Doing Good in this World

by Mao Tan

In an era where our own talents are what define us, it is understandable how humans could have done so many to change the world. Nowadays especially because of technology and numerous skills that people can acquire very easily, the world has already changed a lot since time and humans are most responsible of it.

Sadly however, most of these talents are those not used, or even if they are, humans only use them for themselves. Intelligence can be one talent but most of the time, we see this only being used to gain recognition or to find a way of stealing money of a country that could still be used to feed famished children who possibly are just another hour of empty stomach from death. Depressing but true. Many miseries that are happening on around us are because of people using their talents for personal gain. But looking at misfortunes at a different light, they happen also because of people doing nothing about it, people that just contain their talents to themselves and never share them with others. Doing harm is bad but doing nothing is also bad.

Talents are given to us, not for us but for the other. Maybe we aren’t starting a spark when we do nothing wrong with it but we’re also not putting out the fire. In order to change what’s around us, we must use these talents for the good and the other, not to gain and be recognized. The fact that we exist means that someone has done good to us and we must also share this good by using the talents we receive for others. As beings, we ourselves are gifts for the others as they are to us. We should open ourselves to the exterior and grow ourselves and go back to being human. Yes, it’s hard to do this in a world where it’s all about securing our economic and financial needs first. But the nature of giving has always been in us since the moment we had our first breath and it will still be as long as we exist in this world.

Reacting To The Broken World

by Arik Sison

25 July 2013
Discussed Text: Marcel, The Mystery of Being

The Broken World is the text that I am able to relate to the most, so far. I found myself agreeing with many of the points which were mentioned in the article. Specific events came to mind while these points were being mentioned.

Point 1 (technocracy):

Our world today is a technocracy. In a technocracy, technical experts, like scientists and engineers, are looked up to and they greatly affect making decisions. These people are seen as more important than people in the arts and in the humanities. A person’s level of scientific expertise would be the basis of his rank in society.

I think that this was a very valid point. Personally, I chose my course because of its technical nature and because I also believe that becoming technocrat would be my way of being somebody important in society. Our society always looks up scientists and engineers. Aside from this, they are very important due to the fact that our lives in this technological age wouldn’t be the same without them. The negative effect of this fact is that people start to look down on the arts. Nobody encourages their children to become writers, painters, or musicians. Everyone wants to have an engineer or a doctor in the family. In turn, this causes conflict between the people who dream about the arts and the demands of society. It is a known fact that the science people are perceived as more financially stable because they normally earn a lot more money than the arts people. Also, greed becomes a great factor in career choice. Who doesn’t want to be rich?
This fact isn’t so bad for me because I am a student of science, but how should the students of the arts feel about their worth being downplayed?

Point 2 (lost sense of community):

People are not used to people anymore. Gone are the days when people had to get their hands dirty. In the present, getting out of anything has been reduced to a text. Confrontation has been reduced to something like this as well. Real relationships turned superficial.

I noticed that people do not keep their promises as much as they used to. When people plan to meet at a certain time, someone would usually cancel through text a few minutes before the meeting is supposed to takes place. This annoys me because the person could have at least called, which I think is a lot more personal than texting, instead of just sending a message, leaving me powerless to react to whatever valid or pathetic excuse he has for the change of plans.

I also noticed that people are living more online than in real life. Discussions are now possible without the discussers being present in one place. The interaction of these people is lessened because they only communicate through chat boxes. There is now harder to get to know people personally. The problem with this that the things some people say and do online greatly contrast what they see do in real life. Who are these people, really?

In the end, technology’s advancement may greatly limit human interaction and may further hinder any sense of community.

Point 3 (the world refuses to imagine):

Familiarity breeds contempt. People have this mindset wherein they tend to take for granted the people who are closest to them. In their minds, these people have always been there and they always will be there. They become less of a priority due to their constant presence. They stop caring about their relationships with the people closest to them. In the end, a lot of relationships are destroyed. I know a lot of families which are broken because the members no longer nurture their relationships. Besides the family, a lot of the people who we meet every day are taken for granted. It is only when they are absent that we realize their worth. People only appreciate the packers in the groceries when they aren’t there to pack their items for them. What if we were those people? How would we feel and how would we see ourselves and our job?

The problem is that people are not used to putting themselves in the shoes of others. When we do, we may find some realities that we don’t like and life-changing realizations during these contemplations are never easy to handle. After all, it is easier to be ignorant than to care. It is easy not to care about others.

Finale

While thinking about possible solutions to the broken world, I remembered what Dr. Garcia mentioned in class to summarize this topic. He said that we should ask ourselves what we can take of this broken world and what are we called to do about it. We ought to know when to consume and when to create. There is always a way to fix the broken.

Philosophy, Science, and Technology

by Hubert Cua


Humans are particular in universal. This is the line that puts me into question as I review my notes. Before talking about that line, I would like to first talk about the background when Dr. Garcia said that line.  For Plato, teaching is making the students recall what the students forgot. That means students know the knowledge all along. For Socrates, it is through encountering with others that teach students new things. That means students do not know all the knowledge. At this point, Dr. Garcia then said that humans are particular in universal.

While the line is putting me into question, I suddenly think of how science and technology has changed philosophy. Whether true or not, some of my professors say that the general trend of people is to decline the importance of history. One professor even said that people seems to have “national amnesia” on history. Now, let me relate this phenomenon to the line, “Humans are particular in universal.” That line connotes that humans do not know all the knowledge. Humans have limited learning and knowledge capacity. While science becomes broader and broader and technology becomes more and more advance, people then need to devote more and more time on science and technology to cope up with the changing times. This may have shaped some people to have the popular philosophy that history is of no use and past is past. Is this phenomenon inevitable then?

Levinas’ way of looking at time also puts me into question as I review my notes. For Levinas, time is an instant. The past is renewed at every instant. Every instant is new. Future is a surprise, because future is beyond our grasp. Future is also redemption and is full of hope. The best is yet to come. Based on Levinas’ way looking at time, it seems that there is also a sense of declining the importance of history. Has popular philosophy (that history is of no use and past is past) infiltrated formal philosophy?

On the other hand, philosophy is also changing science and technology. For instance, formal philosophy teaches us that we have to make quality and honest products and sell it at reasonable price, because this is responsibility for the others. In the end, that means there is an unbreakable cycle of action and reaction between philosophy and science and technology.