Cartesian Driven World

Of all the things we talked about this semester (cutting limbs, 6 genders, the end of the world, etc.) I would say that the most memorable thing we talked about was the effect of Cartesian thinking on our society. Our lives are structured in such organized ways where there are steps we take in certain situations, rules of logic we apply to make the "best" decisions, and labels we create to organize our world. Realizing actually how deeply integrated this idea is into our society kind of scares me, to be honest. Its overwhelming to realize that there may have been a different way of thinking, once upon a time. Or maybe not. This could be just the way our human nature is, we need to organize in this way and use our "logic". But in any case, it was most fascinating to me to realize this idea.

This idea ties into our discussion about Brave New World, where we have two completely different worlds, the "civilized" and the "savage". One bases all decisions on Cartesian logic, the other on feelings, or whatever. Although the novel took these ideas to extremes, i think that its very important to see the immense contrast, and to see where we fit in as a society. Every time I make a decision I think about it in a new light. There are always two ways to make a decision. For example, I could do a cost benefit analysis to figure out what is a better decision, or I could draw a slip of paper and let "fate" decide. I have to say that I have no idea where I would fit into this binary, but I think thats the point.

That brings me to my last point, where id like to say, as I sort of mentioned in class, that overall I think that the most important thing I have taken out of this class is that I have no idea. There are so many different ways at looking at things, and so many of them make perfect sense. I cant say that i'm able to make better decisions in life, in fact, i'm practically unable to make any decisions at all now because there are so many angles to consider. But I think that education and knowledge is much more than knowing where you stand in the society. Its really just about experience and the rest of it will fall in to place, hopefully, and I think that the most that this class did was try to bring that kind of thinking to the University setting, where everything taught in a very linear way. It was different, but in some small way it opened my eyes to the chaos of the world, so thanks.