human nature

The unexamined life, we are told, is not worth living. This question bites because , err, that's what you're supposed to be doing, isn't it? But you can't take academia too seriously, what with its narrow concerns, 'deconstructions', childish egotism and cleverness, one-sidedness, and tendency toward generalizations, abstractness, flatness, its overemphasis on "problems" and problem-solving.

Immediately you will say to yourself that in all honesty perhaps what was lacking was the quality of reflection in the first place-and this predisposes you to a certain answer; as if to say, your lack of ability or desire to think things through to the end, this instinctive Kashmiri laziness, inclines you to think that too much reflection is somehow suspect. But let us put this first thought to one side, since it's not clear that such observations will take us very far. And 'ideal' thought, rationality, not yours, b.

So, what's at stake here? Only life!...or a certain notion of life, a way of living. Self-reflectiveness, then, this monkish fleeing from the world, the second turning inwards (Hannah). If experience is a mode of consciousness ("it's all in the mind") then what value can be given to the life of the virtuous peasant? Is there not a degree of contempt here for ordinary pleasures, non-specialised languages and particular ways of living? And what to say, then, of musicians, sportsmen and women, artists, who undoubtedly possess a type of intelligence but do not "think" about their work in a self-conscious way?; isn't the work itself an expression of their intelligence?

In a similar vein, one is sceptical of a theory of ethics, the idea that through greater knowledge we will be better people. Really begs the question: is seeing, right-seeing, enough to be good? (aesthetics and ethics?) Are we magnetically drawn to it or do we often fall, stumble, 'make our way'? The background work that is required, the attention to details, that can go on silently, and the importance of being in touch with sources of value, refuges, points of contact, "bridges" (Simone) . The discipline to not let 'oneself go'...what the Red Man would call 'character'.

We enact morality.

What is inner here, what is outer?

Either I am the world, or the world is everything.

Haven't we moved on from here, though? The 'self' and identity, we are told, is really a fiction, something that is 'constructed' or dependent on public recognition. Human nature? What is that but a remnant of metaphysical thinking? What we 'are' is a chance agglomeration of points (matter -in-motion) or fleeting impressions. The existence, autonomy, and dignity of the 'I' has dissolved under the relentless pressure of history, science, sub-conscious forces. The isolated will in a blind world of mechanism, says the modern gnostic. But this removal of the ego, let us remember, was not a spiritual achievement.