Saving the World One Philosopher at a Time OR The Problem with Philanthropy

I have spent much of the night pondering philanthropy, with regards to myself. I currently have no charity, organization, or cause to which I am devoted or even allied. This is mostly out of selfishness. One, a natural selfishness of all humanity, born of evolution and the survival instinct, which is not to be looked down upon, but which I suppose we must all strive to overcome. It is, however, also the selfishness of youth and immaturity. I'd love to think I'm mature (and more than a hundred people have told me so), but the unfortunate truth is that I'm just mature enough to realize how horribly selfish I am.

So, my thoughts waxed philosophical tonight and I decided I had to take a stand. There is an intellectual disconnect-- cognitive dissonance, if you will-- between what I believe is right (devoting at least a portion, and probably as much as humanly possible, of your life to giving back to the world, and dutifully serving mankind), and what I am willing to do (which is basically limited to watching Buffy and reading Harry Potter and working (but only so I can pay the bills and have a place to watch Buffy and read Harry Potter). And as a twenty-year-old who has been in possession of a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the second oldest institution of higher learning in the country (it's the College of William and Mary, if you didn't know. Thomas Jefferson went there. And lots of other impressive people, including the writers of Scrubs), this disconnect has finally become untenable to me. It's difficult to disagree with Singer when he says that allowing a person to starve to death (no matter his geographical location on the globe with respect to your's) when that death was easily preventable is no different, morally, than killing a man. As Rihanna would say, I don't wanna be a murderer.

I resolved to correct the issue and take action. But what action? What cause could I, a poor post-grad who tends toward the sloth, champion? The mind boggles at how many choices are out there. But I quickly decided that we ought to turn to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The majority--all-- of the world's population should have--needs to have--their basic needs met. Then we can worry about how popular media negatively affects women's body image.

But what does that mean? Feed every person? How? And for how long? Won't our economy collapse in such a one-directional transfer of goods and funds, thereby putting us in the same third-world boat? So we should address the root of the issue of how to get the needs of third world countries met. Now I am by no means well-read on the subject, but it seems to me a common sense solution that women of impoverished countries must be educated. From Camfed USA:

"When you educate a girl in Africa, everything changes. 

She'll be 3 times less likely to get HIV/AIDS, earn 25% more, 

and have a smaller, healthier family."

But how can I do that? It doesn't seem a task to be taken on lightly, and a dozen or more organizations must already be on the job (obviously meeting with limited success. If every woman in Africa or the Middle East were well educated, I'm pretty sure I'd know). Which one should I join? All? None? And how much time, effort, and capital should I be expected to devote to people I've never even met? None? All? An arbitrary middling amount that is probably ultimately the bare minimum my conscience decides I can do to avoid being plagued by guilt?

And how do we even accomplish the task anyway? Everyone else's resources are a) unavailable (some people in America and those other countries are poor, too), b) being used for personal gain, or c) already committed to one or more of the thousands and thousands of organizations devoted to other causes. 

It seems to me that America needs a better, more attuned collective consciousness that could direct its undoubtedly formidable might to solving global problems one at a time, in some sort of reasonable order of importance.

If every child in America were taught to think, maybe this would be an achievable dream. If every schoolteacher strove to impart in the minds of out future not just dates and sums, but the stepping stones for logical thought, problem solving, and productive debate as well, the future would be bright.

But I guess that would be the opinion of a philosophy major, wouldn't it? 

PS- On the off chance that anybody reads this, please step back before blasting your opinions and reread the first line. It's a disclaimer that says I AM NOT AN EXPERT ON ANY SUBJECT MATTER, I AM JUST TOOTING MY OPINION HORN AFTER A LONG NIGHT OF THINKING. Please just consider this a thought exercise that I thought went somewhere significant--thought. It's the foundation of every decision, opinion, statement, and action in the world. Shouldn't our children be taught how to think as much as they are taught facts and figures? And before you say that critical thinking is a priority in the school systems or whatever: 1)Watch Waiting for Superman. Even if it is a priority, your kids probably aren't learning it. 2) I probably came out of public school more recently than you did, and I can tell you that there was minimal emphasis on thought processes (problem solving, critical thinking, constructing syllogisms, etc...) in all but the very best classes taught by exceptional teachers (usually AP classes, which most don't take). And even if there was emphasis, I've met the people that come out of public school-- the emphasis didn't work. At the slightest hint of constructive debate about their opinions, 95% of people get flustered and upset. They cannot respond coherently, and they refuse to listen to anything further you have to say, despite how positively and openly you approach the conversation. Is this the kind of person you want voting, deciding who should be the most powerful man in the world? Is this the kind of person that can contribute to the dream of an America that can focus its energies and solve the world's problems? My answer is...doubtful. Very doubtful.

But I would love to hear what people have to say. Because I like improving my frame of reference and being confident that my opinions are well-educated and defensible. 

Thanks, imaginary readers! I love blowing off steam to you! (PPS- I didn't even slightly edit this. Toodles!)

Phrases That Baffle

There are so many adages and common turns of phrase in the English language that add confusion to our daily lives. Here are my enlightening opinions about some of them:

A stitch in time saves nine. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a relatively young child who has never heard this phrase before but has just read A Wrinkle In Time. You may guess why I was so confused. Wrinkle and stitch are fairly similar if you are thinking of distortions in time, so my mind immediately led me to a disruption in the space-time continuum or a tesseract. A tesseract saves nine? Was this some arbitrary number of endangered lives that tessering could ultimately save from death or dismemberment? Or could one tesseract save nine other tesseracts? And how was this possible? While the rhyming nature of this adage makes it cute and easily remembered, it adds confusion to the interpretation, especially for young children, who can often most benefit from regurgitated wisdom. I give it an A-.

For all intents and purposes. This one never confused me but I discovered many years ago that multitudes of people are mistaken about the actual phrase. If you have never read this phrase anywhere, you may think that people are saying, "for all intensive purposes". Now, there is nothing inherently contradictory or absurd about this translation, but it is, nevertheless, incorrect. It is, however, hard to prove this to people. It's really not the phrase's fault. It gets no penalty. A.

Hollaback girl.  Still waiting for an epiphany on that one. Incomplete, but leaning towards F.

Coup de grace. First of all, there is no way to reason this one out if you don't speak French. So we all feel like idiots when we have to nod along when someone says it in conversation, desperately waiting until we can get home to our dictionary or subtlely look it up on our smartphones (it means stroke of mercy, by the way. The final deathblow, usually a mercy kill). Next, no one says it correctly, apparently. We pronounce it 'coo de grah', when the French say it more like 'kude gras'. This puts us in a predicament, though, doesn't it? If we try to be intelligent and say it correctly, as native French speakers do, we are perceived as snobby and pretentious. If we say it like everyone else does, we are spineless worms who give in to peer pressure and says things incorrectly for no reason. Plus, the French will hate us even more. B-/C+.


Literally. This is more what you might call a "word" than a phrase, but it has been the subject of much anger and comedic writing lately, so I'm going to give it a stab. We all know the meaning of the word "literally": to take something at face value, with no metaphorical interpretations. With this nifty meaning, "literally" was prime material for comedians and amateur hyperbolists to add a subtle element of the absurd by prefacing extreme exaggeration, or hyperbole, with a word that would normally negate the hyperbole, but instead pronounces it. For example, "I could literally eat a horse right now." What I probably mean is simple that I am very hungry, but the addition of "literally" adds a special emphasis by jokingly taking away the possibility of hyperbole.     I love it, but some people take the use of "literally" much too literally. So boo on them. I find it a nifty, if overused, comedic device. A-.


More to follow.

Writing Pains

Being relatively talented at writing, that is, being able to form sentences that make sense and sometimes even look different than the surrounding sentences, is a mixed blessing. In school, all the teachers rave about your writing, and you feel pretty cool. Hey, I'm talented! Then you get a rep among the other students for being some prodigy writer. They ask for tips on their essays. You read their essays.

And thus discover why your teacher thinks you're such an amazing author. Most people just suck at writing and  you're a welcome, mediocre reprieve from sentences that have no commas, twelve commas, lower case proper nouns, or three subjects and no objects. I don't even know if that last one is even possible. But you get my point: it's a major downer to realize you're only talented by dismal comparison. But still, you can't shake the feeling that you're the next Dickens or Rowling; I mean, your teacher couldn't have been exaggerating that much, could she?

So you go to college and take a creative writing course and your work, which you had fancied witty and charming, gets to ripped to shreds by people who wrote stories that ended in suicide instead of finding out your secret girlfriend was actually your cousin the whole time. Apparently that was a stupid and "manipulative" ending, but suicide is just peachy. All the other students' stories had deeper meaning and were allegorical. Some were even surreal. Yours are just...stories. In fact, you can't even decipher the meanings of the other students' stories half the time. Am I an idiot??

Then your husband gets it into his head that it's your life dream to be a famous novelist (which it is, but no one's supposed to know that), and he's so supportive it's nauseating. "Of course you can be a bestselling author! You're an amazing writer! Of course you can get published! No plot or even tagline? No problem, I'll make it for you. You don't want me to write your book for you? Sheesh. Well, then just spend more time writing. What do you mean 'Writing what?'- writing your book, silly! Well, you won't have a plot and a book until you to get to work, now will you?" Thanks. Real helpful.

So you start a blog as a release valve for the pressure of wanting to write and having no plot or ideas to write about, and at first it's great, but then no one reads it and you're depressed and want to write even less. Just dandy.

Then your last resort is constantly rereading reviews of stories you posted to fanfiction.net, which is a major ego boost, until you start to read a story because, hey, it has 80 reviews, which must mean it's good right? And then you think the story's horrible so you read all 80 reviews, assuming they're flames, but they're all glowing. Each and every review praises the story for its originality, masterful execution, and stunning characterization. Then your last bastion of hope crumbles when you realize that only a tiny percentage of fanfiction.net readers can tell a third-grader's work from MacBeth, and they're not reading your story because it doesn't have enough reviews.

Bollocks.

Spicy Food

Eating Indian Hot food is supposed to make me a bad ass? Excuse me? Spiciness is, as far as I can tell, a sensation of discomfort and pain, not a freaking flavor.

If I saw someone amputate his own toe for absolutely no reason, I wouldn't say, "Dude, you are such a BAD ASS! Can you sign my tits?" I would say, "Can someone get a paddy wagon to take this NUT JOB to the LOONY BIN?!"

Why is spicy food so awesome? Why would I purposefully burn my own tongue, ruining what is normally a very enjoyable part of my days: eating.

That is all.