I used to think that people were nice to be because they were kind of crazy or a bit sad and lonely. Now I think that people are nice to me because they are really kind - and I have been ungrateful or cynical or superior or condescending.
People have been nice to me because they have been better than me and were able to forgive me for being a pain in the arse.
A shame then that the world is becoming less kind.
Today I have not read philosophy. I have worked on football. It was really rather enjoyable. Makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Though I did listen to a philosophy podcast in which Vittorio Bufacchi defended public philosophy. Public philosophy is like pop science - you write journal articles or scientific papers for your peers and then a consumer version for the general public. I think public philosophy has been criticised recently... let me see... oh no, what I was thinking of was this article. That's just about some dead dude criticising it. Bufacchi says some of his colleagues get sniffy about public philosophy, but I kind of think that public philosophy, certainly as far as ethics is concerned, is the whole point. Ethics is irrelevant if people in general don't embrace it. It's about communal living. It's about the bloody public.
I listened to another podcast in which the interviewee - Oliver Scott Curry - really does seem to be doing his bit to extend an ethical message. He's not a philosopher! But he is Research Director for Kindlab - exploring the value of and encouraging an increase in kindness.
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