Our socratic seminar began with Elle’s idea to start with question #1 rather than trying to grasp and discuss the big question. It turned out that question #1 actually grabbed my attention. The discussion touched upon sex and love and dealing with the concepts of pleasure from the standpoint of memory, which are prominent in chapter 12. Throughout the chapter, Ransom and Hyoi are dealing with the conflicts between the two cultures and Ransom spends some time learning, especially after all the fear he has dealt with in the novel. Some only engage in intercourse twice in their life, not for pleasure, just simply for the circle of life. How could you possibly have pleasure with something if you can only have it twice? As humans, we seek to do the act more than once if we want pleasure out of it. Hyoi argues the question of why you would want to do something again and again if we were initially satisfied? He relates it to dinner; if you eat it every day then it becomes a routine and begins to lack the specialness of the event. The key point he tries to prove is that pleasure is fully grown only when it is remembered. We’ve been stewing on this idea that the only thing that is important is the moment and that memory isn’t enough. Here he is giving a different perspective; the memory fundamentally changes, it becomes better. The biggest problem we have as humans and within our society is that when we want things, we genuinely want them right then and there. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Today, we’re never absent. There is absolutely no distance between anything anymore. Privacy is gone. Social media has taken over. We are all in constant communication with everyone.
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