Matthew B. Crawford
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction
Rethreading some passages in a different order so as to bring out the future-directed topos.
On dialectic (p. 210)
[T]his orientation toward the future requires a critical engagement with the designs and building methods of the past. They learn from the past masters, interrogate their wisdom, and push the conversations further in an ongoing dialectic of reverence and rebellion.
On the erotic (p. 67)
[W]e are erotic: we are drawn out of our present selves toward some more skilled future self that we emulate. What it means to be erotic is that we are never fully at home in the world. We are always “on our way.” Or perhaps we should say that this state of being on our way to somewhere else is our peculiar human way of being here in the world.
On individuality [as opposed to individualism] (p. 250)
I suggested that it is by bumping up against other people, in conflict and cooperation, that we acquire a sharpened picture of the world and of ourselves, and can begin to achieve an earned independence of judgment.
There is something Epicurean at work here. The future emerges from our orientation (and attention) to the world and others. The world presents novel situations and the situated self responds.
And so for day 2811
23.08.2014