Oregon Humanities Spring 2008

Cover of Oregon Humanities Spring 2008
Kathleen Holt
EDITOR
Jennifer Viviano
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Leigh van der Werff
PUBLICATIONS ASSISTANT
Allison Dubinsky
COPY EDITOR
Editorial Advisory Board
Tom Booth
Brian Doyle
Debra Gwartney
Julia Heydon
Marianne Keddington-Lang
Guy Maynard
Win McCormack
Camela Raymond
Kate Sage
Rich Wandschneider
Curt Yehnert

Oregon Humanities, a journal of ideas and perspectives about the humanities, is published triannually by the Oregon Council for the Humanities, 812 SW Washington Street, Suite 225, Portland, Oregon 97205.

We welcome letters from readers. If you would like a letter published, subject to editorial discretion, please include a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space or clarity. Oregon Humanities is provided free of charge.

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Field Work: The Ultimate Experiment

Riko Whirl's struggle with the meaning of education began at a young age. By the time he read a clipping from the Oregonian that mentioned Humanity in Perspective (HIP), OCH's college-level course for low-income adults in Portland, he had already dropped out of high school at seventeen and attempted college numerous times.

Whirl attended a magnet school in a wealthy, white, Chicago neighborhood that was an hour-long bus ride from the tiny walk-up apartment he shared with his disabled mother, who lived on government assistance. Engaged in both worlds, Whirl felt a sense of not belonging to either, which led to periods of partial homelessness and also made him curious about people's different reactions to and experiences with higher education.

Whirl had a strong desire to continue learning, but found that the knowledge he already had was sometimes an impediment. Aware of how his economic background affected his access to formal education, Whirl sought to identify and understand how the issues of class, race, gender, and geography often influence the American educational system. "Awareness can be inhibiting," he says, explaining how his prior experiences with study created a "hyperawareness" of the setbacks he faced, and left him uneasy about pursuing his goal of writing.

Shortly after moving to Portland in 2007, Whirl was attracted to HIP's egalitarian values and enrolled in the program. All of the reasons he had for quitting school were absent in HIP, he says. He was drawn to the full access to Reed College professors, the free books, and the chance to engage with a diverse and eager group of classmates. All of these things encouraged him to shed his hyperawareness and immerse himself in the reading assignments.

Whirl believes that the concepts of democracy and informed, intelligent discussion are inherent to the program. "HIP is the ultimate experiment," he says. "The idea that you can take people who wouldn't readily have access to this highly valued kind of education and bring it to them and say, 'What can you do with this?'

"I don't even think Aristotle would give people this opportunity. HIP students may not be from the right class, not the right race or right sex, but at HIP it just goes back to this democratic idea that maybe everybody can make something out of this experience."

--Leigh van der Werff

--Leigh van der Werff

After reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the fall 2007 HIP class examined why, according to Aristotle, one must reason to be a good person. The following is excerpted from Riko Whirl's essay.

Aristotle believes that there is an attainable good life that is a good within itself. He arrives syllogistically at this idea because all other things have an end. So, like a ship has the end of delivering people from one place to another, so does human living have an end. He believes that man is both rational and irrational and that the part of man that controls actions, namely desire, is irrational and rational. Rational because if you present it with the good life, it will recognize it and follow it. Irrational because it needs the good life presented to it. What presents it? Reason--the only characteristic that separates humans from other life forms. Also, for Aristotle, every human action has a distinct end. (Surely they must if humans can deliberate.) It is on these ideas that his philosophy begins. He divides ends into two kinds: those that are ends in themselves and activities that have a product. In regard to humans, he is conclusively concerned with the former, the reason being that the things we generally take as ends, such as pleasure, political life, and moneymaking, can be shown not to be ends at all. Pleasure is an end we share with animals and is not necessarily yoked to reason. Political life is aimed at honor, superficially, but further delving shows that it is really concerned with virtue. Not to mention that honor is something conveyed upon a person, as opposed to being an end of the actions of a person. The life of wealth has no end, because money accumulates, so you can't reach it as an "end." Further, money's only real quality is that it is useful. So, what is this life that uses our ability to reason and that is an end in itself? It is a contemplative life. A life of virtue. And because he also assumes virtue as being concerned with choice, it returns once again to our deliberative abilities. It is a moral issue. How to know the good life? That's an intellectual activity, one that frames our morality.

What, then, is the good life? Will I know it when I see it? I know it is concerned with good actions. Aristotle turns to political science, which he defines as the investigation of "fine and just actions." The only problem is that they "exhibit much more variety and fluctuation." And how do I even know that I am doing the right thing? We are to contemplate the ideas of the good life until our reason grasps them and internalizes them and we begin to take pleasure in doing the right thing. Through that internalization, we will come to understand the moderate courses of action we should take during our lives when we encounter different situations.

Published in the Spring 2008 issue of Oregon Humanities.

© 2008 Oregon Council for the Humanities