Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Omkara]

We're going to have another Socrates Cafe in Busan this coming Sunday. It's at noon in the Starbucks Cafe in Seomyeon, near the Lotte Department Store.

For those of you who don't know, a Socrates Cafe is a discussion group which looks into questions which the participants vote on. Some examples of questions would looks something like these:

Is there Freedom? What is Home? What is Courage? Who or what defines choice, if choice exists? What is Love? Why be Good? What is Equality? Etc.

I've got a list of questions we can begin with, but the idea is for the people to come up with the questions. We've only done one other session, which went well. We looked at the question, "What is an individual?"

The group is so far a small one, but more people are showing interest. I'll be there even if no one shows this time! I've got a good book to relax with. . .

Also, feel free to get your own group started in your town. I mean, this format wansn't my idea. I got the idea from a book of the same title, "Socrates Cafe." You can research the idea online.

[IncognitoHFX]

I wish this was in Seoul.

[Omkara]

Well, maybe if someone decides to organize one, there can be. . .

Whoever whould do it: just find a cafe where there'll be space, pick a regular time, show up every time even if attendance is low, gather e-mail addresses, be patient, and after a time, you'll have it rolling.

I think there are a lot of people out there who want to do something other than drink their time away in Korea, who want to have good conversations.

[newteacher]

I actually think this sounds kind of cool. Not sure why you would hold a vote on a question like "Is there freedom", why vote? Why not just have a discussion and leave it at that. Voting makes it sound like you can actually come up with a definitive answer for something as general and abstract as whether or not freedom actually exists. It's tough enough to be able to come to a consensus on the definition of freedom let alone be able to put a stamp on it with a few votes.

Anyways, sounds like a good idea and I'm in Busan so I might even consider showing up for something like this, but sack the voting. It's meaningless anyways and all it does is grant more value to popular opinion then it should which could make some people not even bother giving their opinions.

[mikowee]

[Omkara]

Do come.

The voting is just to deterimine which question to follow. That makes it a more democratic gathering.

As to an answer, we don't look to arrive at either agreement or an answer. In the best case, we see what the questions themselves imply and assume, and thereby we come face to face with our assumptions and ignorances.

The gathering is meant to be in the Socratic spirit. As I'm sure you remember, Socrates said that if he were indeed wise, it was only because he knew that he did not know. He never proposed an answer which he did not destroy.

[newteacher]

I might come. My degree is actually in philosophy so it might do me some good to brush up on my rhetoric a bit. Just not sure if I want to get back into the deep discussions yet. I studied so much of it in school it got a little tiring. I think it was the semester long study of Spinoza's "Ethics" that did it.

You have this gathering every weekend here in town? It'd be nice to know because even if I don't show this weekend, I'm sure I'd come once in a while.

[Omkara]

Yeah, every weekend.

I can understand about the Spinoza issue. Very painful...but beautiful in an unaesthetic sense.

This discussion will not be academic, but more a living philosophy. It is to make sure that we don't live the "unexamined life."

[IncognitoHFX]

[newteacher]

Yeah I agree, I have copies of all three of his critiques and have only been able to get through about 5 pages of each. I actually enjoyed Kierkegaard, but William James will always be my personal favorite, not many philosophers out there who have his unique and interesting style of writing.

[Omkara]

Yeah, James is a great writer. My personal favorite is Emerson.

When I was reading Nietzsche--a great stylist who studied Emerson in depth--as an undergrad, I'd get papers back that would have comments that read, "Bravo! Who is your writing teacher?"

Then, I began to read Kant. The next essay got a comment from the same prof's assistant, "What has happened? This is a disaster!" I could see in the comment that the prof's assistant was upset and frustrated with the obtuse style I'd moved into.

What we take in as we read really, really impacts how we think, write and speak.

Yet, Kant's ideas are liberating. What a project, to show the limitations of possible knowledge!


As a secondary note: Anyone who thinks that they have to have to know even one philosopher's name to come and join us, you can simply call grandma your philosopher and feel comfortable. You can come and just listen if you don't feel comfortable speaking. It'll probably be a small group since this is so early on in the group's development, so. . .just come.

[newteacher]

That's so funny, I know exactly what you mean. I read a lot of Dostoevsky when I was about 18 and was living in Arizona at the time. It so happened that I was sleeping on the couch at a fence's house. If you don't know what a fence is, it's someone who sells goods that other people steal. Well, not a total surprise some of my possessions turned up missing when I was there. Guess that's the risk you take when living in an apartment that is frequented by people who steal for a living.

Anyways, I was writing a lot of letters to my brother when I was there and they all had a moral philosophy tone similar to what I was reading. They were all about how I had subconsciously placed myself in a situation where I knew my material possessions would be stolen, just to prove to myself that they had no real value or influence on who I actually was as a person, and that I needed to strip myself of them before I could truly become a man and understand the things that had 'real' value.

As far as Nietzsche is concerned, I used to read a lot of him. Probably close to everything he wrote. There was a point that I thought he made a lot of sense, and there was a point where I thought he was a psycho. I'm still not sure which side I'm on. Either way, he was one of the true geniuses of the past 300 years though. He's also one cold-hearted sob.

[Omkara]

Yeah, that's the paradox with Nietzsche. All accounts of him as an individual contradict his cold-hearted hyper-masculine prose. Jung talks about him as though he had managed to tap into the shadow and use the power of what remains in most of us unconscious and "hidden."

I'd like to get back to reading him one day, to see how I feel about his message now.

[newteacher]

[Omkara]

Yeah, his elitism is tough to stomach. Though, his courage to ask dangerous questions and follow them to their dark roots is profound. I like that he will look for and present the "truth" as he sees it, without blushing or trying to flower it up.

I love, moreover, that he will question Jesus' teachings and show why they are even harmful to the species.

There are times, though, that he may choose the poetic line with the greatest power at the expense of accuracy. But then, he chose the rhetorical mode, unlike Spinoza.

Yet, given his position on "truth" (that all truths are but petrified lies), the highly poetic line always better approximates reality. The energy and sentiment which the poetic line captures relveals human reality in all its chaos.

This is why "God is dead" is truer and more powerful a truth than "God does not exist." The truth of the line is in its poetic, rhetorical mode. It shows us something that a literal statement never can.

I suppose in this way, his writings are not unlike religious writings. His argument will always show the literal reader of scripture to be nothing more than a stupid, bad reader.

I guess that "selling your soul to the devil" makes for great music, ey?