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Mar.5,2012
I am back to doing discussions and blog again. This time, hopefully WordPress wouldn’t give me too many bugs and that it would do me good in managing the site.
Anyhow, this week’s discussion is about, as the title suggests pain/suffering and our sense of reason and free will. The reason I chose the emo character here is because he is so damn CUTE, and also it kind of depicts the sadness in this world or the pain he suffers. Interestingly, Western Civilization (one of our core classes at uni) is one of the MOST INTERESTING classes I have ever taken. We talk about western philosophers and the forming of western ideologies through an extensive period of time. This week, our discussion is focused on Dostoevsky (hard name to spell!) and his book titled Notes From Underground. Truthfully, I haven’t read the book yet, but there are some points of discussion pertaining to his concepts within the book that I would like to address.
To simply put, he criticizes the enlightenment period in favor of human nature of having free will and freedom to do things we desire. Westernization, as he sees it, brings the notion of using our “reason” which hinders our utilization of “free will”. Pretty much, reason and free will do not co-exist as our logic or reasons confines us to follow the rules or norms of our society, and in effects it constrains what and who we are supposed to be — like we are puppets to our reasons. Read More…
