Sorry for maintaining radio silence for so long (by the way, Thanksgiving was wonderful), but as I'm sure many of you are aware, this is crunch time for the semester: exams, final projects, papers, oh my! Several topics have been nagging at my conscience recently, and I'm not sure where to start, so I'll just... start.
I'm becoming alarmed at how many of my friends are dealing with depression-type issues. As near as I can tell, none of them have clinical depression; they're simply in a "funk", for one reason or another. Usually, that reason happens to be "loneliness." I can certainly relate, but I've found that focusing on one's loneliness is counter-productive; it's a self-perpetuating reaction to a natural emotion. Instead, getting out there, being social, and trying to ignore that emotion seems to be the best move. Some may call that "repression"; I call it "living." Besides, I think it's at least partially a seasonal phenomenon; the winter tends to bring people's spirits down. Just to be clear, I'm not immune either and I'll readily admit to having some of the same blues right now, but it's nothing new for me. And sometimes, when you're doing everything you can and things just aren't working out for you, you have to learn how to cope for the time being so that you can continue with the rest of life. Everybody copes differently; my methods include games, music, and reading. Basically, whatever you enjoy doing, do that, and have faith that perseverance will pay off.
Moral relativism really bothers me, or at least the extreme variety of it. It's one matter to claim that life is complex and full of uncertainty and shades of gray; I completely agree. But when people take the next step and say that good and evil don't exist, I feel that crosses a line. As an example, sure, we can have a debate about what's a "terrorist" and what's a "freedom fighter," but that doesn't change the fact that a suicide bombing that targets civilians is a despicable, evil tactic that deserves condemnation (not to mention, from a pragmatic standpoint, it's self-defeating and ineffective, for reasons I won't get into right now). Period. Am I being close-minded? My fear is, by allowing the morality of something like a suicide bombing to be ambiguous, you're asking for trouble. If any of you have a philosophy background and can educate me a little on moral relativism, I might find that I'm misunderstanding it, but until then, my view is that moral relativism is an insidious cancer that increasingly pervades our society (by which, I especially mean disillusioned members of my generation) and threatens to accelerate the ongoing destruction of our moral fabric. That's one of the few issues on which I'll sound like a follower of the Religious Right, and you can tell I take it very seriously. So I'm sincere when I say that I'd like to have a serious discussion about it, because it's quite likely that I'm forming an extreme opinion out of ignorance.
All right, that's as much seriousness as I can handle for now. Good luck with everything, and I should be home in 2 and a half weeks.
I'm becoming alarmed at how many of my friends are dealing with depression-type issues. As near as I can tell, none of them have clinical depression; they're simply in a "funk", for one reason or another. Usually, that reason happens to be "loneliness." I can certainly relate, but I've found that focusing on one's loneliness is counter-productive; it's a self-perpetuating reaction to a natural emotion. Instead, getting out there, being social, and trying to ignore that emotion seems to be the best move. Some may call that "repression"; I call it "living." Besides, I think it's at least partially a seasonal phenomenon; the winter tends to bring people's spirits down. Just to be clear, I'm not immune either and I'll readily admit to having some of the same blues right now, but it's nothing new for me. And sometimes, when you're doing everything you can and things just aren't working out for you, you have to learn how to cope for the time being so that you can continue with the rest of life. Everybody copes differently; my methods include games, music, and reading. Basically, whatever you enjoy doing, do that, and have faith that perseverance will pay off.
Moral relativism really bothers me, or at least the extreme variety of it. It's one matter to claim that life is complex and full of uncertainty and shades of gray; I completely agree. But when people take the next step and say that good and evil don't exist, I feel that crosses a line. As an example, sure, we can have a debate about what's a "terrorist" and what's a "freedom fighter," but that doesn't change the fact that a suicide bombing that targets civilians is a despicable, evil tactic that deserves condemnation (not to mention, from a pragmatic standpoint, it's self-defeating and ineffective, for reasons I won't get into right now). Period. Am I being close-minded? My fear is, by allowing the morality of something like a suicide bombing to be ambiguous, you're asking for trouble. If any of you have a philosophy background and can educate me a little on moral relativism, I might find that I'm misunderstanding it, but until then, my view is that moral relativism is an insidious cancer that increasingly pervades our society (by which, I especially mean disillusioned members of my generation) and threatens to accelerate the ongoing destruction of our moral fabric. That's one of the few issues on which I'll sound like a follower of the Religious Right, and you can tell I take it very seriously. So I'm sincere when I say that I'd like to have a serious discussion about it, because it's quite likely that I'm forming an extreme opinion out of ignorance.
All right, that's as much seriousness as I can handle for now. Good luck with everything, and I should be home in 2 and a half weeks.
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1 comment:
You're being took for a ride. Plain, old, and lazy.
Perhaps you stole the title of your article from a Radiohead song. Perhaps I'm just obsessed and everything reminds me of Radiohead. Who's in the bunker now chum?
I hope your finals went well and that I'll be seeing you soon (like in a few hours :) ). I agree with your moral relativism stance-I feel that people should know what to consider wrong and right as I claim that it is something you know the moment you are born. Ignoring it is a tragic flaw we have to deal with today.
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