On p. 125, Socrates says to Dan, “You see, any unconscious, compulsive ritual is a problem. But specific activities—smoking, drinking, taking drugs, eating sweets, or asking silly questions—are both bad and good; every action has its price, and its pleasures. Recognizing both sides, you become realistic and responsible for your actions. And only then can you make the warrior’s free and conscious choice—to do or not to do.”
What does Soc mean when he says an “unconscious, compulsive ritual is a problem"? Do YOU have any “unconscious, compulsive rituals”? What are they? Are you trying to change them? If you want to change them, what would Socrates say to help you change your rituals? Also, is Socrates’ opinion of “good and bad” different from or similar to what your parents, and what your society, has taught you? Explain why or why not. Finally, do you agree with Socrates’ opinion about “unconscious, compulsive rituals” and what he says about “good” and “bad”? Why or why not? Please explain.
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With the words “unconscious, compulsive rituals” Socrates refers to all those actions that we really want not to do. Maybe we are not thinking about what we are doing or we really don’t need to do it. Maybe we are just doing so because it is use to do in this manner. Following up these rituals is a problem because doing so we just go with the current that other people have already decide, without thinking. And in this manner the biggest historical mess has happened.
Socrates says (p.125-126): “it’s better to make a mistake with the full force of your being than to timidly avoid mistakes with a trembling spirit. Responsibility means recognizing both pleasure and price, action and consequences, then making a choice. ” If whenever we are doing something we’ll meditate on pleasure and price, we could be able to do the right choice. On p.126 he says: “I have no compulsions or habits. My actions are conscious, spontaneous, intentional and complete.” To have no habits means never to do the same thing in the same manner: there is when the mind can wander. If everytime you do something you’ll do different from the previous time you have to concentrate on your actions, to meditate on them.
I have many rituals in my life, as everybody else. The worse one was smoking. I knew it was bad for my health and that it was becoming a jail, but I never thought to stop it. It was a ritual, an habit.
Until I catched a bad cough: although all the drugs within two months it has never decreased.
So, for the first time, I thought to stop smoking. And from one day to the next I didn’t touch a cigarette anymore. I can’t hide that in the first time it was no simple, but it was enough to do something else when I crave a cigarette. The secret was to keep my mind occupied with anything else. The worse moments were at the end of every lunch, but I learned that it was enough to iron a little and it was done.
To help me to change my habits, Socrates would say that all my actions should be conscious, that I should meditate on every thing I’m doing, thinking if I really need of it or not. He would suggest me (p.105): “anger is a powerful tool to trasform old habits”. He would mean that I have to want to change my habits with all my will, thinking to the pleasure and the price of every ritual too. I can be anger if I awake of the price of my habits and so I will change them. For example, that persistent cough made me angry toward cigarettes and it was that feeling that drove me to stop smoking. Anger is present only at the beginning of the trail, then you have to be firm in your resolution.
Ideally Socrates’ opinion of “good” and “bad” is similar to that is tought me by my family and by my society. At the same manner they tell me that I have to think with my head, that rituals aren’t a good thing and that I have to be responsible for my actions. But pratically the Society is a bit conflicting: it is always rattling you with a lot of commercials about anything that are tring to manipulate you. Furthermore Society creates some categories of “good” and “bad”, instead Socrates says that every single action is good if it becomes by a conscious choice, only the habit is bad or “disgusting”(p.126). Society want to show like Socrates, but actually it is different from him.
I agree with what Socrates says about rituals and about “good” and “bad”, and I think that if everybody really meditate on his action, World would be better and people happier: “proper attitude is a way of blending with life”(p.112).
Socrates has meant that any practice or pattern of behavior that we regularly perform without awareness and with an unreasonable desire is a “problem”. Examples of this could be getting mad without reason, no controlling our emotions, selfish, be introvert or extrovert person, nervous ticks. Well, I think my big unconscious compulsive ritual is: not know how to deal with anger. Sometimes when my father, my mother or my wife discussed with me about my life or a situation and I heard something that I didn’t like. I began to feel irritated and then I exploded. I started to say words without thinking and these words could hurt their feelings. Then, when I realized that I did a mistake it was so late. I had to start again and beg for pardon. I took a specialization in management to improve and grow up myself to be a better human being. One of the modules was about personal improvement or personal overhauling. I had to learn how to deal with these kinds of situation. However I am in continuous learning. I think Socrates could help me, saying that I have to listen first. I should take a deep breathe, relax. Next I have to understand, analyze what the other person wants to tell me and then I have to give my views. When I am going to give my views, I must do it correctly, reasonably and without offense or disrespect to another person. It is not easy. It is not an easy task deal with our unconscious but we have to learn how to control it.
When Socrates talked about what is “good or bad”, he does not differ with my parents. He talked about consciousness activities. My parent always talked to me with open mind. I remembered when I was a teenager or ending this phase they told me “Son sex is good but you have to take care yourself”, “you must eat but not a lot” or “Occasional drink is not bad but be careful don´t get drunk”. The idea is no become specifics activities in habits. Do not become these habits a NECESSITY. All these activities have their price and their pleasure. You have to be responsible about your own life. For example, if you drink a lot you get pleasure because you are enjoying with other people, but you can be drunk at the end. That means you can hurt another person, you can cause an accident or if you like to drink everyday you can get a disease or a disorder in your liver. It is only taking decisions. You have to think using your head instead of your emotions.
My views about unconscious, compulsive ritual: that is more difficult to handle. We are dealing with our unconscious. We can react different or unexpectedly to a particular problem or situation. We act instinctively, without having control. We have to learn how to control it. However, dealing with specifics activities we have to be conscious about what is good to us or not. We must take our decision and take responsibility about our actions. We must know that every action we do, it will bring a consequence. Every pleasure has a price. We must recognize our mistakes, because from those mistakes we are going to learn a new experience that it could be useful in the future. Do not wobble when you face a decision. If you do so, this will tell everybody that you are weak or not firm in your decision. There is no maybe.
when socrate says to Dan "unconsious , compulsive ritual is a problem" .It means Dan's problem is just following other people , following their rules indiscriminately without thinking whether it is right or wrong.He just follows them because they said that it was right. In the same way ,he doesn't do what the others said that it is bad ...
he completely doesn't have his own opinion , also he never thinks about his life seriously .for this reason , nobody can even create his life beside him ...therefore , he should listen to the others and decide whether he should follow them or not ,what he really wants and what he doesn't want...instead of not having his own opinion as well as his standpoint . i think that his sickness is scaring of breaking down . As the resulf , he becomes cowardly , naive ...
yeah , of course i have any "unconscious , conpulsive ritual " like DAN. and it is also my weakness. My parent as well as my last generation taught me like that ... because they don't want me hurt ...they tauhgt me their experiences which they lived , underwent ... but they forgot that some of them is their last generation 's experience . some of them is not suitable with my generation ... and the best way is i myself undergo and ,,, i will grow up by them ...although , it somtimes hurts me .
Socrate is a good teacher , he taught DAN step by step ... like Socrate said , Dan should think about his life , experience , and Socrate 's requestion ...
I think the meaning of unconscious, compulsive ritual is that some habits which you can’t control even the bad habits. They are regular. You like to do this and can’t control to do this. I think my unconscious, compulsive rituals are emotions. I think my emotions change so fast. If I’m not happy, anything it’s bad for me. But I think now I’m better than before. I learn how to control my emotion and I try to do this. Before I know this is bad for me. I was so anger for a little thing which I was care about and even my friends don’t understand me. I want to make anything perfect or the result same with me. But underwent some experiences which make me understand that there are many things we can’t control. Whatever we encounter what kinds of problems, we have to use a normal heart to accept or to adjust.
Socrates’ opinion of “good and bad” is similar to my parents and my society has taught me. When I made mistake, my parents would tell me that everything has two sides “good and bad”, so don’t just notice good or bad. You have to think the good and bad. So a mistake also a lesson during you grow up, it will teach you something and you will learn some necessary experience from mistakes. So when you get good side, don’t ignore the bad side. Also when you get the bad side, don’t forget there is a good side. So we can keep ourselves balance, not too happy and not too sad.
I agree with Socrates. I think everything has two sides. If you make some mistakes and then you will know that is wrong. So next time you won’t do this again. In addition, you can learn something from the mistake. So it is valuable for us even mistakes. Like a story from this book. The story talks about an old man worked in a small farm. When everyone said you have a good luck, the old man said “Who knows whether it is bad luck or good luck.” Conversely, when everyone said you have bad luck, the old man said “who knows whether it is bad luck or good luck”. The old man knows everything has two sides. Maybe the surface is good or bad, but don’t ignore the other side. We have to think about the insight of everything by ourselves. I think this is a very important principle in our life. We have to understand it.
i have much"unconscious,compulsive rituals".
For example : someone in my coutries said that "if you had a baby or making love with somebody else before wedding celebrate, you would be someone whom everybody never regard with respect ". i almost believed that . But right now , when i am living in US ... everything changes especaily my opinion, thought...like Socrate ,i think that everything always has 2 sides or more ... when you are standing in your standpoint , maybe it is not good . But in the other hand , it is good .
for example : relating to my example which i have brought up my thought about the person who has a baby without father is changed .... all of them have their selection . they don't want to get married because they don't want to get involved ,of they just live with their real person . They do what will make them happy ...
of course , in my life, Socrate 's opinion of good and bad diffent from what my parent , what my society has taught me ... socrate wants me to be a chooser , meanwhile , my society wants that they will be a chooser for my life , but their decision inflenence my life instead of their life , meanwhile i am responsible for my life .it is not good
The meaning of Socrates's words;”unconscious, compulsive ritual is a problem.” is that when you do some unconscious, compulsive ritual you don't have any responsible to what you do. It gives you some feeling that you have to do that thing and do that thing in the dark, unconsciously.
Socrates thought having responsible to what you do is very important. That is why he said it is a problem. I don't think I have a powerful compulsive ritual but sometime;for example when I feel stress, I tend to eat a lot giving solace to me. When I run into this kind of situation, I think I can't control myself and I don't have any responsibility. Before I read this sentence and think about this question, I didn't think it is my compulsive ritual so I never tried to change this but now, I have to change this bad ritual. If I ask Socrates some advise he will say to me “Thinking good points and bad points of your ritual then you get the answer what you have to do.”
Socrates said that smoking, drinking, taking drags, eating sweets or asking silly questions have both good point and bad point but I taught these things are bad. Of course taking drags is very bad thing and also smoking, drinking, eating sweets too much is bad for our health so parents and society encourage us to stop doing these things. Also they told me that these things are burst ourself not only our body but also our mind. We can't stop these things easily. If we wished to stop doing these things, something in our body would forced to do that and to control this, we should have strong will and mind. However almost people don't have strong will to stop doing these things and that is why parents taught to their children don't smoke, don't drink etc. My parents never said smoking and taking drag have good points. They taught me smoking and taking drag are very bad so don't do these.
And I disagree with Socrates's opinion that these things have good points . Sometime they have good points for example, I have heard that a little amount of alcohol is good for our body and smoking and eating sweets give us a pleasure and make us happy. However taken altogether, these things bring unhappy result to our body and undermine our health.
“unconscious, compulsive ritual is a problem.” This quote means that if you want to have a habit or not, once you choose, you should keep that habit. And, if you do not have any reasons to keep a habit, the habit is bad. In other words, this quote means that you should have responsibility for your habits. For example, some of the smokers do not have any reasons to smoke, and they sometimes try to stop smoking. In his opinion, this smoking habit is bad habit, because they do not have any principles to smoke.
I do not smoke, drink a lot, play gamble, take drugs, and I do not have many girlfriends. I think these are the main compulsive rituals and habits of most of young people. But, I do not anything. In this way, I do not have any bad habit. But, Japanese people’s silence could be said bad habit. Almost Japanese people including me are usually quiet at classes, meetings, and conferences. I do not mean that we do not have any opinions. We have our own opinions. But, I do not like to appeal them, going over other’s opinions. Japanese people are sometimes said that we have been educated to be quiet and hide our opinion. But, this view is wrong. We just be quiet, and put our opinions into our mind. We never have been educated to be like that. So, I think this habit is unconscious and compulsive ritual.
I am not trying to change this habit. I mean I want to have both characters: quiet and passionate. Some foreign people have really passionate characters. I am sometimes really surprised with them. This character is very useful to persuade, address, and argue. By contrast, that is very useless to negotiate, advise, and comfort. So, I want to have both features. But, Soc might say that do not be greedy.
Soc’s opinion is similar to what my parents and society has taught me. When I was in a junior high, my mother said like this “I used to have bad habits, and enjoyed that. But now, those habits were gone somewhere. And, you will experience the same situation like me. So, this is your life. You can choose your habit. And, do not worry about your habit too much, because you will be adult someday.” Since then, she never has referred to my habit. This quote reminded me of my mother.
I agree with his opinion. That is because there are many people who do not have responsibility for their habits these days. This tendency is leading serious problems such as the war, environment problems, and financial crisis. When we get pleasures form others, we have to pay prices. This is very simple and important thought. If we try to get pleasures without prices, we will have to pay prices more.
“An unconscious, compulsive ritual is a problem” means that we have trouble stopping to do something that is done regularly without consciousness or awareness is a problem. For example, it applies to eating a lot carelessly when we get some stresses and this is the problem. But, speaking of eating a lot, it is not always bad thing in itself. As Socrates says, we should be responsible for all behaviors of ours, so unconscious and compulsive thing is lack of the responsibility. Besides, if we realize that every particular behavior has both good and bad aspects, and we decide to do or not to do by ourselves, something like eating a lot may be not bad. In short, we will have to decide to do or not to do by ourselves after we understand what each behavior can cause and not always result in a good thing.
In my case, I have a habit of thinking irresolutely. Maybe it is one of my characters, but I want to decide anything clearly because if I think of my future, I will make decisions clearly what kind job to hunt, what theme to choose for a graduation thesis, and after graduating from my university how to live in the near future. If he knows that, Socrates would advice me as he told Dan. Besides, that we should think every behavior has both good and bad aspects is similar to what my older coworkers said to me. When I was in Japan, I worked at a prep school as an intern. We always have to think about how to do to make our prep school better there, and one day my older coworkers said to me that every action has a reason and good and bad aspects. In addition to that, if that apparently looks bad, it is not always bad, so we have to be responsible for every behavior after we understand both sides and what may cause. That is why Socrates’ opinion is similar to what I have been taught before. Speaking of my example, I am not exactly sure, but thinking irresolutely also has both sides. One is the bad aspect which needs much time to decide, the other is the good thing which I can consider a lot of thing when I decide to something. Because I knew it from Socrates and my older coworkers, I may not have to think it so badly that I am indecisive. Finally, I agree with his thought about unconscious and compulsive rituals and I think also we need to be responsible our behaviors by thinking that it is truly good or bad.
Sam Sami says,
When you have some thoughts that you do not realize that you have, in fact there is a part in your mind that is answerable for any unconscious reaction. At this period, you are unable to see, move, and feel because you are not conscious of the real fact that you act. For example, most of exploitations on TV or rialtos depend on unconscious part of recipients to sell or control their products. Here is an example too, when my friend was smelled her favorite perfume, she decided to smoke cigarette again. Frankly, she quit smoking for a long time, but back to square one. What happened to my friend was about her unconscious which made an illusory connection between her perfume and cigarette. I think that the part of unconscious is your mind. On the other hand, the part of conscious is your BRIAN. Even though, I disagree that all actions of unconscious are problem. For instance, when I smell my favorite cologne, I always remember my holy song. Is my holy song a problem? Or sometime I enjoy myself, but I do not know the reason of it. All I know that my unconscious did its best!!! Socrates said that compulsive ritual is a problem. Yes, there is no doubt, but I think it is not a big problem if it is just a ritual between “YOU” and” YOU”. On the other hand, it is a big problem when this definition of ritual changes to something completely different which is called ritual murder. I t is a big problem when someone forces you to ritualize or to kill someone under the fake thoughts “unknown religion” or whatever. Basically, you might have ritual thoughts in what you believe, but these thoughts should not be compulsive ritual at all. No parents, no friends, no governments, no people can force you. If they did, they just forced your mind, but your brain is for you forever. You had better control the beliefs of allowing your mind with being influenced by other people. You could enjoy the brain peaceful by individualism. Socrates said that specific activities are both bad and good. They are good when you are the guide of them, but they are bad when they are the guide of you. They are bad and good when your unconscious makes a connection between treat and pain of your life. In addition, I believe that there are no silly questions. They might be silly for Socrates, but for me not. Just if you do not know the answers of them for real, nobody should blame you to ask. In my opinion, each question has its denotation and its autosuggest. I believe in saying that says “truth lies at the bottom of a well”. When you find out the answer of your question, you will have knowledge. When you have knowledge, you have POWER. Socrates said that every action has its price, and its pleasure. I agree with him because our actions by hook or crook as I believe.
I think that the meaning of any unconscious, compulsive ritual is concern with my used habit. Sometimes I have tendecy that although I recognized some habit bad, I do it naturally. For example, I usually smoke even though I recognized that smoking is bad to healthy. So, we have to think that effects of doing something, and we try to control ourselves.
Also, the meaning of "good or bad thing" is that all of problem have advantages and disadvantages. Even if we make mistakes, it can help to recognize problem myself. At next time, we can care of these problem. For example, I learn a lot of things from my parents or society. They teach me straight way when I decide to go wrong way or make some mistakes. They have many experience of life, and they can get right decision better than me. So that, I usually try to follow them.
I agree to socrates opinion. All of situation have side effects. We can get a lot of experience from this, not only success but also fail. There is proverb concern this quoto that a failure is mother of success. I usually make a lot of mistakes, but it is not bad effect absolutely. So we have to control both sides and from these, we have to try to get advantages.
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