Paideia
Another thing Dr. West talked about last night was paideia. The link above takes you to the wikipedia entry for it. He talked a lot about it in connection to your college education. He said college is not for learning a skill or trade, but for opening your minds. Thinking deeply. In the word of Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." The exercise of padeia helps us think deeply and critically about our lives, our assumptions, or closely held convictions. He challenged us to be prepared, as we pursue this path, to let go of some of our cherished beliefs. To allow ourselves to be thrown off balance by new ideas and fresh understandings.
That is what I hope you will try, not only in my class, but in all your classes, and for the rest of your lives.
Is there a way to get others at SLU (who may not have heard this talk) to engage in paideia?
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Yeah, force them to go hear him speak or pay them too. Otherwise people don't have interest.
ReplyDeleteI think Paideia is certainly important, but can one take it too far? Sometimes I ask myself so many questions about life I run in a circle and it drives me CRAZY that I just have to sit back and turn on the television. Have we really been this conditioned in our society to become lazy when we can't deal with reality anymore, or refuse to come to terms with it. Geeze...
As far as my opening statement went, I think a lot of people just aren't interested. They are coming to college to get an education because they know they need it to have a life and make money. I guarantee you if the majority of society could make money without college, these buildings would not be as filled up as they are now. And if people came for a general interest in just education and furthering themselves, they would be that much fuller.
I think the trick is to engage people in discussion! CONVINCE them they need education, discourse, talking, experimenting, thoughtful and thorough discussions to help them develop not only as a full and mature person, but by developing they help develop the world. Right now I see a future with increased technology and reliance on it and a continuation of the separation between high and low class. So MANY people are content with being apathetic and following norms (myself included) and so FEW people consider the realities and life and CHALLENGE them! We have to find a way to interest people in developing a sense of who they are and challenging and RE-challenging that notion over and over and keeping them coming back for more. The only way I can think of doing this is engaging them in something they are interested in and (hopefully) something that has an impact on the world. You won't find me at a business meeting - even for ethics - or a political seminar about fiscal responsibility because I don't care about that. Maybe I should - but I'm still interested in other things (like Dr. West's speech) that hopefully challenge my thoughts and engage myself with this reality. Without this engagement we can change who we are and who we ought to become!
We need to show people why certain things are important to them and why, if they aren't, they should be! The room for Dr. West was full of black people - and rightly so. But why NOT more white people? Why not MORE in general? Time constraints? Possibly. Not enough spreading of the word? Possibly. Apathy, indifference, no reason to, a tv show is on, beer drinking is more important? Definitely. How do we fix this when our reality justifies being and home and relaxing, and making excuses when things like this DO come our way? We gotta challenge it some how, folks.