For my final I plan to expand on my mid-term. Expand on the idea that Marcuse laid out in his essays. To move on we must 'pacify nature.' I plan to focus a lot on the idea that human nature or animal instinct combined with advancing technology will be the demise of us unless we are able to over come these natural urges. Right now we find ways to control our urges, or ways to stop the effects while still living by instinct (condoms).
To be simple we need to solve the problem that people are dumb but a person is smart, cure the mob mentality. An example of this is on Halloween when children see a "free take one" basket and they all race to it and tackle each other to see who can get the most candy, this needs change. While this is a very simple childish example, we must learn to resist temptation and consider others. As easy as this sounds on a large scale it becomes very complex. It is natural to put yourself first and worry about the next moment, instead of society and next year, or decade, or millennium. I plan to understand and work with what Marcuse said and expand on it with my own ideas.
2 comments:
The entirety of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, as well as his other books, are available online. As you might expect, they are technical and difficult, but you'd probably benefit from working through at least a couple chapters.
I'm all in favor of you refining and expanding your midterm, and I think working primarily on the idea of operating against a mob mentality is a good strategy. It's still vague, though, even if a promising start. What are we working toward, and how? Ideally the specifics of your imagined change, or imagined new world, would begin to appear even in this proposal...
For my final I plan to expand on my mid-term. Expand on the idea that Marcuse laid out in his essays. To move on we must 'pacify nature.' I plan to focus a lot on the idea that human nature or animal instinct combined with advancing technology will be the demise of us unless we are able to over come these natural urges. Right now we find ways to control our urges, or ways to stop the effects while still living by instinct (condoms).
To be simple we need to solve the problem that people are dumb but a person is smart, cure the mob mentality. Although human instinct got us to where we are today, we need to move past it to move on, move past intuition. We must learn to resist temptation and consider others. As easy as this sounds on a large scale it becomes very complex. It is natural to put yourself first and worry about the next moment, instead of society and next year, or decade, or millennium. I plan to understand and work with what Marcuse said and expand on it with my own ideas.
My essay will examine the questions of who what where why and when however it will leave the question of how for a future essay. Another text I may refrence is Garrett Hardin's the tradgedy of the commons. This is an article from 1968 about how "multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen." This is the problem I plan to discuss.
The result of my imagined change is a self sustaining society. One in which there will be no crime because everyone will have what they want and need. A society where people understand that excess is not necesary and no longer desire it. Technology will be necesary to get us to this place as well as a unanamous understanding of how to live. Things to be valued in this future include family, love and education.
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