thinking outside the sandbox....

A spectre is haunting the Eurocentric mind--the spectre of philosophy.Okay, this is not a manifesto, ‘tis a puzzlement. And a rather minor one at that.This came to me while reading (or trying to read) Schopenhauer. Not to say that any of this is his fault. Just that I got conscious of how much his preoccupation with whether we know the world or merely our idea of it, is a byproduct of the university curriculum.This is no bad thing, and certainly no surprise. Indeed, where else would we want philosophy but in the midst of all other activities of the mind. Though, perhaps, that leaves it a bit more in the midst of the training of the mind rather than of the mind’s mature exercise.Are you sensing a problem yet? Probably not.Let’s try it this way. Education not only trains our minds, it defines our identities. So too does the lack of education. In effect philosophy becomes an adornment of the professional class. Just as the miseducation of girls for wifehood once included a bit of music or painting, so the training of technocrats is embellished with a few higher thoughts. These can be trotted out to meet the occasion. At its best this embodies what William James meant by "the social value of the college-bred."Again, I’m not arguing against this (though perhaps sneering just a bit). After all, inquiry is naturally rooted in inquiry. And it is necessary that particular inquiry be leavened by dreams of universal understanding.I just wonder why this has to be the only model.I wonder if there’s an alternative. Could the life of the mind happen on the shop floor or on the threshing floor or in the aisles of a big-box discount outlet? Would different questions get asked? Would different choices get made?I don’t raise this possibility out of a desire that the world be a nastier place. Invariably us speculative folk have some sort of betterment project up our sleeves. Plato used to natter on about better govenment coming at the hands of philosopher kings. He discovered early the hazzards of trying to graft highmindeness onto tyrants. His experience has been confirmed down through the ages. In recent centuries, with the emergence of mass society, we are more inclined to put our trust in philosopher-citizens.This strategy seem to have been working, though it is possible to wonder whether we have time to wait for its further evolution. (No, I’m not advocating more drastic means of social control, just being a bit wistful about our prospects for pulling out of the current nosedive.)So that this train of thought will appear to be on some track or other, I raise this question: Is there a way for the inqusitive life to become other than the hobgoblin of the terminally educated?(Full disclosure: I wouldn’t play this game if it ran on X-Box. I’m only in for the buzz of superiority I get from it even when practiced as a private vice.)Nietzsche shrewdly pointed out that philosophy is only as good as the culture it arises from. Philosophy does not give rise to culture; it expresses culture. That insight did not prevent him from trying to badger the Germans into raising their culture to that of the "tragic age of the Greeks." To the extent he succeeded it was only to give the Germans their own tragic age.If I have a point (never mind an answer to my question) it is this. Philosophy as we know it is a creature of the university. So long as this is so we have not much hope that it’s practice will do more than affirm the worst tendencies in our society as well as the best. We imagine that education is the key to progress, yet it’s influence is limited by the fact, as Marx put it, that "the educator himself must be educated."The education of the educator comes from society itself. If the educator is to change it must come under the tutelege of the people.(Allow me to share your disappointment in this little excursion. Editorial writers complain when a piece of their work merely "marches uphill and marches back down again" without doing battle. I have failed to even locate the hill, let alone climb it.)-30-