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Is the unexamined life really NOT worth living?

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jadeval
Post subject: Is the unexamined life really NOT worth living?
Posted: Tue 22 Jan , 2008 9:34 am
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Is the unexamined life really NOT worth living?

Plato says that it is not, but should we really listen to him? How irreverent of me!? But really, I can imagine a life frolicking in meadows and spent in careless abandon. And why not squander life's natural intellectual gifts for the more entertaining beauties of her superficial appearances?

Here are some possible reasons why we may tend to think it might NOT be worthwhile to live the unexamined life:

1. We get old and feeble of body, at which point the bacchanalian engagements become pointless (note the "pointless" rather than "outgrown", for perhaps it is only weariness or ugliness that prevents us from being enthusiastic about our once youthful passions). Given this, we must either examine our life so that we don't fall into regrets and depression as we age (our "wisdom" will save us!), or else we must exhaust and expire ourselves prematurely in our chosen orgiastic exercises of choice.

2. We are fooled into thinking that ink on page is more important than it otherwise is in fact, for we pay overly much heed to borderline autistic literary personas whose esteem was overwrought by our equally dull predecessors of the lower cultural spheres. We should instead enlist a psychiatrist of the high culture to investigate all his "own", for it is no other problem than his and his own.

3. We have equipped ourselves with mass delusions about the importance of our species and its survival. In all practical fact, we should squander on various pleasures what life we have been given without paying any serious regard for distant future generations, for there is no reason to think more of our purposes here than the "here" which gives those purposes at all and in the first place.

4. Plato says so, and, in comparison to him, we are like the bacilli in turkey poo.

5. We refuse to acknowledge libertarianism as the correct political and moral philosophy and, in making such error, actually spend time seriously considering the ideas of fellow men.


Personally, I like #1 because our bodies go before our minds, and such as to necessitate all reverence for the latter over the former on account of its comparative permanence. Then again, this relative argument, being almost no argument at all in relation to the infinite clarity of which we like to imagine belongs the rational justifications for our dearly held opinions, must be considered as tentatively and delicately as the life for which it accounts (ah, but would this not be another thoughtful pretense!).

It would also be informative to know what proportion of our time should be spent in examination, and also how much time should be spent examining this temporal proportion (in which case we need a proportion of proportions for time spent!).

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Ara-anna
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Posted: Tue 22 Jan , 2008 4:11 pm
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I take it a different way.

Anyway I think that if we are so self absorbed and only concerned with our own selfish needs we miss the big picture. Now I am not saying to abandon our own needs and wants completely, but we can swing too far to one way. Case in point....Paris, Britney ect... people with tons of money yet so self absorbed they can't do anything else, even to help their own kids. I use those two as an example but I see plenty of it throughout the world.

I think humans tend to get so caught up in their own way of thinking they tend to loose out on the vast buffet the universe is trying to offer up. And I think that maybe is what Plato was talking about. I think he was saying not to be so closed minded and self righteous to believe that you (general you) and your ideas are the end all be all of everything, because it simply closes you down for any growth or gaining of knowledge. I see it all the time in way people express themselves...it's their way or the highway and they will never know that perhaps there is a better way or a different way, they will have none of that, they are right and that's that.

However, saying this I also believe that people need something to believe in (and I am not talking just God here folks) to make them grow. I think it's important that people want to better themselves and the world, not just live for themselves. But in doing so you don't have to give up yourself.

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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Tue 22 Jan , 2008 7:05 pm
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I think it's too easy to get caught up in introspection (examining one's life) and miss the fun of it. Too many of us spend too much time planning the future or regretting the past and miss the *now*.

Now is pretty important, too: it's the most vivid of our experiences. It's a shame to miss out on appreciating the good parts of *right now* because one is so far lost in abstract thought that one cannot realize the good of the immediate.

Examining one's life isn't the be all, end all of existance. Being there, in the present, is awfully important too. Maybe the most important thing. :shrug:

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