Week 5

Thursday 9/17

During class, we started by focusing on the question “What are the groups and communities where you could be showing more or better leadership?”. Many of my classmates talked about how they could showcase leadership in their families, in organizations they’re apart of, etc. For me, I think this is something I always inherently do. I was thinking of ways that I can exhibit some leadership characteristics, but I realized that the ideas that I had were habits that I already showcase, for example, in my bible study group, I always participate in a way that I hope to encourage others to add their input and thoughts about our discussion, and this often works. I also listen intently to others' ideas and engage with everyone. When it comes to my family, although I’m the youngest in my immediate circle, I’m one of the oldest cousins, and I also have 3 nephews as well. I always look out for them and make sure they’re headed on the right track (even if they’re mad at my advice at first), and try my best to behave in a way that would be of good influence to them.

Dr. Sanders was also kind enough to share with his experience of losing his father. He wrote a piece on Kallion about how leadership can even be expressed in one’s death. In this article, he talked about how when one dies, they’re able to bring together people that they might not have had the chance to when they were alive. This includes those who you might’ve considered your enemy, those who you haven't spoken to in a while, and maybe some you never even had the chance to meet. Once someone dies, it drives those who knew this person or was affected by their death in some way, into a state of reflection, oftentimes even changing someone’s direction and identity completely. I have been blessed enough to not have known what it’s like to lose someone close so far, but I’ve definitely seen the aftermath that leaves on others, and have seen cases where this either brought people together, or split them apart.

Monday 9/21

This week we focused on the story of Philoctete’s, which is another Greek play where the titular character has been stranded on an island by Odysseus and his crew, and they devise a plan to get him back so he can help win the Trojan war. We continued on the theme of dehuminization in this play, as the 5 scenarios that tend to increase someone’s tendency to dehumanize others can all be seen throughout the story. Those scenarios are: when we have power over them, when we have harmed them, when we’ve witnessed them being harmed, when we see them as an outsider, and when we find them physically disgusting.

For our assignment we were encouraged to identify some key moments where see Philoctetes being dehumanized, so here’s what I noticed:

• Within the first part we can already see an act of dehumanization taking place. Philoctetes is kicked off of Odysseus’ ship because of his snake wound. I found it crazy that rather trying to aid him in any way they can, they were upset that an injured person is interrupting their rituals because he’s in pain. What else is he supposed to do? And considering the fact that they have been in the middle of a war for almost 10 years, have they really n ot seen a wound like this? I found this scene so irrational, and we can also see the act of finding one disgusting in this part.
• >This scenario can also be seen when they go to visit where he lives and Odysseus is disgusted by where he lives
• In another scene, we can see dehumanization taken place under the circumstance that one has already been harmed. Odysseus convinces Neoptolemus to trick Philoctetes into joining them in the war (or stealing his bow? This part was a little unclear to me). His argument for not directly asking him was that he would’ve probably tried to kill them since they had already abandoned him.
• It’s revealed later that the Greeks have stopped by the island many times, but they never help him and instead send him their condolences basically. I identified this as an act of dehumanization due to a group of people having witnessed someone being harmed. This reminds me of how our society treats homeless people. Of course, many of us don’t have the resources to necessarily help them get back on their feet, but I often see others acknowledging them as a way to either gain notoriety for that deed, or to feed their own ego. Seldom do people talk with them and see what their journey has been, and if there are any resources that we know of that can help them get out of this situation. In this case, many if the Greeks could have offered him a ride back home, but out of remorse they didn’t.
• >I’d also consider this as them viewing him as an outsider
• When it came to dehumanization out of having power over them, I had a difficult time identifying what character in particular do we see this behavior from, but Dr.Sanders mentioned this in one of his passage analyses that we could see this coming from Neoptolemus, as he was the one who was tricking him and Philoctetes trusted him.

We were also asked to identify the following terms:

• aidōs: sense of shame
• anaidos: to be shameless
• gennaios: noble (a descendant of someone with a great reputation)
• sophos: clever
• kleos: glory
• Odysseus: He was the king of Ithaca, and the leader of the Greek army
• Neoptolemus: He was the son of Achilles, a respected Greek warrior who helped win the Trojan war
• Philoctetes: He was a famous Greek archer, and the son of Poeas who was a Thessalonian King
• Heracles: He was the Greek god of strength and heroes

Some key passages that we focused on from this story were lines 26–47 (Passage 1), where Odysseus and Neoptolemus go to see if Philoctetes is in his cave, lines 54–85 (Passage 2) in which Odysseus explains to Neoptolemus how to fool Philoctetes, 86–122 (Passage 2) where Odysseus is convincing Neoptolemus to trick him, 219–252 (Passage 4) when Neoptolemus meets Philoctetes, 468–506 (Passage 5) where Philoctetes is trying to get Neoptolemus to bring him back home, and 1408–1444 (Passage 6) when Heracles tells Philoctetes and Neoptolemus to come to Troy.

Tuesday 9/22

Today we started our class by going over the study habits we’ve acquired amongst the pandemic. We had 8 questions to answer to, which included, where was the best place for us to read for this class, how do we eliminate distractions, how many times a week do we study and which days work best, how do we stay engaged in class, do we have study groups, how do we cultivate a personal relationship with the material, what are the best practices for writing our journals, and how do we prepare for the weekly quizzes. I didn’t get a chance to answer all of them during class but I’ll answer them here:

• Where was the best place for us to read for this class? I found most places to be pretty uncomfortable tbh, as I live in a crowded house with my family, so there’s no real place for me to get a quiet place to focus on the reading. Often times I find myself reading in bed right before I go to sleep or when I’m up early in the morning.
• How do we eliminate distractions? To eliminate distractions while in class I normally take notes so that I can stay focused and keep up with the conversation. Outside of class, I normally work with my headphones in to block out any noise.
• How many times a week do we study and which days work best? I typically study for this class 2x a week outside of our lectures. I find that I normally work on Mondays and Fridays.
• How do we stay engaged in class? Like I mentioned before, I take notes to help me keep with the discussion. It’s also helpful for me to have my camera on but I’m not always able to do so. Also, participating in the class discussions help me to stay engaged.
• Do we have study groups? I am in one study. We study around 1–2 days a week.
• How do we cultivate a personal relationship with the material? I actually have found it difficult to carry out what we discuss in class into my personal life. I found myself really only reflecting on our material in class or when doing work for this class. This definitely something I can improve on.
• What are the best practices for writing our journals? I found that if I add to the journal as I work on material for this class, or after our lectures, I’m able to complete them in a timely manner.
• How do we prepare for the weekly quizzes? To prepare for the weekly quizzes I normally just go over my notes and the assignment. I may look up summaries or analyses of the work that we’re going over if I had trouble understanding what I was reading. I also have the study group and we also go over the material to see if we had different interpretations of the assignment/reading.

After we talked about our study habits, we had a discussion about Philoctetes. Some main points that we went over were how dehumanization can play into mentorship sometimes, or rather anti-mentorship. We also talked about the meaning of Philoctetes’ name, and how that related to the story. His name translates to “he who is more dear than a possession”, and we see this in the storyline as Odysseus wants him badly so that he can help win the war.