Merry Xmas & Happy Boxing Day From Plato's Cave

It’s finally Christmas (well boxing day technically) and while many are still hung over from too much eggnog, we at Plato’s Cave would like to wish you happy holidays and cheers to the new year. It was a tough year for the management team at Plato’s Cave, and we have undergone quite a big number of changes.

Nevertheless, we’d like to thank those of you who have stood by us in tough times, and those who have started requesting for your learning expeditions again. To you, we are eternally grateful for your understanding and support. Special thanks go out to:

-          Kit

-          Deepankar

-          Ananth

-          Shawn Tan

-          Nilah

-          Subra

-          Prasatt

-          Ariffin

-          Mumtaz

-          Vicky

-          Karls

-          Balaji

-          Rama

-          Pathma

Every simple act goes a long way, so we are truly thankful to each and every one of you. In light of simple acts making a difference, here is a video, a reminder that there is still good out there in the world. Happy Holidays folks.

Cheers,

Team Cavemen

Why you should learn a new language

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What is the point of Literature?

That was the question for yesterday's Spiral Inquiry, asked by Pathma,

Truth be told it was a messy one.

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Movie Review: Warrior (2011)

*SPOILER ALERT*

This is a short movie review about, what could be in my humble opinion, one of the most brutal and emotional fight movies in a long while.

Warrior begins in the city of Pittsburg, where Tommy Riorden (Tom Hardy), an ex-marine, comes back home to his father after 14 years in a bid to train for the largest winner-takes-all mixed martial arts (MMA) purse in history; the 5 million dollar SPARTA event. On the flip side, we see his long forgotten brother Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton), a high school physics teacher with a family to support, revisit his past as he too joins the competition to save his home.  

The strained relationship between a once alcoholic but now sober father, with his two estranged sons, is complicated and moving, and the crux of the drama revolves around these three men. Even though the movie is 2hrs 19min long, it really does not feel long at all; the fight scenes were brilliantly executed and the sculpting of Tommy and Brendan’s individual stories move subtly in tandem, snaking up to an inevitable epic conclusion that you will have to witness yourself.

Be sure to turn up the volume on your speakers so that you can feel the violence and brutality which is MMA. From paralyzing face shots to shin-splitting kicks and spine-busting body slams, there is no shortage of insight into one of the world’s most deadly sport. Some of the moves used in the movie like the ‘arm bar’, ‘kimura lock’ and ‘scissors takedown’ are actual moves used by professionals in these MMA circuits, and are not to be taken lightly.

I found myself cheering the underdog Brendan as he outmanoeuvred the cold-eyed Russian machine “Koba”, played by Kurt Angle (yes, Kurt Angle), and cutting to the next scene, feeling a very cold chill down my spine as I witnessed Tommy bestially dispatching his opponents with no remorse. Perhaps this could be a glimpse of what Bane (also played by Tom Hardy) could be like when he ‘breaks the Bat’ in ‘The Dark Knight Rises”; really solid acting of a ruthless animal.

The only complaint I have is closure from the movie because it ends pretty abruptly, riding away into the sunset on a huge emotional climax. But overall, I highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for an extremely engaging fight movie, and although I clearly did not do the gripping tale any justice in these descriptions, it is something you will have to watch and judge for yourself.

Who is your social Ideal?

 

An interesting idea crossed my mind. What exactly is the ideal modern man? It seems no one knows. Every society has had an anthromorphic ideal. The guy that everyone should be like, Plato would call him the philosopher king.  Confucious defined the perfect man as one who "combines the qualities of saint, scholar, and gentleman".

In more recent thought there has been the idea of the Ubermensch, the guy who will overcome all that is baser and lower. Of course, Nietzsche expounded at great length what the Ubermensch wasn’t but not much of what the Ubermensch was.

So really for the modern man empowered by technology where does that leave us?

Are we supposed to be the best we can be at every field that we can conceive because technology allows us so much more ability to do so. For example is it possible for me to learn more things and excel at them then my predecessors? Or am I still bound by very real limiting factors that will prevent me from being anything different from generations before. Will the most used aspect of technology today end up being Facebook and Twitter?

It is starting to seem like a typical economic problem of opportunity cost which I must say I am not very good practitioner of. If it were to be this, would the perfect person in today’s society be one who does a lot of things at a high degree of excellence or does one thing significantly better then others.

It seems that even our modern fictional characters who are most likely to be perfect contradict this idea of perfection by being deeply imperfect. Think about House, Tyler Durden and the comic book characters from Kick-ass and Watchmen.

Is this the new climax or peak?  Juggling a million stimuli and making sense of it or is perfection for you back in the old days where it was one man to one undertaking? What do you think? Who is the peak of perfection for you and why?