Life, Philosophy, and Everything

Alt Title: Life, philosophy, and Everything else that happens to pop up in my head at any given time.

I had a nice weekend. Got to play BattleField 2 on Saturday, took the kids out to a cherry orchard (note to Cherry orchard operators: weigh the kids, not the baskets), and I basically slept all Sunday.

But on Saturday, between BF2 maps, one of my friends and I had the beginnings of an interesting conversation. Unfortunate, BF2 called before we could finish. My friend is an ex-philosophy major who has since reformed and asked for forgiveness (not to say he isn't still minorly warped my the experience). Me, I'm a college grad with a BSCS and two philosophy courses under my belt. Therefore: I am now an expert. :)

The discussion was about the use of philosophy (or lack of use). Most people agree, philosophy in its current form is useless. I have not heard of any philosophers striving to answer any important questions in a really long time, and it seems they are just trying to be proven wrong (the ultimate failing for a philosopher).

My counter to this: philosophy has one redeeming factor, it is useful to help determine how our culture thinks and sees itself. The actual philosopher countered with an inescapable answer: the current culture doesn't think. I would mostly agree with that. Our culture doesn't think -- for itself. Instead, it is force-fed by others who deem themselves worthy to speak for others.

So hear is what happens: someone with a high opinion of him/herself come up with a high ideal. They spread that ideal around to other less qualified, but still with high opinions of themselves. They dumb the ideal down and pass it on. That last step repeats itself many times over. Finally you have that high ideal in the general populace, albeit, extremely watered down.

The same thing happens in the fashion industry. My wife loves going through fashion magazines, especially the ones that show scenes from the latest runway event in Europe (usually France). The clothes are very interesting, but very unapproachable -- much like the models themselves. But in attendance are other designers. These designers take those clothes, and dumb them down to where an actual person might wear them.

Not that the original designer clothing wasn't beautiful, but it was designed for a idealized world market. Tall, skinny women with slender hips and no breasts. Most women do not look like that, and would look like a hippo in a tutu trying to fit into them.

The same goes for philosophy. Generally, your mechanic is not going to start spurting Kant or Hume, much less know who they are. Most men (half the world population you know), could name a high fashion designer if their life depended on it (Levi and Osh-kosh are not high fashion). But just as there are pieces of that high fashion in those Levis you wear, so there is some modern philosophy in the rubbish your taxi driver is saying.

Unfortunate, high fashion still has the same problem that modern philosophy has: it is still useless in the day to day world.