eat up, food for thought.
I've recently read a fair number of historical works for my US women's history class. Things like: an entire book of first hand accounts from diaries, court records, letters and labor-union meeting minutes ranging from the mid to early 1600s on through the latter half of the 19th century. I've come across literary expositions, love letters, midwives accounts, and theological musings on that ever elusive definition of free-man. How far does it go, and who's covered under that declaritive description have all be subject to philosophical delving. People are amazing creatures for both good and ill from what I've come to understand of things so far. What do you suppose the most written about thing I've come across in 20 years of school is? No really, take a guess. I'm curious to hear what kinds of themes you think are universal across time?
Later I'll follow up in a post on the kinds of findings that surprised me, made me cringe, and in some cases made me cry.
It always amazes me that the capacity to treat one another badly is still, through the course of human history, as pervasive and constant as it is. The concept of harm is so thoroughly disagreed upon, that ethics and morality seem to lose all context and meaning in the greater scheme of human nature.
How on earth can I or anyone else claim to have a sort of monopoly on "the truth" when I'm swimming in the vast sea of avarice and hope that the greatest minds on the planet have not fully figured out. What is the cost of human suffering, vs what it means to have greed and personal success, and then what makes tragedy for the individual is subjective. Is my willingness to obtain my personal goals tantamount to a measurable amount of inethicacy? Is the human drama beautiful? Is it terrifying, sad, glorious or all of them at once? You tell me, but don't just give me a nice, short, one sentence reply as to how you among the trillions of your fellow present and past compatriots have the answer when all the rest of us somehow just don't get it. Instead let me know how you're figuring some vastly tiny piece of the puzzle out as you go along. I want to know how your brains are coping with trying to see through the philosophical pea soup called life.
Eat up!
It's food for thought.
Later I'll follow up in a post on the kinds of findings that surprised me, made me cringe, and in some cases made me cry.
It always amazes me that the capacity to treat one another badly is still, through the course of human history, as pervasive and constant as it is. The concept of harm is so thoroughly disagreed upon, that ethics and morality seem to lose all context and meaning in the greater scheme of human nature.
How on earth can I or anyone else claim to have a sort of monopoly on "the truth" when I'm swimming in the vast sea of avarice and hope that the greatest minds on the planet have not fully figured out. What is the cost of human suffering, vs what it means to have greed and personal success, and then what makes tragedy for the individual is subjective. Is my willingness to obtain my personal goals tantamount to a measurable amount of inethicacy? Is the human drama beautiful? Is it terrifying, sad, glorious or all of them at once? You tell me, but don't just give me a nice, short, one sentence reply as to how you among the trillions of your fellow present and past compatriots have the answer when all the rest of us somehow just don't get it. Instead let me know how you're figuring some vastly tiny piece of the puzzle out as you go along. I want to know how your brains are coping with trying to see through the philosophical pea soup called life.
Eat up!
It's food for thought.