Community Comments - Are You Awake?

Bringing it all together.

Last week, we had an interesting discussion about postmodernism and the downfall of academia. This provided the inspiration for Thinking Man’s first Community Comments post, which sparked a considerable amount of further comments that are worth mentioning.

For one, it soon became apparent that the discussions that we are having on Substack seem to be the very antithesis of the ‘echo-chambery’ staleness of academia.

Check out this note from

The Starfire Codes

, which articulates this perfectly:

“Honest conceptual spitballing” is such an accurate and concise description of what’s been happening here, and is exactly the kind of thing that’s absent from academia (hence our entire discussion).

The Starfire Codes

also put out a similar post discussing a great conversation, which you can read here:

Manufacturing Public Opinion: Media IS Manipulation

Nathalie Martinek PhD

replied to Demi’s note with a similar conversation of her own.

Also, if you’re interested in reading more about academia, Nathalie wrote a fantastic article about it with way more insider knowledge on the subject than I could ever dream of. I would recommend giving it a read:

Are morally compromised institutions worth restoring?

As

Victory Palace

also pointed out, there are certainly some bad actors at work here.

Joel S Turrentine

seemed to agree, and of all the comments I received this week, his were some of the most thought-provoking:

It’s so important and so difficult to discuss these topics which have become intentionally taboo. Thank you, Joel, for your input.

Interestingly,

polistra

raised the question of whether things have ever been any different.

It’s a good point; while the ‘orthodoxies’ themselves have changed, the concept of a prevailing narrative that can’t be challenged is probably universal. Perhaps there really is ‘nothing new under the sun.’

Cymposium

pointed out something similar in response to my post about public education.

The unchangeable nature of humanity ends up being the theme of a lot of my writing. In fact, it showed up most recently in an article about Athens I wrote this week.

Michael Newberry

replied with this recommendation:

This recommendation blew my mind—as I’d pointed out to him, I sometimes forget about literature when I’m looking at history, focusing on the dense historical and philosophical texts instead. It’s cool that the comic relief people have sought throughout history has stayed remarkably similar, as well.

Although we’ve certainly seen a lot of doom and gloom about the state of affairs, this wasn’t the only note of optimism this week.

This post would not be complete without this hopeful message from

Jacqueline Rendell

.

Check out her music! She’s accomplishing her goal beautifully (and in doing so, embodying exactly why I love having conversations on Substack).

Interestingly, while all this was happening, there was a deep, fascinating conversation going on between

Karafree

and

John Mistretta

:

So many great questions here, and the conversation continues. For the purposes of the length of this post I will end it here, but if you’d like to read the whole thing, here it is..

Isn’t this what all this talk about education leads up to, when boiled down to its essence? Why else would we care about learning, if not to become the best versions of ourselves possible?

I think, unfortunately, most people go through their lives without really thinking too hard about why they’re doing the things they do (or thinking the things they think), and while I doubt we truly live in a simulation, it often feels that way sometimes simply because the ‘masses’ generally take the easy way out. Why wouldn’t they? What we’re doing here by having these conversations, while being extraordinarily fulfilling, is hard.

What do we do about it? Well,

Joel S Turrentine

’s proposed solution to the problems of public education would probably work well.

In other words, people have to actually care.

John and I are extraordinary fortunate to be part of an online community that does.

Thank you all for your comments this week. I’m sorry if I missed some—I tried to get as many as possible!

We’re planning on making this a weekly segment on Thinking Man, so join the discussion!

As always, thank you for reading. If you enjoy our work and would like to support this publication, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.