“Wanderer Above a Sea of Mist,” by Casper David Friedrich (Germany), 1818.
It is ironic how much more solitude and how fewer close friends I have in the Chicago metropolis than I ever had in tiny Bemidji.
For the second weekend day in a row, I find myself awake before 4am, sitting at my desk alone, in the quiet, working and thinking. I admit I feel the pangs of loneliness more often here than I did in Bemidji. However, I still have a few very close friends here that pull me out of my cave three or so times per week.
Overall, I enjoy this. In my class, we were recently discussing Aristotle, who argued that the only truly happy life is the contemplative, or philosophical life. His argument compels me, but it is not entirely satisfying for most (my students generally exclaim that everyone has a different happiness…of course, most of them haven’t even tried to understand the argument before criticizing it). And I’m not entirely satisfied with it, either. However, there is a great, high quality joy that accompanies legitimate contemplation. And the great lesson that all of this solitude is bringing me is that this can be actualized in my life when my life is conducted in a certain way.
That brings me to question what this “certain way of conducting life” that leads to the highest happiness might be. In practice, I am asking what the most virtuous, superior life would be. Lately, however, it is out of fashion to ask this sort of question: all people are equal, even if different. But after thinking over it for years, I reject this notion. Appreciating variation enriches life, I agree. And I am glad that there is variation in how people live their lives. But I do not agree that all of these lives are eqaully capable of achieving happiness, virtue, or worthiness, nor do that have the same inherent level of worth.*
Once one accepts that there are more or less inferior modes of life, it doesn’t follow that there is one superior mode of life. However, it does follow that one can improve one’s life by modifying the mode of one’s life. And so it seems worthwhile to pursue an understanding of what this might be. It may seem narcissistic, but this goal may be what my life’s project has been up to this point.
Therefore, a project that I will attempt to formally begin at this point is understanding what a superior person might look like. Certainly, this has been done before and will be done again, but I would rather take up the project from scratch and see what I can come up with.
*[Everyone at birth, I agree, should be regarded equally. And ideally, they should all be afforded the same opportunity to reach their potential (our nation, in this most important sense, is not egalitarian). On the recent debate at Froyd’s Mutterings, for example, I agree that all children ought to be afforded adequate, free medical attention. Otherwise, we are effectively allowing some children more or fewer benefits based on something for which they have no control over: their parents. And while a parent ought to take care of their children, they often do not, and we ought not hold children responsible for the sins of their parents.]
Natural Causes 