It's sad how much knowledge and social/ethical advancement is being forgotten. Our schools and universities are failing society. We're just going to keep making the same mistakes.
Edit: 10 volumes.
I feel like at best one could argue that those elites have less influence on the deciders of the world (at least those that are not part of them).
Any recommendations?
https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays01brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays02brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays03brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays04brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays05brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays06brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays07brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays08brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays09brew https://archive.org/details/worldsbestessays10brew
for i in {01..10}; do curl -LO https://archive.org/download/worldsbestessays${i}brew/worldsbestessays${i}brew.pdf; done(If you don't know, you're probably running bash.)
1..10 |%{ $s = 'worldsbestessays{0:d2}brew' -f $_; iwr "https://archive.org/download/$s/$s.pdf" -O "$s.pdf" }
(% -> ForEach-Object; -f -> string format operator; iwr -> Invoke-WebRequest; -O -> -OutputFile parameter)It's just that mass culture has blown up so big so fast - driven by technological change - that it seems to get smaller.
It doesn't help that the Stoics were explicitly targeted by the Christians early in the Christianized Byzantine Roman Empire. You can see this in action in YouTube videos of Christopher Hitchens debating various Christian thinkers.
And, as I should have expected, Adam Smith has anticipated us all. I find it pretty funny that Smith doesn't even get a mention in Russell's history of western philosophy.
Or in more general terms, focusing on the journey instead of the goal leads to complete detachment from reality - running in circles and enjoying the patterns of your own thoughts, like a stoned hippie. It's vegetation, not life.
I do read Adam Smith's quote differently - the way I understand it, it says to focus on a goal, but to derive happiness from the process and make that happiness independent of whether or not the goal will be ultimately achieved. An impossible thing to do in full, but definitely worth pursuing.
Sounds pretty attractive to me
(Then again, we wouldn't have most of our problems in this world if we just stuck to being stoned hippie self-wireheaded cavedwellers ;).)
Edit to add: Just noticed one of your other comments, on paying attention to driving :)
On a side note, this sounds a lot like The Bhagvad Gita[1]. Is there a relationship between these two works, or is it just great minds thinking alike?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita#Karma_yoga
[EDIT]: Grammer
(Sorry)
The mind can generate demons in most any form.
"Human life the Stoics appear to have considered as a game of great skill; in which, however, there was a mixture of chance [...] In such games the stake is commonly a trifle, and the whole pleasure of the game arises from playing well, from playing fairly, and playing skilfully. If notwithstanding all his skill, however, the good player should, by the influence of chance, happen to lose, the loss ought to be a matter, rather of merriment, than of serious sorrow. He has made no false stroke; he has done nothing which he ought to be ashamed of; he has enjoyed completely the whole pleasure of the game. [...]
Our only anxious concern ought to be, not about the stake, but about the proper method of playing. If we placed our happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended upon causes beyond our power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skilfully; in the propriety of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction. Our happiness was perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune."
[1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS7.html