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Big Ideas 1: No Such Thing
as a Dragon |
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Big Ideas 2: Evil and
Tragedy |
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Big Ideas 3: The Meaning of
Music |
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| This video deals with a children's book, There's no
Such Thing as a Dragon (Jack Kent), that has a perfect mythological
or religious structure. The story, which deals with the necessity of
confronting uncomfortable truths, is technically simple, but
also very profound. |
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| An evil act is a human act, aimed at harm for
harm's sake. The capacity to act in an evil manner depends on
self-consciousness: if I know how I can be hurt, I know how to hurt
others. Encounter with evil can destroy individual faith in human
nature. |
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| The world of experience is composed of patterns,
and patterns within patterns. Human adaptation is a matter of
adapting the patterns of the body and mind to the patterns of the
world. Music models these patterns, and provides the listener with
an intimation of ultimate harmony and meaning. |
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Big Ideas 4: The Necessity of Virtue |
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TVO MAPS OF MEANING: VIDEOS |
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Maps 1. Monsters of
Our Own Making |
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Maps 2. Contending
with Chaos |
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Maps 3. Becoming Like
Gods |
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| In the place of religious belief, in the 20th
century, arose ideological systems of true horror, led by resentful
and arrogant tyrants such as Mao-Tse Tung, Stalin and Hitler. |
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| Mythology posits that the world of human experience
is composed of chaos and order, and that the human psyche mediates
between the two. |
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| The idea of a single God represents the integrated
totality of all psychological factors, portrayed as the ultimate
value. |
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Maps 4. Games People
Must Play |
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Maps 5. Grappling with
Fear |
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Maps 6. Submitting to
Order |
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| Religious ideas emerged from a behavioral platform
that was defined by collective behavior. Ordered collective behavior
has a game-like structure, and some games are better than others.
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| The chaos out of which the world is generated is
first encountered during contact with the unknown, unexplored and
threatening. |
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| Order inhibits fear, and aids in the establishment
of harmonious relationships between people who would otherwise
fight. Too much order, however, interferes with genuine individual
development. |
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Maps 7. Contemplating
Genesis |
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Maps 8. Dwelling on
Paradise |
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Maps 9.
Becoming a Self |
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| The ancient text of Genesis presents the emergence
of order out of chaos and the evolution of self-consciousness -- a
gift for which the human race paid, and continues to pay, a
terrible price. |
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| There is always something lurking in our ordered
paradises that we do not understand, and that can bring us
self-consciously tumbling down. |
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| As the individual moves from dependence to
independence, he or she must adopt the burden of culturally
socialized being. This can discipline the individual enough to
transcend mere socialization. |
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Maps 10. Figuring Evil |
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Maps 11. Losing
Religion |
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Maps 12. Truths that
Matter |
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| Evil emerges as the individual attempts to fly from
the burden of mediating properly between chaos and order, and turns
his attention to extracting revenge on God for the terrible nature
of being. |
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| Adoption of rigid and totalitarian ideology
temporarily alleviates the burden of individual responsibility, but
renders life narrow and meaningless. In the absence of meaning, the
desire for revenge and destruction grows. |
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| Voluntary contact with the chaotic unknown can
provide the individual personality with the information necessary to
thrive in the face of uncertainty and threat. |
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Maps 13. The Force
Within |
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| The subjective phenomena of personal interest, in
combination with honesty and integrity, can lead the individual to a
mode of being meaningful enough to justify the vulnerability
associated with mortality. |
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