Emotions as Part of Decision Making

We have a tendency to look down on an emotional decision.  We pride ourselves as humans on being rational, thoughtful creatures, which make decisions based on the most logical or most beneficial outcome.  Emotions are considered to be irrational, short-term, selfish support for our decisions, not high-minded like reason or critical thinking.  However, emotion must have a purpose, otherwise it would not have evolved and survived.  The True Philosopher gave several examples of people who had suffered brain injuries that did not appear to have damaged the intellect, but left these people without emotional control.  One in particular seemed to be completely without emotion.  He was able to reason perfectly, but could not make real world decisions.  We might need the input of emotion to make value judgements on the array of possibilities so as to know what will be the least painful or the most pleasurable, for us or for people around us.  In fact, most decisions are based on more emotional aspects, although we use reason to justify them afterwards, trying to put what we want in the most reasonable light for others.

The True Philosopher insisted on the combination of reason and emotion as characteristic of the human being.  Intuition was mentioned by several people over the course of the meeting, but in his opinion intuition is not just a matter of emotion.  There is integral and spontaneous awareness in intuition, besides the epistemical knowledge that some people assign to it.  He reminded us that life is not only facts, but a state of affairs that is subject to interpretation.

Our Doctor is normally the one who takes the stance of interpretation, but today he had a great deal of other things to share, the brain being one of his specialties.  He began by stating that in order to survive we need to know things, to develop strategies; decisions are a vital part of our survival.  Psychology is a very new thing, and the result of a few people causing problems in their society and driving others to look for solutions.  The first mental hospitals were less hospitals and more enclosures to separate the problematic from "good citizens".  The science of knowing the brain began in the 19th century, in continental Europe, through autopsies performed on people who were obviously suffering some kind of internal problem.  Our knowledge today, however, is based on words.  We decide on another's sanity by the way the world is described.  The Doctor saw the choice as being between emotion and cognition, rather than reason.  He also insisted that biological logic is completely different from the logic we see in mathematics or physics.  We should measure our steps and not rush to conclusions, lest we commit errors, and the simplification of biology is a true error in his view.  He got a laugh from the group by revealing that he was inhibiting himself from killing - or kissing - his neighbor, himself a source of some rather bumbling thoughts on biology in many meetings.  Focusing on the physical apparatus for decision making, he reminded us that we are at the very beginning of understanding the brain and the mind.  We are only discovering the possibilities of neuroplasticity and the creation of "natural" or "automatic" behavior, unconscious decisions, through discipline and habit.  In the end, he warned us that brain injuries change personalities, but not being yourself might be the best thing that can happen to you.  Life is constant change, in any case.  Finally, he told us that we cannot make decisions alone anymore, but everything must be decided in community.

The Actress was the first to mention intuition, although her opinion was that it was pure reason, based on hidden or unconscious analysis of the situation.  In short, nothing magical or illogical about it.  She also complained that people tend to rely on those close to them to help make decisions, but those people are not objective and give advice based on what is good for themselves, not the person asking.  We need coaches to help us because nobody is an expert on everything, but we do not seek them out.

The Leader, ever practical, said that the end result of a decision should be action.  Even doing nothing is a decision, and in fact it sometimes takes more will-power to contain oneself than to act out.  We cannot escape the role of emotion, since triggers are all around us.  Advertising depends on the emotions behind decision making.  The question is not whether emotions affect our decisions, but how much, and can we control the amount?

The Writer spoke of emotions as being hidden even from ourselves, while the Educator was slightly pessimistic, saying that ultimately decisions are based on self-interest.  With regard to intuition, she said that the reliability of one's intuitions depend on past knowledge, since she was also in the internal/unconscious knowledge camp.  Another Participant said emotion could only be a reaction while rationality was necessary to act and make choices, but both are part of life.  Another sometime visitor reminded us of the need to think critically, even about things we think we know; we tend to take our beliefs as facts and assume what worked once will work again, even when the situation has changed. 

the beast within

Not one of Santa's

It's always on the lookout for those stouts.  The Wildebeest bottle looks distinguished enough, with its classic shape and not-too-busy design.  And it's one of those fancy stouts, with coffee and vanilla, for when your inner child won't be contained either.  It's a good, rich black, with a nice tan head that settles into a fairly thin topping.  The taste is kind of a wild blend of flavors coming out in jumps.  I think the coffee was what I noticed first, kind of the bitter portion of the beverage, but the chocolate-vanilla sweetness bounded out immediately after.  The sweet tends to spread out and cover the whole tongue as you sip, while I find the bitterness rises up at the back.  It's a pretty heavy drink; the label suggests settling into a comfortable armchair for proper drinking comfort.  I can't argue with the appeal, but the bar booth doesn't sound too bad either, provided the proper company is present.

Keeping Death in Mind

The topic came up a little late in the year, being more appropriate for late October/early November - at least at first glance.  However, the winter solstice is not exactly a time to ignore death; pagan religions of old used the time to celebrate the death of the old year (and the old god) and the birth of the new.  The Source was out of town for the meeting, and could not even provide us with some written thoughts, so we were left to our own devices, really.  One way to look at the topic, which was called one of the saddest ever by the Actress before we officially began, is that it is not clinical death or danger that we should have in our thoughts, but mortality.  Our time is limited, as is everyone else's.  Without the idea that we will run out of time for our plans, we have less motivation to complete, or even start them.  Not only that, but because nobody escapes the failure of the body, we will all have to deal with loved ones disappearing from our lives, and pretending that our current, happy, circumstances will last forever does us no favors when that time comes.  Although preparing mentally and emotionally will not prevent sadness or sorrow over the loss, hopefully it will prevent despair or rage.  Another thought occurred to me while others were speaking, which is that we might not even be talking about death, necessarily.  That is, not a "natural" death that appears like magic and whisks people away.  Rather, we should keep the vulnerability of all of us in mind.  Besides observing people die, we can actually make them die, even without meaning to.  It might not even be a direct consequence of our actions, but a result of the things we do and demand; in order to survive, every living thing has needs that must be filled, and resources are simply finite.  To eat, we have to kill animals and plants, not only to consume them, but also to use the land they live on for farming.  We need electricity to maintain our way of life, but power plants pollute and kill all sorts of living things.  If we keep in mind that others are easily damaged, even at risk of death by our actions, hopefully we will be more tolerant, more generous with them.  The idea of death should help us be kinder in life.

Our Doctor, as to be expected, focused first on death as the cessation of life, the physical stopping of bodily function.  Of course, he started by saying that death is just a word, one which has no real significance out of context, making it difficult to approach.  We do not in fact know what death is; we only know the end of life.  He spoke of the difficulties doctors and medical personnel have had in determining the state of life vs. death in patients, saying that even the machines that measure brain activity do not actually show death since breathing or heartbeat might continue.  Drugs can induce a death-like state, but the patient is still not dead.  Although not a psychiatrist, he has had contact with depressed people, who he believes have death in their lives as something almost with a physical presence, either a threat or a solution to their suffering.  Human suffering, however, has nothing to do with death itself.  He later added that everything in the brain might be controlled, and negative thoughts need to be controlled.  Good, positive thoughts and positive actions should be used to balance out the negatives that occur unexpectedly.  He mentioned Seneca's idea that everybody dies when it's time, so we should not care too much about it.  The Actress asked why the big 3 (Abramic) religions were so interested in death and not in life, and our Doctor's opinion is that this idea and the popularity of those religions come from a desire for order and discipline in society.  At the end, he said that we need to have a critical spirit when it comes to things that can be published; the written word is not true just because it is written.  He mused over the use of images of death in religious culture, noting that different sects use it to different effects.  Catholic countries in particular have a certain reverence for death, and Spain has an almost frenzied fascination with it.  He also pointed out that our ideas come from old ideas, things that are not true anymore but have not been discarded yet, hence the need for skepticism and rethinking.  He ended with the advice to learn philosophy, learn not just read, and then destroy it.

The True Philosopher focused on the experience of death, spending his short essay showing how we will not experience our own, but only that of others.  Our own death is so abstract as to be meaningless to us, even if we fear the afterlife, some divinity's judgement, or simply ceasing to exist; it is only the death of a loved one that really has effects for us.  He expressed the typical dichotomy that exists in our minds, in that we cannot only consider death, we also think about life.  Sometimes we want to live only because we do not want to die.  He also emphasized that it is not necessary to be a "philosophical" person to keep death in mind, because it is all around us, and in some areas harder to ignore than others.  He told us that he had been an embedded reporter in the Gaza strip and had seen death up close.  Terrible to see, and stark proof of his own desire to continue living.

The Leader looked at social ideas both in his written thoughts and his first contribution and settled on the idea that we have advanced so far in promoting our own survival that we do not think we have to keep death in mind anymore.  In the past, death was all around and an everyday fact, but today we shove it off to the side and try to ignore it when it happens.  Still, lack of personal experience does not limit our imaginations, and we can imagine what it is like to be dead, especially if we have suffered some kind of lack of consciousness in our lives.  For him, the problem with forgetting about death or actively putting it out of our minds is that this allows us to focus only on the present and forget about the future, when we all know that the future should be planned for.  The question is, how much of our minds should we devote to death?  After listening to the True Philosopher, he admitted he was not convinced about dialectical ideas of life/death, explaining that while our experience of death is that of those close to us dying, our experience of life is only our own.  Also, our actions have more impact on others' lives and deaths than our thoughts ever do, so he echoed my idea that maybe the death we should be considering is the hypothetical result of our hypothetical actions.  The Leader ended by reminding us that we continue to take risks, sometimes stupid ones, even being completely aware that they are risky behaviors, so we must not keep our own death much in mind after all.

An Occasional Participant mused over a number of ideas in his contributions.  He also mentioned the life/death dichotomy in normal thoughts, but also the idea of hiding death away in modern society.  His answer to the Actress' question about religions was that they simply use death as a threat, and events like war or plague are used to their advantage.  He wondered what the role of death will be in the future, as people live longer, but not always better lives.  Will significant numbers of people choose death, rather than being "chosen" by it?  Will euthanasia become something hardly worth mentioning, like minor surgeries?  He also brought up the more metaphorical use of the word death as the idea of being forgotten in the world, but this idea was not much developed in the meeting.  Towards the end, he also reminded us that some funerals, or rituals for accepting a death, become celebrations of life, both the one that has ended and the ones that are possessed still by the mourners.

The Educator said that even if we are not aware of it, we do keep death in mind, at least the possibility of our own death.  We live in a society that prioritizes youth, so even aging can be akin to death in terms of public exposure, especially for women.  We need a balance, however, since constant thinking about the end of our lives should be considered pathological.  She actually mentioned the celebration of life first, although not in the context of the funeral, just as the idea that knowing we are mortal should make us more willing to experience and enjoy all we can of our fleeting existence.

christmas is coming

...and it will be here before the next beer tasting.  So, here we are with Santa's Little Helper.  A nice dark stout, something for the winter nights, and with a festive label bearing a reindeer and an elf.  Although I have a slight fantasy that peppermint will be involved in the flavoring, I am pretty sure that's just a fantasy.

Black as Christmas Eve, as promised, I can't help but think there's a little bit of coal dust in it.  Did I say coal?  I mean cocoa.  It has that typical hint of bitter chocolate of the best stouts, in my opinion.  There's a good balance of bitter and sweet, again like the best stouts and the best dark chocolates, with a simple and clean taste going in.  A little bitter does stay on the tongue, probably for the best, as it keeps the drinker from guzzling.  This is a beer to savor a bit rather than chug down. 

Santa's been getting that coal himself, I see

And now we know where that red nose comes from

Social Justice Warriors

This one was mine, and I managed to write a little something for the Leader to post before the meeting.  It's with his own pondering on the webpage.

Our Doctor began the discussion by trying to break down the phrase into its components: we warrior, a fighter, somebody considered strong; justice is normally respected as a concept; social groups are one of the human being's basic needs.  We need to be aware of what's going on around us for our own protection and preservation, since we might be attacked at any time.  However, we really do not know what is happening in the world, even with the wealth of information available to us through sources like the internet.  We are bombarded with information.  Furthermore, in spite of the possibilities we now have to explore and find new ideas, we are creatures of habit, visiting the same places day after day.  Regarding the warrior bit, he said that reacting to offense, either personal or social, is a natural thing, like going to the toilet.  Still, we do not fight against the powers that enslave us intellectually and even dismiss those who try to do so as "weirdos".  Intellectual slavery is a fact, and the manipulation necessary to achieve it is obvious, but we are comfortable enough that we do not want to risk any changes now.  Later on, he spoke of the keeping of records on computers, which on one hand makes access easier for the people who need or have a right to the information, but also makes things much easier for those who would use it for their own ends, or to hurt the people whose information they can find.  Many people and business, not to mention governments, have an enormous amount of details about any individual they choose to pay attention to, but at the same time they know nothing real about that person.  Finally, he reminded us that to right wrongs or preserve justice, people will be or at least feel attacked.  They can easily give in to their natural reaction of protecting themselves, which may be violent.  Justice may be a worthy thing to reach for, but we must pay attention to the means as well as the ends.

The True Philosopher revealed a little of his own past, saying he had been a social justice activist in his youth, confronting police on the university campus and the like.  He had the idea of "armchair revolutionaries" but the particular combination of social justice + warrior was new to him.  Still, the intent was clear.  As he says in his short article, activists are welcome but "warriors" can get out.  While theory is not a bad thing, and sometimes quite necessary, those people who do nothing but spout theory not only look like cowards or even hypocrites, their once useful theory becomes disconnected from the reality they are trying to change.

The Leader focused on the emotive part of fighting for social causes, saying that these "warriors" have the tendency to be extremely loud and aggressive.  They are also likely to focus exclusively on the goal, without considering the possible consequences of achieving it.  As an example, he pointed to the banning of fox hunting in England.  While it seemed to be a brutal and cruel sport, mainly for the fox, although the other animals involved were also at some risk because of their participation, the banning of it came with the perfectly foreseeable result that the fox population exploded.  People are now allowed to poison or kill foxes without the ritual of the hunt because of the problems their overpopulation causes.  Another aspect of the fox hunt was its classism, as only the well-off or highly placed socially were allowed to take part in such things, and now anybody anywhere might have the opportunity to kill a fox, but saying that this is a victory for social justice would be unlikely to attract much support.  Furthermore, many people made their living from the ritual of the fox hunt, including kennel masters, game keepers, and artisans who made and repaired the equipment used.  Without the fox hunt, their jobs disappear for the most part.  Returning to the general topic, he repeated his earlier point that the basis of the argument for "warriors" is emotional rather than rational, and the fruit of a reaction to an injustice already produced.  While they demand reparations for a crime committed, they often ignore the possibilities of preventing it, or something similar, from happening in the future.  In his final contribution, he spoke of responsibility in society, especially on the part of governments.  In his view, if governments functioned as they should, there would be no need for charitable organizations, since most of the needs they fill have been caused or exacerbated by governments.

The Educator also mentioned clashes between police and university students in her country, the result of the dictatorship in power at the time.  Dictators inevitably promote injustice, and somebody will always fight against it, although the success of the efforts it not always guaranteed.  Social justice, in her opinion, is protection of the weak and the prevention of exploitation.  It is necessary to ensure the education of children includes these principles, to provide equal opportunities, and avoid situations where it could be necessary to use more force.  We should be social justice "guides", rather than "warriors" in a fairer society.  Responding to the apparent dismissal of emotion by the Leader, she insisted that human beings have feelings for a reason and she personally cannot help but react emotionally; she refuses to be a robot.

The meeting ended with an exchange focused on economic justice rather than strictly social, although as the Leader pointed out, much social injustice is perpetrated and continued by means of wealth.  Although discrimination takes many forms and uses many outlets, to be really effective there has to be power behind it, and power in our society is inextricably linked to money.  A social justice "warrior", if we accept the picture drawn in this meeting, might fight to have a discriminatory law abolished or something like Affirmative Action created to promote equality.  On the other hand, a real social justice advocate will try to find the root cause of the discrimination and rectify all errors that lead us down a dark path.  Unfortunately, that is really a long-term sort of plan, one which those who suffer the injustice are often unwilling to wait for, understandably, and like the Educator have strong feelings about their situation.  While some might shake their heads at the lack of foresight, we cannot deny the attraction of the immediate solution, the one represented by the warrior, just or unjust.

the same line

I'm still on my red kick, so this looked like a likely contender despite being Belgian.  It does have that sweet apply scent to it, and a pleasant reddish color.  So far so good.  It's a nice flavor too, a bit heavy on the sweet for me at first, but a mellow bitter comes up as the beer goes down.  The apple taste wasn't apparent at first, but a few sips into it the flavor started to make itself known.  I had some worry about the stickiness in the beginning, since it started out a bit heavy, but the beer maintained a good consistency from start to finish, without becoming syrupy or excessively sweet.  I'm a little up in the air about whether this is a companion beer, one that would really be enhanced by some little nibbling on the side; the contrast with a salty snack is appealing, but probably unnecessary.  I'm going to settle for an all-around beer, satisfying by itself or with food, as well as being either a complement to conversation or a solitary pleasure.

Life Doesn't Follow the Agenda

There are a great many quotes about our being surprised by events in life, even after we carefully plan what we mean to do or for to happen.  One question we might ask is why we even try to have that sort of long-reaching, global control, and the answer is probably that we just like to have the security that we can plan for everything and are capable of preventing disaster for ourselves and those we care about.  Unfortunately, the truth is that we cannot.  Our control over our surroundings goes only so far.  Some people relinquish all control, so they say, trusting in a higher power to do what is "best" for them, although often enough they rage against this power's decisions anyway, or try to reinterpret them to find some personal benefit.  Beyond the facts of our situation in life, there is also the emotional component.  The Leader mentioned being able to plan for the things that satisfy us with our lot, not just having a goal in the fuzzy future, and not being able to make and carry out plans does pose a problem for being happy with life's agenda.  Moreover, not knowing what will actually make us happy can cause kinks in the plan, because we all have different desires, likes and needs.  We see some people who at least appear to be happy with what they do and have done, and we try to emulate them.  It does not always work.  Then, we might give in to frustration, since we have followed the plan as best we could, but Life has not followed "The Agenda" of making us happy.

The Source was pleased with the Leader's comments and began by emphasizing the connections between people, saying that we do not create agendas in isolation.  Our plans are always affected by others.  She was also very pleased with The True Philosopher's admonition/suggestion to fit our lives to the reality we discover rather than vice versa, calling it the best idea to come out of this meeting.  Another Participant mentioned fortune telling and the lack of credibility they enjoy in wider society.  The Source retorted that in the specific case of lottery numbers, nobody can predict them because they do not exist until the moment they are drawn from the bowl, come up on the wheel, or appear using whatever method that lottery uses.

Our Doctor was rather in his element what with the mental workings that are evident in the topic.  First, he said that "life" is just a word, and like all words, in the end it means nothing.  As for agendas, many people do not bother creating one, just a number of hopes and dreams without any specific plan to reach them.  Besides that, our context and reality is always changing and there is some amount of folly in sticking firmly to a plan one made in the past.  Later he told us that everything is dangerous, and therefore we should be educated to change things.  We are the best animals in the universe, the most capable of doing what we want, at least as far as we know.  Happiness in humans can be taught and learned, but it, like our plans and our visions of the future, is in the frontal lobe - biology.  Life is not just philosophy, biology is in everything.  While we should work out the best ways to get what we want, we must also be flexible, and see reality as something we can develop rather than something that naturally occurs to serve us.  He also remarked on the importance of others to our plans and agendas, saying that it is necessary to be "infected" by others' ideas, so that we can develop antibodies and survive.

The Leader did not develop the topic much in writing this time, but did elaborate in the meeting itself.  Again, the idea that outside forces are always affecting our plans came up, victimizing our plans, he said.  As for reality, he wondered what the point of having a brain to wonder about it was, if we accept that we cannot actually access reality.  He then moved on to pleasure and happiness, saying the agenda is based on knowing what gives us pleasure and projecting our ideas of pleasurable situations onto the future, then working out the path to those situations.  The goals exist, but not detailed plans.  This is why it seems life does not follow our agenda, but the truth is we did not have steps for it to follow in the first place. 

The True Philosopher wrote a bit on accepting the disappointments of our lives in order to achieve happiness, or at least be less unhappy.  We need to scale down our hopes and become accustomed to being unfulfilled.  Also, it is best to take things less personally and externalize the disappointments rather than see them as internal failings. 

The Instructor emphasized the importance of having plans, otherwise we do nothing.  In her own experience, however, too many plans cause stress without contributing anything to our satisfaction in life.  We may have the illusion that nothing changes, relying on systems of prediction like the I-Ching, but we have to be prepared for the unexpected.  She reminded us of the definition of intelligence that was flexibility in changing circumstances.

As a group, we have faced changes that seemed to come out of nowhere, but we have been able to use them to certain advantage.  Hopefully, that means we are intelligent people, and always on the road to better things.

'tis the season

It is, in fact, St. Nicholas' Day in some parts of the world, so some Christmas-y drink seems fitting.  The last Japanese beer I tried was actually made by a Brit founded brewery, but Kiuchi seems to be more "authentic".  Also, ginger.  Not unheard of in Japanese cooking.

Don't lie, you thought that was a reindeer man at first glance, too

It's not too strong smelling, which is almost disappointing.  It's a nice apple-cider brown, also in tune with the season in my estimation.  It has a very gingery flavor, but not with an excessive amount of spice or heat.  It's really like a liquid gingerbread cookie.  The label says to be on the lookout (scentout?) for ginger, citrus and malt in the aroma, but I can't catch any of that.  There is an undertone of citrus in the taste, like a gingerbread cookie with some orange peel decoration or spritz.  It's recommended as an accompaniment to spicy "exotic" foods, which I can see as appetizing, although I'm happy with it by itself right now.  It's a happy drink, quite nice on even a chilly December night.

Relationships Between Generations

For whatever reason, the Source did not choose to say anything on the topic.  She didn't even enlighten us as to why she had been interested in suggesting it.  Not only that, but she made no contributions during the meeting or at the end to sum up the ideas that she agreed with.

First one Intent Learner read off what seemed to be a Wikipedia definition of the "generations" of the past few decades of the US, with the idea of making the point that we as a society like to believe that members of the same group that has seen the same events and experienced the same up-bringing must be the same.  The problem, of course, is that the terms like "Greatest Generation" or "Gen X" are promoted by the media to give us an easy stereotype to use, not a real analysis of the full population that makes up each social generation, which is a fairly artificial division anyway.  The people within each generation have little that unites them besides somebody's division of time; the ones born at the end will have more in common with the next generation than their own and the ones born at the beginning with the preceding generation.  This is simply because time is a gradually rolling out phenomenon rather than something that can be neatly divided into portions with practically no overlap.  When we talk about relationships between generations, it makes little sense to talk about these media produced ideas unless we are considering the memes that we accept to represent the real personalities of real people.  The ideals and goals of real people are forged by their life experiences, and while there may be some shared inspiration from common socio-cultural experiences, these events do not limit themselves to affecting only one "generation", but are felt by all.  Every group of people will have members who are "altruistic", "cynical" or "humanitarian" but it is unlikely that that particular characteristic will be significantly more observable in a group whose births cover an arbitrarily chosen span of time.  The only way to discuss relationships between generations, in my opinion, is in the family context.  This is the only area where the lines are clear.  And what about those relationships?  As in all human interactions, respect should be the foundation of our relationships with each other, respect for fellow, individual human beings.  However, it seems many people of older generations are not quite able to see those of a younger generation as complete people, especially their own children, who are merely an extension of themselves.  The adolescent rebellion that often takes place as children become adults and create their adult selves can be seen as a personal attack, since the easiest way to show one's independence from another is to stand in contrast rather than in symphony.  Depersonalization from both sides prevents honest and useful communication, and impedes the development of an open and desirable relationship.  In short, aside from the responsibilities of making sure immature individuals reach maturity, the relationships between generations have no significant difference from those we have with any other person.

The Actress was fixated on the "generation gap" and the conflicts it brings with it.  In her own family, she found the older generations to be much too strict and inflexible, unable to adapt to changing social attitudes toward behavior, particularly in women.  A newcomer brought up the attitudes that children have towards their teachers, saying there was a definite lack of "respect" in the old style today.

The True Philosopher also mentioned the psycho-social influences on individuals as being important to their development as adults, as well as the tendency of youth to rebel.  In his writing, he analyzed the illusion of the forward march of time towards a goal, dragging humanity with it, when we should be thinking of reality as cyclical.  We think of ourselves as completely new and different from our forebears when what changes is really just the details. 

The Instructor was reminded of Shaw's idea of life being a torch to make burn, and then hand off to the next runner (generation).  She works with children and finds the contact with them helps her feel young.  At the same time, she believes that "modernity" is not limited to the young who have not become set in their ways, since she has met many open-minded older people, who have a younger aspect in that sense than those decades younger.  She also told us that this discussion was focused purely on the West, since our attitudes towards generations and individuality were not the same in other areas of the world, such as Asia.  The True Philosopher, being Asian, acknowledged that it was American influence that opened schools and universities to women in his country, although that was after being a colony of another Western state for some time.

The Seeker of Happiness repeated the ideas of cyclicalness and social influences on forging a "generational" perspective, and said that he as an individual was lost in modern society; it is completely different from the one he saw when he was growing up, although he did not refer to his favorite topic of happiness by saying whether people seem happier or not.

The Leader took a more forward-looking stance, asking in his writing whether future generations exist, and if so, should we keep them in mind when we make decisions today?  In discussion, he stated that the generation gap and its importance were overrated.  Although children have "fresh" minds, adults have practical experience, and besides that our access to information has increased gradually over time.  There is no clear division between social generations.  There are relationships between age groups, such as parents and children or teachers and students, that have value for examination, but these groups are particular and specific to time and place, not universal.

The discussion then wandered into the field of women's rights, perhaps because it's one of the areas that has seen the greatest change over the last century or so, and the one that affects most of the members of the group.  Some people warned us that the changes were recent and so could be lost, others reminded us of the penalties women paid in the past for acting as individuals rather than members of a family as daughters or wives, for example, attempting to purchase their own birth control.  Although it could be interpreted as a digression, it is a concrete example of creating relationships between generations; the way we treat others, other genders, other beliefs, other groups, has much to do with what our parents taught us.  Our parents' support for the rights and personhood of others is the foundation of our social behavior, although we can change and improve it based on our own experiences.