Or will they excoriate us, as short-sighted and selfish Oncelers?"...we're gonna be like him! I mean, he was probably one of the BEAUTIFUL people. He was probably dancing and playing tennis and everything. And now look: this is what happens to us. You know, it's very important to have some kind of personal integrity, you know? I'll be hanging in a classroom one day, and I want to make sure when I thin out, that I'm... well-thought of." Manhattan
Bertrand Russell was asked, late in his life, to articulate a message for future generations. He told them to value facts above wishes (Always ask "what is the truth that the facts bear out?") and love over hate ("love is wise, hatred is foolish").
What would be Immanuel Kant's (or Susan Neiman's) and William James's (or John Kaag's) messages? Presumably, based on our reading in CoPhi of Why Grow Up? and Sick Souls, Healthy Minds, something about enlightened maturity and life's possible (but not guaranteed) worthiness to be lived.
My message would certainly be along those lines. I hope people in the future will value thinking for themselves (in the Kantian sense of Sapere aude!) I hope they'll find life worth living. And I hope they'll forgive us.
And what will future generations' message be, to us? I hope they'll say we were "good ancestors," that they're grateful people in the '20s (Americans in particular) recoiled from "Peak Fantasyland" and began at last to really value truth, facts, and reality.
Will the view from 2050 be anything like the following?
"We are all now stuck in a science fiction novel that we are writing together." Kim Stanley Robinson
Responding here to just those last two questions, it's clear that bread and circuses have long distracted too many of us. They've led us deep into Fantasyland. The way up and the way down are not the same, Heraclitus. Prolonged consensual commitment to truth, facts, and reality are our only way out.
My message would certainly be along those lines. I hope people in the future will value thinking for themselves (in the Kantian sense of Sapere aude!) I hope they'll find life worth living. And I hope they'll forgive us.
And what will future generations' message be, to us? I hope they'll say we were "good ancestors," that they're grateful people in the '20s (Americans in particular) recoiled from "Peak Fantasyland" and began at last to really value truth, facts, and reality.
"...seven trillion people will be born over the next 50,000 years.
How will all these future generations look back on us and the legacy we're leaving for them?
...A global movement has started to emerge of people committed to decolonizing the future..."
"We knew that we needed to save the planet and that we had all the technology to do it, but people were scared. They said it was too big, too fast, not practical. I think that’s because they just couldn’t picture it yet..."
Responding here to just those last two questions, it's clear that bread and circuses have long distracted too many of us. They've led us deep into Fantasyland. The way up and the way down are not the same, Heraclitus. Prolonged consensual commitment to truth, facts, and reality are our only way out.
And finally, William James's really vital question remains: "What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?" And his final rhetorical question (noted last week) still conveys deep wisdom: "What has concluded, that we may conclude in regard to it?" So this course's legacy, I hope, is the will to keep asking questions. The conversation continues.
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