The Cost of Stayin Alive!

[coberst]

The Cost of Stayin Alive!

I once asked a professor of philosophy “what is philosophy about?” he responded “philosophy is a radically critical self-consciousness”. It took me thirty years to understand this statement.

I shall take a “radically critical self-conscious” look at the question of longevity in these troubled times.

My generation and my children’s generation have not prepared my grandchildren’s generation for the mess that we are leaving to them. One easily understood aspect of this mess, though not the most important, is the massive debt past generations are leaving to future generations.

The tea party’s clamor about public debt makes this matter obvious to us on a daily basis. Has the tea party taken a radically critical self-conscious look of this problem? I think not, but who would claim that these people are intellectually sophisticated?

Imagine that instead of a tea party we faced daily the much publicized clamor of reasoned judgment by an older generation of intellectually sophisticated citizens.

A person who has lived 75 years, such as me, might ask him or her self “is every additional day of life for me worth $100 to my family?”

I receive about $1,500 a month in social security or $50 a day. I am adding another $50 a day to cover other costs such as health care and the consumption of the earth’s natural resources. This $100 a day does not include other costs that my family will endure as a result of my dieing slowly over the remainder of my life.

I put this on a family values basis because we American citizens have learned to hide reality from our conscious considerations. If we put it on a national basis we will not comprehend the reality of the situation.

I can think of only one way that we old folks can pay our way sufficiently to justify living longer than 75 years. The way that old folks can pay their way is by preparing themselves to become intellectually sophisticated before they are old (just as we prepare financially for old age) so that they can provide to society a storehouse of networked understanding to help fellow citizens to make good judgments regarding matters of culture and government.

[coberst]

Why does the challenge of becoming intellectually sophisticated frighten everyone so?

First, I will say that our (American) culture is very anti-intellectual and therein, I think, lays the rub.

We are anti-intellectual because those who control public policy (Corporate America) keep us like dumb bovine because it is easier to manipulate a naïve person than a sophisticated person.

[Lote-Tree]

What is a Sophisticated Person?

[coberst]

We were born smart enough but we weren’t born intellectually sophisticated enough to handle this high tech world we have invented.

What is the difference between “being smart” and “being sophisticated”? I would say that we can use the handyman and his tool box as a good analogy for comprehending this difference. The number and quality of the instruments in a handyman’s tool box is a measure of his smartness and his experience using those tools is a measure of his sophistication.

If a handyman has only a hammer then every job is a job that will get hammered on. If that handyman has a great tool box but has experience only with a hammer then that handyman will look for things that can be hammered into place.

If we substitute the domains of knowledge, about which we have acquired a fundamental comprehension, for the tools that are learned how to use, we can then easily see the connection with the analogy.