War has afflicted all spheres of human life, suggest the remedies with the case studies. Imagine a situation where there is no war and absolute peace reigns. How can it upgrade and degrade the civilization?
Answers
Explanation:
John is a fervent Star Wars fan and has devoted much of his adult life to attending Star Wars conventions dressed as a storm trooper, and contributing to Star Wars websites. He keeps a particularly close eye on the main “Star Wars” entry in Wikipedia to weed out factual errors and cleanse it from what he calls “Light Side of the Force ideological bias.” John’s pride and joy is his collection of nearly 500 Star Wars action figures, including three design concept ones used in film production. It is not merely a toy collection, he explains, but a way of exploring the meaning of life:
The Star Wars narrative contains all the major motifs of classic literature, and the action figures give reality to them. How I place figures together on the shelf will evoke different thematic tensions based on their respective personas. When I pair Han Solo with Greedo, that displays a completely different light-side dark-side dichotomy than when pairing Hans Solo with, say, General Grievous.
While some people find meaning through religion or acquiring wealth, John says that he finds Star Wars action figures to be a more flexible and organic expression of life’s relentless struggles and how we meet them. John’s wife tolerates his collection of action figures, but thinks it is a little too intense: “I feel like I’m surrounded by 500 tiny warriors poised for battle; I can think of more soothing decorations to place around the apartment.”
Answer:
John is a fervent Star Wars fan and has devoted much of his adult life to attending Star Wars conventions dressed as a storm trooper, and contributing to Star Wars websites. He keeps a particularly close eye on the main “Star Wars” entry in Wikipedia to weed out factual errors and cleanse it from what he calls “Light Side of the Force ideological bias.” John’s pride and joy is his collection of nearly 500 Star Wars action figures, including three design concept ones used in film production. It is not merely a toy collection, he explains, but a way of exploring the meaning of life:
The Star Wars narrative contains all the major motifs of classic literature, and the action figures give reality to them. How I place figures together on the shelf will evoke different thematic tensions based on their respective personas. When I pair Han Solo with Greedo, that displays a completely different light-side dark-side dichotomy than when pairing Hans Solo with, say, General Grievous.
While some people find meaning through religion or acquiring wealth, John says that he finds Star Wars action figures to be a more flexible and organic expression of life’s relentless struggles and how we meet them. John’s wife tolerates his collection of action figures, but thinks it is a little too intense: “I feel like I’m surrounded by 500 tiny warriors poised for battle; I can think of more soothing decorations to place around the apartment.”
John’s action figure hobby is an unusual way to investigate the notion of the meaning of life. This fundamental of all philosophical questions comes in a variety of forms:
Each of these questions focuses on a unique point. The first, for example, asks whether there is an over-arching design or goal to human existence that might clarify our place in the grand scheme of things. The second asks whether some approaches to life are better than others. All of the above questions, though, presume that something’s not right with life as we currently experience it, and we’d like a solution to the problem.
Not everyone is plagued by questions of life’s meaning, and a good test for determining the grip that this has on you personally was suggested by German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche (1844-1900). Since ancient times, philosophers from many cultures around the globe entertained a concept called the eternal return. On this view, the universe that we live in now is just one in an endless series of universes that occurs one right after another, each being identical with the others, right down to the tiniest detail. With our present universe, there are fixed laws of nature that determine how it unfolds, including everything about my own personal existence—how tall I am, who I married, the job that I have, and every word I ever uttered. Someday this universe will be destroyed by cosmic forces, and from its ashes a new universe will be formed. It too will be shaped by exactly the same laws of nature, and thus all events will unfold in exactly the same way, including my own life. This cycle of universes will continue again and again, forever. Whether we believe the theory of the eternal return is not important. What Nietzsche asks, though, is how you would feel if it was true, and for eternity you would be reliving the exact same events in your life, over and over, in each successive universe. If you would be OK with that, then likely you are not especially bothered by problems of life’s meaning. You are happy with this life, and you would be content living the identical life over and over. However, if the notion of the eternal return is like a nightmare to you, then this suggests that you have serious issues with the meaning of life as you experience it right now.
Philosophers are not the only ones interested in questions about life’s meaning. Psychological studies tell us that happiness declines in our 20s and returns around age 50. That’s a long period of personal struggle for each of us, and today’s self-help industry has jumped in to address our problems. While many of these involve specific concerns, such as relationship issues or alcohol dependence, others are more general in nature. A mid-life crisis or a “spiritual” crisis, for example, will often involve larger questions of purpose and fulfillment. Philosophical discussions of the meaning of life are not meant to compete with self-help therapies. The main appeal of philosophy’s contributions to this issue rests in the puzzle itself: here is a timeless problem that touches the core of human existence. What exactly is behind the problem and which, if any, of the standard solutions are plausible?