Man at the Brink of Immortality
From the earliest civilizations arose an innate desire to survive in any given environment. Those that chose to fight death’s henchmen, famine and war, developed more advanced agricultural techniques and created complex social structures. The primal instinct to exist drove humanity to proliferate across the world, as many populations boomed, seemingly without bound. Throughout history, this fervent yearning for life was shared by the predominant masses, but the inevitable befell every person on earth. Accepting the natural process of life became the standard, when the multitudes that sought to find the fountain of youth and the elixir of life eventually failed. Religious zeal relieved the hopelessness of the situation for the Romans dreamed of the Elysian Fields, the Christians prayed for a majestic Heaven, and the Buddhists awaited the bliss of Nirvana. Ultimately immortality, whether be it spiritual continuance in the afterlife, philosophical justification of a fundamental essence, or scientific perpetuation of the physical self, brings meaning to life in relationship to the individual.
The depth of this argument initially appears to be too ambiguous and irrelevant to every unique individual. First of all, the cases of immortality stated above, while all equally valid, are by no means inclusive of every possible situation. Rather, immortality shall be defined as the eternal perpetuation of any human component, which relates to personal identity. Second, while the “meaning of life” is something special for everyone, that meaning can only be pertinent to the individual, when the person can perceive it as being relevant. At any point in time, if people happened to die, without the ever...
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... in an Amazonian society," American Ethnologist 22, No. 1 (1995), pp. 75.
2 Conklin, pp. 89-90.
3 Robert Desjarlais, A Yolmo Phenomenology of Dying (Bronxville: Unpublished, 1999), pp. 1.
4 Desjarlais, pp. 5.
5 Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Will to Live," in Essays and Aphorisms, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Penguin, 1970), p. 61-5.
6 Schopenhauer, p. 73-6.
7 Lawlor’s 10-22-01 Lecture.
8 Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, trans. R. E. Latham (New York: Penguin Books , 1951) III. 830-62.
9 Lucretius, III. 938-44.
10 Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (London: Cambridge University Press), pp. 13.
11 Nagel, pp. 12.
12 Nagel, pp. 12.
13 Schopenhauer, p. 75.
14 Sharon R. Kaufman, “In the Shadow of ‘Death with Dignity’: Medicine and Cultural Quandaries of the Vegetative State,” American Anthropologist 102, No. 1 (2000), pp. 69.
According to “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff says that “ Everyone knows some young person who is impressively “street smart” but does poor in school” ( Gerald Graff 244). He explains that to many people believe that one who is so intelligent in life cannot do well in academic work, and he or she needs spend extra time on his or her school works than things in sports. However, Graff used his own anti-intellectual experience to verify his opinion that street smarts are simply as important as school smarts, and he recommends school should take all these street smarts and apply them into good academic environment. Graff also believes we should allow students read literature or any things they first feel interested, for example “George Orwell, which is a writing on the cultural meanings of penny postcards is infinitely more
In the essay ”Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff, he discusses different types of intellect, more specifically the ways they can apply to us in our lives. He discusses the different types of “smarts” referred to in his paper as street smarts, and school smarts. Graff hints upon the missed opportunities by colleges to embrace the form of intellect called “street smarts” because of a preconceived idea that there is no way to use this form of knowledge in an academic setting. To quote Graff directly “Colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts”. We then learn some of Graffs personal experiences pertaining to this very thing. He shares a story about himself which reviews his underlying love for sports and complete diskliking for books or any form of intellectualism, until he became college aged. He shares that he now believes, his love of sports over over school work was not because he hated intellectualism but perhaps it was intellectualism in another form. He shares his
All in all, “Hidden Intellectualism” is a pleasant journey through the nuances of educating future intellectuals, especially with Gerald Graff at the helm navigating as only a venerable ship captain can.
The Vietnam War began in 1954 and came to an end in 1975. It was a conflict that set in opposition the communist regime of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong (its southern allies) against South Vietnam and its chief ally, the United States. The war began after Ho Chi Minh’s rise to power along with his communist Viet Minh party. More than 3 million people died in this war, which included over 58,000 Americans. By 1969, the U.S. had reached peak involvement in the war, involving over 500,000 American military personnel. As time went on, there was growing opposition in America to the war. This opposition led to a bitter divide among those in support of the war and those against it. By 1975, the communist Vietnamese forces had gained control of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War (History.com). Most people consider this war a huge loss and a tragic waste of time. The sting of disappointment from this war is still widely felt today among Americans.
Introduction: Mary Roach introduces herself ass a person who has her own perspective of death about cadavers. She explains the benefits of cadavers and why they could be used for scientific improvements. She acknowledges the negative perspectives of this ideology.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1967).
In “Hidden Intellectualism”, author and professor Gerald Graff describes his idea of what book smarts and streets smarts actually are. He details how new ideas can help to teach and build our educational system into something great and that perhaps street smarts students could be the factor that traditional education is missing that could make it great.
From its inception, Buddhism has stressed the importance of death, since awareness of death is what prompted the Buddha to perceive the ultimate futility of worldly concerns and pleasures. Realizing that death is inevitable for a person who is caught up in worldly pleasures and attitudes, he resolved to renounce the world and devote himself to finding a solution to this most basic of existential dilemmas.
“Hidden Intellectualism” written by Gerald Graff, is a compelling essay that presents the contradicting sides of “book smarts” and “street smarts” and how these terms tied in to Graff’s life growing up. Graff felt like the school was at fault that the children with more “street smarts” were marked with the reputation of being inadequate in the classroom. Instead of promoting the knowledge of dating, cars, or social cues, the educational system deemed them unnecessary. Gerald Graff thought that “street smarts” could help people with academics. In his essay, Graff confessed that despite his success as an “intellect” now, he was the exact opposite until college. Where he grew up in Chicago, Illinois, intelligence was looked down upon around peers
De, Botton Alain. "A Broken Heart." Comp. Arthur Schopenhauer. The Consolations of Philosophy. New York: Pantheon, 2000. N. pag. Print.
Tropp, Martin. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Schopenhauer, and the Power of the Will." Midwest Quarterly Winter 1991: 141-55. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 126. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Artemis Literary Sources. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. For it is the society that has great impact on the individual’s beliefs. Hence, it is also possible for other cultures to influence the people of a different culture on such comprehensions. The primary and traditional way men and women have made dying a less depressing and disturbing idea is though religion. Various religions offer the comforting conception of death as a begining for another life or perhaps a continuation for the former.
We should not focus on pleasures of the body and only fulfill those that are necessary to live. The soul’s only desire is wisdom, which can only be achieved through the intellect and not through the deceitful senses. This can be illustrated by the fact that the true form of things such as justice, beauty and goodness can never be perceived through the senses. However, we are born with some sort of sense of what these things are, therefore there must be an ideal form which the things in the emperical world are somewhat equal to. Since the mind already has a sense of these forms when its born, the soul needs to be immortal. (102-104,
Chochinov, H.M 2007: 187. Dignity and the essence of medicine: the A, B, C, and D of dignity conserving care. BMJ: 185-187
Would you want to live forever ? My position on this topic is equal upon