
This Is Water – David Foster Wallace - anjellow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
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procedural_love
I don't quite understand his point. Is it that awareness is an important
product of a liberal arts education that shouldn't be undervalued?

"This is Water" speaks to that idea, but it seems disingenuous to claim that a
liberal arts education is a particularly effective way of raising awareness.
It often seems to take the automatic thoughts that he projects on the audience
and replace them with other automatic thoughts, rather than providing tools
for people to break that cycle in themselves and other people.

But, if I'm misunderstanding his point, please make me aware. David Foster
Wallace is someone that other people I respect show respect to (Jason Wilkes
in Burn Math Class), but this speech left me puzzled.

~~~
Facemelters
The irony of this comment is that part of his point is that you are at risk
for missing his point in the absence of liberal arts education :)

His point is that the liberal arts method of teaching critical thinking is
designed to force the student to comprehend and empathically understand the
lived experience of other individuals and their concomitant perspective in a
given situation. If one is incapable of abstracting their perception from the
context, they are forever doomed to only understand the world around them as-
is.

The unenlightened fish sees only the world as he or she experiences it, but
those equipped with the right cognitive skills are able to recognize the
milieu or ether that constitutes the social world. The ability to recognize
the "water" empowers the observer to be aware of the current and the current's
effect on other fish.

This is his point about controlling one's internal voice in the grocery store
line. The unenlightened fish will simply rage against the water, angry that it
is muddied by those ahead swimming incorrectly. The enlightened fish
understands that each fish is engaged in its own struggle against the current.
That struggle is muddying the waters, and recognizing that fact allows the
enlightened fish to understand why those ahead are stirring up the sediment.
They are simply trying, as the enlightened fish is, to fight the current.
Understanding this allows the enlightened fish to hold them blameless. Holding
them blameless (or at least understanding them as fish) grants the power to
control how one feels about the muddied waters and the responsible fish.

Hope that helps!

~~~
procedural_love
Thanks. I'm still not convinced that a liberal arts education is an effective
way of fostering this type of thinking as compared to practicing a variety of
meditation styles.

