In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets out to examine the nature of happiness.
He argues that happiness consists in ‘activity of the soul in accordance with virtue’, for example with moral virtues, such as courage, generosity and justice, and intellectual virtues, such as knowledge, wisdom and insight. The Ethics also discusses the nature of practical reasoning, the value and the objects of pleasure, the different forms of friendship, and the relationship between individual virtue, society and the State. Aristotle’s work has had a profound and lasting influence on all subsequent Western thought about ethical matters.
About the Author
Aristotle was born in 384 BC, and studied in Athens under Plato. His writings were of extraordinary range, and many of them have survived. He died in 323 BC.
The following metaphorical experiment involving monkeys reminds me much of a quote on Truth by Arthur Schopenhauer, especially the “violently opposed” part. The quote is:
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
As for the experiment (true or not), it seems that the majority of the human race have replaced the monkeys in terms of our minds being imprisoned by those in, so-called, authority as well as the societal pressures to conform.
There is no doubt that we have all but become easily frightened and obedient monkeys, through the apparent use of the “carrot and stick” policy instigated by those who wish to coerce us into doing their bidding, whilst we violently turn on those who dare to step out the status quo. Read more…
A middle class white guy comes to grips with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American Lifestyle.
From the author;
“Hundreds of my readers have told me that my novel Ishmael should be read in every high school classroom in the world. Naturally I’d be delighted to see this happen, but I really think it would be more to the point to have What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire seen in every high school classroom in the world! The two hours of this documentary are two hours that bring hope for the future of humanity by awakening and informing in the most profound yet lucid way imaginable”
George Carlin sums up in only 3 minutes and 19 seconds what we all should be aware of in this society of illusion.
Are we really free individuals, both in mind and body?
Well, I will let George explain the rest, which should both liberate and educate one towards seeing the world for what it is – a big farm containing human cattle.
Listen, Little Man! is a great physician’s quiet talk to each one of us, the average human being, the Little Man. Written in 1946 in answer to the gossip and defamation that plagued his remarkable career, it tells how Reich watched, at first naively, then with amazement, and finally with horror, at what the Little Man does to himself; how he suffers and rebels; how he esteems his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he gains power as a “representative of the people,” he misuses this power and makes it crueler than the power it has supplanted.
Reich has us to look honestly at ourselves and to assume responsibility for our lives and for the great untapped potential that lies in the depth of human nature.
A sobering but much needed wake-up call for the majority of walking dead that belong to the human race…
“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book(Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom(when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this(or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.”
A Wisdom blog sharing a beneficial resource of inspirational words of wisdom, philosophy, and enlightening knowledge for the truth seeker. Containing the author's own philosophy of life as well as wisdom-related links to articles, free ebooks, videos and documentaries to educate, liberate and improve one's mind.
