I'm solidly into my fifth year as a graduate student at Stanford and have been out of the classroom for some years now. We finish our coursework in the first year and devote the rest of the time to research, seminars, teaching. This leaves a lot of time to go to talks on campus - I average probably three a week. Many of the talks I go to have to do with energy, food, justice, and writing. At my mom's request I'll try to write about some of the talks, notable and not, to share my secondary Stanford education with you all. (All of you out there!)
These posts will be tagged "night school".
Larissa McFarquhar, author, "Strangers Drowning" (coming out in September)
This was a reading put on by the Ethics in Society program at Stanford. They have had this author three years in a row now, reading case studies form her book on extreme morality. Two years ago, a couple who gave all their money to charity. Last year, another couple who adopted 20 special needs children. McFarquhar explores the specific examples of lives lived wholly for the purpose of helping others. She said her interest in the subject stemmed from an interest in philosophical debates about how to best live a moral life, and that in researching apiece on kidney donation she came across surprising hostility towards the donors (primarily from doctors) who sort of pathologized the altruistic act. This in turn with the observation that sacrifice of family and those you actually know in the pursuit of helping strangers is looked down upon more these days perhaps than before. (For a longer explanation of the project see here).
Anyways, the story she told was of Dorothy Granada, a woman born in 1930 in Los Angeles to a Mexican mother and a largely absent Filipino father. Granada's story starts in the near-present, where she is 84 years old and living in Nicaragua, training midwives from rural villages to save the lives of women in labor. McFarquhar takes us along Dorothy's path - high school in a convent in the Philippines, a calling to be a nurse starting in childhood, life as a middle class nurse and mother and wife in Chicago, and a realization that her religion's teachings could be boiled down to this: Resist violence, and stand with the poor. Dorothy then has a stint (the middle part of her life) as an antinuclear peace activist and hunger striker, before going to nurse the poor of Nicaragua for forty years.
What a fascinating life! It reminded me of Jean Evans, who I spoke with at the Lindau meeting in 2013. Many of us live long enough to have many chapters in our lives if we so choose. It was also very interesting to hear the story of a woman whose path was determined not by her circumstances but instead by her convictions. There was no undercurrent of regret or second-guessing of her decisions; or even lengthy deliberation over her decisions really. I wonder what that stems from -- self confidence, luck, moral certitude. But on top of these confident decisions was a changing path, making it seem possible to evolve throughout your life.
The speaker was thoughtful, eloquent, and expansive in the Q & A session. She skirted most questions about her personal experience in writing the book and encountering so many do-gooders. (I think I'm most interested in process when a creative person comes to speak; rarely do I have questions about their work but always am I curious how they made it). One memorable question was, "What do the do-gooders think of the rest of us?" The common perception is that they may judge us from their higher moral ground, McFarquhar said that those who did judge the rest were not feeling superior but instead thought of themselves as very ordinary people. They were perplexed that other people did not act as they did for this reason.
These posts will be tagged "night school".
Larissa McFarquhar, author, "Strangers Drowning" (coming out in September)
This was a reading put on by the Ethics in Society program at Stanford. They have had this author three years in a row now, reading case studies form her book on extreme morality. Two years ago, a couple who gave all their money to charity. Last year, another couple who adopted 20 special needs children. McFarquhar explores the specific examples of lives lived wholly for the purpose of helping others. She said her interest in the subject stemmed from an interest in philosophical debates about how to best live a moral life, and that in researching apiece on kidney donation she came across surprising hostility towards the donors (primarily from doctors) who sort of pathologized the altruistic act. This in turn with the observation that sacrifice of family and those you actually know in the pursuit of helping strangers is looked down upon more these days perhaps than before. (For a longer explanation of the project see here).
Anyways, the story she told was of Dorothy Granada, a woman born in 1930 in Los Angeles to a Mexican mother and a largely absent Filipino father. Granada's story starts in the near-present, where she is 84 years old and living in Nicaragua, training midwives from rural villages to save the lives of women in labor. McFarquhar takes us along Dorothy's path - high school in a convent in the Philippines, a calling to be a nurse starting in childhood, life as a middle class nurse and mother and wife in Chicago, and a realization that her religion's teachings could be boiled down to this: Resist violence, and stand with the poor. Dorothy then has a stint (the middle part of her life) as an antinuclear peace activist and hunger striker, before going to nurse the poor of Nicaragua for forty years.
What a fascinating life! It reminded me of Jean Evans, who I spoke with at the Lindau meeting in 2013. Many of us live long enough to have many chapters in our lives if we so choose. It was also very interesting to hear the story of a woman whose path was determined not by her circumstances but instead by her convictions. There was no undercurrent of regret or second-guessing of her decisions; or even lengthy deliberation over her decisions really. I wonder what that stems from -- self confidence, luck, moral certitude. But on top of these confident decisions was a changing path, making it seem possible to evolve throughout your life.
The speaker was thoughtful, eloquent, and expansive in the Q & A session. She skirted most questions about her personal experience in writing the book and encountering so many do-gooders. (I think I'm most interested in process when a creative person comes to speak; rarely do I have questions about their work but always am I curious how they made it). One memorable question was, "What do the do-gooders think of the rest of us?" The common perception is that they may judge us from their higher moral ground, McFarquhar said that those who did judge the rest were not feeling superior but instead thought of themselves as very ordinary people. They were perplexed that other people did not act as they did for this reason.
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