Mid-Term Blog Post, Mai-Thi Kieu

For a few days, I scheduled a zoom meeting appointment to meet each of the following philosophical authors to have a better understanding of how they felt about the world. Staring out the cafe's window where traffic is busy and heavy, while the rain pelts against the pane, there is a rumble in the distance, as relaxing music played throughout the cafe. Just to change the scenery, briefly, I glance into the many scribbles that lay on the pages in my small sketchbook, the lack of inspiration. I placed my head against my palm and began to stare out the window to watch the traffic lights change, but also wait for time to fly. Each day I met the following authors on our zoom meeting and asked them two questions to listen to their interpretation.

1.) "Do you think philosophy can help people learn to respect truth, facts, reality, and one another, and to reject falsehood, superstition, selfishness, polarization, partisanship, and mutual hostility based on differences of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, belief, etc.? If so, how? If not, why not?

 2.) How would you answer William James's "really vital question for us all: What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?" 

Julian Baggini takes a sip of water before proceeding to answer the question. 

Philosophy has been overlooked, over the following years. Especially in debates about national identity, human enhancement, and the environment. All of these issues have philosophical ideas that require deep thinking and discussions. “Utilitarianism reduces the rightness and wrongness of actions to the consequences they have with happiness, preference satisfaction or welfare, dependent on the variant of the theory.” (HTW, 162) Our actions work across a larger time scale and so it makes them many more consequences. We can learn, identify, and practice from each other and break down this barrier. I would say Philosophy can help with learning about respect whether it be among different races, ethnicity, and belief. Now, what is this world going to be and what is life eventually make to make of itself? There are so many components with this world that I can’t say because you have to think about individuality and identity in retrospect to the world because the world shapes us even though it not technically “us”. Is there a real you? what exactly defines us, and how do people perceive you? we have the capacity to shape and challenge ourselves. Our true selves that we create, which can be quite liberating. So to answer your question, it's possible, through many complex conversations, and eventually comes to terms in understanding each other better over time, but culture is quite divergent, complicated. There's a philosophical ecosystem that you can't simply copy. Always remember if you want to understand the cultural difference, don't think about binary opposites, think like what is the background in one culture and it's foreground in another and vice-versa to demonstrate what exactly we are focused on.

I opened the conversation by saying, "I know this year has been a bit hectic, a lot has changed for the most part, but I thought this year was meant to be a self-reflection or finding our identities or ourselves. At least that is how I thought about this year. Asides our presidency." Kurt Anderson nodded, he talks about the number of lies Trump has frequently made double last year, and even now, he took advantage of how America is developed. The way we immersed ourselves in our fantasies. Needing the self-righteousness which dates back all the way to Protestantism." Kurt Anderson takes a deep breath and clasps his hands together and to answer, "America had exactly such a dynamic equilibrium between fantasists and realists, mania and moderation, credulity and skepticism." (FL 87). I don't think philosophy can help people learn to respect truth, based on differences in race, religion, ethnicity, nationality. If we were then we wouldn't really be in the situation if we think like philosophers. We're Americans-because being American means we can believe anything we want; our belief is equal or superior to anyone else's. "Americans felt newly entitled to believe absolutely anything, to mix up fiction and reality at will." (FL 219). Our world in this life, it's steadily declining the manner. Trump has over hate and white supremacy is being masked by his propaganda of 'Make America Great Again'. The rest of the world sees us like fools because our groups have aggressive and opposing thoughts.

Finally, Nigel Warburton, sitting outside of the cafe with his cup of tea, I proceed to ask the same two questions and his response to them was. Yes, Studying philosophy is important, all the way back to Socrates and Aristotle, the immense value that philosophy is the catalyst of asking many awkward questions. "It meant understanding the true nature of our existence, including the limits of what we know." (LH 3)  Philosophy is kind of like self-help, a practical way of making your life better as well as discipline abstract thoughts. We see the world through a lens, "[w]e're stuck with this filter and without it, we would be completely unable to experience anything." (LH 110). What is life going to be and make of itself? I guess to answer that question we have to think about the way we communicate our thoughts and the way we live our lives. There is so much progression yet we always have to take a few steps back because we are always stuck in this cycle." According to [Arthur Schopenhauer], we are all caught up in a hopeless cycle of wanting things, and getting them, and then wanting more." (LH 132) you know whether we are discussing a serious topic or let's just say shopping for the next brand new iPhone. It seems like we aren't satisfied and I guess you can say that falls into the realm of Epicurus's key to life is recognizing that we all seek pleasure and avoiding pain. Every single day, we haven't had the time to think for ourselves properly or try to adjust our lives differently. The future is uncertain, the world must come together to stop ourselves from stagnating in our own flaws. Life will go on with or without humans but humanity doesn't have to perish in flames if we would refrain from playing with the torch.

Spiderman tries to warn Nick Fury about Mysterio except, he ends up falling into his trap and he goes through a series of illusions, and he can't tell if anything is real or not, even if he knows everything he sees is fake.

I remember reading one of the chapters of Fantasyland talking about how the shows and media create reality, that can be influential in a sense because of how realistic they make the world be. There's one scene in Spiderman Far From Home. where the villain says, "I created Mysterio to give the world someone to believe in. I control the truth. Mysterio is the truth."My thoughts about that statement. I think this is an example that defines our reality is when it comes to the progression in the film industries and world influence on what we believe. The advanced technology with robots, CGI, and virtual reality make it plausible to alter how we see the world. We have progressed so far in science, yet without philosophy, we lack the humility and humanity amongst ourselves and within our groups. Our leaders, our role models are our voice or our hope in this democracy, that is what I believe when people go through these political debates. I guess the mentality would be, "Who gets the job is done, who represents us, who is willing to hear us?", not listen or support.

When Julian Baggini mentioned his visit to Japan and watched the movie Orange. I feel like because America has more diversity in comparison to Japan. It would make sense why people live their lives differently, and why people haven't understood the difference. Which highlights the cultural background foreground emphasis. I remember the days when I visited my relatives in Vietnam. Life in Vietnam was quite different in the States. No work, no homework, no social media. I can't remember how time flew, but whenever a customer asked me,

 "What's it like being in Vietnam?"

I would say

 "It was peaceful, the days were long, but the two weeks went by quick. I had nothing to do and nothing to worry about"

I was never bored when I was there, I was content with what I had and what I discovered, people were relatively close and friendly, and while traffic was bustling. It still felt different. I remember going on a tour around the city, the tour guide took us to the nicest restaurants and showed us to the beach to the right, but to the left. There were buildings in shambles and not in the best condition. Masking the poor, with something exotic and exciting and worth seeing again. It makes me wonder if people are satisfied with what they have or what do they care about in America.

This is a clip from an anime Ergo Proxy to explain this scene in particular, Vincent Law lost his airship and he discovers a library in the middle of the desert. There is a librarian who gives him guidance and tries to open his thoughts to give Vincent hints. Little by little, he tries to cope and confront his true identity or his true self, while reminding him of the inevitable. (Full episode Ergo Proxy 11). The full episode goes more in-depth, with visiting Vincent's memories to help him piece together who he is.

While learning about Philosophy, I couldn't help but think about all the things I have learned along the way, when it came to interacting with people. I always applied my experience to what I learn, I try to understand the different perspectives that people have, and why might they believe this way or argue that way. In my opinion, philosophy can benefit people to learn to respect truth, facts, reality and reject selfishness, mutual hostility based on differences of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, belief. If people are willing to take the time to learn and experience the different aspects of philosophy and be more opened to one or the other; it's to be more culturally accepted with our ideals and our beliefs. About our world going to be like and our life turned out to be? Well if people continue to be segregated and close-minded, then the future would be miserable. With the internet and social media right at our fingertips, there's bound to be false information to spread that can influence our perception. Sometimes I wonder if people take these situations seriously, would they take actions immediately instead of procrastinating or waiting for things to die out. I fear for the future, but we have to take action now before things get worse, but I still hope that maybe things will be better and I hope that things will improve, that people are willing to listen and converse without leading to an outburst of nonsense. Philosophy teachings should spread more in our daily lives.