Doctor Rafa Talks Shop

I'm stuck in an airport for some time (flight delayed because of...well, a hurricane. Should be here awhile), so I'm thinking about what I want to do for my thesis next year.

I was talking about it in some detail with my mother over lunch, and I thought I needed to write down what I said before the wording went out of my head (as I thought the wording sounded...not eloquent, but at least somewhat sane).

Ultimately, I want to talk about a government's role in creating citizens capable of fully experiencing love. That is, I want to talk about a government's role in creating good citizens, and define a good citizen as someone fully capable of recognizing their ability to love and fulfilling their human nature. To do that, I would start with something similar to my paper for summer fellows (but more extensive and better written), talking about what it means to love and how it is one of those unique features of humanity that allows one to be ennobled, to be fulfilled. I'd talk about the character of partnership, what it means to incorporate someone into your definition of self--that kind of thing.

Nesting egg metaphor. Go with me. Next egg, I'd talk about government, how the government forms citizens, and then next egg what a government does to make someone capable of loving and loving well. I'd talk about what kinds of things need to be taught, what kinds of insitutions need to exist, what can't exist, what needs to be guarded, and give an opinion as to the best structure.

Ultimately, I would talk about my own government, the US, and do a full critique of the US's ability to prepare its citizens for love and fulfilling their nature, w hile noting of course that I'm not taking into account the other things a government must be able to do. I'd have to talk about those things too, of course, but with a note that they aren't what I'm talking about and that I consider them secondary governmental functions.

I know I can't do this in an undergraduate senior thesis, I should note. It's too much. Way too much. I intend to send my whole plan to Stern and Florka, however, and see what they think, and pick one or two of my 'layers' to write now. Then I'll take those and do the third layer with my MA thesis, and then...with the benefit of a lot more knowledge and experience years later, the last as my disseratation maybe?

Other projects I want to do: I want to write a casual nonfiction book on the philosophy of love meant for a general audience. I want it to take a modern conception of love in some detail, and relate it to classical definitions (likely Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Locke, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Aristophanes, those guys), with the intent to think through the consequences of thinking of love in various ways.

Ultimately, as my TRUE work as a philosopher: I want to write a philosophical novel. This would be my opus. In the tradition of Camus, Dante, and Plato. A real work that comes at my true message through a work of fiction.

Thoughts?

Thinking rather clearly today,

Rafa.