What are you Optimistic About? Why?
Happy 2007 folks!
The Edge released it’s 2007 "The World Question" and I thought this would be a great question to share with you too!
It echoes with my thinking for 2007 being about ‘in search of what is good and working’ and moving on from frustrations with what isn’t (though I do intend to write up my lessons and clarity that resulted from going to the edge of the frustration too)…and also think it is a nice way to re-focus.
…I will post my response on Optimism after my holiday…though I suspect one element of my answer is sure to focus on Story and Children.
Happy musing on this as you enter a new year!
Image (c) hugh macleod via Gapingvoid
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January 3rd, 2007 at 1:52 am
I have to say that browsing one or two of those articles on the edge made me pessimistic! Dennett got under my skin, as usual. He really thinks that not just a belief system, but an entire frame of mind (religion) shared by billions of people worldwide is just going to disappear? And he’s *happy* about that? Right. Dawkins has proved you can get time on popular television shows by making statements like that, and so he’s following suit. Are these statements constructive and useful? Or, are they divisive and boost book sales? Are these two D’s any better than the straw men they criticize?
I hope that condescending blowhards will stop getting so much time and space in our media outlets and we will get back to more level and reasoned public discourse about such important and pervasive topics as the role of religion in American life. I hope that polarizing and dividing speech, not just by the usual culprits but also by our ‘scientists’ and ‘philosophers.’ ends. I hope that we generally recognize the contents of our major media outlets as unhygienic and work to clean them up. For the first time in a few years I’m feeling optimistic that this might start happening.