LISTEN (recorded November 2019, this was originally posted for our Philosophy of Happiness class's discussion of Epicureanism). It's our penultimate lesson in how to be an Epicurean, today in Happiness, with the chapters on "Science and Scepticism" and "Social Justice." (And, sneak peaks of reports on Stoicism and Watts redux, and a surprise.)
"Our life has no need now of unreason and false opinion," but now more than ever that's what we have in spades. See yesterday's dawn mention of Kurt Andersen's "plunge" into the Fox abyss, and Moscow Marsha, and really just about everything in the headlines over the last several years. Will we ever get out of Fantasyland? Maybe, when Fred Rogers's children take the lead.
Or we could just accept the atomic premise that most of what happens depends on the swerving "little particles" over whose movements we exercise minimal control. But we can save that discussion for the last chapter - "Should I be a Stoic instead?"
Meanwhile, convenient as it would be for those of us in the most egregiously emitting nations to do so, we can't afford the luxury of accepting things like climate change as entirely beyond the scope of our involvement. We have a moral responsibility to seek solutions. Being an epicurean does not mean retiring to our respective gardens and awaiting the apocalypse. What would Thomas Jefferson do?
What he said was... (continues)
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