Speaking of the Will and the power of boredom, one is reminded of Pascal's summary, "All of humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone".

What is one attains 'enlightenment'? Is life bleak then? — I like sushi

Not sure about 'enlightenment', but a sound moral education can do much to alleviate the harms inherent in human nature. It isn't that we are 'evil', it's that we have natural 'animal' urges powered by an unusual level of intelligence. Ethics and morality help us manage ourselves better.

Life is not so bleak in a decent and orderly society. When we descend to indecent disorder, such as prevails in Sudan at this point, it becomes very bleak. Life is bleak in Gaza and getting bleaker in Ukraine, Lebanon, Venezuela, et al. Everybody has periods of indecent disorder, at one point or another, usually collectively but sometimes individually.

Self-awareness is key in moral education. We have to know what dangers lurk in our personal natures, and then do something about it. No guarantees of goodness in that, but sometimes we try.

Speaking of grim topics, the facts of life about human nature are pretty dark, revealing their...

Isn't there a button that just stops this Bambi discussion?

It's been a VERY LONG TIME since I saw Bambi, if I ever did. I did have a little picture book about Bambi. My impression of Bambi is that it is a cloying saccharine story. A couple of years ago the New Yorker ran a piece, "“Bambi” Is Even Bleaker Than You Thought.

The film in question is, of course, the 1942 Walt Disney classic “Bambi.” Perhaps more than any other movie made for children, it is remembered chiefly for its moments of terror: not only the killing of the hero’s mother but the forest fire that threatens all the main characters with annihilation. Stephen King called “Bambi” the first horror movie he ever saw, and Pauline Kael, the longtime film critic for this magazine, claimed that she had never known children to be as frightened by supposedly scary grownup movies as they were by “Bambi.”

Clearly my memory has been manipulated by unknown agents!

The 1942 movie is based on a 1922 novel, Bambi: A Life in the Woods by the Austrian Felix Salten. (He often hunted deer.) The book is grimmer still, I hear.

The fact that we know Bambi can burn means something? — schopenhauer1

Yes. But.

I was being silly and didn't intend to subject Bambi to the further suffering of existential analysis. I also don't want to suffer by being forced to think more deeply about Bambi. In the last five minutes I've tripled the size of the Bambi case file, and most of the New Yorker article remains to be read.

Echoes of Pangloss — schopenhauer1

No, I don't think this is the best of all possible worlds -- we live in one of the rest of all possible worlds. Best? Not so much,

I felt compelled to scribble a little nonsense about fawns burning in the forest. It's an example of the Will to Nonsense.

According to Arthur Schopenhauer, the concept of a creator, particularly a personal God, is essentially non-existent; he viewed the driving force behind the universe as a blind, aimless "Will" which does not correspond to any conscious or intentional creator, effectively negating the idea of a traditional God figure. — Shawn

An actual "personal God" may well not exist, but the CONCEPT of a creator and personal God can not be denied. How believable and/or compelling is Schopenhauer's blind and aimless "will"? It seems like one could dismiss this "blind aimless will" as easily as a personal creator. Isn't Schopenhauer just swapping out one invisible entity for another?

I'd find Schopenhauer's cold wind of will sweeping across the cosmos more convincing if the wind was God. God doesn't have to be warm, fuzzy, loving, up close and personal or personable. God could be distant, cold, hard edged, indifferent, not lovable and still be God and creator. Just between you, me, and the fencepost I rather think God is closer to being a cold wind than a god keeping watch over sparrows and dandelions,

In my humble self-aware opinion, I'm more happy, more grateful, and more content now than I have been in many decades. Perhaps that's because the game is just about over for me (but not quite yet) and there's now little to lose?

There's also the poor fawn in the burning forest that experienced what some might call gratuitous harm. — Shawn

It's all about justice and balance in this best of all possible worlds.

Bambi must burn in order for the spiritual balance of the forest to be maintained. Contrary to sentimentalists, Bambi burned with equanimity because he understood the necessity of his sacrifice. His wise father, the Great Prince of the Forest, had explained it to him. Bambi's bit-part nameless mother also experienced natural sacrificial immolation after Bambi was weaned. She was bitter and resentful about the whole deal. Her last words were "Fucking patriarchy!". Bambi's father didn't have to burn because his doe and fawning son fulfilled all of his debts--a good thing because he was the bearer of the Wisdom of the Forest.

It all worked out for the existential good of all.

First, glad you were not washed away in the great flood. Floods cause such great loss. "Come hell (heat) or high water" as the saying goes.

There are several reasons why psychology has a negative return. One is that not all psychology majors work as psychologists. One might work in a psych hospital as an attendant, but one doesn't necessarily need a degree for that, and the pay is not great. A second reason is that a bachelors degree in psychology does not enable one to "practice" as a licensed psychologist. For that you need at least a graduate degree in social work or some kind of doctorate. Insurance companies require state certification as a licensed therapist before they will pay you. Probably a lot of psychologists end up doing other kinds of work -- like graduates in a number of majors do.

The term "legal studies" isn't very clear to me. When I think of 'lawyers' I think of 'law school' and 'law degrees'. There are people who train to do 'legal work' for lawyers, but who are not members of the profession as such. Don't know.

Thanks, Jgill. If the damn rats don't cooperate, what's a biochemist to do?

Not in STEM, but certainly the humanities have an oversupply of candidates for job openings. Colleges can be choosy about filling adjunct positions on up to tenure track jobs. Enrollments are down in quite a few of the majors. I think studying literature and languages is eminently worthwhile -- intellectually -- but not so much for employment. In the good old post-WWII days, one could study literature for its joys and still get a secure job teaching.

Visual Capitalist chart of ROI on various degrees:

when preschool starts, and then kindergarten, and then even elementary school, and then high school, and then (for some) college, and then graduate school, and then post-graduate school, well... — Shawn

A few education commentators have asked "just why are a significant number of people spending at least the first third of their lives in school?" And that's not about medical doctors who go through medical school, internship, residency, and more before they become the narrow specialist of their dreams. Scholars of all sorts can spend a very long time in school.

"Student" as a way of being in the world?

Regulating the labor pool?

Long term milling of human raw material to achieve low friction parts?

It just takes half a life time to learn enough?

Produce effective servants of the technocracy?

I don't know. Pre-school and primary school might have a greater impact on individual character than anything that happens after the pupils are 14 years of age on up. Certainly, schooling has effects, often benefits, for students, as long as they are pursuing something in which they are interested and have a stake. That isn't always the case.

For an unknown percentage of students, education is a treadmill. In some areas, students hop off (or are thrown off) well before graduation from high school. A significant portion of college enrollees do not complete bachelor degrees. Graduate programs--whether they are high quality or just credential mills--maybe have a balance between input demands and pay offs. Not sure. But a lot of potential PhDs seem to wash out just from the long dreariness and uncertain job prospects after completion,

A 14 year old ambitious, talented, and well-funded student probably already has the essential characteristics to succeed in the long run, and eventual become a law partner, sought after architect, engineering whiz, the famous doctor, and so on.

Identity formation isn't the same for everyone over a lifetime. Those who turn out to be very successful at education and subsequent careers probably began high school with the essential striver-identity in place. The identities of the people who don't attend college (about half the population) are going to be formed differently than the strivers'. Those who miss the boat (in ever so many ways) are going to have another dissimilar experience of identity formation.

I was never a striver. I hadn't planned on college. I rarely had very clear occupational objectives at any given point. For me, 4 years of college was a turn-around experience -- more so than it was for many students. College made an unusually big difference in my self-appraisal, but my experience wasn't typical.

BTW, you have hatched yet another very worthwhile topic.

Personally I don't really have a strong sense of self unless I end up stuck at a function or dinner party and am made aware of how little I share with others - in terms of interests and inclinations. — Tom Storm

Personal identity is, of course, personal but it is significantly shaped by all the different kinds of interactions we have with others. Contrasting identities can sharpen our own identities--such as those in a social gathering where one's dinner companions seem more like aliens from the vicinity of Betelgeuse than Australia or the US. Or sometimes we fit together like obviously matching puzzle pieces.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about identity. Class, sexuality, religion, politics, education, etc. all figure into this. It seems like I have become more of an outlier over the decades. There are, of course, other outliers with whom I share commonalities, but I am no longer circulating enough to come into contact with many of them. I don't even know where I would begin to find them, face to face, these days.

I'm content, though. At 78, identity has receded as a concern. It is settled, and that's good.

The one area where identity might still be an issue is age. I liked being young and able much more than I like being old and unable. I used to feel physically robust; now, not so much. Intellectually and emotionally I feel at the top of my game, such as it is. Self-appraisals are notoriously inaccurate, of course.

I didn't find Wittgenstein's quote helpful.

Perhaps review some psychology? There are 4+ kinds of memory: working memory, sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. The hippocampus converts short-term memories into long-term memories by organizing, storing, and retrieving them. It also helps you remember emotionally significant events by connecting with the amygdala, which is involved in emotional responses. [And that's a critical piece of how we learn what we ought to do.] The hippocampus helps you with spatial spatial navigation, and learn about your environment and be aware of what's around you. The hippocampus helps you remember what words to say (like, is that my amaryllis or my clueless mistress?) And it plays a role in emotional processing, including anxiety and avoidance behaviors.

One of the problems of identity formation is that it is (in my opinion) a global process beginning with biology and encompasses all manner of informal experiences over many years. Education -- especially as a formal project organized by societies -- probably plays a small role, except, perhaps, where the educational regime is highly intrusive and rigorously directed.

In terms of my identity, I was born in the upper midwest as a male homosexual. I learned to become gay. I was born into a specific social / economic milieu, and absorbed what I would later call a working class identity. I thought I wanted to be an English teacher, but found I was altogether unsuited for that job. Still, being an English major is a piece of my identity. Even though I have been rooted (stuck?) in the midwest for 76 years, a piece of my identity involves 2 years of experiences on the east coast. .

Because education is a mass process for most people in the industrialized world, it can't make that great a contribution to our identities. Further, people who have never gone to school (can't read, write or do sums) still have an identity.

his could mean they are not very interested in taking part in decisions — javi2541997

It might mean that. There are other possibilities:

a) practical problems like work, child care, bad weather, etc. may impede their participation
b) positively: perhaps they trust their neighbors to vote for the right thing
c) negatively: perhaps they are sure they will be outvoted
d) perhaps the meetings are tedious and long
e) perhaps the meetings seem to get predetermined results

In the US, 'precinct caucuses' are the first step in selecting candidates for elections. They are held in many locations--precincts are small voting areas) in the evening. The caucuses are run by the dominant political parties, and are more or less well managed. It's a good place to meet one's neighbors and one may pick up news on what one's neighbors are concerned about, politically.

But... precinct caucuses can also seem like an empty process, and a, b, c, d, and e above can all apply. I live in a very liberal precinct and my neighbors generally vote to my liking. Whether I am there, or not, doesn't seem to make much difference. Some of the locations have been very inconvenient for me to get to.

Still and all, direct participation in civic affairs is a good thing.

Right. My wishy-washy statement about good and bad law by referendum is hereby retracted. A deliberative body (city council, county commissioners, legislatures, etc.) is ,ore likely to produce good results.

I like the idea of town meetings making major decisions, like those the citizenry will pay for. The Yankees who had a large influence on the politics and culture of places in the upper midwest didn't bring town meetings with them. Maybe the ordinances of the Northwest Territories (shortly after the revolution) precluded town meetings. Don't know. Interesting question.

Citizens are asked to approve spending on public infrastructure, like schools, major water projects, sports facilities, and the like at regularly scheduled elections. In such instances, it seems like the public speaks pretty clearly and generally fairly thoughtfully.

What if we made it mandatory for a quorum with at least half of the possible attendees? — javi2541997

Even in a fairly small town with 1000 voters, 500 people showing up at a meeting would probably be an unwieldy number. It would take a highly divisive issue to get half of the voting public to appear at one time and place. Maybe a proposal to hold weekly drag queen story hours for pre-schoolers in the public school would get half the voters out. (That does sound like a stupid idea, but such things have been done.).

It's much more direct than your town electing representatives to meet and make decisions.

Somewhere, though, is a limit on how many people can practically meet together and make decisions. How many people make up a quorum? It would be very unrepresentative if only a handful showed up to a meeting to make decisions,

On the other hand, who is held responsible (later) for bad decisions? An elected assembly is in office long enough for bad decisions to sometimes come home to roost.

Referendum and initiative SOMETIMES lead to very bad law, and sometimes to very good law.

Proposition 13, 1978, capped property taxes, and allowed assessed value to change only when property was sold. According to the National Bureau for Economic Research:

Proposition 13, adopted by California voters in 1978, mandates a property tax rate of one percent, requires that properties be assessed at market value at the time of sale, and allows assessments to rise by no more than 2 percent per year until the next sale. This means that as long as property values increase by more than 2 percent per year, homeowners gain from remaining in the same house because their taxes are lower than they would be on a different house of the same value. Proposition 13 thus gives rise to a lock-in effect for owner-occupiers that strengthens over time. It also affects the rental market, both directly because it applies to landlords and indirectly because it reduces the turnover of owner-occupied homes.

Prop 13 was motivated by rapidly rising real estate taxes and taxes were reduced, but in the long run, Californians may have hurt themselves. Prop 13 had particularly negative consequences for education; k-12 is funded by local taxes. With tax revenue sharply reduced, the quality of k-12 education slid, reducing CA's rank from 18 to 42. In 1977-78, California spent 5.7 percent more on its public schools per pupil than the national average. By 1994-95, California spent 20 percent less.

One of the major problems in referendum and initiative is that much more HEAT than LIGHT is required to get a measure passed.

No, we don't have a 'democracy' like the town meetings of New England. The devised a 'representational' system. Many of the founders were wealthy, and they didn't intend to set things up so that they could easily be dispossessed by the rabble (i.e., us). Yes, Virginia, there is a Ruling Class.

Intelligence is no bar to becoming president. "Brains' are no threat to the ruling class, because there are numerous safeguards protecting the interests of property--like law, the judiciary, the congress, the police, etc.

Is there any way for ordinary people to dispossess the rich of their wealth? Sure -- some sort of revolution. This has happened a few times. Societies operated for the convenience of wealthy people, however, discourage revolutionary thinking. It generally gets nipped in the bud, so to speak.

Have you investigated anarchy-syndicalism? There's a treatment of that in Monte Python and the Holy Grail. Here's a summary:

Monte Python specializes in the absurd, of course [long live absurdity!] but the peasants arguing with King Arthur have a serious point.

To even deserve a voice on the global stage I believe you should be helping out as much as you can. I understand that isn't how politics works and I am being idealistic but along with all the pros immigration brings, helping is so important. — Samlw

Being a global superpower gives one a deserved voice on the global stage, for better or for worse. As it happens, this global superpower (USA) doesn't actually spend very much on foreign aid. If you cut out the military aid portion, it's a paltry amount. Private overseas philanthropy is substantial, but doesn't make up for the measly foreign assistance budget.

And, as it happens, doing good things for people around the world isn't all that easy. Many countries are deeply corrupt and delivered aid often gets syphoned off before it leaves the port. Many countries lack 'capacity', and capacity-building is a slow process. Then there are cultural features to be traversed without offending too many locals. The problems are not insurmountable, but effective foreign aid is a long game requiring patience, competence, and commitment across administrations. Good luck on all of that.

Another problem is that past and present military aid can get in the way of present and future assistance programs.

Another angle on all this is global warming. As responsible as the industrialized nations are for global warming, that doesn't mean that they are going to be able to help everyone (or maybe anyone). Excess heat, desertification, severe water shortages, crop failures, famine, floods, old and new epidemics, and so on will at some point overwhelm our collective resources.

One way the industrialized world (US, Europe, East Asia) could help people in the global south is to get on with decarbonizing our economies. Alas, that is more difficult than it might seem to be. Some small areas of the industrialized world are making good progress on decarbonization in some areas. A few states, for instance, are doing well. On the whole, CO2 emissions rise every year along with methane and other gases.

Shifting global economies from high to low carbon is only theoretically possible. The realities of a rapid shift involve very unpleasant tradeoffs in the immediate future, something that very few people want to do. Thus it is that global warming isn't going to go away.

@Schopenhauer1 There is a very long article in the New York Times today (no link because it's behind a paywall) about the University of Michigan's DEI efforts, which, to sum it up, aren't accomplishing much despite a $250 million dollar DEI expenditure over the last 8 years. My point isn't to discuss DEI, but to comment on "When can something legitimately be blamed on culture?"

UM is trying very hard to change its culture, for better or worse? -- I have my suspicions, but I've never been there--I don't know.

What happens to a person when they are, or believe they have been discriminated against is both cultural (how our thinking is shaped by the experiences of our culture), emotional (directly and indirectly), and a combination of thinking and gut response.

UM has engaged in an extensive program of cultural engineering, trying to achieve "a life of seamless belonging" for everyone, but specifically for the 13 specific minority categories. (Everybody else apparently already 'belongs'.) To achieve this lofty goal, "The initial planning ultimately yielded nearly 2,000 “action items” across campus — a tribute to Michigan’s belief in the power of bureaucratic process to promote change. “It’s important to focus on our standard operating procedures and worry less about attitudes,” said Sellers, who was appointed Michigan’s first chief diversity officer. “Attitudes will follow.”

To make a long story short, after 8 years, black enrollment stands at 4%--the same place it was in 1970. That's a major failure, because the whole DEI program was in response to SCOTUS invalidating affirmative action in admissions in several decisions. Another failure is that there is more conflict on campus involving more and more subtle discriminations.

What bureaucracy doesn't seem to be able to change is the emotional consequences of events that are perceived by individuals to be discriminatory. So, a student is accidentally 'misgendered', one minority student is confused with another, or a 'triggering word' is read from a text in a literature class. Rage follows. Complaints are filed. Hearings are held. Notes are put in files. Around and around this goes.

All of this can be properly charged to the larger "Culture". But can a "culture" change itself?

Administrators can change the rules for tax accounting. Accountants will read the rules and apply them. Or not, in which case, the change will be litigated, and the accounting rule will be clarified. A drug can be defined as the standard treatment for cancer. Physicians will use the drug, and because it leads to cures, the standard will hold. If it doesn't, the standard won't hold. Agronomists can specify how much nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus to apply to fields for given soil types and given crops. Farmers read the recommendations and follow them, and get good yields. If they don't, they'll try other combinations.

All that is culture, too, but not much emotion is involved in accounting rules, medical guidelines, or fertilization routines. No one feels insulted if their doctor recommends a monoclonal antibody for their cancer instead of a platinum-derived drug.

Achieving harmony, belonging, equality, opportunity, happiness, fulfillment, peace, etc. are just not easily achieved by bureaucratic direction, These good things have been achieved by billions of people in various settings, but they did it by struggle, conflict, and persistence--not through bureaucratic direction.

Individuals who are struggling to climb social ladders have to strive against opposition, which will predictably be provided by both competitors and the people who occupy the rungs above them. They may succeed, they may not. But struggle is how cultures achieve equilibrium, and people tend to achieve goals. And strivers have a big emotional element in their efforts. They will have intense emotional experiences as a result of their efforts. Some of these will be pleasant, some painful. That's life.

Another point: I used to have more confidence in social engineering. The older I get, the more I learn, the less certain I am that we can engineer our culture for specific ends. Creating economic opportunity is one thing; making people use the opportunity is something else. Wanting people to play well together is one thing, making them play well is something else.

UM should just admit more blacks, queers, hispanics, etc, and then let the chips fall where they may.

Sovereign states have the right -- and the responsibility -- to control their borders on behalf of its citizens. There are rules and regulations for anyone making the decision to leave their country, journey to another, and seek legal entry.

Sovereign nations further have the right and responsibility to set up standards for admission and the volume of admits. It can elect to let none, some, or everyone in. If would-be immigrants do not like the standards or volume to be admitted, they are not entitled to find ways to get in, anyway. If they do get in, a sovereign nation may decide to expel them.

That said, I'm generally in favor of controlled immigration.

Sovereign nations should (but they may not) have a long range plan for population and demographics. If their birth rate is too low to maintain the population of the country, then either incentives can be made available for 'breeding pairs' to reproduce, OR immigrants can be admitted to make up the shortfall. Too few people in an economy is perhaps worse than too many, As far as I know, "cash for babies" doesn't really work all that well.

Sovereign nations can decide how they want their demographics to change in the future. Maybe they would like to increase the population of Buddhists and decrease the population of Moslems; maybe they want fewer Catholics and more Lutherans and Jews. Maybe they want more educated workers; maybe they just want strong backs. Whatever they decide, the policy should b upfront and clear. If you don't fit, well... too bad.

Countries can be somewhat choosy if there are abundant and diverse immigrants wishing to get in. In future climate change, water shortages, famine, wars, despots, wholesale displacement of population, etc. will set ever larger numbers of people on the move. These huddled masses, yearning for a chance to survive, will be showing up on everyone's doorstep in the relative near future, if they aren't already ringing the doorbell.

It's still the case, however, that a sovereign nation's first responsibility is to its citizens, and not to the displaced people of the world.

So, we have a choice: help people manage to live better where they are, or resort to barbed wire, land mines. guard towers, guns, drones, and so on to keep them all out.

But certainly, the idea of glorification of "martyrdom", and educational role of violent resistance, and how how death is viewed in this resistance plays a role in how one carries out violence. And so, whilst not inherent in a "people", it can be harder for a certain culture to move forward because of this. — schopenhauer1

Glorification of martyrdom (achieved in cultural indoctrination) seems like it has to tap into the motivational power of the limbic system--which is provided by nature. Nothing too odd about that -- soldiers are prepared to fight (and die, perhaps) through indoctrination and "feeling the burn" of hitting the beach, going over the top of the ridge, moving forward under fire. Adrenalin plays a role here.

I don't know what, exactly, suicide bomber martyrs feel just before they blow themselves up in a crowded cafe. Maybe not much of an adrenalin kick, maybe not much of a highly motivated limbic burn. After all, they don't want to give themselves away too soon, by looking like an hysterical crazy person, for instance. Maybe they feel a beatific calm.

In any case, their emotions must be in service to, and subservient to, the thinking part of the brain.

Of course, our limbic systems are behind a lot of ordinary behavior, not just the extremes of battle and martyring one's self. Guilt, for instance, is "a gift that keeps on giving". It a powerful motivator and suppressor of behavior. It's shaped by culture (nurturing parents and their value system) early on. Other institutions step in to nail down particular cultural values. Then we're kind of stuck with it, unless we work very hard at reprogramming ourselves, to whatever extent reprogramming is possible.

Aside from good luck or outside intervention, the small percentage of people who survived the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet gulags, or Gaza...) had to have strong minds and strong emotional (limbic system) machinery.

Culture is important, but it isn't enough.

Here is a joke about Islam's martyrs:

Question: How many virgins will I have in heaven after I am martyred?

Answer: 72 beautiful women to do with as you please.

Question: What will women get in heaven after they are martyred?

Answer: One faithful man.

Case Closed! — I like sushi

Gavel down! Got it. 100 lashes with a wet noodle.

There's a song by Tom Paxton (old folk singer), "Home is anywhere you are" which speaks in a very warm way about what home means to him, and in this case it's portable but specific.

There are those who never really know their minds
They're confused and they're not the stayin' kind
They don't know who they're really lookin' for
I don't suffer from that problem any more

You could send me away and I would go
I would go but I would not go too far
You could send me home but you would know
Home to me is anywhere you are

When I left home#1 for college, I have lived in many places, around 20 places over 30 years, some of which were temporary perches, some were "home". Jobs and partners tend to settle us down, and where we live means more, as we make refuges from working and homes with the people we want to live with. For the last 30 years I've lived in the same place--I used to think that would never happen.

"Home" is a place of arrival and duration. We 'come home', we 'get home', we we 'are home', we 'make home', we 'stay home'. OR NOT. We also 'wreck home', 'break home', 'leave home', and are 'homeless'. Whatever our relationship to 'home', it's a present or missing center point,

Most people in the world are "home". It's our 'natural state'. Migrants, refugees, nomads, travelers, the homeless, the bums, vagrants, tramps, and hobos, are not. The evicted and dispossessed are the exception--for good reason. People need a substantial amount of stability to flourish. Homelessness means not being able to accumulate much of anything that makes life more efficient, effective, and pleasant. Starting over every day is expensive.

There is home; there is also community. "Community" has been over used for the last 30 to 50 years, coming to mean any vaguely similar group -- like the "community" of science fiction fans. But real 'community'. a web of relationships, is as essential as a 'home'. Home without community (in the way that new suburban tracts were denigrated in the beginning) were not thought of as happy places. They were just well-housed units of alienation. Of course, it isn't just raw suburban tracts that are bastions of absent community. Old neighborhoods can be exactly the same.

So, stable individual, stable home, stable community.

Portable, computer-enhanced electronic gadgets (phones, pagers, tablets, etc.) are a decidedly mixed blessing--not because of the hardware--after all, a mobil phone is a radio device, which technology is well over a century old. What makes them a mix of blessing and curse is the software of corporations (Google, Facebook, Apple, X, TikTok, Byte Dance, etc. etc. etc.who have found yet another way to make a lot of money off our eyeballs. The critical pieces are the algorithms which are designed to hook us, exploit our attention, into ever more engagement with stuff that is mostly surface-y rubbish, and while we are wandering around in a zombie haze, we are being fed the advertisement which produces income that used to support "the press" which kept us better informed than social media.

I don't know whether Plato's Cave is an apt image when talking about phones and algorithms or not. It seems like a bit of a stretch. As for home, does the zombie haze lift when the wasted wanderers, the clochards, get home? Not if they all are sitting at the dinner table eyes still glued on the screen.

Personally, I see something of the possible reemergence of the clochard in the form of mobile devices. — I like sushi

It strikes me as just... weird to reference a mobil device as a clochard given the meaning below. I don't see how gadgets limp, sleep under bridges, are Parisian bums, or anything similar. BTW, it seems like everyone everywhere is bewitched by their phones.

clo·​chard klō-ˈshär
Synonyms of clochard
VAGRANT, TRAMP

Did you know?

Why such a fancy French word for a bum? The truth of the matter is, nine times out of ten, you will find clochard used for not just any bum, but a French bum - even more specifically, a Parisian bum. And, sometimes, it's even a certain type of Parisian bum - a type that has been romanticized in literature and is part of the local color. Nevertheless, as "français" as this word (which comes from the French verb clocher, meaning "to limp") may seem, its regular appearance in English sources since 1937 makes it an English word, too.

Examples of clochard in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In summer the clochards like to live along the quay, sleep under the bridges.
—Bruce Dale, National Geographic, 17 Apr. 2019

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'clochard.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History / Etymology
French, from clocher to limp, from Vulgar Latin *cloppicare, from Late Latin cloppus lame
First Known Use
1937, in the meaning defined above
Time Traveler:
The first known use of clochard was in 1937

You might find the idea of 'embodiment' useful. It means that personhood is realized as flesh, in a body. The way that we are embodied is an aspect of our personhood, such that a gay person's embodiment is slightly different than a straight persons. A blind person is embodied differently than a sighted person. A body-builder is embodied differently than the slim person. It is not a matter of better or worse, it's a matter of individual difference.

Our individual personhood and our embodiment are one and the same. If your leg is blown off by a land mine, your sense of personhood / embodiment will likely change. If you experience epileptic episodes, or bi-polar disease, your sense of of personhood / embodiment will likely change. Good health is likely to affect our sense of personhood and embodiment.

With respect to "Out of Our Heads..." my brain likes being the location of thought. It seems like a demotion to have thought located somewhere else, and it's insistent on maintaining its status.

Some people think that 'mind' is separate from the body. Apparently, they accept all the brain activities that are connected with managing the body--the brain's primary function--but hold that 'thought'--thinking about being, beauty, truth, baloney, etc--doesn't go on in the brain.

I think "mind" is what the brain and body does, and brain and body are intimately connected in the body-enclosure. The body's sensory organs deliver more or less satisfactory input to the brain, given a properly functioning body. If eyeballs and optic nerves, ear drums and inner ears, skin and sensory nerves, etc. are not in good order, then the information the brain has to work with is decreased. People who have always had poor vision or poor hearing, for instance, are missing information they would otherwise have, and this affects thinking. Of course we can compensate for deficient input. Whatever is going on in the body -- disease, chewing on a chicken leg, smoking dope, or drinking gin and tonics -- affects how the body functions, and that includes how the brain gets along.

The relationship between language and thought perhaps underlies some of the ideas about disembodied mind. An infant and its new brain acquire language from a ubiquitous exterior environment. To the extent that the external language is acquired, thought becomes possible for the new brain. So, in a sense, 'thought' is external.

It seems like separating "mind" and "body" requires some sort of unseen and unseeable world where mysterious thinking occurs. It's too 'otherworldly' for my taste.

I am conscious and bodily to be sure, but I am not a mind or a body, and I don't have a body.

While we're at it, I am not a soul, and I am not my brain. I am a whole, conscious, physical unit. — Kurt Keefner

Welcome to the Forum.

I'm not quite clear about how you can be conscious and bodily--all that requires flesh, blood, nerves, digestive juices, et al--and not be or have a body. If you have no body, then are you not a nobody? Not your brain? Well, where exactly are you, then?

Getting away from mind/body dualism is a very good idea. The idea that there is a mind, on the one hand, and a body on the other and maybe a soul on the third hand, strikes me as false, BEAUSE (this is my take) we all are bodies, period, which is in no way a diminution of personhood. Persons have bodies. Everything we are -- eating, breathing, drinking, pissing, shitting, thinking, poetry scribbling, sex seeking metabolic machines is physical body business.

Because we are physical, we experience the joys and sufferings of this world first hand, in the flesh, and that's real.

If one believes we are created by God, then we are creatures of God -- and embodied in animal flesh.

I noticed that there are probably degrees of response to oppression depending on the intensity and nature of the oppression. — schopenhauer1

Culture and experience comes into play here. Why didn't the Jews revolt? Strike back? Kill Nazis whenever possible? One reason is that they had been subjected to a severe regime of generalized hatred and repression, wherein they could expect zero sympathy from Germans (or Poles, Ukrainians, etc.) Another is that they were usually unarmed. They were further weakened by hunger, thirst, cold, or heat.

Effective resistance requires a program, planning, instruction, preparation, and then (after a considerable period of time) performance.

Why did the Palestinians in Gaza attack Israel? They too were oppressed. Two reasons: First, they weren't subjected to the conditions of the Warsaw ghetto (at least not until October 8, 2023). Gazans actively traded. Food, water, civil services, medical care, etc. was available. Secondly, their culture included resistance -- a la Hamas. They were armed not only with guns and bullets but by rocketsl. Significantly, Hamas was dug in really well. Hamas seems to be / has been more integrated with Gazans than Hesbollah is/has been with the Lebanese people. Hamas seems to be an integral part of Gaza's culture.

The October 7, 2023 massacre wasn't a spontaneous outburst, but had been planned, prepared for, practiced, and then performed. I don't have any insight into Hamas' reasoning. Did they think Israel would not conduct severe reprisal? Was Israel's retaliation worse than they expected? Do Hamas' managers think they are winning the war?

The message to Gazans (Palestinians in general) is "Resistance is futile! You will not be assimilated, you will be crushed. We will destroy everything you have. You should immigrate--anywhere, really, we don't care. Just get out of our sight!" However, there doesn't seem to be any means by which Gazans CAN leave, and no Arab state is offering them haven.

Three year olds in a busy urban street? Trust who? — schopenhauer1

Back in the late 1980s I had a late night job in Minneapolis. One night I saw a very young child -- 3 or 4 years old, 5 max -- on a sidewalk riding a tricycle by herself at 2:30 am. Shocking anywhere, but this was in a somewhat rough area. That wasn't trust -- that was neglect. Did I do anything about it? No. I kept on moving. So much for the caring culture.

If you're allowing the children to be out late that's a sign of a high-trust society and the practice reflects that. — BitconnectCarlos

Compare the accounts of individuals who remember that when they were children, they were allowed (or ordered, even) to be outside the home unsupervised for part of the day, and accounts of individuals who were closely supervised at all times.

I grew up in a very small town culture where unsupervised time was normal; and accountability was minimal. Nobody asked, "What did you do all day?" I've read accounts of big city culture where unsupervised time was also normal. Trust, yes, but risk too. Children tend to be risk-tolerant or risk-oblivious. Parents of unsupervised children had to be risk-tolerant as well. Bad things do happen: drownings, injuries, fights, mischief, petty theft, etc--without it changing parental regimes.

My sense is that the culture in many places--small town or city--has become more risk averse, and children tend to be supervised much more closely, though not necessarily the "helicopter" level of risk aversion. High expectations are a part of this: upward mobile -aspiring parents subject their children to a lot of organized activities from an early age -- dance, music, soccer, etc. which are (presumably) intended to help them launch into a rising class. Preschool is the first organized performance step to higher education, even before kindergarten.

Upward class mobility effort is a hallmark of middle class culture (defining middle class here as 'well and securely employed parents').

So, to some extent, "high trust level" has been replaced by "high expectation level". Children in this regime are expected to perform well; early; consistently; and over the long haul. Parents whose children are on their own much of the time likely don't have "high expectation levels", in terms of higher education and income, which is not to say they don't care about their children.

High expectations are nurture more than nature.

I never needed it. Try a sitz bath.

Beyond the pale — T Clark

"The Pale of Settlement included all of modern-day Belarus and Moldova, much of Lithuania, Ukraine and east-central Poland, and relatively small parts of Latvia and what is now the western Russian Federation.

I thought the Pale was ancient, but its institution was 1791, and it lasted until 1917. Under Tsar Nicholas I, the Pale shrank but became more restrictive--like it was not already severe enough.

Drawing lines isn't the point; it's placing the line so that potentially useful discussions are not casually discarded by moderators whose judgement is fallible, and may be under the influence of severe hemorrhoidal itching.

The moderators have proven ability to head stupid threads off at the pass, so you can afford to be generous.

Perhaps "Nuclear crisis – 2024 and the strategy of a nuclear war" was not the greatest OP, but, given the existential threat even limited nuclear war poses, it was worthwhile enough.

The fact that we are still here, given that we have long been on the brink of a terminal event, is remarkable but not comforting. The several nuclear powers are maintaining/upgrading the bomb components and delivery systems. The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is still close to midnight.

Nuclear war is a perennially philosophically relevant topic, given that it would delete The Philosophy Forum together with its moderators and contributors with unappealable finality.

Or we could say, "Do your own thinking."

I think it's like a preschooler asking if her parents also hate the monster in her closet tormententing her. For some it goes further; asking why her supposedly loving parents allow monsters to occupy her closet — ENOAH

Interesting.

As a child I lived with monsters at the window, under my bed, in the attic, cellar, and barn. They required darkness to exist, and I found them terrifying, well beyond pre-school age. Even as an adult I felt one of them behind me once in a great while. At some point, the monsters all went away, and darkness no longer contained their dreary presence.

I didn't blame anybody for their menaces. They were like the discomfort of very cold weather: one shivered. I didn't talk about these fears at the time. (I suspected that I would be blamed for scaring myself.)

I had no part in the creation of any gods. — Vera Mont

Well, nothing's stopping you. The gods we care about were first created 2 or 3 millennia ago. However, every believer (and many non-believers) recreates god(s) in their own mind. We do the same thing when we read fiction: We let the characters in the story into our head, and we add details (like appearance, voice, etc.) which weren't in the text. We may create additions to the plot in our imaginations.

The biblical God is sufficiently misty that believers have plenty of room for invention, and there's nothing wrong with that (in my deviant view). Indeed, imagining God helps produce the reality that IS God for many believers. The kind of god that results depends on the personality and imagination of the believer: Hateful bastards produce a wrathful, vindictive, punishing god, while gentle, weepy souls turn out a god who is mild, lamb like, and pacifistic.

All I know about their gods is what they tell me, and that's far from everything. — Vera Mont

So, make up the rest. They made up their information; you can make up yours.

That "we" not only excludes myself, but the majority of people. Who has it every way they want? — Vera Mont

Me and thee, and most believers. A good god fits the lifestyle of the believer. What your god is most concerned about is likely what any given believer is most concerned about. What's your thing? Refugees? Then god is the rescuer, comforter, and principle advocate for refugees. Balanced budgets? Then god is prudent, looks to the future, wastes not/wants not. Gay liberation? Then god blesses whatever one and one's local gay brethren get up to. Peace? Then god is against war, against the bombing (whatever bombing wherever), against unprovoked aggression, etc. Justice? God's always up for justice! Let justice roll down like the water! But whose justice for whom?

They—Adam and Eve—showed that we can't repress our emotions like greed, lust, ambition, disobedience, etc. — javi2541997

Adam and Eve also showed that they were courageous, capable, nurturing, and persistent since they survived the expulsion from the paradisiacal Eden and managed to produce successful (flawed, for sure) children from which we all figuratively descended. Of course, there was that later genetic bottleneck of Noah and his wife who were presumably the only human survivors of the flood. So we are simultaneously sons of Adam and sons of Noah.

I might be completely wrong, but it's possible that the editors of Genesis weren't concerned with the problem of genetic bottlenecks.

Great stuff. Thanks!

Did the conspiracy between good and evil against Job make any sense to you? — Shawn

That's what I mean by 'diverse narratives'. The story of Job is like the story of Adam and Eve or Noah and the ark. It's not an historical narrative, it's a literary narrative which tells the story of one man's unshakable faith in goodness of God.

It's difficult to understand the Bible if it is flattened out into a simple story of conflict between abstract 'good' and 'evil' and frosted with a layer of literalism. I highly doubt that you are a biblical literalist.

From what other sources can we learn the nature and desires of God? — Vera Mont

On the one hand, we created God so we can know everything about God. On the other hand, our God character says He is unknowable, and not like us. Thus we can have it both ways: When it is convenient, we know what God wants, doesn't want, what God likes, what God hates, etc. Or, when it is convenient, God can be an unknowable mystery.

When I say "we created God", I do not mean that we cynically, duplicitously, created God as some sort of great scam. The millennia-long dead authors of god-tales were likely in great earnest. They lived in a pre-scientific world where there was a lot of unexplained, unexplainable events that needed some sort of explanation. Not least was the very existence of the authors and all his kin, friends, enemies--the whole world.

We don't have any problem accepting that gods like Zeus or Odin don't have an objective existence, because those gods were officially retired. There are quite a few gods that various peoples still believe exist. In the fulness of time, millennia, these too will be retired or replaced.