The Philosophy of Philosophy

I like Philosophy. I think it’s a great subject that does get people thinking outside the boxes of their little lives. Tomorrow I have my philosophy exam and so for the last few weeks I have been revising all the philosophical arguments put forward by various philosophers over time such as Plato, Aristotle, Tomas Aquinas, Augustine. But how essential is Philosophy to our lives? In my opinion, very! When I’m out and about these days the majority of people I see are listening to music, watching videos, browsing the internet, texting on mobiles or talking on mobiles. Its seems that our society is turning into a nation of people that only believe in things they watch or hear on the electronic waves which take up so much of our lives. I have only come to see how much time I waste just slowly aging in front of computers and televisions or how deluded to the world I am when listening to my mp3 player in public. Real world events such as poverty and war have become desensitised by our televisions. In the eyes of our community the fear of climate change (which is still only theory) seems to be a bigger concern compared to children dying of HIV in Africa.

What has happened to us all? How is it possible for us to fall so short?

What are we all waiting for? Maybe we are waiting for the famine to pass in other countries, maybe we are waiting for somebody else to step in first to sort the problems out or perhaps we are waiting for that brand new mobile to come out on the market. Only 4 more months till it is released, in other countries that maybe over 10,000 family’s dead of famine, war, disease or poverty. Why are we all so desensitised by it all?

When I think of all these things suddenly my heart is filled with sorrow and the aspect of my 3 hour philosophy exam tomorrow doesn’t seem that important. Perhaps I could become an IT technician, teacher, network engineer but what good would that be? Still right this very second people are dying, crying out for help and I’m not going to ignore them. After all how can we ignore them? A few thousand miles away the reality of surrey is smashed when a mother is holding her dead baby in her arms. On television this maybe regarded as ‘news’ however I regard this as ‘our fall’.