is healthy. When I was young, I would blow up when my father showed a PG-13 movie. I even deleted a song when I heard the lyrics “I want to touch you”. I had a pistol of righteousness, and I was trigger-happy like no other.  Now that I look back at those days, and at the sexual revolution as I understand it, I don’t ever want to be a Puritan. Sex cannot be repressed. It is integral to who we are as humans, and men and women. I can’t hide the way I feel when I see a woman. It’s tantamount to denying I have a soul. My sexuality is too deeply grounded in my identity to ignore. To be a real human, I must embrace sex, and be unafraid to talk about it. I refer all opponents to former Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

Now, about Playboy. Their attitude won’t do either. Expressing your sexuality does not mean going out and sleeping with twenty different people in as many hours. I certainly don’t blame the people who do that, depending on what they know. For people that are totally ignorant, confused, or mislead about morality and sexuality, it may be better to have sex than deny their natural desires to do it. 

But that rests heavily on individual cases, and I’m not convinced there’s enough of those to convince me to support promiscuity as a whole. In fact, I denounce any sex outside of marriage. I have read things, heard things, sensed things in my own blood; sex is an act of utter euphoria. It is a connection that should be the pinnacle of any union between a man and a woman. And if it’s a pinnacle, then it must be saved for… well… the pinnacle! For marriage, the pinnacle of love! And not a moment before.

Do you agree with me? Whether or not you do, question the things I just said. I firmly believe them to be true. But I am human, and I can fail. I need your help in figuring this out. You need mine, too. We all need each other’s help. For this is a debate we cannot abandon. Over the past fifty or so years, the United States of American has opened wide the floodgates of sexuality. The duty is ours, the children of the aftermath, to say where the U.S.A. will go from there. 

What we say about sex, we say so much about ourselves that we might as well be talking about ourselves. When we speak of how we treat sex, we are thus charting the course of souls, and by extension a nation.

A Modern Ozymandias

“I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said- "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my Works, Ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Good old Percy Shelley. Those Romantics, love ‘em or hate ‘em, knew how to seize their readers’ imaginations. Well, not all of them, but they sure have mine. This poem is a striking metaphor for the futility of pride. In post-modern English, I’m saying the poem disses on people who are trying to look more important than they actually are, and the way it does that is really cool. I love the grandeur of the imagery, and what happens to it. The “vast and trunkless legs of stone”, the “sneer of cold command”, and the “King of Kings” make my vision soar, and then plunge to the ground on reading those cold, cold words: “Nothing beside remains.”

If I ever put on airs, please shove that poem down my throat.

Not to be a hypocrite, but there are others who might benefit from such a treatment. Where are the modern Ozymandias’ in our world? You know they’re out there. Think for a moment. Where, in American society, or anywhere in the world, can we find a fellow human being who has crafted an image that makes him or her look greater than who he or she actually is?

I’m going to answer with my own poem. A parody, actually. Sorry if this seems a roundabout way to say what I think, but it’s too much fun for this English major to resist…

I met a man from a land of trouble

Who said, “Two great, broad and unlit billboards

Stand in the ruins. Near them, in the rubble,

Half-sunk, a filthy poster lies, whose pose

And wild clothes, and cleavage double

Tell that her picture well was planned and shot

And still it lives, erotic, bright and dead

The face that drew them and the songs they bought

And on that poster these words I read:

“My name is Lady GaGa, Queen of Queens,

Love me, little monsters, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the billboards

Lie fallen stadiums, once tall and fair

Dashed against the age of frenzies and whores

Can't Recommend This Highly Enough

If you haven't heard of BadCatholic, brace yourself. This fellow's had some bold and fascinating posts; I can't recommend him highly enough.

http://badcatholicblog.blogspot.com/