Daughter's Extended Constructed Response Quote

[wowie]

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

- Elie Wiesel

Comments

[fomocobaby.livejournal.com]

"extended constructed response" means she has to write a short critical essay on this quote for school?

Interesting fodder. In my experience, passion can be truth, but it can also lead you astray.

Joseph Campbell said "what we search for is not so much the meaning of life, as it is the feeling of being alive". I believe that, but I also think that the Buddhist idea that enlightenment is beyond the circles of mundane joy and suffering has merit too.

Maybe I'm being influenced by meditating on "Rock and the Hawk" today - the fierce consciousness of the hawk and the eternal disinterestedness of the rock...

What does the prodigal daughter think?

[wwowie.livejournal.com]

Yep, a short critical essay for school.

She starts agreeing with it, and then crumples the paper up as she decides to disagree with it and then goes back the other way again.

I keep trying to tell her being indifferent is not a good thing. We had a high school club with the initials SAP... told some it stood for Students at Potomac, and others we said it meant Students for Apathy and Procrastination. Funny thing was, this group of about a dozen girls were all Honor Society, involved with Student Council, yearbook, newspaper etc.

We wanted to be apathetic. Didn't turn out that way. ;-)

[fomocobaby.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful that she's taking the school assignment seriously and really applying her problem-solving and philosophical mind to it. You should be very proud of her.

Do you know the Maurice Sendak story "Pierre"? When I was in the second grade, my teacher had us do a play based on the story (about a little boy who only says "I don't care", and is subsequently eaten by a lion, then when he gets a second chance, decides that he really does care after all).

I have a photograph of me in the play where my teacher wrote on the back "I hope that in 20 years you will still be shouting 'Yes indeed I care!'" It didn't strike me until much later what that meant in the larger scheme of things.

Personally, I think apathy is a refusal to engage in life and ideas; a refusal to extend yourself into the world where teaching and learning happen. And, ultimately, apathy is a failure of compassion. If you don't care, you can't have that feeling of 'suffering with' (the definition of compassion), and you are less humane as a result.

I would disagree with Wiesel with indifference being the opposite of art, though. I think art is meant only to serve truth, not necessarily beauty, and can take on any kind of form. And passion doesn't necessarily lead you to truth. In other words, passion can give you the feeling of being alive, but doesn't tell you the meaning of life.

Good topic!

[wwowie.livejournal.com]

Don't know "Pierre" but there's definitely quite a point to that story. How many times I have I said "what do you want for dinner", "I don't care", I fix something and get a 'ewwwww'. Well you did care and you didn't state your preference!

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference

This is the only one I disagree with, interesting because the other three are nouns that are associated with action (at least in my book): love, faith, love. Art falls in a different category of 'noun' for me.

[pusspower.livejournal.com]

“Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.” -Kahlil Gibran

[wwowie.livejournal.com]

Now that's a very good quote, but she'll get confused if she throws that into the fire I think.

[fernande.livejournal.com]

Ooh this is so interesting; an opposite should be another positive, not a negative. Indifference is so hopelessley negative it's not constructive in any way.

Indifference is the malaise of modern society. Anger, debate, confrontation; these are all good things.

Aren't they?

[wwowie.livejournal.com]

Hm. Anger, debate, confrontation. Negative, right? But they are positive as they are a response rather than a nonresponse of apathy and uncaring. It's the outcome of those negative aspects that we need to worry about, yes?

[urgayleswoman.livejournal.com]

Where is that quote from? I read Night by him but it was a long time ago. I like the way he expresses himself in his writing.

[wwowie.livejournal.com]

She just read "Night" for the class, and now this is a follow up they're doing. I'm not sure what the quote is from.