Feeling Angry, AGAIN!

This time I felt it in Critical Thinking class. Part of the issue is the teacher, his methods, and his beliefs. He believes that everything about Aristotle is Good, and deviations from Aristotelian thought is Bad, especially as relates to philosophy. He uses his knowledge and position to vent his anger at modern philosophers, especially those that advocate relative or subjective reality. I get angry at being badgered by him, not that I support subjective reality.

I also get angry at the Aristotelian teachings. He (Aristotle) presents a view of the universe that is incompatible with mine. For instance, there is a supposedly real ideal chair, which every material chair tries to become. There is no need, in my mind, for such an ideal as an actual, if insubstantial, thing. We humans may choose to consider the nature of chair-ness, but these thoughts are strictly our own creation, there is no real manifestation of such a thought. (Except as the bio-chemo-electo-processes of our brains.) I think I want to jump in and straighten everyone out! The problem with that is that I have other plans and limited time and resources.

BTW, if I sit on a rock, does it switch from trying to be a rock to trying to be a chair? How does it "try" to become an ideal rock or chair? How does it know what the ideal is? All kinds of questions....

Thanks for reading....

Ar-r-r-r-r-rgh!

I am angry. I am very, very angry. I was assigned a reading in my English class named "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen." It is a holocaust story. Some years ago I read a book by Frankel. I don't remember the name or much about it, but it was also took place in a camp. I recall some kind of pride, or honor, or something that made things seem OK somehow. In this short story the narrator collaborated to some extent, and was furious about what he did, furious that the Germans had put him in that position, and furious at the victims for being victims. He sought some kind of redeeming quality in himself to make him better than all this.

This makes me angry because one people could do this to another, and to crush still others by making them cooperate. I am angry that we, the western nations, did nothing to stop it. "Peace in our time." I am angry that we did not learn our lesson and let it happen again in Africa. I am angry that even though we intervened in the breakup of Yugoslavia we allowed so much murder and brutality before we intervened.

I am angry that even though we say that we will never let this happen again, we get comfortable, look the other way, make excuses, and wish the problem would go away. They say that those who do not learn history's lessons are doomed to repeat them. We haven't learned.

I am angry that there are so many things in this world that need fixing. There are more serious problems than one person can even learn about, much less do anything about. In the book

Life 101 : Everything We Wish We Had Learned About Life in School -- But Didn't Peter McWilliams said that, yes, there are more problems than one person can handle, but there are many people, each have as their dream to fix a problem. I need to work on my dream and let them work on their dreams. I don't have to fix every problem but I do have to work on a problem. That thought usually keeps me cool.

But, every once in a while, I read or see something that blows my stack, and I just HAVE to vent. Thank you all for listening.