2008 RMP Fest: Apophasis is a False God
B. Arthur and M. “Marnold” Arnold, eds.
Round 1
Tossups
1. A 2003 Kenneth Waltz essay is subtitled “Reflections on” this man. This man’s early work included translating the writings of George Polya. Along with his colleague Spiro Latsis, this man criticized Milton Friedman, whom he accused of pseudo-science. This man coined the term “problem shifts”, which he labeled as “degenerate” if they did not lead to the prediction of new facts. This man used the terms “protective belt” and “hard core” to describe a concept that he argued could be reached through both positive and negative heuristics: the research program. This man’s premature death foiled his plans to publish a dialogue with Paul Feyerabend, whose part of that dialog was published in 1975 as Against Method, and along with Alan Musgrave this man edited Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. For ten points, name this man who proposed a dialectic of proofs and refutations to describe mathematical progress, a 20th century Hungarian philosopher of science.
ANSWER: Imre Lakatos [accept: Imre Lipschitz; Avrum Lipschitz; Imre Molnar] {BA}
2. These structures may be surrounded by smaller buildings known as buglis. The main use of these structures is preceded by a ceremony known as the geh sarnu, which includes a kind of ceremonial touching called paiwand. That is followed by an activity called Khurshed nigerishin, for which these structures are primarily designed. These structures are only entered by the nasellar, a special class of caretakers. Coal and sand is used to create filters for the run-off from these structures. The scriptural basis for these structures can be found in Fargard 5 of the Vendidad, which addresses purity. They typically have wells at their center, where bones are placed once they have been bleached by the sun. For ten points, name this structure on which Zoroastrians expose their dead to vultures.
ANSWER: Tower of Silence [accept: dakhma, dokhma, dakhmag, deme,dema] {BA}
3. This was the first case cited for support in a 2008 Michigan Law Review Article where Erwin Chemerinsky argued that the Supreme Court should have recognized a right-to-die. This decision overturned the state supreme court case Naim v. Naim, and limited a state power recognized in the 1888 case Maynard v. Hill. Potter Stewart filed a short concurring opinion saying that this case had already been decided by the earlier McLaughlin v. Florida. This decision confirmed that Pace v. Alabama was no longer good law, and Earl Warren’s majority opinion cited Korematsu v. United States to say that strict scrutiny was appropriate for racial classifications and suggests that there is no valid legislative purpose which makes the color of a person’s skin the test of whether his conduct is criminal. The law struck down in this case made an exception for descendants of Pocahontas. For ten points, name this 1967 Supreme Court decision that struck down laws against interracial marriage.
ANSWER: Loving v. Virginia [accept either order] {BA}
4. Kathryn Remen compares David Henry Hwang’s Madame Butterfly to this work, especially in relation to “vision” in it and a Georges Vigarello essay discusses the “Life of the Body” in this work. Keith Hoskin and Barry Smart both cite this work’s discussion of schools and classroom management, found in the section “Docile Bodies.” Better known is the contrast of a symbolic approach to the title actions with the carceral approach, with the Medieval method exemplified by the opening discussion of an attempted regicide in “Body of the Condemned” and “Spectacle of the Scaffold.” Most famous for its discussion of Mettray as an example of a Jeremy Bentham-designed structure, FTP, identify this work that discusses the Panopticon prison design, a work of Michel Foucault.
ANSWER: Discipline and Punishment: Birth of the Prison [accept: Surveiller et punir]{MA}
5. A 1996 experiment by William F. Brewer showed that this effect can influence a person’s opinion about whether or not a story is complete or coherent; that experiment involved a tale about a woman swimming across the Strait of Gibraltar. A 1980 article by Ronald Clyman observed this effect among healthcare providers, while Deborah Fein observed this effect among nine year old children. Rubin and Peplau devised a scale to measure how pronounced this effect is in an individual. Deborah Fein observed this effect among nine year old children. A 1971 experiment on this effect involved the draft lottery and showed that camaraderie did not stop this effect. Another experiment on this effect showed that a woman’s perceived attractiveness decreases when she is shown being electrocuted. First documented by Melvin Lerner, one experiment about this effect showed that when a woman’s actions lead to a marriage proposal, she is described as a good person, but when those same actions are seen leading to a rape, she is described as a bad person. For ten points, name this cognitive bias where people make unfair attributions out of a desire to believe that that life is fair.
ANSWER: Just World Effect [accept: Just World Hypothesis, Just World Fallacy, Just World Phenomenon] {BA}
6. These peoples worshipped a sun goddess named Wurusemu, as well as a goddess of healing and medicine named Kamrusepa. The religious practice of these peoples involved sacred stele called huwasi stones. One figure from this mythology slays Illuyanka the serpent. These peoples’ mythology includes the fertility goddess Arinna and the Gulsa Goddesses, who assist this culture’s mother goddess, Hannahannas. An epic from this culture tells how one god bites off his father’s testicles and spits them out, known as the Song of Kumbari, while the most famous story from this culture tells how Tarhunt the thunder god and others worked to bring back Telepinu, a foliage god who had gone into hiding. These peoples were heavily influenced by their neighbors, the Hurrians. For ten points, name this Anatolian culture whose language confirmed the theories of Ferdinand de Saussure about laryngeal consonants in Proto-Indo-European.
ANSWER: Hittites [prompt on “Anatolians”] {BA}
7. Varagna is a falcon owned by this god. The Kolovrat is a swastika-like symbol that represents this god, and this god is credited with inventing monogamous marriage. One son of this god has a bird-shaped helmet and helps with the corn harvest. Another son of this god is married to Lada the goddess of merriment and is depicted as a man with horns and a dog’s head who rides through the sky in a chariot; that son is Dazhbog the sun god. The Russian historian Boris Rybakov claimed that this god was one of the four aspects of Svantevit, the chief god of the Wends, but that view is heterodox. Deeds of this god included slaying Zmey, a great dragon, as well as creating the sun and putting it in the sky. One son of this god slays the storm-causing serpent Veles; that son is the god of thunder and is named Perun. For ten points, name this Slavic god of smithery and fire.
ANSWER: Svarog [accept Swarog or Svarozits; accept Schwayxtix from Sorbs; do not accept “Svarozic”, who is a different god altogether] {BA}
8. The end of the introduction to this work refers to feeling the “tension of the bow” and “the arrow and the task.” This work’s famous concluding section was originally a letter to Heinrich von Stein and bears similarities to “To the Mistral: a Dancing Song,” also by this work’s author. Another section of the work answers the titular question with a Lamarckian evolutionary account of the aristocratic class, while yet another section contrasts “philosophical laborers” with actual philosophers. The latter two sections are the aphoristic “We Scholars,” and “What is Noble” while the first is “From the High Mountains” which is titled as an “aftersong.” Beginning with the question “Supposing truth is a woman - what then?”, FTP, identify this precursor to Genealogy of Morals, awork of Friedrich Nietzsche’s about living in the titular state.
ANSWER: Beyond Good and Evil or Jenseits von Gut und Bose {MA}
9. In this, a child is compared to a foal or calf, but since he is a human, Evenus the Parian rather than a horse-trainer will be used to instruct that son of Callius. Claims made late in this include that the speaker wants his audience to discipline his children and, fortunately for the speaker, nothing bad can happen to a good man. The speaker complains that the body he is addressing is like a lazy horse, while he is a gadfly that prods them to action with maxims like “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Addressed to Anytus and Meletus, for ten points, identify this dialog where Socrates defends himself from charges of corrupting the youth of Athens.
ANSWER: The Apology {MA}
10. Phylacteries are worn during the minchah service on this day. A period in which meat is not consumed lasts from the beginning of the month in which this holiday occurs until after this day, with an exception on the Sabbath. Traditionally, the messiah will be born on this day. In addition to the Five Calamities, both the English and Spanish explusions of the Jews came on this day. The book of Lamentations is read on this day, which is the only sundown-to-sundown fast other than Yom Kippur. For 10 points, name this Jewish fast day which commemorates the return of Moses's spies from Canaan, the end of the Bar Kochba revolt, the razing of Jerusalem, and the destruction of both Temples.
ANSWER: Ninth of Avor Tisha B'Av {EN}
11. One fiqh of this sect, the Akhbaris, is found mostly around Basra while other sects include the Usuli and the Akhbari and they observe the Mawlid on the 17th of Rabi al'awwal instead of the 12th. Mid-Shaban is a celebration unique to this group which honors Uthman al-Amri, who was the first of the Babs, which this sect believes served as messengers with holy instructions. This sect does not accept the hadith of A'isha. Also known as Ithna Ashari, for ten points identify this sect whose beliefs include the occulation of a hidden Iman, the largest sect of Shi’ism, which can be contrasted with the Fivers and Seveners.
ANSWER: Twelvers [accept Ithna Ashar(i) before mention; prompt on "Shi'a"] {CC}
12. This place is guarded by a creature with sword-like fangs and indestructible nostrils named Surma, and this place is the abode of the goddess Kalma. Upon entering this place, one may be given a hat and gloves by its rulers, and this place is home to the Couch of the Unworthy. This place is home to the blind and crippled shepherd Nasshutan, as well as to an evil wizard who uses nets to make this place inescapable. One visitor to this place tells four lies about how he arrived there, none of which are believed by a maiden who tells him he cannot receive the lost-words he seeks; that figure escapes from this place by turning into a snake. A bee was sent from this place to retrieve ointment from the god Ukko, resulting in the reanimation of a corpse that had been sewed back together after being fished from this place’s river. This place was visited by Vainamoinen and was the scene of the drowning of Lemminikainen. For ten points, name this underworld from Finnish myth, whose swan is the subject of a work by Sibelius.
ANSWER: Tuonela [accept: Manala, Mana, Tuoni; prompt on “the underworld” until mentioned] {BA}
13. This name is attached to a number of figures from Greek myth of whom the least well known was probably the only surviving daughter of Zeus and Lamia before the latter went insane over the death of her other children and became a demonic spirit that kills babies. Another was turned into an egret when she drowned swimming alongside the ship of a man she loved and whose affections she had purchased by cutting a purple lock of her father’s hair, leading to that father’s death. Ovid connects that one with the most famous one, a daughter of Phorcys for whom Glaucus rejected either Amphitrite or Circe, leading to her being cursed to have a human upper body but with barking dogs’ heads coming from her vagina. For 10 points give this common name, applied bother to the unlucky daughter of King Nisus and to the monster in the Strait of Messina alongside Charybdis.
ANSWER: Scylla {WD, SK}
14. This building, which was inspired by the similar Church of St. John the Baptist’s Decapitation, is dedicated to the Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin, and was built to commemorate a military victory on that day. This church is shaped like an eight pointed star and contains nine different chapels, the most recent of which contains the tomb of its namesake, who was nicknamed the “Holy Fool of Christ” for starving himself and pickpocketing the rich to give to the poor. A twelve-pointed gold shield can be found at the center of its iconostasis, which dates to the sixteenth century, but this structure is perhaps best known for its nine brightly colored towers that end in onion domes. For ten points, name this Russian Orthodox cathedral located in Red Square in Moscow.
ANSWER: St. Basil’s Cathedral [accept: Pokrovskiy Sobor, Khram Vasiliya Blazhyennogo] {BA}
15. This being has two souls, named Aramitama and Sigimitama. Another son of this being is called Oh-Magatsumi, or “The Great Evil-Doer”, and he is also the father of the sorcerer Okuni-Nshino. This being once used a necklace of beads to create five new male deities, which he claimed were his children, though the owner of the necklace also claimed parentage. One story about this being says he was so sad at being separated from his mother that he cried until his beard reached his breast. This being once ordered Okuni-Nushi to sleep in a room full of centipedes. This being once turned his fiancée, a native of Izumo province and daughter of Ashinazuchi named Kushinada-hime, into a comb so he could carry her around. This being once used eight vats of sake he hid behind eight gates as part of a plan to defeat an enemy with eight heads. That foe, Yamata-no-Orochi, also had eight tails, the fourth of which contained Kusanagi, this being’s sword. For ten points, name this kami of the sea and storms that destroyed the rice fields of Amateratsu and made her hide in a cave.
ANSWER: Susano’o [accept: Susanowo, Susanoto, Susa-no-o-no-mikoto] {BA}
16. During periods of no rain, members of this culture would tie up black dogs and refuse to feed them until it rained, hoping that the rain god Ilyap’a would take pity. This culture’s moon god Coniraya once disguised his semen as a fruit, which was eaten by the virgin Cavillaca, resulting in her pregnancy. This culture believed in an underworld ruled by Supay, a name used by their descendants to describe Satan. This culture’s greatest temple was built at the only spot where a magical staff sank into the ground. According to this culture’s flood myth, two humans survived by sealing themselves in a cave. In this culture’s creation myth, the gods make already-pregnant women from rocks. These peoples worshiped a deity depicted as a sun with a face, Inti, and the goddess Pachamama, and their chief deity emerged from a lake. For ten points, name this culture whose main god was Viracocha, residents of Peru who were conquered by Pizarro.
ANSWER: Inca {BA}
17. In some sources, this god is said to be the son of Mistarblindi. This god was said to live in the land of Cattegat, also known as Hlesey, leading to his alternative name of Hler. Snorri identifies this god with the mountain god Gymir in the Skaldskaparmal, which is formatted as a dialog between this god and Bragi. The goddess Angeyja is one of this god’s children, through whom he may be the grandfather of Heimdall. This son of Fornjotr is a brother of Kari and Logi, the gods of wind and fire, and he is married to the pale theft goddess Ran, with whom he has nine daughters known as the Billow Maidens. This god’s hall is home to a magic cauldron given to him by Thor in which this god brews ale and contains the servants Eldir and Fimafeng, the latter of whom was killed when this god hosted a feast crashed by Loki. That hall is filled with gold this deity collected from shipwrecks. For ten points, name this Norse god of the sea.
ANSWER: Aegir [accept Hler or Gymir until mentioned] {BA}
18. The “neo” variety of this school of thought is associated Josef Kleutgen, Tommaso Zigliara, and Gaetano Sanseverino, and this school was the subject of the papal encyclical Aeterni Patris. G.K. Chesterton described this school of thought as “the philosophy of common sense”, claiming that, unlike pragmatism, Hegelianism, or idealism, it views an egg as an egg. William of Ockham rejected this school of thought and criticized its concepts of active and passive intellect. In the Scholastic Era, it was associated with Dominicans from the Iberian Peninsula, but in the 19th century it was promoted by Pope Leo XIII, who declared it the basis of Catholic thought, a view expounded by all subsequent Popes. Followers of this school adhere to the thought of an Italian monk known as Doctor Universalis whose works included “Summa contra Gentiles”. For ten points, name this school of Christian philosophy, which is singly eponymous after the first name of a certain Aquinas.