some people want to respond to that speech with Tyler Durden's line fromFight Club: "You are not your job."
But, well, actually, you totally are. Granted, your "job" and your means of employment might not be the same thing, but in both cases, you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful skills. For instance, being a good mother is a job that requires a skill. It's something a person can do that is useful to other members of society. But make no mistake: Your "job" -- the useful thing you do for other people -- is all you are.
Is there not a place for articles like this, and pop philosophy in general?
Are they helpful or do they do more harm than good?
Was my initial reaction just an instance of snobbery, a kind of intellectual elitism?
Can it even be done better than the philosophers and spiritual leaders from which it derives? — Mikie
“I am completely an elitist in the cultural but emphatically not the social sense. I prefer the good to the bad, the articulate to the mumbling, the aesthetically developed to the merely primitive, and full to partial consciousness. I love the spectacle of skill, whether it's an expert gardener at work or a good carpenter chopping dovetails. I don't think stupid or ill-read people are as good to be with as wise and fully literate ones. I would rather watch a great tennis player than a mediocre one, unless the latter is a friend or a relative
Mindfulness comes up a lot, as does stoicism. — Tom Storm
Robert Hughes — Tom Storm
Is snobbery or elitism always bad? — Tom Storm
It's a delicate issue. I think there are pop tv-series, movies and maybe even games, that certainly have quite interesting philosophical concepts and art is often the most direct way to expose complex ideas pertaining to mood, insight, looking at persons thinking process and so on. — Manuel
Was my initial reaction just an instance of snobbery, a kind of intellectual elitism? — Mikie
Is snobbery or elitism always bad? — Tom Storm
Having good taste isn't bad -- but probably being a snob is. — Mikie
:clap: Brilliant quote. (I miss his work and interviews.)Australian art critic Robert Hughes, a man of modernist, old-school inclinations. — Tom Storm
It's the same place where e.g. Musak, juice bars and horoscopes belong.Is there not a place for articles like this, and pop philosophy in general? — Mikie
Same as sugar.Are they helpful or do they do more harm than good?
Elitism. :up:Was my initial reaction just an instance of snobbery, a kind of intellectual elitism?
'Cheap knock-offs' are just that: cheap.Can it even be done better than the philosophers and spiritual leaders from which it derives?
On the other hand, Aristotle can be a chore to read, so there’s nothing wrong with making things more digestible. That’s why we read introductions and secondary literature. I think the crucial difference is that pop philosophy, unlike secondary literature, is often dumbed down, written to please people or to catch the attention or to sell books, not to enlighten or teach. — Jamal
Unfortunately the thing which distinguishes philosophy from self help and infotainment; argument and systems; is also something which makes philosophy unbearably dry. — fdrake
Isn’t philosophy, at its best, distinguished from self-help by its deep and original insights, rather than, or as well as, by its arguments? — Jamal
Embrace Your Contradictions: How Hegel’s Science of Logic Can Help You Achieve Wholeness by Owning Your Inner Conflicts — Jamal
Title: "Become Whole Again", subtitle: "The Transcendental Unity Of Apperception". — fdrake
This one is great for insiders. I never cared much about that unity to I read some Brandom, and the joke works perfectly in that context. I got to go patch up a contradiction in the claims I am responsible fon yet again. — green flag
As I see it, though the former implies the latter, the latter neither presupposes nor implies the former.Why examine oneself if not to improve oneself? — Noble Dust
because you say, “I'd prefer my nephew (and anyone, really) read direct sources,” you’re an elitist but not a snob. — Jamal
I think the crucial difference is that pop philosophy, unlike secondary literature, is often dumbed down, written to please people or to catch the attention or to sell books, not to enlighten or teach. — Jamal
It's the same place where e.g. Musak, juice bars and horoscopes belong. — 180 Proof
Same as sugar. — 180 Proof
All I'm saying is that there can be interesting philosophical/psychological and ethical matters that could be discussed absent specific figure X. — Manuel
Why examine oneself if not to improve oneself? — Noble Dust
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