trying to grok

OPENING MY MIND...OR TRYING TO

I started reading The Closing of the American Mind with rapt attention. I was gasping out loud through the first segment. The second segment got me bogged down a little bit in Socrates and Nietzsche, but I suppose I merely proved the author's point, that college students are no longer given a basic understanding of philosophy and thought. Touché, Bloom, I had a hard time with that segment. I'm wrapping up the third segment now, and I noticed the parallels between what I am reading in the book and this article, Idiot Compassion:

The world, viewed through the liberal's gray colored, politically-correct glasses, makes no discerning judgments, or at least incorrect ones. Hence, we get addle-brained protesters picketing to save the lives of serial killers on death row or human shields willing to give up their lives to protect suicide bomber cults and Islamic terrorists. Since all killing is bad, it must be bad to kill Islamic terrorists or convicted murderers. This idiot view, foregoes the greater good and lapses into solipsism.

I also found an interesting tidbit that would've come in handy when an old friend told me my anger made me no better than Mohammad Atta and that I should read some Gandhi:

The biographies of the Buddha reveal that in one of his early incarnations, he met a murderer of 1000's of men. Acting correctly and with compassion for all sentient beings, the Buddha's incarnation killed the murderer to prevent additional suffering. That is true compassion!

Last week when I was reminiscing, I also found an old email from Bunker in which he was flipping through Plato's Republic and thought I might want to give it a try. That dovetails nicely with The Closing of the American Mind, and so I might have to sit down with a little Plato and see if I can make myself smarter.

Posted by Sarah at June 8, 2007 11:10 AM | TrackBack