Action Versus Contemplation Why An Ancient Debate Still Matters

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone, blaise pascal wrote in 1654.But then there’s walt whitman, in 1856: whoever you are, come forth or man or woman come forth you must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house. It is truly an ancient debate: is it better to be active or contemplative to do or to think to make an impact, or to understand the world more deeply aristotle argued for contemplation as the highest state of human flourishing.But it was through action that his student alexander the great conquered the known world.Which should we aim at centuries later, this argument underlies a surprising number of the questions we face in contemporary life.Should students study the humanities, or train for a job should adults work for money or for meaning and in tumultuous times, should any of us sit on the sidelines, pondering great books, or throw ourselves into protests and petition drives with action versus contemplation, jennifer summit and blakey vermeule address the question in a refreshingly unexpected way: by refusing to take sides.Rather, they argue for a rethinking of the very opposition.The active and the contemplative can and should be vibrantly alive in each of us, fused rather than sundered.Writing in a personable, accessible style, summit and vermeule guide readers through the long history of this debate from plato to pixar, drawing compelling connections to the questions and problems of today.Rather than pl...

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone, blaise pascal wrote in 1654.But then there’s walt whitman, in