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“To Be Understood”: A Lesson from The Owl House

November 27, 2023

You might remember a post on the concept of the pink Gothic I once wrote. You might also remember it was inspired by the animated series The Owl House. There are many lessons in this series – pertaining, among others, to identity, one’s place in the world, and ethics – and in this post I decided to focus on a pivotal moment, perhaps the key lesson The Owl House has to offer.

In the penultimate episode of The Owl House, called “For The Future”, Luz, the protagonist, has an epiphanic experience. After all her adventures, all the things she’s experienced, all the dreams, wishes, disappointments and mistakes, she finally realizes something: “The only thing I’ve ever really wanted,” she tells her mother teary-eyed, “was to be understood.”

Justice, then. A special kind of justice, one intertwined with empathy, humility, and our ability to see beyond our own confines. All these are extremely important elements in what we understand as community.

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Ethics or Morality: A Crucial Difference

October 2, 2023

Philosophy, Society

knowledge, philosophy, society

6 comments

Let’s get this out of the way: There is no “god-given” definition of either ethics or morality (there’s a meta- element of irony here, as you can hopefully perceive). Most people might even use them interchangeably to refer to the same thing. However, there is a crucial difference between the two.

In most definitions, morality refers to a person’s moral convictions, what they consider right or wrong. Ethics, on the other hand, usually refers to systems of convictions; agreed convictions, in a way. For example, we might refer to “journalistic ethics”, that is, a commonly agreed set of practices and behavior that journalists should adhere to.

The proverbial plot thickens – there are never simple answers – because one’s personal convictions, their morality, is always a result of external factors; our environment, our culture, our upbringing. Perhaps some would like to suggest that our DNA pushes us in certain directions, but that, too, would be a result of external factors: We might be born good/evil (a huge oversimplification), but the externality remains, as our DNA is a result of our ancestors.

Ultimately, the debate “ethics or morality” is important – after all, that’s the whole point of this post, right? – because it refers to another crucial difference that, although contained in the one between personal/collective convictions, is easier to miss.

That difference is between knowledge and behavior.

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Is Knowledge Always Desired?

May 15, 2023

Philosophy, Society

change, ignorance, knowledge, philosophy, self-deception, society

6 comments

“Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was”, the creature in Frankenstein utters, summarizing one of the core themes in Mary Shelley’s novel. The meaning is inescapable for the hapless being: Knowledge is not always desired. The question is whether that could apply to us all and why.

Let me confess it right away: Knowledge is something I am nearly obsessed about. That is, I feel very stressed if I don’t know something, and much calmer if I do, even if it’s knowledge of something unpleasant. If someone asked me “There’s good news and bad news, do you prefer…” I’d interrupt them with “Oh, spit it out all together already!”

However, I also have enough life experience (a milder way of saying I’m becoming a grumpy old man) to know that this approach doesn’t necessarily apply to others. People like self-deception.

The truth is, we intuitively might think knowledge is always desired, we might even affirm so if asked, but things are more complex than that.

knowledge always desired — There are too many books and not enough time to read them (I’m sure you can relate), so, to begin with, there are **practical** considerations in limiting knowledge intake

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