Are we able to turn any situation into a happy one? Banach talks about Sisyphus a young man sentenced to a life time punishment of rolling a huge rock up and down a hill forever, till the say he dies, he makes the point that would most people really be able to see any good out of that.
Albert Camus brought up the idea that because we can give our own lives value we can achieve happiness at almost any time in any situation. How true is that? Most people i know are not that selfless that they would give up the life they live now to roll a rock up the hill and make the best out of that. Personally i would not accept that as a fair punishment, i would do anything in my power to change the nature of my situation and rebel. "our life is a series of meaningless actions culminating in death, with no possibility of external justification." why he he comparing life with death?
I have so many thoughts reading this part if the lecture that my writing may seem a little all over the place, the questions he poses just keep me thinking and make me ask more. "what are we rebelling against? There must be more to the extistialist conception of happiness that this..." What sense does it really make to rebel against something that is non existent? I'm convinced there is more to it! In order to find ultimate happiness we must search for values within one self! Once you find your value no one take it away from you no matter what!
This part of the lecture leaves me to ponder and wonder what the point of everything he said was! all he really did at the end was argue and contradict it. "to say one must act authentically is to say that one must act in a way that ignores the differences between oneself and other people." At first he was trying to say that we must get rid of everything external to be happy but now he states that we must think of others before ourself! For one person to be free all must be free!
If our freedom is restricted are we really free?
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I feel that you brought up really controversial arguments. I like the fact that even the lecture is our main text, you argue with it throughout your blog.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job referencing your arguments to quotes from the lecture and questioning both his and your own arguments.
I feel that you could have proved your points a little more, by analyzing his quotes more. After analyzing his quotes, you could:
1. better understand everything he is saying
2. counter the argument by relating it to a life experience of your own, someone you know, or from a book or a movie.
Regarding your last question: How do you feel our freedom is restricted?
If you feel our freedom is restricted in that we can't do every we want then one could argue that if we had complete freedom, it wouldn't be too long before our freedoms violated someone else's rights.
--> if you eel our freedom is restricted by something else or maybe by ourselves, then the answer to your final question would be different.
-->Great job
It was really fun reading this
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