2017-07-29
25 分钟Thanks for listening to this episode.
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So even if you're binge listening to this and you just got done listening to last episode,
in the interest of painting a clear picture here,
I think it's important to do a quick recap of everything Simone de Beauvoir said so far in The Ethics of Ambiguity.
When you take an honest look at what it is to be a human,
what you realize is that we all exist in a strange place between various dualities,
subject and object, facticity and transcendence, individual and member of a group.
To be a human being is to be all of these things simultaneously.
Now, recognizing you're in this state of ambiguity can sometimes be a bit confusing to people.
It can cause tension because fact is, we don't like not being able to nail down exactly what we are at any given moment.
And if you look back at the history of philosophy and religion,
Simone de Beauvoir says
that what you'll find is a long tradition of people in the business of trying to simplify what we are so that everything seems a little less ambiguous.
For example, you, you are a citizen of a sovereign and benevolent nation,
you signed a social contract at birth, remember?
Forget whatever your own individual desires are,
you have a duty to uphold to this state in this life, and that comes first.