Monday, August 22, 2022

Introductions

Looking forward to seeing you all on August 23, in JUB 202 at 4:20 pm!

(If you've tried and failed to post your introduction in Comments, please try again.) 

Since we'll be spending time with Wendell Berry this semester, I'll probably say a bit on Opening Day about the quote in the sidebar under "First things first-a proper education"...

And since it's also Opening Day for my Intro to Philosophy classes, I'll probably tell you then why I prefer to call it CoPhilosophy, why I call myself (and encourage you all to become) Peripatetic, and why I sometimes introduce the semester with references to Monty Python's Argument Clinic, Brian Cohen, and Douglas Adams's whale, POV gun, and answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Extra (moral) credit to anyone who can translate and explain the philosophical significance of the Latin phrases Solvitur Ambulando and Sapere Aude, and who can find first base on a baseball scorecard (or diamond).

We mostly will NOT use D2L for online discussion and course support. We WILL use this site... where you'll find the syllabus, texts (required and recommended), and other information and resources.

Before first coming to class, click on "comments" below to share your own. Tell us who you are, why you're here (in class, at school, on planet earth...), what you consider to be your environment and how it relates to nature, the climate, and society. Do you think most college-age students are concerned about the present and future condition of the environment? Are you optimistic about the future?

That'll get us started, before we dive into Wendell Berry's World-Ending Fire.

Enjoy the remainder of your summer, and get ready for some important and exciting conversations.

jpo

(Dr. Oliver)

phil.oliver@mtsu.edu

7 comments:

  1. My name is Gary Wedgewood. I am a retired United Methodist elder and pastor. I continue to pastor a church part-time in Wilson County where I live in Mount Juliet. My wife (who is a retired public-school teacher who continues to teach part-time) and I are both auditing classes at MTSU. We are both dedicated lifelong learners. In college I majored in Philosophy and Religion, Religious Studies, and minored in Theater. I have the M.Div. (Divinity), M.A.C.E. (Christian Education) Masters degrees, and completed course work for a Masters is Counseling Psychology. I have worked as a campus minister at Ohio Wesleyan University and as the director of a Wesley Foundation at Northeastern Oklahoma State University where I taught World Religions. After that I did youth ministry for a number of years. I have spent the rest of my 45 years in ministry as a pastor of local churches.

    I see Philosophy as a way of thinking about how we think and how we choose to live as well as it being a source of wisdom from past thinkers/philosophers and our ancestors. We all have a philosophy which undergirds how we live our lives in the same way that theology undergirds how I have lived out my calling to be a pastor.

    I have been an environmentalist since my high school days. I read the latest books on ecology, participated in an ecology program at the Touch of Nature Outdoor Education Center at Southern Illinois University, protested our local electric utility companies smoke stack emissions, and loved the camping I did with the Boy Scouts as I grew up in the mega city of Chicago. I also fell in love with the farms my grandparents and other relatives lived on in southern Illinois, Pope County. I spent many summers and sometimes Christmas breaks at the farm my mother grew up on. By the time I was twelve I was working with my uncles to care for animals and cultivate row crops. I learned to drive in this way so that when I went to driver’s education in my High School I had to be shown how to use and automatic transmission. My cousins and I explored every inch of the farms various family groups owned/rented in Pope county. When I was seventeen I fled city life for a small college surrounded by farming country. I immediately identified with Wendell Berry’s world as I began to read his book recently.

    Today, I am a frustrated suburbanite. I would plant a back to nature lawn if my wife and the HOA would allow it. It was heart rending for me to watch as the woods behind my house was torn apart to make way for further development of my subdivision. I admire my retired engineer brother in Delaware who has gone full force into solar panels, electric vehicles, and working as an energy auditor in retirement. The recent inflation reduction act passed by Congress may open the way for some of those things to happen in my household.

    I am deeply concerned about global warming as I have been since I saw Al Gore speak on the topic in the early 1980’s. I think that warming and the destruction of biodiversity are the most pressing issues of our time and I fear that we are headed toward a collapse of civilization as we know it if we do not make dramatic changes. I go shopping and picture in my mind what the store might look like if it was full of panic buying urbanites someday. A brief outage of the internet caused a huge number of problems just recently in my area, for example.

    I hope that college age students are concerned about what is happening to the environment. I will be long gone when they are suffering the worse consequences of environmental destruction. I must say, however, that I am optimistic that many changes can happen very quickly and innovations we have not heard of yet will have a large positive impact on healing the earth. The alternative is that the earth will heal itself, restore ecological balance, and in the process, humans may be the ones going extinct.

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  2. Gary, it's great to have you back for another class--it's like flying with a co-pilot! Class, pay attention when Gary speaks. You can probably tell from his intro above that he's a wise, learned, and very kind gentleman... as most self-avowed Lifelong Learners I've met tend to be.

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  3. Thanks for that kind comment. I found this tweet I want to share:
    Natalie Bennett
    @natalieben
    The economy is a complete subset of the environment.

    There is no economy on a dead planet.

    #ClimateEmergency #NatureCrisis

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  4. Posted for Julian:
    My name is Julian Sons, and this is my first semester as a senior. I have a major in Political Science and have a double minor in Social and Political Thought and Public Policy and Management. My hobbies include reading the occasional book, playing video games, and hanging out with friends.

    The environment to me typically refers to the natural world around us. However, it can also refer to the situations and circumstances one experienced or is experiencing in their lives and how that influences them. People are affected by the environment, and they affect the environment in turn. As such, I feel it is vital for humanity as a whole to fully come to terms with the fact that we have a duty to protect our environment. From what I've observed, it seems to me that more and more people are realizing exactly this as a result of intensifying weather and related disasters they are experiencing at an increasing frequency. People are increasingly working toward ameliorating the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and reducing the usage of fossil fuels. Such jumps in effort do make me more hopeful for the future - although we still have a long way to go.

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  5. My name is Matt Delfendahl and I am a second semester sophomore here at MTSU. My major is Political Science Cognate Pre-Law and I have a minor in Social and Political Thought. Some personal things about me are that I love sports, mainly Football, but I watch Baseball Basketball and Soccer. I regularly read, play video games, and am apart of the Sigma Chi Fraternity here at MTSU. I am here at MTSU because I want to attend Law School and I chose MTSU as my undergraduate path to Law School. I do not have a concrete answer as to why I am here on planet Earth, my parents told me it was a surprise.

    When I think of my environment around me I mainly think of where I live, who I associate myself with, where I work, etc. I think that defines what most immediately effects me and determines how my life goes. However, I believe these things intersect with the larger natural world in many ways. Where I live impacts water usage, animal habitats, usage of car, electricity etc. Who I associate myself with can have a large effect on how I view nature, climate, and society. All these things, big or small, in some way affect the larger nature of our 'environment' and world. I think there is a much larger uptick in college age students caring about the environment, specifically compared to past generations. The talks of global warming and climate change becoming extremely regular in everyday life allows for me people to educate themselves and care about the environment of the world. At this point in time, I am not particularly optimistic about our future. I think recent legislative actions like the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act offer a new hope, but I think there are too many people complacent and content with their lives to want to change to help better my generations and my children's generations future.

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  6. My name is Abby Moseley, I'm a first semester junior and my major is Environmental Science. I'm returning to college for a third time to try and get my degree, but hey, third time's the charm. In my time away from school, I'm a server and bartender at Carrabba's. My favorite pastimes include camping, music and arts festivals, card games, and caring for my geriatric pets (Ralph, HJ, and Boodle).

    Describing environment can be complex, there are both physical and abstract elements to it. Physically, you have your home, method of transportation, work/school, and the nature around you. Abstract elements include your personal interaction with living and nonliving things in the world around you. Depending on your perception of all of these factors, you curate your own environment separate from everyone else.

    Viewing this at the world-scale you can observe the environments perpetuated by previous and ongoing generations. Miners whose job was to uncover coal and lead thought they were contributing to the well-being of future generations, they didn't expect their materials would be used to poison an entire generation and the earth's fragile biosphere. In the 50's and 60's, societally you wanted to be a part of a nuclear family because it was established that that way of living would lead to a peaceful and wholesome life, especially after going through the great depression. Those folks didn't anticipate the harm they were doing by killing habitats and introducing various invasive species all for aesthetic suburban neighborhoods. Even in todays world, throughout covid we as a society have accelerated in consumer culture and having everything individually wrapped and packaged sent to our front door.

    Fortunately, I do believe many college-age people are aware and alarmed about our current state. A lot of us were raised in school systems that were already acknowledging what was wrong and ways we can contribute to change for the better. The passing of the Inflation Reduction Act is a start, a little something to get us going, but I think for real change to happen, not only would we have to genuinely unify as a community, but we would also need a government, local and federal, that is willing to properly fulfill their role as a public servant of the people and for the people. My worry is not with my cohorts, its with government officials that are so far removed from the reality many of us share to care enough to try for us.

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  7. My name is Liam Taylor I am an environmental science major. I want to one day work for a company named Tetra Tech, they are a company that gets contracts from the EPA and clean up Environmental hazards. I really like traveling and I play rugby for MTSU.

    I live on a small farm back home which I guess I would consider that to be my environment, we have 5 sheep and about 15 chickens. I would also consider MTSU to be my environment as well. As s far as where I live and go to school that is my environment. I would say most of my interactions with people happen at MTSU which is also part of my environment is the people around me.

    I think the majority of College age people are at least aware of pressing matters about the environment and the issues that go along with that. weather they are concerned about it or not I'm not sure of. I feel like there is a lot of Social and political pressure to believe or not believe that human caused environmental hazards like burning fossil fuels and deforestation are actually destroying our planet or not (which all the science behind it obviously shows that they are harming our environment). I am becoming more optimistic about our future from our talks this past Tuesday. What stood out to me the most from our class Tuesday was "how can we bring about some sort of change if we are not somewhat optimistic about whats to come in the future". Thats not exactly what professor Phil said but it close.

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