How should we live?

How should we live?
The question was originally asked in Aristotle's "Ethics", but it's one which has always obsessed us as a species.
Does it matter that 'should' is what is called a normative word?...Normative words are used in ethics to make prescriptions about ethical choices. Do you think the question would be better if the word 'will' were used instead? How WILL we live? What difference would that make to how you responded to the question?
Thanks for thinking.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• How
• should
• we
• live
• George
• Orwell
• Aldous
• Huxley
• Neil
• Postman
• Christopher
• Hitchens
• Aristotle
• ethics
• normative
• values

[brokennarcissist]

Between the complexities of Pynchon and Wallace's need to fill a great novel with gag. I think our culture is doing fine in terms of producing genius.

I think this is a bit alarmist, a bunch of culturally prescribed authors (most read Huxley and Orwell in high school and Postman is found on the surface of any reading list). It sounds like a bunch of intellectuals who share an anxiety of future possibilities of intellectuals. I'm more scared of Hitchens than technology.

[2bsirius]

@brokennarcissist

Yes, Huxley & Orwell are on a lot of reading lists. I don't think Postman's book is superficial at all. BUT it was published in the eighties, and yes, we have a completely different world now, especially technologically. You're absolutely right that Pynchon's and especially Wallace's work have a more contemporary and if possible a bleaker view of the dysfunctions which come from advocating completely to technological forces. Infinite Jest is a brilliant evocation of it

[AQGOAT24]

Huxley's fears seems to have come true at least in Western society.

[Celephais42]

I should think that it is fairly obvious that both mens' worst case scenarios are fully at work. That is, the distraction culture is already fully utilized to keep the majority complacent. Those not fooled are then kept in check through fear, either by being afraid, or if not afraid and actively resisting, being dubbed anything from "crazy" to "terrorist". After sufficiently dehumanized, the distracted majority authorizes the use of force.

Damned if you do....

[METALRAT1000]

I have read both 1984 and Brave New World, and loved both of them!

[fistfulofknowledge]

Huxley's is more likelier to happen in my opinion due to the fact that it has some genuinely attractive qualties, indeed I myself was actually somewhat attracted to the world state in brave new world whereas Oceania terrified me.

[gordoncraig410]

I want this video on my VK4100 unit.

[irvingadkins616]

Your video went viral on Tajikistan

[Boyastronaut]

Nice summary, nice upload!

[jnevins64]

Turns out its a bit of both - implement Orwells totalitarianism and hide it behind Huxley's distractionism - that way just in-case someone wakes up and realizes he is free they can cut their losses and still maintain enslavement of society as a whole.

[tonyfalca]

@tonyfalca

Oh yeah, by the way, I feel as if the 'collective simulation' of now resembles what Orwell illustrated, and may be likely transitioning into Huxley's interpretation, of course before anarchism without capitalism :)

[tonyfalca]

@tonyfalca

With that aside, I'll bring myself down to another level. Ultimately, I feel as if the 'collective simulation' is heading towards Anarchism, without a doubt; just plain old anarchism without capitalism.

[tonyfalca]

@tonyfalca However, you could say that some of us are heading one way, while the others head somewhere else. Millions of people are living in a reality constructed for them -- by somebody else. YET, millions of people are now becoming aware of this. Notably, Life appears to be self-organizing, so vaguely, the world is further 'dividing' once again into, vaguely, two other 'collective' simulations; one more accurate of the truth, and the other not so much. Life is 'multiplication' by'division'lol

[tonyfalca]

Posing the question "how should WE live" or "how will WE live" is irrelevant. I'm not sure if you've read my other comment about indirect realism yet, but I feel as if each of us are already living in separate interpretations or representations of reality. Whatever we are interpreting, the constant, the truth, the infinite, potential, etc, etc, is the ONLY thing that connects us all. Each of us are all heading in different directions, to different worlds, all at the same time; for the most part.

[fistfulofknowledge]

People will bleed, kill and die in order to overthrow tyrants, but very rarely to overthrow hedonism, becuase it can't be overthrown. A tyrant or ruling elite are but a group of people, whereas a hedonistic society is an entire population.

[fistfulofknowledge]

@AQGOAT24 Yes but it's also happened in other countries as well. Look at China for example, who have moved towards neo-liberalism and consumerist culture rather than the old police state (though they still have it)

[mindprism]

Mankind will split into two species, the greater and the lesser

[TheTempleofNature]

@2bsirius LOL!

[2bsirius]

@TheTempleofNature

Good, glad you did!...I just hope you're not contracting my disease of over-editing-itis...I seem to make more typos whenever I try to a make corrections--talk about futility! :)

[TheTempleofNature]

@2bsirius Just reposted it due to typo! :)

[2bsirius]

@TheTempleofNature

Great comment! I was sorry to see that you had removed it.

[AMilitantAgnostic]

People just need to wake up and not be controlled.

[lapisredux]

well Should is a kind of wishful thinking while Will requires a crystal ball...howabout weapons of mass Distraction?