Who could be opposed to Joy? Well, it turns out that despite being a central value in several different philosophical systems for 1,000s of years, contemporary society has little use for the cultivation of Joy. A diffuse concept, I focus on providing several literary examples and suggestions for further study and reflection.

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Hello everyone, I'm very excited to announce that I will be giving two live lectures this week in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The subjects of these lectures and registration for them is included below.

If you are in or nearby the Netherlands and are able to attend I would love to see you there.

Artificial (Intelligence) Mythology

Wednesday 29 April, 19:30

Karl Dittrich Hall, Student Services Centre, Bonnefantenstraat 2, Maastricht

AI, in itself, may not actually be that interesting. However, the way we perceive and respond to the idea of AI marks a central tendency of human civilization, spanning the rise of the mytho-poetic outlook, to centralized religions through digital technology and, now, AI. By reflecting on how the narrative of AI is presented and distributed we learn much about our deeply ingrained cultural outlooks.

Register for Artificial (Intelligence) Mythology here: https://www.aanmelder.nl/175909/subscribe

How Things Mean

Lecture by Dr. Wes Cecil

Thursday 30 April - 13:30-16:00

Room 1.018, Building 76S, FaSoS, To be reached through Grote Gracht 90-92, Maastricht

We make sense of the world through our values. Unfortunately, we have become overwhelmed with discourse and media. We no longer feel like we can make sense of the world through our own values. In this lecture Dr. Cecil will share his critical take on our responsibility to slow down our media consumption and to think about our values. The lecture will be done in an accessible and engaging format using parables, stories and personal accounts to make the topic engaging and stimulating.

Register for How Things Mean lecture here:

https://forms.microsoft.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=AUGsYwXdcUe81i4qVCHl-q12LH4FbzVMj8FQZT-Y1olUMU5WQ0s3RFRRTThHQUNRSDZERTBWM0Q1OC4u&route=shorturl

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A few questions and my own musings on the latest Values episode about the nature of Nobility as seen through the eyes of T.S. Eliot.

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Not just a value that is out of fashion, but one that is actively and consistently attacked by our society. The notion of cultivating a noble self governed by humility, self-control, wisdom and uprightness seems both wildly out of fashion and arrogant. However, for millennia, this was a central goal of major philosophical systems. Contemporary culture sees any sense of nobility as a cover for some kind of scam or corruption. We allow little space to see others, and hence ourselves, as possibly or even genuinely Noble in character.

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In 2 weeks we will begin a new series exploring the Bhagavad Gita as a means of orienting oneself within the vast and fascinating literature and thought of classical Hindu thought. An extraordinary and central text that works on a number of important levels within the larger epic of the Mahabharata while also representing an inflection point in the development of Hindu thought.

I wanted to share this intro with you in advance so you can have time to acquire a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. The Penguin edition is the version I will be using.

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A reflection on the power of biography to inspire and help guide us in our pursuit of beauty. These two examples are, at least for me, immensely helpful in shaking off the cultural assumptions and outlooks that try to shape our goals and, hence, decision making.

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With Health, Beauty has historically been considered an intrinsic value. However, our contemporary society does not just undervalue beauty, it actively works to prevent beauty from being perceived either as a value or, even more insidiously, as an active evil. By taking a moment and reflecting on our own perception of beauty and looking to cultivate in our environment we can use a sense of personal values to fundamentally transform our experience of the world.

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Not a rhetorical ploy, but an actual question. The strange form of American ‘Democracy’ today raises the very real idea that at some point a lack of competition in elections, the duopoly of the hold on power and the control exerted over the process of elections by un-elected officials produces a system that is functionally no longer really a democracy. Further, and I forgot to mention this in the lecture, the current structure ensures that the most senior and powerful members of both parties are not, functionally, forced to face an actual election.

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Often discussed as an ‘implicit’ good, health is nonetheless a relatively low priority in many modern societies. We have both a poor understanding of what constitutes health as well as a strong cultural resistance to pursuing health as a key value in our lives. Any attempt to prioritize health will generally provide a powerful education in the underlying cultural values that shape our lives and, more often than not, resist the notion of health as a core good.

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A reflection on our capacity to overwhelm our actual experience of the world with abstract concepts that somehow is often more powerful than even our immediate physical surroundings. I was prompted to these thoughts by recent experiences mowing my lawn and spending time in some very different kitchens.

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