Reaching Out

I should not even be writing this yet, considering I haven't finished Paradise Lost.

( Read more... )

All done!

( Here's the proposal. )

( Here are my secondary sources. )

( These are my primary sources. )

Since I'll be writing on Satan, and I did a presentation on how unlike Machiavelli's Prince he is, I was wondering how further to proceed in this.

I'm thinking of actually justifying Satan's position, furthering the Catholic idea of the felix culpa - no Satan rebelling, no felix culpa. Eve was made for Adam, she belongs to God only through Adam (sucks to be a woman sometimes), but I do think that Satan gave her some semblance of agency by having her eat the fruit. So he was lying. So what? The point is that she was the first to eat the Apple - the first human to gain knowledge (and thus conscience). I don't want to discuss gender relations and stereotypes beacuse that's completely irrelevant. But in a sense I feel it's a bit of a trump for feminist campaigns. Through weakness we become strong? (Even if the meek inherit the earth, and we all know it's because the strong just kill each other off? The meek become passive killers then because they're not stopping it.)

Through Eve, Adam also gained some agency. He became responsible for his actions, although saying "she gave the apple to me" is a cheap shot and only shows how infantile he is - and whose fault is it that he was infantile? Eve's? Satan's? God's? Saying that it's God's fault he's infantile is just taking a cheap shot because it takes responsibility away from Adam - you ate the apple. It was your choice.

When Satan fell, he become prince of Hell (we knew that, I'm just re-stating the obvious) - isn't that a sort of triumph on his part? Making something out of nothing, even if it's unproductive. Hell seems to be ever-changing; Heaven's Bliss in comparison is static (although continuous change can get rather static after a while, but it's a surprise!) and who said change is bad? Change can involve progress, and had Satan never rebelled, we would have never been able to progress.

Can you tell how far I ventured from Theravadan Buddhism? I don't believe in Nirvana. I don't believe that the cause of all suffering is desire (yes, that is one of the Four Noble Truths). People don't have to want to suffer. But you sure have to want in order to live. Satan's want brought us suffering, that's for sure, but honestly, isn't the struggle and passion to accomplish something worthy of respect? Do we spit on Satan for rebelling against God? Only if you believe God is worth for and not against.

Doesn't mean we should go on like Gabriel in Constantine. Tilda Swinton was so cool in that role, btw.

Tyranny of God and Fate. If fate really existed, then Satan's role is fully justified. I'm going to bring up the Epicurean problem of evil here again, but I'm going to take Occam's Razor and apply it in a different way - traditional views is that God is willing and able to help humans, but He is still good because he has given us free will and fate doesn't totally apply to us (only special people). *sssshhhhkkk!!* Problem solved - just believe in the goodness of God.

For me though, it's that evil is a problem not because God is willing and able, but because humans have denied their responsibility for their own actions. Fate doesn't exist, God doesn't need to exist either, and if God doesn't need to exist, neither does Satan. Our fate lies in our hands. If God does exist and so does the rebellion, then Satan did nothing but facilitate our necessity to be responsible for our own actions.

*ssssshhhkkk!!* Problem solved: evil doesn't exist except for those dealing with absolutes. Why do we deem things right and wrong? I'm going to use words of my Philosophy professor when he was explaining Kant: "Why is lying wrong? Because if everybody in the world lied, the world would suck." Definitions of right and wrong are established because the actions of others can affect ourselves, and we don't want them to affect us adversely, so we establish some tight rules just in case.

So yes, back to what I was talking about: Fate. If Fate exists, then Satan was meant to be going along with the Plan anyway. It would have been rebellion if he didn't go along with the plan. If God has a plan, it's being carried out whether or not you like it. You're not supposed to understand it or point fingers at other people for shit that happens. (See why I don't agree with religions of the Book? How can you LIKE the idea that if there's Fate, then God's plan is working out, but life is shitty. If there's free will, then God is laying back enjoying the show, and life is shitty. Exactly why do we put our lives on a submission to a Divine that doesn't take obvious/active responsibility for us?) Either way, if God knew about Satan and did nothing about it, then it must be a plan on God's part and so we shouldn't go all hatin' on Satan.

There's my tentative thoughts.

I'm really procrastinating on my Feminism seminar.

Previously in Book I, Satan and his fellows had found himself down in Hell, on a lake of fire. He woke them up, and they all sat down to a good ol' big conference. Maybe he held audience with his fellows? I don't know. Call it what you will.

So, Satan and his fellows. Satan asks, "what shall we do to get back at God?" You've got three major characters, all with a differing opinion. Moloch goes first. Milton describes him as a good fighter, better now that he's pretty desperate, but only in brute strength. He says, "let's go to war. I'm no good with cunning, so I suggest we just fight back." He's like a, I don't know, a fucking Jihad Jesus who just wants to blow shit up, but I respect that; he knows his bounds.

Belial goes next, and he's smoother than that. I find the language Milton uses interesting: "Belial is a manner more graceful and humane". So you're trying to talk about demons? OK. Belial's stance is basically, "let's not go to war, because we'd just get our asses kicked again." He's also smart: "we could try to piss God off until he kills us off, but He's too smart for that, because He'd know we were asking for it." I don't know what I think about the end of his speech: "We'll get used to it."

Mammon goes next, and his is basically taking Belial's speech one step further: Not only they get used to Hell, but they may well be able to use Hell as their own. Basically, once you get to know your terrain really well, you can use it to your advantage. But he knows it's prison, and he doesn't deny it, but he's an opportunist.

Beelzebub, sitting one step under Satan here (second biggest hotshot dude), stands up, "Well, that's that, so let's move on to funner things! I hear a new race of ... things is coming up, and it's going to be called Man, and Man is going to be the Number One Thing! Man is going to be God's pet project! So how about this: Let's fuck Man up!"

And it turns out that that's a really good idea. So Satan says, "someone's gotta go up there and do the first step, and that's going to be me. Anybody wanna come along?" and he gives everybody this LOOK which means, obviously, he doesn't want them to go along. He doesn't need them. And he looks SO much cooler when doing it alone - you know, hero stuff. It really elevates his position somewhat that he's "risking his life" to do this alone. A very cunning political move. Not like kissing babies, but close.

So Satan leaves, and that leaves the demons to do as they like. They begin doing varying things:

1) Go fucking nuts. I don't understand why, they just decided to go about tearing up rocks and burning shit up and things like that. Repression maybe?

2) Angst. I can understand this. They just got kicked out of Hell. Why wouldn't they sit about and (w)angst about the tragedy of free will?

3) Debate in a "discourse more sweet". About? Whatever the previous group was angsting about. They're never gonna get to a conclusion, but that's okay. They have all the time in the world.

4) The last group start doing something productive - they start looking for places they'd like to live in, and start seeking out more livable abodes. That's smart.

Okay, so here's something disturbing, ladies and gentlemen: Satan flies long and high, and he finally finds the gates of Hell. There're two people there: a snakewoman who has a trio of hounds constantly barking, and whenever they like, they crawl back into her womb and just piss her off in general. Then there's... a thing. Milton says he's got no shape or whatever. So we'll just call him a thing.

The snakewoman has the key to Hell. The thing... just kinda stands there. And starts to attack Satan. So Satan and the thing are in a Mexican stand-off (No, THIS IS IN MY EXPLANATORY NOTES), and the snakewoman's like, "Dad! Why are you attacking your son?!"

Satan's like, "Who the hell are you? I've never seen you before."

And the snakewoman explains, "I'm Sin, I was born (like Athena, OUT OF YOUR HEAD, literally, lawl) when you first had thoughts of rebellion against God. That thing is your son, Death, who was born when you actually started rebelling against God. I thought he was the ugliest thing ever and tried to run away from him, but he chased me down and raped me, so I gave birth to these hounds who now keep pissing me off."

Happy family.

Satan is like "dear daughter, since you enlightened me with this news, I think it's great. When I infiltrate the mortal world I'm going to corrupt, you can be sure I'll give you a very big role in fucking up Man. And Death, too."

The two of them are pleased with this, and Sin lets the Devil out of the Bag.

Satan carries on over lots of geography until he comes to the Kingdom of Chaos, and the Chaos looks at him, and says, "I know you, you're the dude who decided to fuck up Heaven. What do you want?"

"I decided I'd fuck up Man instead. Where can I find this realm?"

"Not far. It's between this realm and Heaven now, and I think it's great that you're going up to perform a fuckup operation. What you do is going to be good for me!"

So Satan continues flying off to find Earth.


And thus ends Book II.

Book III and IV will have to be soon. I actually present on Satan come the 16th. I wonder how I'm going to do that one.