Factual Question: Aristotle wrote "The educated person seeks exactness in each area to the extent the nature of the subject allows" in what book?
Answer: Nicomachean Ethics
Discussion Question: What unit of measurement would happiness be measured in?
You're running the bases backward, Brenna. That's ok, for the purposes of our little HAP 101 participation game, even if aesthetically disturbing to us Inside Baseball purists.
ReplyDeleteBut you know, you can touch 'em all in a single post, as in the hypothetical example I created for illustrative purposes. That'll save you some keystrokes and create less clutter in my twitter feed.
Okay, you got it. Sorry!
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DeleteHi Brenna,
ReplyDeleteI love your question, and I think it will generate a considerable amount of discussion.
During a playful moment, I would measure happiness in pints of grog, gobs of fun, a mess of blues, or lots of laughs--whatever collective noun I could muster at the moment to throw at a pleasurable event.
But in all seriousness, what seems to make me happy is equality.
I'm most happy when everyone is treated fairly (myself included). I abhor discrimination. Especially when it's directed toward immutable characteristics, such as age, race, gender, sexual orientation, and country of origin. Although religion is a choice, I believe religious affiliation should be a protected class and considered separate from the practice of religion, e.g., honor killing, genital mutilation, subjugation of women, etc. I think modernity and equality will continue to win these arguments.
I always throw the ideas of justice, fairness, empathy, and equality towards the problems of my world and everyone else's when I'm trying to make a judgement call.
I don't always get it right, but when I do, and it all works out for the best under those principles, I'm happy.
dh
i like your equality for happiness. that is also something that makes me really happy.
Deletehappiness to me would be for everyone to act like we are all the same. period. we are all humans and we should just treat each other as humans.
we've all grown up with the "treat others as you would yourself." i just don't understand why we have such a hard time with this.
since i've started taking this class i have been trying to be more positive on a daily basis and trying to find happiness every day in some small form. even if it's something as small as my kitty nuzzling my neck in the morning to say hi. that makes me happy. then i try to build off of that happiness to carry me until the next tidbit that will come my way that day.
I can't believe I'm about to quote Rent for the second time this week, but I am tempted to offer:
ReplyDelete"In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee,
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife...
How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love"
It doesn't really answer the question but I thought it was interesting tangentially anyway.
Dean's paragraph about equality pretty much said everything else I had to say on the matter.
I love the Rent quote. :)
Delete(Leigh Koger)
ReplyDeletewell it seems brenna and i are on the same page about how to measure the happiness.
i like jon's quote from rent about measuring with love, however, love can't be measured either :-)