VOICES DOWN THE CORRIDOR
An Internet WebQuest on A PHILOSOPHICAL LOOK AT THE EAGLES' LYRICS

created by Ralph A. Bucci & Oscar Siflinger
Charles W. Flanagan High School

Introduction | The Task | The Process | Conclusion |


Introduction
Travel down the dark desert highway, and look for meaning. It is there embedded in the lyrics of the Eagles. As one takes an introspective glimpse into one of America’s super groups, you can’t help but connect their meaning to the existentialist philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre. This WebQuest will focus on an examination of Eagle lyrics as it relates to truth as subjective meaning that includes a drive for autonomy from “instinct of freedom” to dominance over all other wills that ultimately results in defining who we are by the choices that we make.

We do not profess that Don Henley, Glen Frey, Joe Walsh, and Tim Schmidt are on the same plane as G. W. F. Hegel and Thomas Hobbs, but debating that the only real world is the rational world, and human life in a state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short certainly aligns with the meaning that comes through when analyzing the likes of Hotel California, Dirty Laundry, Take It Easy, New York Minute, Life in the Fast Lane, The Long Run, Take It to the Limit, and a few others that make you wonder how reality becomes a part of the interconnected system and how wisdom comes through acknowledgement.

The social history of any people, of any nation, is a musical history. People are musical creatures, and the songs they sing and poems they write concerning their lives and times bestow a powerful glimpse into a society's soul during a specific era. A song, poem or primary account written by a witness of a specific period has the ability to create a powerful visceral understanding more profound than the best historical text. Additionally, since many writers, musicians and composers seek truth, they are often considered social activists, expressing their political and social views through their medium of expression.

Students involved in this assignment will determine the extent to which the selected philosophers and their doctrines align with the lyrics of the Eagles.

Throughout the ages, philosophers have continually considered the concept of truth. What is objective versus what is subjective. Truth is often clouded through a paradigm; thus, we have been conditioned to believe via norms established by the society we have been nurtured in. Thinkers often consider truth that may transcend the senses by interpreting what we see, hear, touch, smell and taste differently, while questioning societies established norms. This can conflict with popular culture leading to ridicule and ostracism of thinking individuals. Examples might be recent events in the world and the idea of thinking versus the constraints of closed society.

It is difficult to accept what we believe to be real when we study complex topics; we are often philosophers looking beyond subjective truth in a quest for evidence and objectivity. This is particularly true when we use the Internet for our research because many people post their personal opinions or only know a sliver of the whole story. In the following Web Quest, you will use the power of teamwork and the abundant resources on the Internet to learn all about A PHILOSOPHICAL LOOK AT THE EAGLES LYRICS. Each person on your team will learn one piece of the puzzle, and then you will come together to get a better understanding of the topic.

Task
WHAT PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTIONS EXIST FOR EXISTENTIALISM AND THE EAGLES' LYRICS?

Process
In this WebQuest you will be working together with a group of students in class. Each group will answer the Task or Quest(ion). As a member of the group you will explore Webpages from people all over the world who care about existentialism. Because these are real Webpages we're tapping into, not things made just for schools, the reading level might challenge you. Feel free to use the online Webster dictionary or one in your classroom.

You'll begin with everyone in your group getting some background before dividing into roles where people on your team become experts on one part of the topic.

Phase 1 - Background Information
Use the Internet information linked below to answer the basic questions of who? what? where? when? why? and how? Be creative in exploring the information so that you answer these questions as fully and insightfully as you can.

1. What urban legend was created in Todos Santos?

2. How is Don Henley responsible for refuting this claim?

3. How has the 'new' Hotel California added to the mystique surrounding the Eagles?

4. What is the Hotel Califonia a metaphor for in the meaning of life? Be prepared to site specific examples to make your connections.


Phase 2 - Roles
INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Individuals or pairs from your larger WebQuest team will explore one of the roles below.

2. Read through the files linked to your group. If you print out the files, underline the passages that you feel are the most important. If you look at the files on the computer, copy sections you feel are important by dragging the mouse across the passage and copying / pasting it into a word processor or other writing software.

3. Note: Remember to write down or copy/paste the URL of the file you take the passage from so you can quickly go back to it if you need to to prove your point.

4. Be prepared to focus what you've learned into one main opinion that answers the Big Quest(ion) or Task based on what you have learned from the links for your role.

SOREN KIERKEGAARD:

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions specifically related to SOREN KIERKEGAARD:

1. How does Kierkegaard reject the Hegelian system? Make sure that you focus on truth as subjective meaning.

2. Review the lyrics of any one of the Eagles tunes and provide examples for Kierkegaard's 'stages on life's way.'
A. Aesthetic
B. Ethical
C. Religious

3. Discuss Kierkegaard's view of anxiety (angst) as it relates to the fear that one faces of one's own freedom. What Eagle song best describes this?

4. Kierkegaard had a firm belief in 'a leap of faith' that being that truth cannot be understood rationally, but requires a personal choice to believe in the truth. How do the lyrics to 'Take It Easy' help explain this?

FRIEDERICH NIETZSCHE:

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions specifically related to FRIEDERICH NIETZSCHE:

1. Nietzsche had a firm belief that there is no absolute truth (perspectivism). If this is true, how do the Eagles and Nietzsche agree in this philosophy?

2. Nietzsche invented the overman (superman), someone who has so refined his will to power that he has freed himself from all outside influences and created his own values. Which Eagles' members have written songs that relate to this and what are the titles? Be prepared to defend your choices.

3. If faith is no longer a generally accepted basis for morality, as Nietzsche believed, how have the Eagles and their music influenced us to evaluate life?

4. Examine the lyrics to New York Minute and the Nietzche works 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for All and None' and 'Geneology of Morals' and consider Nietzsche's reference to a higher mode of being as 'superhuman' (übermenschlich), and association to his doctrine of eternal recurrence -- a doctrine for only the healthiest who can love life in its entirety -- with this spiritual standpoint, in relation to which all-too-often downhearted, all-too-commonly-human attitudes stand as a mere bridge to be crossed and overcome. Find parallel themes in both book and song.

MARTIN HEIDEGGER:

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions specifically related to MARTIN HEIDEGGER:

1. Heidegger is best known for helping us focus on the problem of actually 'being' rather than reflecting on consciousness. Examine any three Eagle songs that best explain this philosophy and site the lyrics that explains this.

2. In Heidegger's SEIN UND ZEIT, Being replaces peoples' own counsciousness of their place in the world. That means that each of us has a freedom and existence in the world separate from others. Much of the Eagles' music reflects this. Identify atleast three of their titles that prove this and provide examples from the lyrics to prove your point.

3. Examine Heidegger’s section Religion, and the Transience of Digital Memory questioning, “What Are Poets For?'. . . . Time of the world's night is the destitute time, because it becomes ever more destitute”. . . . The world's night is spreading its darkness. The era is defined by the god's failure to arrive, by the 'default of God,' ... It is indicative of a sort of thinking that proclaims itself free to think in its movement, but simply in a naïve conception of freedom. Theologically speaking, this is to suggest that thinking religion cannot merely think itself past theology and into theory without an estimation of the trace, of the occurrence of thinking the death of god, the close of history and the book, and the vanishing of the subject. Religious theory must always re-think and re-articulate these closures, not as if they are up for grabs once again, but because theory must continually root itself in the memory of its own becoming.
Poets are the mortals who, singing earnestly of the wine-god, sense the trace of the fugitive gods, stay on the gods' tracks, and so trace for their kindred mortals the way toward the turning. … This is why the poet in the time of the world's night utters the holy.

A- After examination of Heidegger’s’ statements, read the lyrics of Hotel California and look for religious allusions and religious hypocrisy drawing parallels to the imagery and poetry, and develop pro and con data concerning religion that cannot merely think itself past theology.

B- Are the Eagles religious, atheistic, or absurd existentialists? Or not? Reference Heidegger with Eagle lyrics, explain.

4. Read 'The Case of Martin Heidegger, Philosopher and Nazi' and the lyrics to the Eagle song 'Desparado'

A- Develop common threads between the outlaw in the song Desparado and the philosopher Heidegger.

B- Examine SEIN UND ZEIT philosophy and determine what one may consider rational thinking and consider how then irrational judgement fits into the conception of existentialism while considering the following:
Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. Unfortunately, life might be without inherent meaning or it might be without a meaning we can understand.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE:

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions specifically related to JEAN-PAUL SARTRE:

1. Sartre is best known for his political and ideological questions. His entire philosophy is concerned entirely with the nature of human life and the structure of the consciousness. Consult the Eagles' playlist at the end of this WebQuest and comprise a list of songs that connect with Sartre's idealism.

2. Sarte despised forced responses to situations not of our own making. He claimed that we were denying ourselves 'our own authorship of our actions.' Review the play list and choose the ONE song that BEST depicts this view AND site the specific lyrics to defend your choice.

3. Because Sartre believed that 'existence preceeds essence' then there is no essential 'human nature.' Which Eagles' tunes provide a snapshot of this way of life? List the lyrics and provide a real-world connection to their meaning.

4. Sartre's mantra was that we define who we are by the choices we make. Examine the lyrics to 'Hotel California' and list the implications for the lines that relate to choices.


Phase 3 - Reaching Consensus
You have all learned about a different part of philosophical. Now group members come back to the larger WebQuest team with expertise gained by searching from one perspective. You must all now answer the Task / Quest(ion) as a group. Each of you will bring a certain viewpoint to the answer: some of you will agree and others disagree. Use information, pictures, movies, facts, opinions, etc. from the Webpages you explored to convince your teammates that your viewpoint is important and should be part of your team's answer to the Task / Quest(ion). Your WebQuest team should write out an answer that everyone on the team can live with.

Conclusion
Nietzsche wrote,

In the midst of an age of 'work', that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to 'get everything done' at once, including every old or new book: -this art [philosophy] does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers.

Our intention was for you to experience this exact thought. It seems you never get to close the door with philosophy as our emergent views tend to keep us searching and grasping for meaning. Keep your eyes open and your fingers nimble.


It's the same for understanding a topic as broad or complex as philosophy: when you only know part of the picture, you only know part of the picture. Now you all know a lot more. Nice work. You should be proud of yourselves! How can you use what you've learned to see beyond the black and white of a topic and into the grayer areas? What other parts of philosophy could still be explored? Remember, learning never stops.

created by Filamentality Content by Ralph A. Bucci & Oscar Siflinger, rbucci@browardschools.com,siflinger727@aol.com
http://www.kn.att.com/wired/fil/pages/webphilosopea.html
Last revised Wed Feb 6 8:54:26 US/Pacific 2008