![]() ![]() I think it's important for me to remember to be of good humor, to lighten up, and to laugh at myself and my failures in the face of adversity. I have children, and I read stories to them at bedtime, and their books are filled with kind-hearted humor and veiled wisdom. Wodehouse, and the context of his stories are as different from my culture as first century Rome, but his situational humor highlights the differences of gender, generation, and class with sophistication of wit, whimsy, and wisdom, without an ounce of meanness. People are also caring and kind, and if your channels are not delivering that message to you, and you want it, you have to seek it out. I do find mean-spirited humor, and meanness in general, less palatable as I get older. People are self-centered and mean, and there is media to deliver that angle and give it attention. I think this guy gives a nice answer to the question of Stoic humor: I think Seneca complaining about living so close to the baths with its grunting weightlifters is hilarious, and softens his moralizing. I'm interested in hearing your opinions (dissenting or otherwise). It is pretentious of me to say, but when philosophical ideas that I find crucial-bordering-on-sacred are diluted into bullets in a cute, hipstery, 4-minute YouTube video, I start questioning whether no exposure would be preferable to the types of exposure that The School of Life provides. It often becomes mawkish and sentimental, or simply bathetic." I think Roger Scruton is right that secular humanism struggles to find appropriate emotional reactions to major life events, like death. ![]() I don’t think it would be much help to the truly broken, to the sick, to the dying. "Much as I love the School of Life, I think it caters essentially to the middle – the middle-class, and the middle-suffering. While I am glad that The School of Life (and, to a lesser extent, The Idler Academy) are increasing exposure to philosophical ideas, there are things about it that make me fidgety, which I think are best articulated in this quote from Jules Evans: We offer a variety of programmes and services concerned with how to live wisely and well."īut what about in practice? Is it working? Certainly there must be a lot more people who are aware of and interested in philosophical ideas thanks to The School of Life, and that has got to be a good thing. I assume almost all of us can agree that the idea of The School of Life is praiseworthy: "The School of Life is devoted to developing emotional intelligence through the help of culture.
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