Darwin's anti-racism

It was mentioned in class yesterday that some ignorant white supremacists (is there any other kind?) have tried to invoke the authority of Charles Darwin to justify their hateful racist bigotry. They've not read this book (I don't suppose they've read many), which points out that Darwin held "a passionate commitment to the abolition of slavery, which in part drove his research in evolution." He reviled any form of so-called "scientific racism."

 

Born on the same day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were true contemporaries.  Though shaped by vastly different environments, they had remarkably similar values, purposes, and approaches....

Both men took great pains to avoid causing unnecessary offense despite having abandoned traditional Christianity. Each had one main adversary who endorsed scientific racism: Lincoln had Stephen A. Douglas, and Darwin had Louis Agassiz... these two intellectual giants came to hold remarkably similar perspectives on the evils of racism, the value of science, and the uncertainties of conventional religion.

Separated by an ocean but joined in their ideas, Lincoln and Darwin acted as trailblazers, leading their societies toward greater freedom of thought and a greater acceptance of human equality. This fascinating biographical examination brings the mid-nineteenth-century discourse about race, science, and humanitarian sensibility to the forefront using the mutual interests and pursuits of these two historic figures. g'reads

Questions OCT 4

 Peirce & James, Nietzsche, Freud-LH 28-30, FL 23-24, HWT 25-26.

1. What's the point of James's squirrel story? Have you ever been involved in a "metaphysical dispute" of this sort? How was it resolved?

2. Who said truth is what we would end up with if we could run all the experiments and investigations we'd like to? (And what's a word his name rhymes with?) What does it imply about the present status of what we now consider true?

3. What did Bertrand Russell say about James's theory of truth? Was he being fair?

4. What 20th century philosopher carried on the pragmatist tradition? What did he say about the way words work? Does his approach seem reasonable to you?

5. What did Nietzsche mean by "God is dead"? (And what's a word his name rhymes with?) Does that statement seem nihilistic to you?

6. Where did Nietzsche think Christian values come from? What do you think about that?

7. What is an Ubermensch, and why does Nigel find it "a bit worrying"? Does it worry you that some of our peers think of themselves as exempt from the rules and norms that the rest of us follow?

8. How did Nietzsche differ from Kant but anticipate Freud? Is rationality less available to us than we think?

9. What were the three great revolutions in thought, according to Freud? Was he overrating his own contributions?

10. The "talking cure" gave birth to what? Have you had any direct experience with it, or any other form of "talking cure"?

11. Why did Freud think people believe in God? Was he right, about some people at least?

12. What was Karl Popper's criticism of Freudian psychoanalysis? Do you agree?

HWT

1. What really distinguishes utilitarianism, for Baggini?

2. How did Mozi's maxim resemble J.ZS. Mill's principle of utility?

3. Each item of Jonathan Israel's key principles of Enlightenment concerns what?

4. Pluralism is often mistaken for what?

MAR1

Not THE God…

	TED Radio Hour ⁦‪@TEDRadioHour‬⁩ "We are as gods and might as well get good at it." ⁦‪@stewartbrand‬⁩ famously wrote this in the mission statement for his counterculture magazine, Whole Earth Catalog. It also makes up the title of a film on Stewart's life, and now, a new podcast: audible.com/pd/We-Are-As-G…   9/29/22, 1:45 PM

The Long Now

	TED Radio Hour ⁦‪@TEDRadioHour‬⁩ We humans have a huge impact on this planet. But we always have trouble thinking about time beyond tomorrow or next year, let alone 10,000 years in the past or future. So ⁦‪@stewartbrand‬⁩ & ⁦‪@longnow‬⁩ are building a giant clock to help us keep time: pic.twitter.com/Qq3D0M41jv   9/29/22, 6:55 AM

Stewart Brand

	TED Radio Hour ⁦‪@TEDRadioHour‬⁩ What do hippie culture, personal computers, reviving lost species, and defending online liberties have in common? For one thing...Stewart Brand. This renaissance man has played a key role in some of the most groundbreaking movements in the last century. n.pr/3LGrOWO   9/23/22, 9:24 AM

On the Topic of Lying

 Last class we discussed the ethics of lying and whether or not it is ever morally just to lie to one another. 

A few years ago I discovered this essay by Sam Harris titled "Lying" which I found to be quite insightful at the time. I thought I'd share this link for anyone else who'd like to read the essay:

 https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-x4ByD3mMjIdTMC0H/Sam%20Harris%20Lying%20%281%29_djvu.txt

The earthly afterlife of creative people, the “influential dead”

…If we are attentive enough to our inner lives, we can each recognize the influential dead living within us, whose life's work has shaped and is shaping our own. (Figuring most dominantly in my own private retinue are Rachel Carson, Walt Whitman, James Baldwin, Hannah Arendt, Virginia Woolf, Lewis Thomas, Carl Sagan, and Rilke.) Those who attain such immortality, Butler intimates, are passionate lovers of life, enamored with all the dazzlements of nature and human nature…
https://www.themarginalian.org/

Questions SEP 29

 PRESENTATIONS CONTINUE; Mill, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Marx-LH 24-27. FL 21-22, HWT 23-24.

LH

1. How did Mill disagree with Bentham about pleasure? Are they both right?

2. What view did Mill defend in On Liberty? Is that view consistent with his criticisms of Bentham?

3. What's the benefit to society of open discussion, according to Mill, and what's wrong with being dogmatic? Is our society generally "open" in this sense, or dogmatic?

4. Who did Bishop Wilberforce debate at Oxford in 1860? What do you think of his response to the Bishop on the matter of ancestry?

5. The single best idea anyone ever had was what, according to whom? Can you think of a better one?

6. What scientific developments since Darwin's time establish evolution by natural selection as more than just a theory or hypothesis? What does it take to turn a theory into something more?

7. Who was the Danish Socrates, and what was most of his writing about? What do you think of his "leap" and his irrationalism?

8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel Warburton? Do you agree?

9. What is "the subjective point of view"? Do we need to value objectivity as well?

10. Why was Karl Marx angry? How did he think the whole of human history could be explained? DId he have a point?

11. What was Marx's "vision"? Is it an appealing one

12. What did Marx call religion? Was he being unfair?

HWT
1. What two concepts from Indian and Buddhist philosophy are essentially the same? 

2. What are the four stages of Hindu life?

3. What is "the smile of philosophy"?

FL

1. What were Americans spending a third of their time doing, by the end of the '50s?

2. Who grew up in Marceline, MO?

3. What fantasy did Hugh Hefner sell?

4. What was added to currency in 1954?

5. What did Jane Roberts "discover" in 1963?

6. The sudden embrace of what, in the 60s, helped turn America into Fantasyland?

Feb24

Schopenhauer (SoL)

https://youtu.be/q0zmfNx7OM4

Schopenhauer: the Video Game

https://youtu.be/seXPlszh7Uc

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf by Leo Buscaglia

It's Fall, and Freddie's facing his mortality

https://youtube.com/watch?v=c8ZjVXyNbhI&feature=share

Schopenhauer, section 7

 BREAKING NEWS. This topic is now available in section 7, if anyone wants to impress us at the last minute.

Agnes Callard encourages students to reflect on humanity’s distant future

...In her speech, Callard embarked upon a theoretical experiment she called the “infertility scenario,” borrowing from philosopher Samuel Scheffler’s book “Death and the Afterlife.” In this hypothetical situation, humanity discovers that every single person alive has been made sterile by a virus that has spread to every corner of the earth, meaning the current population is the last generation of humans. 

... the objective of this thought experiment was to feel the full, somber impact of humanity with no future and to unpack the question: Why do we care about future generations?

“I’ll tell you about my reaction: When I really start to vividly imagine us being the last humans, the last generation…when I envision the vast silence blanketing our once chattering globe because the human story has come to an end… my reaction is that I feel sick.”

According to Callard, this response extends beyond an innate fear of death and speaks to something broader: the dread of an unfinished “human quest.”

“The way I would paraphrase the horror is: It only came to this. It only got this far. We didn’t get a chance to finish. We didn’t get there. What’s sickening to me is the thought that the quest we are on—all of us, everyone in this room, but many others for thousands of years now—thousands of years at least, but probably longer, because history only records a fraction of human thought—this human quest has not been brought to its proper endpoint.”

...
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/agnes-callard-encourages-uchicago-students-reflect-humanitys-distant-future

“Great teachers force us to wrestle with questions”

What Mrs. Bailey Taught Me in A.P. History Changed My Life

…Teachers are not robots tasked with reading approved scripts. Most students who fall in love with learning do so not because of any particular curriculum but because they encounter a teacher who gives them permission to think. Great teachers force us to wrestle with questions that have plagued philosophers, politicians, religious leaders, poets and scribes for millenniums.

How do we order society in such a way that increases human flourishing and limits suffering? What is the good, the true and the beautiful? How do we make sense of the sins of the past and the way the legacies of those failures follow us to the present? What is justice? What is love and why does it hurt us so? What is the good life? Is there a God who orders the galaxies, or did we come from chaos, destined only to return to it?

The answers to those questions that I received from my teachers varied. I do not judge the worth of my former educators by whether I agreed with them. I value those who made me think and did not punish me when I diverged from them…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/opinion/school-teachers-quality.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Philosophy illustrated

	Five Books ⁦‪@five_books‬⁩ "Once you start seeing philosophy in pictures you see it everywhere" Philosopher Helen De Cruz (⁦‪@Helenreflects‬⁩) on the best illustrated philosophy books, in conversation with ⁦‪@philosophybites‬⁩: fivebooks.com/best-books/ill…   9/23/22, 2:31 AM

Nihilism won't get you to the Good Place

 The Good Place, season 3 episode 4 - Jeremy Bearimy. Chidi briefly and mistakenly thinks "the meaning of life" is nihilism... 

Questions SEP 27

MIDTERM REPORT PRESENTATIONS BEGIN (Catch up on Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, & Rousseau etc.); Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer-LH 19-23. FL 19-20, HWT 20-22....

REPORTERS, remember to give us at least a couple of discussion questions about your presentation. Questions about presentations may be included on exams.

LH

1. Kant said we can know the ____ but not the ____ world. Can we?

2. What was Kant's great insight? Is this a credible form of "armchair philosophy"? Or does it also depend on experience?

3. What, according to Kant, is irrelevant to morality? Is it really?

4. Kant said you should never ___, because ___. Kant called the principle that supports this view the ____ _____.  Have you ever violated this principle? If so, do you regret it?

5. Who formulated the Greatest Happiness principle? What did he call his method? Where can you find him today? If everyone followed this principle would it be a better world?

6. Who created a thought experiment that seems to refute Bentham's view of how pleasure relates to human motivation? Would you opt for the machine? Why or why not?

7. What did Hegel mean when he spoke of the "owl of Minerva"? What did he think had been reached in his lifetime? What would Socrates say about that?

8. What Kantian view did Hegel reject? What would Kant say?

9. What is Geist? When did Hegel say it achieved self-knowledge? Does this seem supernatural and mystical to you, or could it be naturalistic?

10. What "blind driving force" did Schopenhauer allege to pervade absolutely everything (including us)? Could anyone really know that?

11. What did Schopenhauer say could help us escape the cycle of striving and desire? Is that the only way? Is that cycle really universal?

HWT

1. What one word most characterizes the ideal Chinese way of life?

2. Western suspicion of hierarchy is built on what?

3. What did the late Archbishop Tutu say was "the greatest good"?

4. What omission in western ethics would seem bizarre to the classical Chinese thinkers?

5. What is the most famous Confucian maxim?

6. Virtue is never solitary, said Confucius, it always has ____.

FL

1. How, according to Scientific American in 1915, are motion pictures like drugs?

2. What came into existence simultaneously with America and created the concept of celebrity?

3. What place did film critic Pauline Kael call a "fantasy-brothel"?

Feb22

Kieran Setiya

 This guy has one of the better philosophy podcasts... and now a new book.

Life Is Hard : What can a 2500-year-old discipline tell us about how to live better in the modern world? … https://t.co/jqphhVIHTH

— Philosophy Matters (@PhilosophyMttrs) September 22, 2022

Pantheist with a heart (and mind) on wheels

 The biennial Holocaust Conference at our school, returning after the pandemic interruption, traditionally has been held in the big ballroom (The Tennessee Room) in our building. That's across the hall from my classrooms. It commences this morning, and I'd been looking forward to slipping over and catching some of it. Alas, they've moved to the newer bigger ballroom in the Student Union, on the other side of campus. Hope they plan to record it. 

I haven't yet looked at Ken Burns' new Holocaust documentary. I will. There are crucial lessons to learn about a largely unacknowledged stain on American history and "the tragic human consequences of public indifference."

(continues)

Salem Witch Trials

Kurt Andersen has an interesting discussion of this in Fantasyland...

On this day in 1692, eight citizens of the colony of Massachusetts were hanged for their supposed connections to witchcraft. Theirs were the last of the deaths caused by the Salem Witch Trials, preceded by 11 other hangings, plus five who died in prison, and one who was crushed to death for refusing to enter a plea.

A period that roughly spanned the spring and summer of 1692, the Salem Witch Trials started when two young girls began displaying bizarre behaviors — convulsing, shouting blasphemy, and generally acting like they were possessed. The girls were the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, a minister relatively new to town but already divisive. He'd moved from Boston, where an account of young children who were supposedly "bewitched" by a laundress was published. Parris had insisted on a higher salary and certain perks as the village reverend, and insinuated in his sermons that those who opposed him were in cahoots with the Devil.

After the girls' behavior gained attention and was pronounced the result of an evil spell, several other girls in town began acting strangely too … and began naming individuals in town as the cause. The town was whipped into a frenzy, and soon dozens of people — women, men, and children — were accused of and often jailed for practicing or supporting witchcraft. Many of the accusations seemed to fall along the lines of existing feuds, or were directed at people who were — because they were poor, not upstanding members of the church, or marginalized in some way — not likely to mount a convincing defense.

By the time the final eight people were hanged on September 22, word about the trials was spreading throughout the state. Within weeks the governor of Massachusetts declared "spectral evidence," or visions of a person's spirit doing evil when in fact their physical body was elsewhere, was inadmissible. Soon after, he barred any further arrests, disbanded the local court, and released many of the accused. It wasn't until the following spring that he finally pardoned those who remained in jail. A full decade passed before the trials of 1692 were officially declared illegal, another nine before the names of the accused were cleared from all wrongdoing and their heirs given a restitution, and 265 years before the state of Massachusetts apologized for the events of that most infamous witch hunt. WA

MTSU Holocaust Studies Conference

Unfortunately, this event is no longer held across the hall from our classroom but in the Student Union... so we'll not go during class time. But if any of you do go to any of the events on Thursday and Friday, please tell us about it. jpo

Held on a biennial basis (with the omission of 2020 due to pandemic conditions), the MTSU Holocaust Studies Conference is an interdisciplinary scholarly event that brings together scholars from around the world and diverse disciplines to share their research with fellow academics, faculty, students, and the public. Each conference features an embedded theme while also accepting papers on any topic related to the Holocaust. A keynote or featured speakers present a talk on the theme, and survivors share their stories in a Friday afternoon event that is free and open to the public. Details and images from past conferences can be found on our Past Conference Highlights page.

14th Biennial Conference

September 22-23, 2022

Full Conference Schedule

REGISTER HERE

 

Keynote Speaker: Professor Atina Grossman, The Cooper Union: "Remapping Holocaust Studies: Teaching and Research in Global Context"
Download Flyer

Featured Event: Finding Shifrah: A Holocaust Survivor's Journey and the Making of A Memoir

• Sonja Dubois, Child Holocaust Survivor
• Alice Catherine Carls, Editor
• Hanno Weitering, Editor

Download Flyer

In the news:

• MTSU News
• Nashville Observer

---

2022 Conference Committee

• Dr. Mark Doyle, History, co-chair
• Dr. Elyce Rae Helford, English, co-chair
• Dr. Ashley Valanzola, History, co-chair
• Dr. Lauren Cochrane, Art
• Dr. Ron Bombardi, Philosophy

==

Also, see the new Ken Burns documentary "The U.S. and the Holocaust"...

Hang on

 My colleagues made me chair of a committee that meets this afternoon, so that I and not they would be tasked to draft a formal letter for the academic-bureaucratic mill. Lucky me. 

So I've sought inspiration in Letters of Note: Correspondence deserving of a wider audience... (continues)

How to Change Minds? A Study Makes the Case for Talking It Out.

"Conversation is our greatest tool to align minds," said Thalia Wheatley, a social neuroscientist at Dartmouth College who advises Dr. Sievers. "We don't think in a vacuum, but with other people."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/science/group-consensus-persuasion-brain-alignment.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Questions SEP 22

 Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, & Rousseau-LH 15-18. FL 17-18, HWT 18-19

LH

1. How did Samuel Johnson "refute" Berkeley's theory? Did he succeed? Why or why not?

2. What made Berkeley an idealist, and an immaterialist? Are you one, the other, both, neither?

3. In what way did Berkeley claim to be more consistent than Locke? DId Berkeley have a point about that?

4. What was Berkeley's Latin slogan? Do you think existence depends upon being perceived?

5. What obvious difficulty does Berkeley's theory face? Is it possible to have ideas that are consistent (non-contradictory) but still about non-realities?

6. What English poet declared that "whatever is, is right," and what German philosopher (with his "Principle of Sufficient Reason") agreed with the poet? Does this imply that nothing is ever wrong or bad? Is it really possible or reasonable to believe this?

7. What French champion of free speech and religious toleration wrote a satirical novel/play ridiculing the idea that everything is right (for the best)? 

8. What 1755 catastrophe deeply influenced Voltaire's philosophy? Do you have a philosophical perspective on natural catastrophes that makes rational and moral sense of them?

9. What did Voltaire mean by "cultivating our garden"? Do you agree with hin?

10. Did Hume think the human eye is so flawless in its patterned intricacy that, like Paley's watch, it constitutes powerful evidence of intelligent design? Why would an omnipotent designer design a flawed organ?

11. What was Hume's definition of "miracle"? Did he think we should usually believe others' reports of having witnessed a miracle? Where would you draw the line between events that are highly improbable and events that are impossible (according to known laws)?

12. Rousseau said we're born free but everywhere are in ____, but can liberate ourselves by submitting to what is best for the whole community, aka the _______. Are we all more free when we act not only for ourselves but for the good of the whole community (world, species)?

HWT

1. In what way was the idea of a separable soul a "corruption"? What French philosopher of the 17th century defended it? What Scottish skeptic of the 18th century disputed it?

2. What do Owen Flanagan's findings suggest, that contrasts with Aristotle's view of human nature?

3. If you ask an American and a Japanese about their occupation, how might they respond differently?

FL

1. What amazing theme park was erected in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century?

2. Who was Robert Love Taylor?

3. What was Birth of a Nation?

4. What did H.L. Mencken say about southerners?

5. What did The New Theology say about the supernatural?

6. How did Modernists reconcile science and religion?

7. What famous trial was held in Tennessee in 1925, and what did Clarence Darrow say about it, and what was its cultural impact?

 

Feb 17

Choosing life

It's the birthday of one of my favorite poets, Donald Hall. He wrote a lot about facing death and choosing life, especially after the death of his wife and fellow poet Jane Kenyon left him to face his 80s alone. He died at 89, in 2018. He faced his (and our) mortality with verbal honesty. And he loved the Red Sox... (continues)

A library sitcom

	Book Riot ⁦‪@BookRiot‬⁩ "I'd love to see the surreal parts of library work represented instead of the constant pop culture portrayals of them as silent, dull, poorly lit rooms watched over by an army of shushers with bad hairdos." ow.ly/f42P50KN34C #ad ⁦‪@farzanadoctor‬⁩   9/19/22, 7:00 PM

The right pace for an idea

Baseball's "a great game for writers because it’s just the right pace. You can watch the game and keep score and look around and take notes. Now and then you even have time to have an idea, which in many sports you don’t have room for.” Roger Angell https://t.co/su01DiFS05

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) September 19, 2022

Risking delight

Sitting up in bed, sipping coffee next to the open window not quite listening to BBC4's continuing coverage of the Queen's last exit (Anglophilia and demos being challenged bedfellows on such occasions), as the dogs still snooze ... My daily delight (minus the funeral), lately.

It's been my main message these many years, writing and teaching, that (as Margaret Renkl quotes Jack Gilbert) we must "risk delight" while we have the opportunity. The seasonal transition to autumn, astronomical and meteorological, is such an opportunity. “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts,” as The Mad Farmer says. Sorrow is ubiquitous, but oh the goldenrods and aster... (continues)

	Phil Oliver ⁦‪@OSOPHER‬⁩ Beautiful writing, deep reflection from ⁦‪@MargaretRenkl‬⁩ on seasonal transitions and why we must allow ourselves to "risk delight" while we can. nytimes.com/2022/09/19/opi…   9/19/22, 7:06 AM

My Roommate Is Neglecting His Dog. What Should I Do?

An ethical and environmental issue. If it's wrong to neglect a pet it's also wrong to ignore the situation.

The magazine's Ethicist on speaking up for a member of the household — when it's a pet...

Democratic norms are facing a historic test.

Many Americans doubt the results of the 2020 election, and extremism, global authoritarianism and disinformation are on the rise. The Times is examining this landscape of challenges through a range of coverage...

Tweet by Tadd Ruetenik 🇨🇳 🇸🇧 on Twitter

	Tadd Ruetenik 🇨🇳 🇸🇧 ⁦‪@ruetenik‬⁩ There is a truly great community of philosophers at Middle Tennessee State University. #MTSU. The faculty and students were amazingly receptive, appropriately critical, and extraordinarily interesting.   9/18/22, 4:03 PM

Free will podcasts

	TrueSciPhi / Kelly Truelove ⁦‪@TrueSciPhi‬⁩ A new philosophy podcast playlist on the subject of free will, featuring dozens of episodes covering introductions to the topic, neuroscience & free will, moral responsibility & free will, and more: truesciphi.org/playlist/Free_… 📷 imagined via #dalle pic.twitter.com/KnLKg35JIu   9/18/22, 11:42 AM

“Just my opinion but…”

	Philosophy Matters ⁦‪@PhilosophyMttrs‬⁩ The early days of Plato's Academy pic.twitter.com/sig10PNgzr   9/17/22, 6:30 PM

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Truth, not certainty

	Maria Popova ⁦‪@brainpicker‬⁩ "Knowledge consists in the search for truth… It is not the search for certainty." Karl Popper died on this day in 1994, leaving us his eternal map for critical thinking on the route to truth themarginalian.org/2017/01/26/kar…   9/17/22, 2:13 PM

Cultural illiteracy

	TIME ⁦‪@TIME‬⁩ Anyone using TikTok to learn about COVID-19, climate change or Russia's invasion of Ukraine is likely to encounter misleading information, according to research ti.me/3BlJ1Qp   9/16/22, 11:03 PM

Questions Sep 20

Catch up on Montaigne, Descartes, & Pascal-LH 11-12. FL 13-14, HWT 14-15; Spinoza, Locke, & Reid-LH 13-14. FL 15-16, HWT 16-17. #12 MEETING TODAY for Library instruction in LIB 264a at 2:40, go straight there... Assign midterm report presentation topics (indicate your topic/date preferences, I'll try to accommodate you... or I'll asssign a topic.

LH

1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called _______. What do you think of that view?

2. If god is _____, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings. Is that how you think about god?

3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion. Do you think it is possible (and consistent) to choose to be a determinist?

4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______.  If Locke's right, what do you think accounts for our ability to learn from our experiences?


5. Locke said _____ continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid said identity relies on ______ memories, not total recall. How do you think you know that you're the same person now that you were at age 3 (for example)? If you forget much of your earlier life in old age, what reassures you that you'll still be you?

6. Locke's articulation of what natural rights influenced the U.S. Constitution? Do you think it matters if we say such rights are discovered rather than invented?

HWT
1. What are atman and anatta, and what classical western idea do they both contradict?

2. What was John Locke's concept of self or soul? What makes you you?

3. Shunning rigid essentialized identities, younger people increasingly believe what?

4. What cultural stereotype did Baggini find inaccurate when he went to Japan?

5. What important distinction did Nishida Kitaro draw?

6. What point about individuality did Monty Python make?

7. What is ubuntu?

FL

1. Who wrote a memoir of life on the Kentucky frontier that turned him into a "real-life superhero"? (He's in my family tree, btw.)

2. Who built a cabin by a lake, moved in on the 4th of July, and epitomized a perennial American pastoral fantasy? What do you think he'd say about modern suburbia?

3. What did The New York Sun announce in a week-long "news" story in 1835? Who believed it?

4. Who was P.T. Barnum, and what was his fundamental Fantasyland mindset?

5. Whose touring play marked what key milestone in America's national evolution?

6. Who was Aunt Jemima?

Feb15