LSE talk by Susan Neiman titled What Makes Heroes?

Susan Neiman is a moral philosopher and a distinguished scholar, she is director of the Einstein Forum and is used to asking big questions and making the tools of her academic discipline relevant to the average, thinking citizen.

She has authored a new book titled Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown Up Idealists and the topic of heroism is central to the book. I became enthused about her having read an interview with her in EnlightenNext magazine written by Elizabeth Debold.

In her talk at the LSE one of her central themes was to reconstruct our idea of heroism. For her Odysseus represents bears true hallmarks of heroism in contrast with the invulnerable Achilles who has been become our prevalent heroic archetype, modelling in her view, an infantilised hollow version of heroism. Odysseus is heroic because he uses his wits and guile and endlessly struggles to overcome he challenges and trials he faces. Unusually for a Greek myth he utilises no super powers or assistance of the Gods. It is these momentous efforts that make Odysseus heroic, this process moulds and shapes his humanity and character into one to which we should all aspire.

Another theme that emerged from her talk was that our most common heroes are usually ones that die, sometimes martyrs and almost always tragic and have generally tended to die for a noble cause. Nieman was emphatic that a dead hero was next to worthless because they let humans off the hook, if a hero dies their example is almost impossible to follow and therefore we consequently let go of our own aspirations to heroism.

She illustrated her argument with little known vignettes of what she regarded as true heroism what follows is one example. We all know about the man that lay in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square who was crushed, yet there was a more potent story in the background that got far less media exposure. A bus driver noting what was happening drove his bus forward to block the route of some the tanks and realising that the bus would be removed threw the keys of the bus away where they would not be found and remained by his bus.

Most of us worship Gandhi, Mandela, the Dalai Lama because they are distant and therefore safe and they personally, can have extremely little direct impact on our lives. Therefore there is very little impetus to desire for change. Philosophically she is deeply influenced by Kant and thus wants to reinvigorate ‘Enlightenment Heroism’. This includes having an awareness of ‘the difference between things as they are and things as they should be’.

This was a dense rigorously argued talk packed full of cultural philosophical and political references many of which were lost on me. However in addition to the authoritative call for a new type of heroism Susan thoroughly punctured many of the revered and jealously guarded tenets of postmodern culture. Heroes she argued inspire us to struggle to become more fully human. She is arguing for a re-evaluation of the terms good and evil honour and nobility because social theory has relegated the hero to the sterile term role model.

Interesting approach to meditation by Buddhist monk

At the end of February 2009 -I am really behind with my posts!!-

I attended a meditation session at the Hub in Islington with Vajradaka, a non-sectarian Buddhist meditation teacher.Vajradaka started meditating in Kyoto, Japan in the late sixties. After practicing in various Buddhist traditions, he joined Friends of the Western Buddhist Order and until recently lived for 21 years in a meditation retreat centre in the hills of Wales where he led retreats and mentored people in meditation.

Whilst the content of the session was not highly remarkable by the standards I am used to, the style of presentation was unusual and possibly something our teachers at Enlightennext could learn from.

Key features included;

Silence was a component but not the main activity of the session
Meditation was presented within a philosophical construct and partly as a contemplative exercise
Illustrates how work with total beginners can be achieved
Highly accessible almost secular presentation
Free of all Buddhist cultural trappings and obvious Buddhist dharma
Use of Leonardo Da Vinci as an example made it very easy to for people to relate to the content
This style would be easy to adapt to business and educational sessions
The philosophical impulses utilised can easily be related to the authentic self

The session

The session started with introductions and sharing experience of meditation

Then there was a short 10mins session of silence

Vajradaka encouraged people to stay in the space and opened up to some contemplation by asking to write down whatever came into our minds through free association in answer to the question 'what is true'.

He then spoke about becoming aware of habits, becoming aware of habits created choice, choice was extremely important as choice and evaluation plus awareness offers the possibility of a different choice.

Becoming aware of the relentless nature of habits allows for disengagement from them

He drew some comparisons with Leonardo da Vinci who despite his wonderful technical abilities and achievements it was his constant drive to understand creativity. It was Da Vinci's striving to understand and his drive to learn about the source of this is what has made him unsurpassed in his achievements. He emphasised it was Da Vinci's curiosity and continuous practicising of creativity that made him excel

Vajradaka then got people to reflect on something they wanted to change and had people share this in small groups of four people.

Everyone that came back into a big group and then Vajradaka started a discussion concerning the inherent paradox of meditation practice of being relaxed and alert at same time. He got people to give their own examples of this in their own experience. The first example was of a person who considered themselves shy yet could still be quite extroverted in varying situations. The instructor talked about bringing science and art together. Also the paradox of 'No I and No will vs I will and how will I?' which gets you onto the cushion in the first place.

Vajradaka has just started his business Creative Engagement and is delivering meditation sessions to the British Library. he has a blog sit https://owa.wie.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=d7e7a6f50667441d8f05c1f638f951fd&URL=http%3a%2f%2fcommunicatingmeditation.wordpress.com