What is the ideal society?

 A common theme that runs though ancient and modern societies is the idea that, if isolated and handled properly, humankind can life in a more harmonious and fulfilling way than we typically do today.  History is filled with the stories of Utopian groups who have conceived of a way to live where all aspects of life may be different than world from which they have come, but the new "order" leads to better lives better lived.

I came across Thomas More's Utopia recently, which sparked my thinking.  If you Google it you will come across the Wiki summary, which is not bad.  I encourage you to find a copy of the English translation and read it.  I direct you to a chapter called, A Day In Utopia, in which More outlines the basic way of life for the people living there, and points out the advantages of the new way of living.  Along the way he points out that the basic problem with normal society is that it is based on the principle that The Rich Get Richer, and the Poor Get Poorer.  It was first published in 1516, in Latin, in Belgium.   He was hanged for heresy in 1535.

You remember Ralph Waldo Emerson, of course.  His Transcendentalists formed a utopian compound in the Concord, MA area in the 1820's.  It ran out of food in the first winter and didn't really succeed.  If you get a chance to read any of the accounts of the group and how they operated, it was a real collection of special people.  One guy would not wear clothes and would only eat crackers, for example.

The most successful group of that time was John Noyes' quasi-religious community in Oneida NY in the 1850's.  It persisted until a tornado almost wiped it out in 1878, but it exists today as the flatware company Oneida Ltd.  I don't think there remains the sort of living arrangement Noyes set out in his original vision (read about it and you will see just how different it was).  He had some strong feelings about sex, I can tell you.

Jim Jones and his band of religious zealots who "drank the Kool-Aid" in Guyana in the 1970's are another kind of societal group seeking to create a new way of living.  For many years we had the garlic-growing Love Isreal group in Arlington.  Remember them?

So, the question to be discussed is, What is the Ideal Society?  What sort of norms and values need to be shared in common to make one successful?

What is Becoming? What is Being?

One of the most reliable participants of this blog, Michelle, sent me an excerpt from Appendix G of Abraham Maslow's "Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences".  I believe this is the same Maslow who developed the Hierarchy of Need.  Anyway, this excerpt dealt with his attempt to describe the characteristics of Being, what he calls B-Values.   This got me to thinking...

I find that I need to sync with the “voice” the writer uses, especially when reading philosophy.  When I started reading the section, at first I thought I wasn’t going to make it.  Choppy sentences, half statements, and repeated phrases all leave me cold, often.  When I got to the 14 points and he offers what is essentially a “definition by thesaurus” I needed to scan ahead to see if it was going to make any sense.  I then went back and read through the words, and I started to get into his head a bit. 

The Becoming/Being process isn’t intuitive for most people, and it took me a long time to take the concept seriously.   The final paragraph in this section deals with this, of course.  Joining with the universe on a primal level and being fully human are not my personal definitions for Being, but they are certainly lofty ideals.  My favorite statement in this arena is “become who you are”.  This is the essence of Becoming, to me.  I believe that when we are in harmony with our personal essence, we can just Be, as in Be Ourselves.  This is Being.  Becoming and Being.  Finding harmony in our essences.

I looked up the origin of Becoming, and found this:

In the philosophical study of ontology, the concept of becoming originated in ancient Greece with the philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who in the sixth century BC, said that nothing in this world is constant except change and becoming (i.e., everything is impermanent).

As usual, all of modern philosophy is but a footnote to the Greeks.

What is fear?

This past Sunday we listened to a TED Talk speaker talk about fear ("What fear can teach us" by Karen Thompson Walker).  She proposed that fear was a narrative we tell ourselves that might have bad outcomes, which creates anxiety in us which we interpret as fear.  By re-casting the narrative we can convert our fears into opportunities, she posits.  She provides several stories as fear narratives to demonstrate how this works.

If Socrates were to tackle this topic, how would he do it?  I am not aware that he did, in any of the dialogues, but someone with more time to search this out might find it.  A quick Google comes up with very little from Socrates, except the fear of death question he was asked after his sentence was handed down by the elders of Athens.  Fear has been studied by others, and a review of their concepts might be in order for our discussion.

Socrates responds: For to fear death, gentlemen, is nothing other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. For no one knows whether death might not be the greatest of all goods for a human being, but people fear it as if they knew well that it is the greatest of evils.

Socrates replied that it was because of the immortality of the soul that death was no evil. The purpose of philosophy was to free the soul by guiding it to the eternal truths, and so when death came, it was a liberation. The body, he asserted, was a messy pit of passions and rude cravings. 

I feel that fear might be broken into categories.  Precognitive fears (fear of heights, fear of spiders), and cognitive fears (fear of failure, fear of death) are 2 that jump out at me. If we can think about something that creates anxiety within us, and we can identify the key element causing this anxiety, can we name the key element as the thing we fear?

The lines between psychology and philosophy might become blurred with fear as the discussion topic, so come prepared to share your insights with an open mind.  My goal is not to reduce or rid anyone of their fears, but to hold them up to the light for an examination of the processes that create them.  Watch the TED Talk again.  Search TED Talks that might be on a similar or related topic, and if you fine one, please leave the link in the comments below.

August 14 BQ Topic

Socrates hated democracy.  He hated it because 1 man, 1 vote sounded like mob rule to him, and mobs did not act in their own best interests.  They were swayed by orators, not facts, and orators (whom he called sophists) would argue for any cause someone was willing to pay them to argue for.  They didn't have to believe what they were saying, only be clever with their words.

The best form of government is a philosopher king, in Socrates' opinion.  A wise, philosophically-minded monarch with complete control, making decisions in the best interests of all the citizens of the realm, and able to compel compliance.  Think Solomon, only smarter.  Not affected by popular opinion, or being swayed by rhetoric alone.  Able to see the true issue and understand it.  

What form of government is best, in your opinion?  

The BQ Question for 7/24/2020

I know this comes late, but I wanted to offer a few words for folks that might be interested in the topic tonight.

How does life stick each of us into roles we may or may not like to be stuck into?

Christopher Phillips tackles this question in Socrates Cafe, and I think there is a lot of latitude to discuss this, from positive and maybe negative angles. 

Hope to see you tonight!

Big Question Version 2.0 - Virtual Space

Looking back though the 69 posts I've made on this blog, I see they began on January 21, 2010. I was much more reliable as a blogger early on, and I skipped some entire years, but the good things about blogspot.com are that it is free and they don't kick you off for not adding to your page. So here I go starting up again.

Firstly, thank you for visiting. I am no deep thinker but I like to tinker with philosophy. And every person I know who has a philosophical tendency likes to talk about it with others, hence the need for a blog and for meetings. I hope we can all develop our understanding together.

For the record, January 2010 is not when I started doing this. I started having discussion groups at EUUF in about 1998, I think. They started being held at the Fellowship at first, but switched to my house so we could more comfortably add dinner and wine, and have more comfy chairs to sit in. So in that respect I trace the lineage of Big Questions back for maybe 22 years or so. And in that much time I've had the pleasure to lead discussions of certain questions several times. Practice makes perfect!

I've tried having questions prepared, including readings and pre-meeting homework. That never worked, though. People would rather come and just sit and listen, or talk in response to what someone else said. "Real" philosophers like to build arguments, cite elements of logic, or do thought experiments that prove or disprove some part of the topic. Big Questions didn't ever seem to go in that direction.

The virtual BQ we did a couple of weeks ago was far better for keeping on track. Maybe people are getting comfortable talking to one another in virtual space now, since that seems to be the only safe and reliable way to communicate. In a sense, we have all willingly become the proverbial "brain in a jar" in cyberspace, reduced to only our visage on a screen. Maybe we should resurrect the movie The Matrix and re-examine some of the philosophical issues that underlie it. We are living a Matrix Life, it seems.

As this moves forward feel free to post questions we can all ponder, and then discuss in an upcoming session. I have resources and I’m not afraid to use them!

Starting Up Again

Hello Fellow Big Questioners!

After a time off, we are starting Big Questions back up again.  It will be held on Friday, Sept. 21, at our home.  It starts at 6:30 with a pot luck dinner, with a discussion to follow starting at 8:00.  The 90 minute time is a great time to meet everybody, check in and mingle, and share a glass of wine if you like.  As for the pot luck, bring a favorite dish to share.  We will make a dinner out of whatever shows up.  That is Luck part of it.

We will select the topic at the start of the discussion time.  People often come with a topic in mind.  I prefer questions formed in the Socratic Style, of "What is ...?"  What is justice?  What is happiness?  What is truth?  That sort of thing. 

Remember, this is a philosophy group, and not a political one.   Get any questions about politics worked out of your system during dinner, and come in a contemplative mood.  The chairs and couches are very comfortable, and quite naps are OK as long as you don't snore loudly.

Kids are OK to come.  We can turn them loose downstairs to play on the stuff we have there, including a TV we can't hear upstairs.  And we have high speed WiFi if they want to bring their own devices.  (I think there might be a BQ in there somewhere...)

Judy and I are looking forward to having you attend.  Drop me a line or respond to this blog if you have a question ahead of time.