Man's Search for Meaning

For my fall reading I read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. The book was split into two sections - one where he describes his experience as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, and the other where he describes his theory ("Logotherapy") that we find meaning in attempting to find meaning. Yeah. It's kinda meta.

The first half of the book was gripping. He described how prisoners who were put in charge of other prisoners often became more tyrannical than the Nazi guards. He talked about prayer groups that formed and how prisoners coped with their terrible fate. It was great.

The second half was less interesting to me. Frankl often resorted to vague language and misleading interpretations of events to prove his point. He also drifted into the abstract very often. I enjoyed the specific examples in the first half of the book a lot more.

I'm glad I read it, though. It's a pretty famous book and I think it's good to know what people are talking about when they reference it. It also, like every other book, offered a cool new way of looking at the world and how it all works. So I appreciated it for that reason.

I'm not completely sold on fall reading, though. I think for the most part students are busy and reading a whole book, even in the span of a few months, can seem like a pretty daunting task. It's good to encourage us to read, but there has to be another way. I don't know. Maybe dedicate the first 15 minutes of every class to reading. I know it would seriously infringe on time for more traditional class, but it might put everyone in the right frame of mind before we all launch into a discussion or research a new topic. Just that thought.

The Cold War and Civil Rights

So while we were researching the fight for civil rights, my class found that many civil rights leaders were labeled communists and therefore further separated from what was considered "American" at the time. This not only separated them from the mainstream in the eyes of many Americans, but it also gave J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI a wonderful excuse for bugging and wire tapping civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King jr.

When I was reading about the anti-communist streak that often led to the persecution of civil rights leaders (or was it just racism?), I actually kind of laughed. Calling someone a communist has become a bit of a punch line at my school. I think that the transformation of the communist label is one of the most interesting in contemporary America. You can call someone a socialist or a fascist, but calling them a communist is almost comical. Nobody throws around the accusation of communist leanings like they used to.

Well, nobody except for this guy. Someone needs to have a talk with this guy.

So when I saw a picture like this one, I actually thought they were joking. Just look at the guy in the middle, all mad and racist, looking like the owner of the jail in Cool Hand Luke twenty years beforehand. He's a freaking caricature. Race Mixing is Communism? What?


Anyways, my point is that we've made progress. Outside of the Westboro Baptist Church, there aren't any Americans who show up to rallies to prevent race mixing or communism. Maybe there are and I just don't know. There aren't as many Americans willing to rally against race mixing and communism. Heck, we've just elected a black, allegedly communist president. Twice. That would've made everyone in this picture absolutely livid. That's progress.