Sublime

‘If man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life,’

virtue, mortality, emotions, self-awareness, fortitude, right action, problem solving, acceptance, mental clarity, pragmatism, unbiased thought, and duty.

Realism The wise are, first and foremost, ‘realistic’ about how challenging many things can be.

While the trend for a century or more has been to make urban environments frictionless, a recent counter-trend has tried to slow things down, reintroducing pedestrianised areas, or making children’s play areas slightly less safe so as to help them learn about risk. Going further, we could imagine environments that prompt wisdom, not just by

We should therefore expect that, if in a particular society the pursuit of external goods were to become dominant, the concept of the virtues might suffer first attrition and then perhaps something near total effacement, although simulacra might abound.

The situation is strangely tantalizing. The artist finds a little that is lovable and much that’s wrong around supermarkets, but can’t imagine running or bringing the ideals of art into action in one. The supermarket owners love art, but can’t imagine bringing their psychologically and aesthetically ambitious sides into focus in their business.

Barry Schwartz, a Swarthmore psychology professor and the author of The Paradox of Choice—argue

Trust How risky is the world? How readily might we survive a challenge in the form of a speech we must give, a romantic rejection, a bout of financial trouble, a journey to another country or a common cold? How close are we, at any time, to catastrophe? Of what material do we feel we are made?