Answer post #9
You Otta Be an Intellectual!
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Answer post #9
Admiral and Mercury
I think that today's pop-culture does require more decision making than past cultures but these decisions are matters of trivial pursuit and are very short term.
This pop-culture is a culture of 'instant gratification' without substance or a sense of responsibility.
I think that today's pop-culture does require more decision making than past cultures but these decisions are matters of trivial pursuit and are very short term.
This pop-culture is a culture of 'instant gratification' without substance or a sense of responsibility.
Post #9 contains no questions. It consists entirely of assertions. If you want answers, ask questions.
Now please answer my questions in post #5, which as you can tell by the numbering came before your post #9.
[edited because I'm still not sure exactly what you're on about]
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Admiral
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Read the book. I'm serious. He addresses the myth of "instant gratification." Try and find me examples of instant gratification in actual popular culture, not in sound bites from "experts," and you'll have a hard time.
Think about video games. Ever played them seriously? Do you have any idea how much patience they require and how frustrating they can be? The content might be stupid, but the actual structure of the game is one of the patient search for distant goals.
Imagine SimCity, for example, an EXTREMELY popular computer game. If it were true that this were a culture of instant gratification, you'd expect that at the start of the game you'd be an omnipotent mayor whose people always paid their taxes. Not a chance. You build up the city over a very long time, growing the population very slowly, and as you progress through the game you are permitted more and more options of buildings to construct (you can't build a stadium until you have 50,000 people, you can't build a space station, or whatever, until you have 200,000 people...) The Sims, in a similar way, requires the user to work his way up the corporate ladder very, very slowly, and with all sorts of challenges along the way. The simple promise of future success manages to keep users glued to the screen for days. Hardly instant gratification.
You might say that SimCity and the Sims, although they are two extremely popular games, are an exception. Not a chance. Strategy games like Age of Empires and Civilization require individuals to spend a long time strategizing on the best ways to farm and build up gold and other resources, spending hours to build up an army that has only three minutes of gratification when you finally attack with this huge army and wipe out your opponent.
What about first person games, you ask? Surely they're just mindless killing sprees? Nope- look at games like World of Warcraft and Diablo II. Players spend weeks, or even months, building up their level by training and seeking out objectives, all just so that sometime in the distant future, they can be that high level that they're dreaming of and wear the famed Battlecloak of Elvenwood or whatever.
Even first person violent games like Grand Theft Auto involve long term strategy. The player has to complete a series of puzzles to reach new areas of the city, and they're happy to do this for hours. Sure, the puzzles involve stealing cars and picking up prostitutes- but he's not focusing on the subject matter, he's focusing on what the brain does. The brain forced to wait a very, very long time for its reward. If this video game were about instant gratification, it would allow the user free reign over the entire city immediately, since according to you today's generation is all about getting things quickly and easily.
I'd like you to name a few hobbies of yours that are less instantly gratifying than the games I just listed. And it doesn't stop at games- the book goes into television and cinema as well, in extremely convincing detail.
Read it- you'd be surprised. Today's buzzwords like "instant gratification" are really kinda meaningless and unsupported.
Imaginative
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I think more emphasis should be put on teaching phlosophy in schools, the earlier we can get kids interested in the big questions, the greater chance we will have of producing the next generation of thinkers.
I just wish they had taught Philosophy when I was at school, it not only teaches you to question things but also how to form strong arguments.
I just wish they had taught Philosophy when I was at school, it not only teaches you to question things but also how to form strong arguments.
The answer to #4 is contained in #9.
Admiral
It is conincidental that I was watching C-Span interviewing a group of high school teachers and two of them commented that instant gratification was their major complaint with today's youth. I must admit that everything I know about the clture verifies that. I will have to read your book.
It is conincidental that I was watching C-Span interviewing a group of high school teachers and two of them commented that instant gratification was their major complaint with today's youth. I must admit that everything I know about the clture verifies that. I will have to read your book.
The schools are in fact doing that on a scale that I am not sure of. The schools have begun teaching Critical Thinking that I consider to be 'philosophy light'.
sphenisc
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That very much depends on the philosophical content and how it's taught. Coberst's comment about "Critical Thinking" being "Philosophy-light" is somewhat relevant here; the ability to think critically and to form coherent arguments are only a part of philosophical tradition, and in some fields, something of a disfavored redheaded stepchild at that.
Much of "Postmodernism" and "Theory" that was recently popular, for example, taught stduents to question things, but not how to obtain or interpret answers -- it's essentially reflexive nihilism disguised behind word games. I've also seen courses on "Christian Philosophy" that were essentially warmed-over fundamentalist apologetics, where the strength of an argument was related to how many biblical ideas you could sneak in without actually citing chapter and verse.
Furthermore, teaching "Philosophy" in schools will of necessity require relaxing the requirements to take other courses. One of the key failures in much philosophical education today, up to and well past the Ph.D. level is that "philosophers" manage only to achieve a sort of stately ignorance about the fields that they are supposed to be questioning (witness the "social constructionists" who deny the role of empirical evidence in evaluating scientific hypotheses). I would really, really, hate to have my children taught "philosophy" by someone who hearkens back to a golden "Age of Enlightenment" that never existed in the form that he imagines it....
Admiral
Commander of the Fleet of Justice
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Incidentally, you can see my avatar at the top of that screen. I stole it from one of those Lost sites...
Anyway, that is something that is great about Lost- just by naming a few characters after famous philosophers, it convinces thousands of people to look them up and discuss them on websites. It reminds me of how Fonzie got a library card one episode of Happy Days, and library membership in the country went up 500%.
And, incidentally, Coberst, the appeal of the show Lost shows that "instant gratification" is bogus- the show intentionally creates dozens of mysteries that constantly frustrate viewers, but keep them coming back.
The only real "instant gratification" in our current culture is microwavable food and fast internet connections. When it comes to most of our popular culture, we like things that challenge and confound us. Those teachers grew up during the era of "Happy Days"- do you think Happy Days was a tenth as complicated as even the relatively simple shows out there?
I could go on for a while, but the book does a much better job. Check it out!
l0rca
I know so much karate
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Admiral, about that statement I made on books, it was out of context. I see what you mean.
The book sounds like it's interesting, but it doesn't sound like you have to read it to glean the same information from free resources, such as yourself. I tend only to read books I feel I can't easily understand any other way (such as physics, programming languages, dictionaries, and grammar), or because of the power of the writer (literature).
But you've pretty much sold me on the thrust of the book's argument.
The book sounds like it's interesting, but it doesn't sound like you have to read it to glean the same information from free resources, such as yourself. I tend only to read books I feel I can't easily understand any other way (such as physics, programming languages, dictionaries, and grammar), or because of the power of the writer (literature).
But you've pretty much sold me on the thrust of the book's argument.
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Admiral
Commander of the Fleet of Justice
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Hahaha, I follow. I generally read to pass the forty minute train ride on my way to and from work. But I sometimes read books that turn out to be fascinating and change some deep-held beliefs, and I'm obligated to recommend them to others.
Anyway, I'll let the real thread go on.
I less than three logic
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Why would you want to do that? The real thread seems quite boring. 
From the OP I got the impression coberst was saying we should value learning for the sake of learning. In which case, I agree with Meffy, in that he's preaching to the choir.
From the OP I got the impression coberst was saying we should value learning for the sake of learning. In which case, I agree with Meffy, in that he's preaching to the choir.
l0rca
I know so much karate
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Why would you want to do that? The real thread seems quite boring.
From the OP I got the impression coberst was saying we should value learning for the sake of learning. In which case, I agree with Meffy, in that he's preaching to the choir.
Yeah.
The idea back then, the Renaissance man, is just not applicable today. Back then it was possible to be an apt intellectual in all fields of studies. You could have the math, the philosophy, artistic taste, be able to sail and fire a gun, and ride a horse. Nowadays you can't learn everything we know. It's smarter these days to pursue that which you love, and learn about the rest.
There's a interconnection to many of our studies and pursuits, but there is much we lack between us to call ourselves apt in each other's fields. We have too much to learn. Hell, I'll give mad props to anyone who can run quantum calculations, write elegantly, and then fix your car, and fly in a plane. But can that same person be as skilled in politics? Psychology? Know how to perform surgery? Tell you which archeologically uncovered bones represent what species?
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I am not asking for an answer to post #4, which was made not by me but by you. I am asking for an answer to post #5.
So you won't have to scroll back, here's the part you have not addressed.
As Claus is so fond of saying, "Evidence?"
You have not answered the part of #5 (Meffy) that ended it (concerning your belief re: current intellectuals). Not in # 4, not in #9 and not.in anything beteen #9 and the number I got the quote from.
Your choice to answer it or not, of course, but you definitely have not done so yet.
I don't watch lost for the reason that the so-called puzzles on the show annoy and bore me. Primarily because my response to that situation would involve killing things until I am killed or released (that's also my response to the equivalent: having a family member or equivalent person of value disappear and being told they never existed - each person who tells me that when I know they know the person and are therefore lying will end that way until...). I do not like games like that - even as fiction.
Edit: remove s, add l
Edit: remove s, add l
To be sure, I would very much like to see more intellectuals in the world. I just don't believe that a) there's so profound a lack of them as all that, or b) as others have already pointed out, that video games and other "light entertainment" are necessarily devoid of intellectual stimulation.
F'rex, I challenge anyone to play Civilization IV without engaging both gray matter and fun-receptors. It's not a history lesson -- you have to write your own history, military, religious, scientific, and technological.
F'rex, I challenge anyone to play Civilization IV without engaging both gray matter and fun-receptors. It's not a history lesson -- you have to write your own history, military, religious, scientific, and technological.