| being in Time |
| orienting life in relation with futuring humanity
gary e. davis |
January 24, 2024 |
News Flash: Higher education leads to longer life, better prosperity, and more democracy. Global, systematic research reported recently shows that “an adult’s risk of mortality went down by 2% for every year in full-time education.” Lots of other research shows that economic prosperity is strongly correlated with educational level. And lots of research in the U.S. shows strong correlation between higher education level and favoring Democratic politics. The better informed that a person is, the more deliberative the person is, and the more likely that the person will be Democratic. So, if Wall Street wants to devolve governmental progress, as well as relieve capital restraints on avarice, working against educational excellence can be very profitable. “Shop ‘til you drop, baby.” Little noted about the white nationalist march against “Jews” in Charlottesville, VA, was that the march was across the university campus: “The [elites] will not replace us!” Wall Street’s sales force in the White House ate it up. Shifting now from commonwealth to university life: Consumer admiration for subjection to dramatic performance is echoed through the historical legacy of academic conceptions of oneSelf as “subjectivity.” The academy’s common sense of humanity—the professing of academic humanity—may connect directly to the appeal of paternalist society, a short mental distance from the appeal of autocracy during stressful times, i.e., during life-centered stress of being subjected to political economic duress. But there should be a long mental distance between political economic life and life-centered being because political economic life should be framed by genuine social life, which should be framed by genuine cultural life, which should be framed by well-individuated life, which should be framed by authentic flourishing. The character of that “should” best derives from appreciation of authentic flourishing, I would argue, such that healthy intimacy frames healthy family, causing healthy neighborhood, contributing importantly to good community, contributing importantly to healthy regions, contributing importantly to valid nationality. Values of health, authenticity, good, and validity should feel belonging with each other in such weaves of scale because that leads to better flourishing across the continuum of lives. Domains of oneSelf, family, neighborhood, community, region, nation, and even shared planetary humanity should be appreciably woven with one’s temporal continuum of intimacies (most important for one’s finite time), kinships, friendships, solidarities, and neighborliness. Weaves of a life form through one’s ways of being and ways of thinking. Being in time forms itself through one’s time for being. A scale of being (from a life to planetary futures) implicates its scale of time (from orienting one’s day to caring about the future of humanity). To begin with, begin with: Understand that relating to another is born from being with—with withness: beginning with good infant attachment through manifold individuation to mature autonomy’s enjoyment of flexible perspectivity which appreciates others’ ways of life, as one is primally, primarily, and, potentially, primordially in relation with being. “God” (a great literary character) was always a question of being mirrored, like: Will your life lastingly matter? Caring about health, living well, mindfulness, and prospects for future generations are integral to our being, because we’re here inasmuch as that was integral in the past, always drawn by hopes for better futures. Want a high quality of life, and have it be thanks to intimacies, kinships, friendship, solidarities, and neighborliness. Since academic interest is integral to advancing appreciation of importances across educational processes and systems, bear with explorations of promising distinctions of better-oriented action in thinking which aspires to contribute usefully. Enjoy the nebulous appeal of somehow wholly flourishing humanity made to emerge. The horizon of kinship between commonwealth and academia may seem to be an ever receding telos, but that’s the way of evolving humanity: living in appealing hope for the unborn, which our ancestors did for us, as if bringing to Earth ideas of Heaven, which we pretend to have been given by the mystery of Deep Time in which we grow up (?), achieve a lot (?), pay forward (?), and move on (!), probably to be soon forgotten. So, to write about “better” orientations of life is not primarily to specify what’s better, but to insist on the importance of betterment: What is better, for one’s life, our intimacies, our extended family, our neighborhood, our community, our region, our planet? Who’s to say? Who Is To Say? The politics of time is determined by the sociology of our times (consumerism? higher quality of free time?), at best determined by the culture of better times, influenced by chosen influencers: exemplary lives?—lives which are deliberately flourishing?—lives which deserve to be leading? Teaching (and parenting as concerted cultivation) may well be the essence of humanity. Or is it being exemplary in one’s neighborliness, welcoming solidarities, advancing friendships, loving family, and wholly being through intimacies? A true, good, and beautiful way of being is, of course, the belonging together of all in the same potential for flourishing and humanity. |