Comments on: The Search for Authentic Experience http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/ On Science, History, and Exploration Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:40:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Caspar Henderson http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-493 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:23:43 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-493 Well, good luck! Rousseau was, of course, a formative influence both for the idea of authenticity and for important strands in politics ever since.

]]> By: Michael Robinson http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-492 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:11:32 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-492 Caspar – it’s a good idea – though as you state, it’s hard to make room for everything in a 15 week course. Still, maybe I could get some mileage out of Jean Jacques Rousseau since he speaks about the artifice of human civilization but also about how such artifice corrupts the political system.

]]> By: Caspar Henderson http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-489 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:33:46 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-489 Coming to your site for the first time (and enjoying it a lot), I wonder if your course should include something/more on the search for authenticity in the political sphere — from, e.g., brotherhood of man sentiments of the French revolution to contemporary affairs. I realize, though, there’s only so much one can include in a course

]]> By: Michael Robinson http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-442 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:19:06 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-442 Thanks Erika. Good to hear from you. How’s life in Maryland?

]]> By: Erika http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-441 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:15:30 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-441 Michael,
This course is awesome! I love the way you develop the intimate details of the changing relationship between intellectual pursuit and real-life experience. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for both you and your students.

Erika

]]> By: Jason Anthony http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-440 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:38:32 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-440 Michael: No doubt there’s literature (maybe articles rather than books) on the hypernetworked life, but I wonder if literature is where you want to look? Perhaps go directly into the blogosphere, or onto Facebook, etc, to take what they’ve learned from the previous readings (Plato to Krakauer) and then critique the search for truth/authenticity in the online world. Thus more of a writing project then a reading per se. Some interesting questions come out of this for me, as in: Would Thoreau or Chris McCandless, both serious scribblers, have blogged from their hideaways? How much of today’s teenage identity persists after the electricity fails? Etc.

Hope this helps.

Jason

]]> By: Michael Robinson http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-439 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:55:14 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-439 Asa, after reading your remarks as well as Jason’s, you’ve convinced me: there’s got to be a section near then end of the course on the hyper-networked generation. It would seem that this experience would be the opposite of the “going it alone” climber, diver, explorer – but perhaps there’s similarities behind the difference. I don’t even know where to begin looking for literature on this subject (except perhaps the science fiction novels of William Gibson such as Neuromancer). Let me know if you have any suggestions.

]]> By: ArchAsa http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-438 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:27:16 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-438 Sounds like a great course and very relevant for our times. In this post-post-modern globalized world with many certainties shattered and rising scepticism about science and ideological values, I think the question about what is “real”, permanent and “true” is very much on people’s minds. Who and what do we believe in, what CAN we believe in? Taking time to understand how these issues have been discussed in different times by different people should be very important.

I can envision quite heated debates among the students about the difference between those who seek out extreme experiences of the natural world today, and those who seek the shared engrossing experience through internet, such as WoW etc. Is it the same or is it opposites?

]]> By: Michael Robinson http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-436 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:39:58 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-436 Jason, I will go hunting for Ishmael and Michaux. Your suggestion about the multi-tasking, cybernetic world of today is excellent. The more I think about this, the more I think you are right, I need to include it. It would also make the perfect foil for reading Into the Wild, which is such an “off the grid” read that would highlight how unbelievably plugged in we’ve all become.

]]> By: Jason Anthony http://timetoeatthedogs.com/2009/01/21/the-search-for-authentic-experience/#comment-435 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:39:04 +0000 http://timetoeatthedogs.com/?p=1244#comment-435 Michael:

Sounds like an excellent course. Makes me wish I was back on campus… Because I’m currently teaching it here at an alternative high school in Maine, and because it offers a radical critique of both how to live and what it means to be human, I’ll recommend Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The question of “authentic experience” takes on a different cast under its anthropological critique. We muddle through experience – whether exploring or domestic – because we long ago (~10,000 years ago during the agricultural revolution) lost the knowledge of how to live on Earth. Despite all this, it’s easy to read and pragmatic.

There’s more to say about it, but you probably know it. I’d also recommend Robert Scott and Edward Wilson, the unabashedly Romantic pair of Antarctic explorers. For the hallucinogenic side, the writings of Henri Michaux are beautiful but difficult.

Oh, and since I spent part of today watching 5 students sitting together while all simultaneously surfing via their laptops, texting on their phones, and watching TV, I wonder if you want to delve into the conquest of the virtual experience over the real?

Cheers,
Jason Anthony

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