One brief outline.

The most important problem with life as lived today is our inability to want to understand things, which is a consequence of not being in any position to do so. It is my understanding that the general feeling of apathy can be resolved through education, as this is what structures our self-belief in being able to think about the world, and in the fact that when we do so our thoughts carry meaning.

And this already is a difficult thing for me to stomach – that it is the case that future generations are the only people who can be helped to get society out of its present state of apathy; that future generations are the only people who can be helped. It seems an awful lot like consigning a lot of people to a rubbish bin, which makes me feel very uneasy considering the likelihood of very able and sincere people already living and as uneasy as I. If it is not the case that those people (should they exist) are muted in the minds of those swelling numbers of the apathetic and inconsequential to them, then most likely this view is extreme. I have come to the conclusion that better education is needed because of my specific and limited experience of people; it is an inductive conclusion that must always justify itself by the available evidence, and since my experience is always expanding I may find that it is woefully inadequate. I hope that there are people able to make a difference, and a hope for myself of a future of doing the same.

My understanding and conclusion at this present moment in time is a worse case scenario, as I see it, yet at least the action in this scenario is straightforward – politics. Political change requires either the backing of the people, or it requires the money that only industry has. Straightforward, yes, but vastly improbable on both counts.

It may appear to you that I have presented to you a knee-jerk conclusion, an extreme distortion that has merit only in being obviously and demonstratably false and therefore comforting. This view can only come as an ignorance of certain psychological habits that are the results of ideological frameworks people do indeed live their lives by (and however ignorant people are of social forces, the effects of social forces are nevertheless measured in the people). I shall attempt to describe to you a few of my thoughts and observations as to how this is the case.

A detailed investigation of what this means would have to come from a social scientist, but I hope it will be enough to mention a poignant symptom (and one that involves philosophy directly)- the trivialising of argumentation entirely into perspectives and points of view. Person ‘A’ has one view, person ‘B’ has a different view, yet this does not merit investigation, it is simply stated with a shrug. Individualism has its cake, and eats it. The price of eating the cake is something individualism (an entrenched and unchecked individualism, such as that held as a consequence of consumer capitalism) as an ideology does not understand, and is therefore a source of great turmoil to a population of individualists. One might say that these people are individualists but many other things besides, and this is true, but philosophy does not reside among these things for the vast majority. Philosophers indeed people would have to be to be able to understand the drawbacks of their habitualised worldviews, for what is it to try to think and talk of relativism and it’s implied nihilism in these ways and to not thereby be attempting philosophy?

But philosophy, as it stands, is neither recognised nor sought as the legitimate investigation into these things. Philosophy is what happens after one too many beers; it is not a mode of thought worthy of serious consideration. To the layman philosophy is a basket of a multiplicity of meaning and therefore of none; how can a joke such as this be important?

This is sadly all too entrenched in the common wisdom, and philosophy is almost completely absent from education. People have no recourse to something they do not understand. Worse, something they misunderstand; for to be ignorant of something and know it is not so offensive to attempt to correct as is something about which one already has strong opinions (and it must be said that culturally imparted opinion is particularly feverish if challenged). Added to this there is the colossal problem of presenting complexity to those who distrust and hate it, and uncertainty to those who live seeking stability in the face of great stresses. Can philosophy be educated into an unwilling mind? I have hoped in the past that there is some specific way to do this, that there must be the right combination of words that make it clear that it is best to open oneself up to it, but this was naive. My experience has been fraught with people who would rather confront me with lies than to feel uncomfortable in their considerations, because they are their considerations, even though they cause them much suffering. The effort is akin to attempting to bandage a wounded animal that will not let you near it. No matter how good the bandage is, the thrashing and biting makes your task impossible. I understand why Satre once stated 'Hell is other people!'.

So is it the case that changes in education must be made, without significant consideration given to those currently living? Despite the hardships of dealing with those who call a horse a ‘cow’ out of spite, I hope not. And if it not the case, it will either be the case that 1) most people are not spiteful and can be reasoned with, or that 2) I will meet people who are as disgruntled as myself on this issue, who can either in their number and influence constitute the scaffolding of new social discourses, or who can vouch for the truth of statement 1).

All that is clear for the present course of action, then, is that I must refine the ways that I deal with people to give me more of a chance of showing the truth of statement 1), and hold out hope that I will meet people of the kind that can give 2) a fighting chance – though it must be said that I haven’t to this day met any such people.