Responding to Ignorance

“Why learn?”

Because we need knowledge in order to find our purpose in life, if there is such thing.

“Okay, but why this specific set of knowledge? Why this curriculum? Why not learn stuff that’s realistic and applicable to the ‘real world’?”

Any set of knowledge ultimately goes back to a certain root, and everybody should learn those roots.

“Fine. So why is it important to ask ‘why are we here?’”

Because we can never really know the answer. That’s one of many purposes of life, one might argue, to find answers. But what answers? Isn’t the concept of ‘answers’ thought up by human beings as a solution? What is a solution? To solve problems? What are problems? Are some problems the solution for others?

Knowledge also stems happiness, but a level of happiness that is different from playing at the park or winning a ball game. What is happiness? Is happiness the ability to get what we want, or the ability to get what we think we want? Should we go with our brains, or our hearts, so to speak, or both?

Why is achieving a hedonistic nirvana important? And is there even such a thing? What about delayed gratification? Do the ends of the happiness of getting a good grade justify the means of studying hard, while one can play video games or go to clubs to instantly enjoy pleasure?

What about the notion of ‘I’? What am I? What makes me ‘me’? Am I genetically predisposed to act the way I am, or am I socialized, ever since I was born, to become a certain person?

Think of stand up comedy: why is that guy funny? Is it merely the things he says, or is it the manner in which he says it? But why is it funny? Is it the arrangement of words in a manner that arouses our comedic senses into believing that something is funny? But why don’t we think other things funny, even though they are also arranged in an odd manner? Is there a secret, like Derrida’s Double Reading, to understanding language, or is the study of language itself meaningless because everything has a different interpretation? (Listen to some Steven Wright, the most brilliant semantic deadpan comic of all time, and you’ll know what I mean.)

By this logic, is a nihilist way to look at life good? What is the point of meaning if meaning itself doesn’t mean anything? Is this overly relativistic? Are there no absolute truths?

If you’ve lasted this far and you’re still wondering ‘what the fuck is this guy talking about?’ That’s kind of my point. In this capitalist, so-called pragmatic world, we weight things according to their material value, too often are issues regarding meaning and morality placed aside. The result of such a trend is a shallow culture where money does all the talking. And if you still don’t understand why that’s a bad thing, read from the top again.

As the world economy crumbled and many are reconsidering their faith in the free-market capitalist system, the education curriculum (in high schools an universities alike) must embrace the arts and social sciences in order to explain how this society came to be and why we behave the way we do. Many would say that important figures such as politicians and company CEOs are screwing up worse and more often, and I refuse to believe that this cannot be explained.

The emergence of the civil society can ultimately be attributed towards philosophy, and I’d be hard-pressed to believe that people nowadays do not care for this field of study. A slight bit of motivation to explore the subject is all that is required for philosophy to make a massive comeback.

To anyone who might be interested in philosophy, all you really need to do is look up some famous philosophers, classical and contemporary, read a bit of what they have to say, and inevitably, you will find that the views of one thinker suits you and you will want to read more, and on to Chapters / Amazon.com you go.

Here is a one way to do this: I know that some of the classical stuff like Plato and Aristotle can be a bit dry. What you can do is read some of the contemporary philosophers first, such as Peter Singer, Slavoj Zizek, and Michael Ignatieff (yes, Iggy.), and think that “wow, these guys are nuts!” (‘nuts’ isn’t necessarily bad, by the way) and then look up the previous generation of philosophers whom these guys refer to, such as Hegel, Sartre, and Foucault (and Locke, Hume, and Machiavelli before them), you will find that not only are they just as crazy, but you should also notice that one generation of philosophers builds on the previous one in discussing similar topics, and expands them in mind-blowing ways.

Speaking of which, John Locke, ‘Desmond’ David Hume, Jeremy Bentham… Lost fans might already recognize these names.

You can also check out “Examined Life”, a documentary film directed by Astra Taylor, who conducts thought-provoking interviews with a number of contemporary philosophers (the tagline for the film is “Philosophy is in the streets”).

Studying philosophy can especially humble a person; it shows how little we know about things, even about ourselves. But even you’re someone who thinks he knows everything about himself, the concept of ‘knowing about yourself’ is…

Okay, I’ll shut up now.