Philosophy in Current Media - Reid Robertson (Section #12)

For my final report, I wanted to explore how philosophy influences current media. In today’s society, mass media heavily impacts our day-to-day life and I wanted to share and explore different topics and levels of influence philosophy might have on what we consume. 

My first example is within the music industry, specifically with one of the most successful young artists of today: Billie Eilish. She is known for her alternative style in both music and fashion. She was born on December 18th in 2001 (20 yrs old). Her most popular songs include her 2015 viral debut “Ocean Eyes” and “Bad Guy” off of her album When We All Fall Asleep, Where do We Go?. Her song “Think Therefore I Am” was a huge hit, with the music video gaining over 210 million views in one year. The song is from her point of view on having to push through constant commentary on every choice she makes, specifically on the clothes she chooses to wear to cover her body. She describes her frustration with media outlets using René Descartes’ argument “I think therefore I am.” Descartes had originally coined the term in his search for proof that he existed. He reasoned that if he was aware enough to doubt his own existence, he must exist, thus proclaiming he thinks and therefore is. Eilish uses the phrase as both an attack and a shield from constant criticism. She argues that she is an individual and has her own sense of self, and she won’t change just because some people don’t like what she gives them. She also pokes fun at the media and reporters, implying that because they choose to comment on her choice appearance, they are unique individuals. The song both pays tribute to Descartes and also pokes fun at the pretentious wording.

Billie Eilish “Therefore I Am” 

The next example is a web series on YouTube that covers a variety of different topics that we all struggle with from time to time. The creator is Thomas Sanders, a singer, actor, songwriter, and internet star mostly known for his content on Vine. More recently, however, he has made himself popular on YouTube and as a voice actor on various animated shows. He is known for his wholesome content that is available to all audiences, and is also an active member of the LGBTQ+ community, advocating for equal rights, and for mental health awareness. All of this shows in his online series Sanders Sides, which addresses day to day relatable problems his main character “Thomas” endures. He does this by creating characters based off of different assets of his personality, similar to Pixar’s Inside Out. The characters are Patton (Morality), Logan (Logic), Roman (Creativity), Virgil (Anxiety), Remus (“Dark” Creativity), and Janus (Deceit). Throughout the series, Thomas deals with common issues such as lying, motivation, and dealing with anxiety by talking with his different assets through playful, clever banter and heartfelt conversations and admissions. It’s also pretty common for a philosopher or researcher to be brought up and discussed. Usually it’s Logan that does this, but Janus also has his moments. There are two episodes in particular I wanted to discuss, one about lying to an external persona and the other about lying to your own internal persona.

In the episode “Can Lying Be Good?” Thomas struggles admitting an ugly truth to a close friend and debates lying to cover his tracks. Janus, disguised as Patton, appears and offers his knowledge of Immanuel Kant and how he strongly believed one should never lie. Janus then explains how another philosopher, Benjamin Constant, approached Kant with the dilemma of a known murderer entering your house and asking if you knew where your friend was so they could kill them. Should you lie then? This conversation starts a debate between the different sides as to whether or not Thomas should lie to his friend. From there, they analyze and experiment with different types of lies (omission, commission, character, etc.).

In “Selfishness v. Selflessness,” Thomas struggles to pick between attending a callback for an acting role and attending his friends’ wedding, both occurring on the same day. Janus believes Thomas shouldn’t prioritize his friends in this instance as it costs Thomas greatly. He discusses the philosopher Max Stirner and the concept of egoism, the idea that everyone is equal and no single person is more important than another. 

Thomas Sanders’ YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/ThomasSanders/featured

“Can Lying Be Good?” Start at 3:34

“Selfishness v. Selflessness” Start at 28:19

My final example is also on YouTube, and it features two popular channels merging to set a creative example. One of the hosts is Mark Fischbach, or Markiplier, best known as a gaming YouTuber, with famous Let’s Plays like Five Nights at Freddy’s and various scripted series such as A Heist With Markiplier and In Space With Markiplier, both nominated for awards. Ethan Nestor, or CrankGamePlays, the second host, is also a popular gaming Youtuber, but he originally started as an editor for Markiplier’s videos. He frequently streams on Twitch, collaborating with other YouTubers such as JackSepticEye. 

On November 15th, 2019, Mark and Ethan launched the YouTube channel Unus Annus. The name is latin for one year, and true to the name was only active for one year. The two posted a video every day for a year and deleted the channel at midnight on November 14th at 12:00 AM. The point of the channel was to emphasize memento mori, or “remember your death.” The videos, while absolutely ridiculous, were meant to inspire people not to waste the time they have, and to take chances and get creative. The term “memento mori” is most commonly associated with John Donne, an honest and happy man who kept death close to his heart. He believed that the only way to truly live was to remember how little time you have left. Memento mori itself is an artistic philosophy that usually uses symbolism to remind the viewers of death, and Mark and Ethan never let any opportunity to remind their subscribers of their upcoming deaths pass. And oddly enough, it was strangely reassuring to hear them talk about the end of everything.

In conclusion, I find incorporating philosophy into our media to be very beneficial. It allows the common population to find relatability and wisdom in the questions that have already been asked, so that we may all answer them in our own ways. And we can even derive our own new set of questions to ask. Philosophy is all about figuring out ourselves and how the world works around us, and since we constantly evolve, it makes sense to find references to philosophy in our media that consistently reflects us. 

Gun Violence in America ( Chloe Rush #7)

 The problem of gun violence has been ravaging the United States for decades. With the growing numbers of mass shootings and gun related injuries, it is more important than ever to enact a change in our country. As mentioned in our text Fantasyland, if the founding fathers saw the state of our country and its gun violence, they would more than likely agree with the ideas of stricter gun laws. Our weapons now are much more advanced than in 1787 when the Constitution was written. The fathers of this nation had a small army in mind when they were writing the second amendment. Today however, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 1/6 of the federal funding goes to the military. This is something that the founding fathers never could have imagined. Kurt Andersen mentions in Fantasyland “In 1980 a decision passingly noted that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to have a gun only if it bears “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.”

According to the Washington Post, the typical musket during the Revolutionary War and was available when the Constitution was written fired about 3 rounds per minute with an accuracy range of around 50 meters. The modern day AR-15 can fire around 45 rounds per minute with an accuracy range about 550 meters. The guns that we have today can cause more damage than would have ever been imaginable in the 18th century. So why are they so accessible? You can get them as young as 18 in some states and they are available in stores where you can also buy your groceries like Walmart. All you need is an ID. No mental health checks, background checks, or training classes.

According to CNN, as of November 22, there have been 607 mass shootings this year. " So far, 3,179 people have been shot in mass shootings, resulting in 637 deaths and more than 2500 injured." And the numbers are only rising. There have been 257 shootings on school campuses in the year 2022, with the most notable being Uvalde. 2022 is the worst year on record. According to Fantasyland, people buy semi-automatic rifles more than any type of gun. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that there were 45,222 firearm-related deaths from homicide, suicide, unintentional injuries, and police-involved shootings in the United States in the year 2020. ¼ people in America own a gun. Also, fewer than 8 million people or about 3% of Americans own about half the guns in the United States.

With all of this happening in our country it makes you think. Why does someone need an assault rifle? Kurt Andersen, the author of Fantasyland, believes that people want an AR because of the idea of owning and shooting one simply because of the fact that it makes them feel like a badass. One of the arguments for owning an assault rifle is for hunting purposes and they have been used for hunting in the past. However, hunting is not as prevalent in our society as it used to be. In recent years, only around 5% of people actually go hunting. So by using the argument for keeping assault rifles around for hunting reasons, its not a strong argument because of the 95% of people who don’t hunt. 

We are all familiar with conspiracy theories. I’m sure we have all had our fair share of scrolls deep into the internet and we come across them. Some are compelling and have a fair amount of evidence while others it seems like people thought of it while they may have been on some questionable substances. The subject of school shootings has a number of conspiracies surrounding it. The recent-ish case of Alex Jones and his defamation trial is a prime example. Many of these conspiracies are made by right-wing conservatives to diminish the left’s fight for stricter gun laws. Alex Jones being one of them. He believed that the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 was staged and put on by actors. Alex Jones did not win the defamation trial and is now required to pay nearly a billion dollars to the families of the victims of Sandy Hook. The families of the victims were harassed and given death threats by the supporters of Jones’ conspiracy. Some had gotten so bad that the victims of the families had to move because they were being harassed at their own home and places of work. There was also another theory proposed by Qanon that the Uvalde Elementary Shooting was also completely staged. Conspiracy theories like this are incredibly harmful and disrespectful to the victims of these terrible shootings and their families. It also does in fact hurt the argument for stricter gun laws. 

Gun violence does not only cost people their lives but it also costs a great deal of money. When 1200 American adults were asked how they would help reduce gun violence in 1998, the average they were willing to donate was about $250 per year. These funds could reduce gun crime by about 30%. This is equal to about 24 billion dollars or about 1 million per gunshot injury. The total cost of gunshot injuries for crime is around 80 billion dollars per year. 

So, how do we combat the growing epidemic of gun violence? The most important thing is to vote. It is critical to vote those into power who will use their position to enact positive reform. There is also a stigma around mental health especially with men that make people feel like they can't seek help. This could cause them to lash out in other ways causing harm to themselves or others. This is why it is important to end the stigma around seeking help for mental illness. You also should always be aware of your surroundings. If someone shows aggressive behavior or has a history of violence, you should report them to someone who can give them the proper help. 

SAMHSA Distress Helpline: 1-800-985-5990

Pragmatism And Religion By William James

 William James is a well-renowned American philosopher. He was born on the 11^th of January 1842, and died at the age of 68 on the 26^th of August, in the year 1910. Due to his contributions and helping bring philosophy to America he was known as the father of American Philosophy. Spending most of his career at Harvard, he studied to become a physician, but he ended up not practicing medicine. Instead, he opted to study psychology and then would go on to study Philosophy where he establishes pragmatism alongside many other important contributions to philosophy. Here is a good video on William James and the impact he leaves on people. Now I have gone through and highlighted the quotes and evidence throughout the text.

Now, we must define what pragmatism is to have a clearer understanding of this lecture by William James. According to the oxford dictionary and other articles, “Pragmatism is an approach that assesses the truth of the meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application”. Meaning that truth is directly linked to an approach’s success. Or in other words, if it works, then it must be true. While this is a general idea, in pragmatic belief truth isn’t always absolute, it can be modified depending on the outcome. Pragmatism and its definition is also discussed in the second lecture.  While I may not be the best explainer of what pragmatism is here is a video better demonstrating it!!

Pragmatism and Religion is a lecture in a series of lectures by William James. In this said lecture, James describes pragmatism’s effects on the possibility of religion. While many believe religion and pragmatism can’t go hand in hand due to pragmatism typically stemming from action IE physical evidence James to an extent, thinks otherwise. According to the lecture James rejects the notion of religion being compatible with a monistic faith opting instead for a more pluralistic faith. From what I interpreted, for a religion to be programmatic, it must have a possibility of existing. You can neither deny nor fully agree to its existence, so by that definition, it can be pragmatic. This leads to what William James was stating, for a religion to be pragmatic it must be pluralistic because you cannot deny or confirm its existence. While that in itself isn’t a strong enough argument, the comfort that comes with a belief is reason enough to continue to believe for most people. William James believes as long as you are happy and let others live the way they want to, then that would be what is considered a pragmatic belief. 

What are Monistic and pluralistic beliefs you ask? Monistic beliefs are “not a religion or a faith per se. Instead, it is a metaphysical way of looking at the world. Monism holds that everything in the universe is really part of one substance or one nature. A monistic religion would hold that there is a god and that all of creation is really part of that god.” An example of a Monistic faith would be Hinduism, believing that everything is part of Brahman. An all-encompassing deity/the only correct one. While pluralistic beliefs typically mean “the belief that people who embrace different and even conflicting religious views can and should seek to live in harmony with one another while celebrating each other’s religious distinctives. Typically, those who identify as pluralists reject the notion that any one religious ideology is right or best.” Which essentially means accepting all religions, but that does not mean believing in one specific religion to be correct or true.

Now according to the text, William James states, “You will probably make your own ventures severally. If radically tough, the hurly-burly of the sensible facts of nature will be enough for you, and you will need no religion at all. If radically tender, you will take up with the more monistic form of religion: the pluralistic form, with its reliance on possibilities that are not necessities, will not seem to afford you security enough.” essentially stating do what makes you feel best, whether you would be considered as a tough-willed person for not needing religion at all to feel comfort or a more tender person for being monistic. Maybe you are in the middle like everyone else, where a pluralistic way of going about life will work just fine and there is no need for absolute certainty just acknowledging the possibility. Being pluralistic is the only way to bridge between rational and irrational beliefs. He talks about this in his Lecture 1 and gives examples of both kinds of people.  This leads to the hallway example that William James talks about, a hallway with many doors, each door leading to a different belief: with the hallway being the place everyone regardless of their beliefs, can exist peacefully.

In conclusion, William James’s view on pragmatism and religion is to do what makes you feel most comfortable. But he still acknowledges that the best/most pragmatic approach is a pluralistic approach. Now to summarize it wall with a quote from the man himself “Between the two extremes of crude naturalism on the one hand and transcendental absolutism on the other, you may find that what I take the liberty of calling the pragmatistic or melioristic type of theism is exactly what you require.” 

• Here are some discussion questions feel free to answer in the comments
• What does religion mean to you? Does it serve a purpose in your life?
• What form of religion do you believe in monistic or pluralistic?
• Do you agree with William James's pragmatic views on religion?

- By Abanoub Sayed

Rise of the Red Anti-Vaxxers (Cason Neill #11)

ALERT: The Anti-Vaccination movement has found a new host. 

The Anti-Vaccination Movement became prevalent centuries ago as a small population of ignorant and radically religious people. After decades of scientific discoveries and easier access to education, the vast majority of Americans trusted modern medicine. The trend of vaccinated individuals was increasing steadily until the early 1980s when celebrities began to pump paranoia into mainstream media, claiming that vaccines administered to children caused them to mutate. An insurgence began and lasted about 25 years, and the Anti-Vaxxers were left to seemly die out. Then, COVID-19 was born.

After this moment, the entire roster changed. The Anti-Vaccination Movement, previously led by left-wing celebrities, was now made up almost entirely of right-wing conspiracy theorists. During the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, the vaccine need was more significant than ever. Pharmaceutical companies raced to create a safe and efficient vaccination. In less than a year, a vaccine was created and approved by the FDA.

Many conservatives were skeptical of the new vaccines, and because the vaccines were authorized under the Biden Administration, the right-wing skeptics vehemently rejected the vaccines. They also spun some pretty hilarious theories about the vaccines. 

The vaccine was a Bill Gates-funded project that sought to place trackable microchips within people.

The vaccine would make people magnetic.

The vaccine would alter the recipients' DNA. 

In Eula Biss's book "On Immunity: An Innoculation" she states, "The belief that public health measures are not intended for people like us is widely held by many people like me. Public health, we assume, is for people with less—less education, less-healthy habits, less access to quality health care, less time and money. I have heard mothers of my class suggest, for instance, that the standard childhood immunization schedule groups together multiple shots because poor mothers will not visit the doctor frequently enough to get the twenty-six recommended shots separately. No matter that any mother, myself included, might find so many visits daunting. That, we seem to be saying of the standard schedule, is for people like them."

Those were just some of my favorites. Even though it has been almost two years since the vaccine was first developed and proven successful, the right-wing conspiracy theorists have not abandoned their ridiculous claims. Nearly 20 percent of the United States population are still unvaccinated. Though they might not know it, these people are dangerous to themselves and others around them. Without vaccinations, they are susceptible to Covid-19 and can more easily transmit the virus. The Anti-Vaccination Movement might have found its forever home. 

William James's Pragmatic Conception of Truth

Exam 2 audio review

 Here's the audio review for our exam on Nov.29... LISTEN

The end is near

It's the last day of class (unless some of us choose to meet on Zoom next week). Seems like only yesterday, though it's actually a year to the day, since I posted this:

LISTEN. Back from Thanksgiving, it's time to wrap things up and send the classes of Fall 2021 out to meet their uncertain futures. The usual last words apply, there really are no fortunes to be told. There definitely is advice to be given, however. Do stay curious, kids, do keep asking questions. And do keep in touch... (continues)

Closing thoughts on the last class date of the Fall semester include HDT’s sunny words at the end of Walden. A morning atmosphere, at any time of day, is tonic. Wake up. Do something. Don't stare too long or hard at the light that would put out your eyes… https://t.co/rEcoCL1sRv

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) November 29, 2022

The Moral Equivalent of War by William James (Blalock #7)

The Moral Equivalent of War

 

Lethal dangers

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there's something new in our way of thinking - it's that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before. Carl Sagan

https://c.im/@science_quotes/109415183832855134

American Philosophy: A Love Story

 American Philosophy: A Love Story by John Kaag (Laney #11)

American Philosophy: A Love Story is a story written by John Kaag about himself. It follows his life during a 3 year period during which he falls out of love with American philosophy due to burn out and his first wife, and falls back in love with philosophy and Carol. His love for philosophy comes back upon his discovery of an old philosopher’s (William Ernest Hocking) library called West Wind. The book is full of happy, sad, funny, and inspiring moments, and of course, philosophy. It had many quotes and stories I enjoyed. I genuinely enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone that has an interest in philosophy as it would give back stories and facts about countless philosophers. 

This is the article that my presentation was based off of; How a Philosophy Professor Found Love

I wanted to share a few of the quotes I liked:

“He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had tried and failed.”- William James

“Where do we find ourselves? Experience.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The task of life is to transcend the past, to never remain where one starts, to find a place of one’s own.”- John Kaag 

“The lover widens his experience as the non-lover cannot. He adds to the mass of his idea-world, and acquires thereby enhanced power to appreciate all things.”- William Ernest Hocking; “There was a reason why Dante didn’t make the long journey toward Salvation all by himself, why Virgil and Beatrice had to accompany the poet. It’s because Salvation can’t be accomplished in isolation.”- John Kaag

“The most notable feature of the past is that it is irrevocable… unchangeable, adamantine, the safest of storehouses, the home of the eternal ages.”- Josiah Royce

As well as some of the ideas I found most interesting:

“Pragmatism holds that truth is to be judged on the basis of its practical consequences, on its ability to negotiate and enrich human experience.”

“Philosophy helps us make sense of life—to understand it, yes, but also to awaken us to its nuances and potentialities.”- Kaag on James’ interpretation of philosophy 

“The point of philosophy…was neither to sublimate self-interest nor to construct systems that keep people in check, but rather to awaken individuals to their own active minds and thereby make them pointedly aware of their moral duty.”- Kaag on Kant’s interpretation of philosophy 

“Framing the universe—and our estrangement from it—as a problem to be definitely solved has the unintended consequence of distracting us from our ongoing participation in what Marcel called the “mystery of being.”- John Kaag on Gabriel Marcel

This is a picture of Mount Chocorua, which is pretty important in the history of  American philosophy:

This book is heavily based on American philosophy and the origins of it. This led me to do my

own research and I found this video on the most prominent form of American

philosophy, Pragmatism,

which I thought was very good and informative: Pragmatism

Kaag talks about the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which he said

“This was the place where American intellectual life was to take root.”

This is a link to The Academy explaining their history

One of my favorite chapters from the book was called “Women in the Attic.” It was about women philosophers which I really like because upon my introduction to philosophy through class and readings, there is hardly any presence of women. One of the things Kaag discusses in the chapter in the Hull House founded by Jane Addams. She won a Nobel prize in 1931, making her the first American woman to do so. This is a link is to a short biography on Addams’ life.

On the topic of women, the following chapter is about Agnes Hocking, William Hocking’s wife. In history she was portrayed as subordinate and subservient to her husband. In reality, this was just a result of her time and she did lead her own life. Agnes had her own school called the Shady Hill School. It was a Montessori style school hosted at the Hocking’s house. Here, Agnes did not use textbooks and preferred that the children be acquainted with original literary sources, including Homer and Shakespeare. The chapter was inspired by May Sarton’s, I Knew a Phoenix. This is an article version of Sarton’s memoir

"Be Not Afraid of Life"

John Kaag's new anthology of William James's writing...

Engage

"We want to be a place for passionate engaged discussion. But we don't want to be a place where people insult each other." Like a good classroom.

https://c.im/@osopher/109404687849657439

Transcendence

"I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of creation. With all respect to heaven, the scene of the miracle is here, among us." 

https://c.im/@osopher/109410052978152108

What Makes a Life Significant?

 

    In his lecture on “What Makes a Life Significant”, James talked about a lot of things that could have an impact on the significance of a life, evidences if you will, and I am going to go over the few main contenders.

 

According to James, ideals are something intellectually conceived, and it must have a novelty to it according to the person who holds that ideal. James describes an ideal as something subjective, as they are “relative to the lives that entertain them” (James). Anyone can have as many ideals as they want, but the amount should be simplified and
easy to follow, otherwise this person risks being contemptible.

 

The first definition of ideal is, “a conception of something in its perfection,” or the way something should be. This is reminiscent of the World of Forms, Plato’s philosophy. There can be a standard of perfection for anything: the ideal school, government, life, pet, house, job, etc. There are general societal standards for perfection and there are personal standards for perfection. Ideals are similar to values in the way that they can be personal or impersonal. Groups have values and people have values, often a revised version of the values around them or lack thereof. James describes ideals as relative to the person, which implies the more personal definition of ideals, ideals that are unique to each individual based on their experience.

 

James says that education enlarges our horizons and multiplies our perspectives, which in turn multiplies our ideals and brings new ones to our attention. This reminds me of the presentation I just heard on James’ Pragmatism Lecture 7. It seems he is equating ideals to truths in saying that education multiplies our ideals and brings new ones to our attention, similar to how he stated that we can have an ever-adapting understanding of truth.

 

In reality, as we all have experienced, things are not perfect. Instead, they are ever changing, and that change and imperfection adds depth, meaning, and significance to our lives.

 

Change is not inherently bad, but it makes adaptation necessary. Simply put, it keeps things interesting. When James talks about Chautauqua Lake, a seemingly perfect community, he concludes that the perfection of Chautauqua lead to a “flatness and lack of zest” (James). Quite a paradox, that we strive for such perfection and calmness and yet it is ultimately unsatisfying. James states that, “Even now, in our own country, correctness, fairness, and compromise for every small advantage are crowding out all other qualities. The higher heroisms and the old rare flavors are passing out of life,” (James).

 

Struggle is an inevitable part of life. One must have the values of courage and endurance to sustain oneself amid struggles. James states this as he moves on from ideals, recognizing that they are not the sole giver of significance to a life, “The more ideals a man has, the more contemptible, on the whole, do you continue to deem him, if the matter ends there for him, and if none of the laboring man's virtues are called into action on his part,—no courage shown, no privations undergone, no dirt or scars contracted in the attempt to get them realized. It is quite obvious that something more than the mere possession of ideals is required to make a life significant in any sense that claims the spectator's admiration,” (James) (emphasis added). 

 

One must be courageous through struggle and endure, and this endurance gives life significance because it is a testament to the effort that has gone on that the average passerby is unable to see. James wants us to look beyond the surface and think about other people’s lives and realize that they are just as complex as ours. This pluralistic view is very prevalent in his work, the idea that one should be as aware and accepting of other’s experiences as they are able.

 

Common toil is described as the hard work of those who have no other option. Those who must sell their strength for money, and not enough at that. The particular instance in which he uses this phrase is less applicable in our world now. Of course, construction work still exists, but in the modernity of our technological society, the majority of jobs offered are less labor intensive. Work also has more of a fair pay since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was introduced, after James’ death. Nevertheless, the concept that hard work has value is still important and observable today. 

 

An immediate example of this concept is visible in the work it takes to obtain a degree. One must put several years of work towards graded courses to get a degree that states that you are qualified to enter the workforce and what kind of education you have been given. Other examples could be cooking, reading, playing an organized sport, or dedicating you time to improving in an artistic discipline. Anything that we put our time towards is valuable and rewarding. With only so much time to spend, time itself is valuable and worth putting towards bettering oneself because that action and result will consequently have value. We give things value by working at them and choosing to believe this very action makes them valuable. 

 

In conclusion, James’ answer to “What makes a life significant?” is not precise or simple. There are many things that make a life significant, it must be a fusion of all the above reasons, because no single one can make a life significant. James says that we must employ sympathy, insight, and good will towards others because of the ideals that others have, and the toil, struggle, and change that they go through. James wants us to recognize that other people around us have a life just as complicated, demanding, and wonderful as we do, no matter how difficult it is for us to recognize and remember that. This argument reminds me of a word I heard about:

 

Sonder: noun. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

 

James was a defender of individual experience, and therefore a defender of the significance of life, as all the evidences he listed are things that come from an individual’s experience. 

 

In my own experience, I have been taught that my significance is intrinsic and given to me by God. I was taught that all humans are made in God’s image, and that He loves His creation. I have always had a hard time believing that I could do anything to make myself matter but knowing that God made me and loves me and has a purpose for me gave me new hope and strength to operate in this world where struggle and change are inevitable. It is my hope that you would not rely purely on your own experiences and strength to give yourself value but would accept the value that was given to you before time began, because there is so much peace in letting go and having faith in a God who loves you. A God who is omniscient, omnipresent, perfect, and always faithful. I believe that because our value is given to us by God, that only God’s standards define it. That nothing man says can take away the fact that we are made in God’s image.

 

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” John 3:17 ESV

 

“-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 ESV

 

God sent His Son Jesus to die and be resurrected to conquer our sins and redeem us if we choose to believe in Him. I am not naïve enough to think that this blog post will change your mind, but I am always open to conversations about this topic. I also recognize that you might be determined to find your significance elsewhere. I just want to bring to your attention another option, a source of hope and worth that will never fail because it is from the Lord and Savior of the world, not from the broken and hurting world that we live in.

 

Thank you.

Sydney Boyce

The varieties of student experience

 

Ingrate (& misanthrope)

Earth Now Has 8 Billion Humans. This Man Wishes There Were None.

…It is unclear how many adherents are in Mr. Knight's group, or what the extent of its reach is. After being largely underground, the group took off in popularity when Mr. Knight created a website in 1996. Text-heavy yet breezy, the site includes quotes from the philosopher Schopenhauer and cartoons by the artist Nina Paley, as well as arguments against procreation and for adoption. It has been translated into some 30 languages and remains a haven for many...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/climate/voluntary-human-extinction.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Happy thankful-for-matter day

A holiday devoted to gratitude is gratifying, even if you're not always grateful to be in the company of every member of your extended family. The old Stoic Emperor reminds me every morning to "think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." Or even just to tolerate, for a day or so.

It might sound like an odd thought at first, but shouldn't we be grateful for matter? 

As Teilhard de Chardin said, 

“Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.” 

And as William James said,

"To anyone who has ever looked on the face of a dead child or parent the mere fact that matter COULD have taken for a time that precious form, ought to make matter sacred ever after. It makes no difference what the PRINCIPLE of life may be, material or immaterial, matter at any rate co-operates, lends itself to all life's purposes. That beloved incarnation was among matter's possibilities." Pragmatism, Lecture III

And as Loyal Rue says, "it is appropriate that we feel grateful to matter..."

 

 Happy Thanksgiving!

How Standardization is Ruining our Education System - Delanney Hight

     If standardization hasn't ruined ruined our education system already, standardization will soon destroy it....

Dan Pink reveals that the keys to unlocking and sustaining intrinsic motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Having that kind of motivation will allow for flourishing creativity, students find meaning in their learning, and teachers can be innovative.... 

 .... Current education is in the opposite direction and we use the "if-then" rewards. Our education focuses on if the students score well on standardized tests, then they move to the next grade level or graduate. This current education is extrinsic motivation, where it will work for a short period, but isn't sustainable. Test scores are looked at as the number one determinant of achievement, but for me, just like others, don't score well on test but know the material. It's called bad test takers, but knowing the standardized material. The focus on standardization creates a teaching culture where creativity, exploration, and critical thinking is non-existent. 

"This entrenched system produces students that lack creativity, are fearful or failure, work extremely hard to follow directions, and are leaving schools with undesirable skills in a post-industrial society. Schools focus more on filling the minds of students with useless facts and knowledge as opposed to learning essential skills that can't be measured with a #2 pencil." 

Students from low income and minority group backgrounds, English language learners, and students with disabilities, are more likely to be denied diplomas, retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or unnecessarily put in remedial education programs. This ensures they will fall further behind than their peers. Many will drop out, with some ending up in the "school-to-prison pipeline." On the other hand, children from white, middle and upper income backgrounds are more likely to be placed in a "gifted and talented" or college preparatory programs where they are challenged to read, explore, investigate, think, and progress rapidly. 

To lean away from the negative consequences: narrowing curriculum, teaching to the test, pushing students out of school, driving teachers out of profession, undermining student engagement and school climate, cause major stress, and evaluate student performance without considering external factors.. we can use other methods like: careful observations and documentation of student work and behaviors by trained teachers is more helpful than a one-time-test. 

Earthset from Orion

NASA Spacecraft Finishes Its Close Encounter With the Moon

…Before the flyby, a camera on Orion provided sharp video of the moon growing ever larger as the spacecraft approached, capturing an earthset — the small blue marble of Earth slipping behind the big gray disk of the moon in the foreground… nyt

How Reading — Not Scanning, Not Scrolling — Opens Your Mind

Every day, we consume a mind-boggling amount of information. We scan online news articles, sift through text messages and emails, scroll through our social-media feeds — and that's usually before we even get out of bed in the morning. In 2009, a team of researchers found that the average American consumed about 34 gigabytes of information a day. Undoubtedly, that number would be even higher today.

But what are we actually getting from this huge influx of information? How is it affecting our memories, our attention spans, our ability to think? What might this mean for today's children, and future generations? And what does it take to read — and think — deeply in a world so flooded with constant input?

…

Ezra Klein Show

Thinking is pedestrian

"There is time enough for a stream of consciousness that flows at the pace of walking. All the parts of your life, all the time scales, smoosh together. This pace is a mode of being: the walking pace, pedestrian and prosy. Thinking is pedestrian. Aristotle’s Peripatetics: they talked things over while walking around the Lyceum, and their walking helped them to think. They felt that. I like the sweaty huff and puff of the uphill slogs, and the meticulous stepping of downhill, and every other part of walking. Of course I also like the rest stops, and setting camp, making dinner, wandering around, watching the sunset, lying down at night; I even like insomnia if it happens to strike me. I like it all. But what you do most of the day up there is walk. And I like that most of all."

"The High Sierra: A Love Story" by Kim Stanley Robinson: https://a.co/03iIPKF

Insist on happiness

How to give thanks in a screwed-up world

This time of year, despite all sorrows, I try to see the world the way my father did.

...Until mid-November, the daily temperatures in Nashville danced around in the 60s and 70s, even hitting 80 from time to time. There were still a few zinnias left in my pollinator garden, and every warm November day the butterflies found them — a beautiful question mark, several gulf fritillaries and cloudless sulphurs, a couple of monarchs, painted lady after painted lady. Not a leaf left on the maple trees, but the garden was full of painted ladies! I kept going outside to look at them. All day long I could not stop smiling.

I wasn't supposed to be happy about this scenario. It should not be 80 degrees in November, even here in the temperate Midsouth. Migrating butterflies like monarchs and painted ladies evolved to travel along a corridor of fall-blooming wildflowers, but wildflowers are mostly gone by November. If not for my zinnias, the butterflies would've starved. "We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator," said the United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, at COP27, the global climate conference, in early November. It was not an overstatement.

And yet I felt so happy about those butterflies, so happy there were still zinnias blooming in my flower beds. It felt wrong to be so happy when happiness arises from a source of great pain, but there I was, feeling both the joy and the pain anyway. My father would have understood...

Mr. Trump, of course, is far from absent. Several adherents of the big lie running to supervise state elections just lost their own elections, and that's a tremendous relief, but election denying is alive and well in the country despite its rebuke at the polls. Gerrymandering efforts to create artificially close elections are not disappearing either.

What voters want is transparently irrelevant to many of the officials charged to represent us, as the attorney general of Kentucky made clear last week. Voters in that state defeated a proposed anti-abortion amendment to its constitution, but the attorney general insists the vote "has no bearing" on its near-total abortion ban. Down here, Mr. Trump's movement is Glenn Close in the bathtub with a knife.

But it's Thanksgiving, and I'm determined not to think about that this week. I will think instead about my father and his insistence on happiness. I will let my whole heart fill up with gratitude for what is still breathtakingly beautiful about this weary, ragged world; for the many people who are fighting for our democracy; and for all the people I love.

I can't force polluting nations to work together to hold climate change to planet-surviving levels. I can't force Congress to work together for solutions to the economic inequities and information silos that separate us. But I can pull out my mother's recipe box and make a Thanksgiving feast. I can remember the loved ones who once shared this table and fill their seats with people whose loved ones are distant or otherwise missing. And I can be grateful for every single fantastic moment we have together.

A hard frost finally came to my garden last week, and the zinnias are gone now, along with all the butterflies. I am sorry to see them go, and I am trying not to interrogate my own gratitude for the days they had here. I tell myself it is not wrong to exult in the beauties that remain. I remind myself of the testimony of my father's whole life, of the truth he taught me — that loss and love will always belong to each other, that sorrow has always been joy's quiet twin. Margaret Renkl

The Gospel of Relaxation William James

William James begins the Gospel of Relaxation by explaining the Lang-James theory which states that "emotions are due to organic stirrings that are aroused in us in a reflex way by the stimulus of the object or situation." He continues by stating that "if we feel surprised by something, it is not necessarily the presence of the object, but how it makes us feel." He says "we feel sorry because we weep and we feel afraid because we run away." He believed that we should care about what we do, and not what we feel. He says "action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling which is not under the more direct control of the will." So he believes we can control our feelings. He says "to wrestle with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, and keeps it still fastened in the mind; whereas if we act as if from some better feeling, the old bad feeling soon folds its tent and silently steals away." To me, that sort of sounds like fake it 'til you make it. He was big on religion and believed that faith eliminates fear. He stated that "many religious texts state that we must let our feelings go and pay no regard to them." He quoted a book titled The Christians Secret to a Happy Life by Hannah Smith stating "it is your purpose god looks at, not your feelings about that purpose, and your purpose (or will) is therefore the only thing you need to attend to...let your emotions come or let them go, just as god pleases, and make no account of them either way...they really have nothing to do with the matter. They are temperament or of your present physical condition." He believes that faith is the cure for worry. He says that "tension and anxiety, and present and future, all mixed up together in our mind at once, are the surest drags upon steady progress and hindrances to our success." This statement reminded me of the saying "focus on the past and you will be depressed, focus on the future and you will have anxiety, but focus on the present and you will be fine." This also goes along with the quote from kung fu panda stating "yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift...that is why it is called the present." He goes on to say that "our actions and attitudes determine what our inner state should be." Part of the Lang-James theory talks about binnenliben which is a german word that means the buried life of human beings. He quoted a philosopher who said "this inner personal tone is what we can't communicate or describe articulateley to others, but the ghost of it is what our friends feel as our most characteristic quality." He says that the unhealthy mind consists mainly of regrets, and bodily discomforts, not distinctly localized by the sufferer, but breeding a general self-mistrust and sense that things are not as they should be with him. Whereas the healthy mind contains no fears or shames, only sensations that swell the general vital sense of security and readiness for anything that may turn up. He says that "many of us are living hurried lives." He says that "we are tired and need a break." He talked about an employer not knowing whether they could ask an employee to perform a task because he didn't want them to have a breakdown. He believed that people should go abroad because they worked too hard. He did this many times. He talked about the quality of our work when we are calm. One example he gave was scholars in a recitation room. He said that the scholars who were most rattled were the ones who performed poorly. Whereas the scholars who were indifferent to the information retained more and performed better. He described the feeling of bottled emotions that leads to anxiety or a breakdown as bottled lightning. He says that if we don't improve, the melancholic patient's mind will become sort of cramped on the painful emotions about himself of being guilty, doomed, and lost. He says that our thoughts can become a habit, but in everyone, a great or sudden pleasure may paralyze thought. He talked about someone who has just seen their favorite artist perform. He stated that if you ask them how they are, their mind will be cramped on the idea of how amazing the show was and that the only thing they will be able to think about is how great the show made them feel. He closed it off by giving advice to teachers and students. His advice to teachers was "prepare yourself so much in the subject that it is always on tap, then in the classroom, trust your spontaneity and fling away further care." His statement towards students was "as a bicycle chain, may be too tight, one's carefulness and consciousness may be so tense that it hinders the running of one's mind." His advice was "on the day before an exam, put the book down and trust in yourself, for you have heard this information and you are well prepared." He stated that worry leads to a loss of power and the cure is faith. 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16287/16287-h/16287-h.htm#I__THE_GOSPEL_OF_RELAXATION

Karissia Gonzalez #11