Last Post on Patriotism

You may have noticed looking at my blog; I am very engaged with patriotism. For some reason the irrationality of it bugs the heck out of me. I do not expect humans to be only rational beings and devoid of emotion in their decision making process, but why is this emotiv connection to one's country so persistent?

In the ideal world we would agree to abide by political structures out of our own volition, instead of needing an emotive fix. 

The Foundations of Patriotism

An interesting fact I just read (burried in the latest issue of the NY Review of Books) is that when asked if "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is in the US constitution, fifty percent of people said yes. The article then went on to make another relevant point that more than eighty percent of Americans believe the bible is either the literal or inspired word of God (at least thats what they say to these guys), but that percent of americans has not read the Bible.

What is this tendency to make out texts that we don't even read to be sacred? Why are people so attached to the ideal of a nation? After all a nation is just a convenient legal fiction, why attach so much emotive importance?

Unanswerable Questions

It may be that philosophy's sisyphean task is to try and answer unanswerable questions. Maybe this is where it's vitality comes from, providing endless challenge to the most curious human minds. By failing to directly answer 'the big questions' a fertile and creative intellectual realm where humans can strive to be 'better' (whatever that is).

I cannot see that the philosophy of time is one of these places. Ok, at least the portion of it trying to describe the nature of time. We only can access our experience of time and whatever the reality of it is seems to be irrelevant. Furthermore, I don't think we can access any evidence on weather time is this way or that, because we are limited by our subjective view of the universe.