Today in class we discussed Socrates quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living", and personally I disagree with this statement. A life worth living is a happy life, and happiness doesn't come from examining your life but from living your life to it's fullest. By spending all your time examining your life I feel you can never be happy because you will never find all the answers, humans are complex beings and trying to figure out our nature is fine but assuming that by not doing so your life is not worth living is a wrong assumption. I'm not saying that people shouldn't examine their lives, but they should consume their lives with that examination. I say the over examined life is a life that's not worth living.
Someone in class said that through examining our lives humans will become more rational and that rationality will inversely cause a better society for human beings. In response to that I have to say that many times its the irrational things that humans do that lead to discoveries, and if we become a completely rational society all learning would stop, right then and there. I believe that it is human nature itself to be irrational. So that statement in and of itself is a contradiction, because how can examining Human Nature lead to something that is against human nature? If humans were rational then I believe we wouldn't know what little we already know and it would be impossible for us to function as human beings. I don't know what we would be, but we wouldn't be human.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
"if we become a completely rational society all learning would stop, right then and there"
I think I am confused by your definition of rationality rather than the points you make. What exactly do you mean when you say rational, or invoke reason?
A rational person as I see them is a person who thinks through every single action they take, making sure not to take any risks in life. If Benjamin Franklin was a completely rational being then, I belive, he wouldn't have gone out in a thunder storm and flown a kite, because doing so would be an irrational thing to do. I believe it's irrational actions that have lead to the greatest discoveries and if humans were to become completley rational beings, based off of my definition and views, then discoveries would slow down if not end.
Looking back at my last two posts I realized that I wasn't completely clear about my rationality statement, so here it is; I don't believe that humans should, or can be, completely rational OR irrational. I think that humans are mixture of the two as dictated by our human nature.
Post a Comment