Questions Oct 27

 WGU -p.192. FL 35-36.

1. What hallmark of modernity reversed Plato's and Aristotle's judgment?

2. What gives life meaning, for Kant?

3. In a truly human society, according to Marx, how would our capacities to work develop?

4.  Most jobs involve what, according to Paul Goodman? 

5. People were certain, as late as 2008, that what?

6. What alternatives to consumerism have small groups begun to develop?

FL

1. What are "squishies"?

2. Who (who should have been defenders of reason) instead became enablers of Fantasyland?

3. Who is Jodi Dean?

4. What is Responsive Ed?

5. Why did Jefferson say America should neither ban nor embrace any particular religion?

Discussion Questions

• Was Locke's "sweet" labor theory of value invalidated by the invention of money? 166
• Do we have a duty to our own humanity to work? 167
• Was Arendt correct about the distinction between labor and work, and about their rootedness  in natality? 168-9
• Was Rousseau right about the value of learning to work with your hands, particularly carpentry?  172
• Do you worry, as Paul Goodman did, that there may be "no decent work to grow up for"? 173
• Is it a "travesty" to call people who work in advertising "creatives"? 175
• Is consumer capitalism infantilizing?
• Do you regularly discard "unfashionable" clothes or other goods before they wear out or break down? Should you? 179
• Do you want to produce something of value? Why? 181
• Do you expect to find meaning in your work? If not, where will you find it? 185
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• Is there something self-contradictory about being a "committed relativist," if all knowledge claims are "self-serving opinions or myths"? 308
• Have you had any "nonjudgmental Squishie" teachers who taught that reason was not for everyone, or that "someone's capacity to experience the supernatural" depends on their "willingness to see more than is materially present"? 308 
• What do you think of Schwartz's "synchronicities"? 310
• What do you think of Jodi Dean's defense of UFO "abductees"? 311
• What do you think of "the boy who came back from heaven," etc.? 314
• Have you had any textbooks similar to Responsive Ed's science texts? 315
• Will COVID give survivalism more momentum? (317) Will it boost alternative medicine? 318
• Are Survivalists and Preppers "wacky and sad"? 319 Why is this such an American phenomenon?
• Do you agree with Jefferson's statement about freedom of and from religion? 320
• COMMENT, in light of recent events?: "Some American fantasies have become weaponized, literally." 321 
• Do you agree "that so many of our neighbors are saying so many loony things [and Kurt Andersen wrote that before the Q-Anon conspiracy loonies surfaced, and before January 6] is doing us real injury"? 322