Now that I am come to my second post, it seems proper that I take some space to lay out the general purpose of this blog, and indicate what sort of content readers should expect from it.
On the surface level my aim is to provide a smart and thoughtful commentary on the state of things in the modern world. The subject matter I intend to cover shall be broad, encompassing matters of philosophy, economics, politics, science, aesthetics, ethics, education and psychology. I plan not to become too wrapped up in any one of these subjects, but at the same time I shall strive not to be too general or superficial in the treatment of any one. To the greatest extent possible, I shall endeavor to make this a blog about everything—a grand and sweeping survey of academia, art, history, civilization, conscience and consciousness, that is, everything that makes us human. Thus at a deep level, my ultimate objective shall be no less than to probe the meaning of life, and beyond that to consider questions of its practical fulfillment.
No doubt the foundation I have here laid must sound impressively overreaching to any well-grounded reader. Surely I must have delusions of grandeur! For starters, the mere notion that I could cover every issue of importance to mankind is both hubris-laden and absurd. To address the dismay any sane reader must now be experiencing, let me remark in anticipation that this project will no doubt have shortcomings. Just like any other human being, my perspective on the world is informed by my own experiences, and my assessment of how the world decomposes into its component pieces is inextricably a product of my own subjective worldview. Consequently one legitimate weakness of my writings is that they will draw upon a limited pool of knowledge (mine), meaning the subjects I discuss, the examples I invoke, and the intuitions that guide me will together conspire toward a reductionist painting of what humanity is. And yet while I cannot be objective in the truest sense (as only an omniscient could), I can do my best to be fair in my analyses. That is, in matters that boil down to binary true-false relations (i.e. which can be considered simply in terms of what is and what isn’t), I can use the principles of logic to arrive at informative answers in spite of my biases and limited perspective.
Building upon this, my expectation is that the brunt of this project shall consist of logical arguments made in favor of this position or that on the sort of issues I have described above. I say ‘expectation’ in that, speaking truthfully, I cannot state for certain whither I might take this project as time progresses. Besides weaving incidental arguments, the overarching trajectory of my writings should adumbrate a general philosophic position for how individuals conduct themselves and societies are arranged. The best method for laying this edifice will require, I believe, a fair lick of playing by ear; and as it happens, my faith in the human mind’s ability to improvise lies at the heart of the utilitarianism-with-a-twist principles that motivate this project.
Which brings me to my final point: though much of the space I reserve for this blog shall be dedicated to the drafting of analytical arguments, the project’s ultimate end is an ethical one. It is one thing to make a convincing case for the correctness (or truth) of one’s position, but it is quite another to write something that makes people better—or, perhaps better said, which gives people the impetus to make themselves better. To achieve such an end, I plan to do whatever I can, experimenting here and there as necessary—and of course, given the scale of the task I have set for myself, I shouldn’t expect to be done in a hurry.
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