The Human Condition Contemplation Key to Understanding

The Human Condition: Contemplation Key to Understanding Ask the average American what the problems facing his country are, and you will get a battery of standard responses. Some people will say health care, others violent crime, and still others will say drugs. There will probably be some who complain of high taxes or express a need for gun control. Certainly, there is evidence to support the fact that these are all issues of great importance. However, these are only superficial, and there is a deeper problem that will not have a simple legislative solution. Americans have forgotten how to think critically. Hannah Arendt places great importance on living a contemplative life, and it is for this reason that her book, The Human†¦show more content†¦A philosopher paid no mind as to how he should feed his family, and thus he led a life of complete freedom. This freedom was expressed through his willingness to engage in discussions and debates that extended beyond what was best for the polis. The philosopher was free to discuss such a bstract concepts as justice, and he explored the very idea of what it meant to be human. It is this contemplative lifestyle that is missing from the American society. Somehow, industrialization left behind a working class and an owning class but no thinking class. Even at the countrys best universities, no students are engaged in thought just for the sake of engaging in it. They think to become the next lawyers or doctors or bankers. In America today, thinking is only done to maximize salary. No student comes to college with the career goal of contemplator. There are no aspiring Thoreaus or Emersons, only aspiring capitalists. With the downfall of the contemplative life came the rise of a society in which ownership and virtue are one, as Nelson Algren put it. The materialistic nature of America leads to inherent stratification. Those who have the most are the elite, and those who have less are determined to acquire more. This constant struggle between the haves and the have-nots leads to deviance from those who are trying to enter the ranks of the elite and are willing to do anything to get there. Some examples of theseShow MoreRelatedThe Father Of Person Centered Therapy And Humanistic Psychology1420 Words   |  6 Pageswidely known as the father of person-centered therapy and humanistic psychology. He quietly revolutionized counseling theory and practice with his basic assumptions that â€Å"people are essentially trustworthy, that they have a vast potential for understanding themselves and resolving their own problems without direct intervention on the therapist’s part, and that they are capa ble of self-directed growth if they are involved in a specific kind of therapeutic relationship†. 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