Blog #28 - Sean Zhao - Period 1 - 5/1/2020

Freshmen 2020 5/1/20 Sean Zhao, period 1

Aim:  How can we evaluate Odysseus’ leadership through his decision-making in his encounter with “Scylla and Charybdis” in Homer’s Odyssey?

I felt that today’s reading inspired many thought-provoking ideas on sacrifice for the greater good. Today’s reading was on Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla was a monster with multiple heads but was only able to eat one person per mouth. Charybdis was a sea monster that would create a whirlpool, which would ensure the demise of any ship that sailed over it. Odysseus must choose which monster to encounter, with losses in either option. We were able to fully connect with the moral dilemma Odysseus faced, where he had to sacrifice 6 of his men for the survival of the remaining group. It also shows that Odysseus will sometimes hide information from his men in order to prevent mass panic. He chose not to share the tidbit that 6 of the crew had to die in order to proceed with the journey, which shows that he is not always transparent with his men. He also states that they have faced moral peril like this before, reminding them of their experience at Polyphemus’ cave. This situation is different in a major way, however. Odysseus knows beforehand that he will have to suffer major losses to his crew in order to proceed with his journey. He knows with 100% certainty that not everyone in his crew is going to make it, when before he had solace that he could be able to find a clever way to escape with everyone alive. This crushing blow to his morale is not conveyed to his crew, as he does not tell them of their imminent doom. 

The way we were introduced to the reading today was with the thought experiment “The  Trolly Problem.” In this problem, a train is heading towards 5 workers, and there is a lever you can pull in order to divert the train onto a different track where there is a single worker instead. Most are quick to pull the lever, as they rationalize that saving 5 lives in exchange for losing one is a positive net gain. However, when the question shifts to stopping the trolley by throwing another person off a bridge in front of the train, the majority chooses to do nothing and let the train run its course. This shows that people are not willing to physically be involved in the killing of another person, even when the killing was for the greater good. We then played a Kahoot to see the class’ answers to different scenarios based around this question, such as the 5 people being escaped convicts or the 1 person being a world-class surgeon. This connects with our reading because Odysseus must choose which monster to face. He knows that Charybdis, the whirlpool, would be immediately fatal to his entire crew, while Scylla can only eat some of his crew, and the rest survive. 

The main lesson was about allusions in literature. An allusion is a reference in a story to another work. The reference is short, and is usually not explained by the author. A common type of allusion is to the bible and is known as a biblical reference. We learned this in order to recognize allusions in future pieces of literature, and able to understand them, without becoming confused. I can use this knowledge on allusions so I can recognize the message and theme the author is trying to convey through the illusion. An example of an allusion is the “So Long, Farewell.” clip from Family Guy, where the characters reenact a scene from the movie The Sound of Music. 

          The simile of  “between a rock and a hard place,” alludes to the reading for today, where Odysseus is literally between rocks that will destroy his ship, and the two monsters that serve as the hard place. It shows that Odysseus is in an unwinnable situation, where no matter which option he chooses, he is going to lose some of his crew.

Working from home has been a smooth and comfortable experience for me. I no longer have to wake up at the crack of dawn to arrive at school on time. My workload has been manageable, and I am still learning quite a lot from the assignments in my different classes. A major hurdle is the constant distractions that come from being at home, and not in the classroom. Some recent news that was most impactful to me was the decision to have the rest of the school year be conducted virtually. Many of my peers assumed that this quarantine would be over late April, and we would return to normalcy. With this hope extinguished, many started to lose determination and motivation to do well in school.