(Successor site to CoPhilosophy, 2011-2020)
A collaborative search for wisdom, at Middle Tennessee State University and beyond... "The pluralistic form takes for me a stronger hold on reality than any other philosophy I know of, being essentially a social philosophy, a philosophy of 'co'"-William James
Final Overall Points w/o Midterm and Final (60/70)
Final Blog Post
12/8/2020
Wesley Hopper: Welcome back to another small group interview just like last time where will present a deep question and our special guests will express their ideas on that question and share their opinions with one another as well as the audience if they would like. Our guests tonight are Susan Neiman, the author of Why Grow Up, and John Kaag, the author of Sick Souls, Healthy Minds, will be sharing there experiences with the books and my question tonight. We also have an additional, reappearing guest Kurt Andersen, the author of Fantasyland, because I enjoy his ideas on everything and his "outside the box" thinking on the modern world today. Welcome everyone, lets get right to it.
Wesley Hopper: The big question for today is: What does it mean to grow up?Why should we? The auxiliary question being: What makes life worth living?
Susan: This is a wonderful question! I would like to start off with a quote from my book. "It requires facing squarely the fact that you will never get the world you want, while refusing to talk yourself out of wanting it." (WGU, 121)This is pretty much putting Immanuel Kant's thought of ought and is, but in a more modern structuring of sentences. Im confident that John Kaag can agree with me on the thought that experience is what can help make us grow in the world. This also mean that has we get older we start to realize that the world that was "given" to us as children by our parents is as protective of our mind and health as it was in the earlier stages of life. As we continue to "grow" we start to lean toward the is and accept some things the way the environment has made them. Do you ever realize how our future dreams start to funnel from a wide variety of possible careers and opportunities, to eventually narrowing down to one or maybe a couple things that can help someone "get by" or even just survive. This is depending on the personally experiences and what the reasoning pushes you to do. The reason I believe we should grow up is to kind of prevent this social downhill of aging created by society and do what makes us feel grown up while also accepting the "is" but pushing for our "ought" in life.
(This video may be long, but Neiman expresses a lot of ideas and I believe you will gain at least a little bit from watching a small chunk of this presentation.)
Andersen: Those are some very interesting ideas expressed by Susan there and I very much enjoyed that. My book, Fantasyland, goes parallel to your ideas and explains how the world is built with the people that continue through life refusing the "is" of life and are determined to make their world what it ought to be and try to make the world the way in which they benefit fully and live their dream life or their "fantasy." For some people, this works out if they work hard enough, but for the others it creates stubbornness and immaturity of knowledge. I believe growing up is realizing this immaturity that you have at a younger age that protects you from other peoples dream world and then drifting away from the fantasy and finding the reality that you are living in and that you have control of your future and the experiences that you create.
Kaag: I do enjoy how you put the idea of experience into your ideas because some of the ideas in my book, Sick Souls, Healthy Minds, show how experience with certain things can shape the way that you "grow" and show you the different meanings of growth based on personal experiences. My book is reinforced by the thoughts of William James on life and if it was worth living or not. Like James, I am influenced by some negative self reflections on life and how experiences throughout life are what make you grow. In my book I mention a way of James's thinking that can be stated as," If one looks carefully, suffering is not the exception but the rule." (SSHM, 43)This helps me explain how people that have experienced some sort of depression or unstable mental help can use these depression experiences to grow. This is supported by the idea that the people that have negatively self reflect can see what others overlook and ignore which can eventually hit them later and hit them even stronger. This growth is probably not the most ideal; however, it seems to give you a more open-minded growth to help you see future obstacles before they hit you. In conclusion, growing is a part of life that includes self-reflection and may include rough times for most and we should growing up to help ours selves she the worst in life and then overcome the suffering to then help us succeed in the future when faced with adversity.
Wesley Hopper: Those were some interesting responses there and now I would like to hear y'alls responses to the auxiliary question. Which is "What makes life worth living"
Kaag: My idea on this is that life may not be worth living all the time and that depression and even death is the final destination no matter what you experience and everything you do will end the same. However, the idea of overcoming this depression and suffering to achieve this freedom of mind and life to be to connect to life and all of its aspects that it has to offer. You can take advantage of what life has to offer and make a positive impact on other that continue to effect them after your time is up and eventually buried 6ft below like everyone else who has ended.
Neiman: That is a great response, but I would like to add a different outlook on what it means to live. The purpose of living is to help the world keep moving in a positive way and build a good social standing in life and what others have to offer that should be passed on through the things given to you and to reverse the social idea that growing up isn't only downhill.
Andersen: I can agree with Susan in this idea that we need to not get so caught up in our head and our fantasies and look at how we can affect the people around us in the best way possible. Ive also noticed a good connecting topic of mental health and how it ties to society, so I believe we should live life with good mental health and the purpose of spreading positivity that is separate from the stubborn fantasies and also helps others see the negative influences that bring upon depression.
"you will gain at least a little bit from watching a small chunk of this presentation"-- What did you gain from it?
ReplyDelete"the purpose of spreading positivity"--that's as good a purpose as we could want