SEPT 16

5: SEP 16

Assigned

• Irvine, William, Chapter 4: "Negative Visualization: What's the Worst that Can Happen" (65-85)
• Holiday, Ryan, "Control Your Emotions" (27-31; 4)

In-class Segment

• Discussion of good writing and some samples. Rubric and process. SW1 coming Wednesday.
• Link to writing. [1]

Some writing concepts - Review of first writing

• A general challenge of good writing -- Getting outside of your head -- looking at the writing as if you didn't write it.

• Here are a few good writing concepts to look for in the samples on the handout.

• Good starts -- Without good introductions and signals of organization and thesis readers are disoriented and confused. Set context by framing the topic. Tell your readers where you are going to take them. Sometime you will find a “hook” to start with. Something relevant to the topic that has high interest.
• Flow -- How well does one sentence follow another? Do you notice places where flow is interrupted? When you see good flow, try to notice how it is achieved, at the level of wording and sentence structure.
• Efficient writing -- Literally, how much you say with so many words. Awkward phrasing and limited word choice reduce efficiency.

• Review of writing samples.

• I haven't looked at all of the writing yet, but I will share some samples, mostly of good things you are doing.

William Irvine, Chapter 4, "Negative Visualization"

• from p. 82: "To practice negative visualization is to contemplate the impermanence of the world around you."

• Reasons for contemplating bad things: prevention, diminish effect, reverse adaptation.

• Adaptation: wants to reverse it. "creating a desire in us for the things we already have" 67-68. Two fathers thought experiment. (also gratitude.)

• Contemplation of our own death 70: stimulus to robust hedonism or thoughtful appreciation?

• 73ff: Sources of evidence for possibility of "?Stoic Joy": children (whose experience is too new to have adapted deeply), people who survive disasters (catastrophe-induced transformation). Negative visualization doesn't have the drawbacks of catastrophe induced transformation.

• 77: connects neg. vis. to giving thanks: example of saying grace. (Note that Fortune and God play similar roles here.)

• 79: projective visualization: "the asymmetry" (found in stoic, epicurean, and buddhist thought) -- use the asymmetry in your response to your own vs. others' loss as a way of altering your response to your own loss.

• Objections: recall that neg. vis. is not a persistent meditation. still, done wrongly, it can lead to negative rumination. p. 81: Doesn't this heighten loss? response: the two fathers again (81)

• Small group discussion: Assess negative visualization as technique within stoicism and then as a more general practice. Is it plausible that it could reverse adaptation and produce states of joy?