A Life Worth Living in a Technological World

“How, then, shall we live?” Tolstoy’s question poses a special challenge today, when our livesare increasingly dependent on new and extremely powerful forms of technology and AI, which mediate and control our work, recreation, social interaction, and personal relationships. How does one live a life worth living in such a world? This course will address this question, with the aim of equipping young people with the skills needed to navigate these unchartered waters.The class and I will examine classic texts about existential meaning, exploring various answers to Tolstoy’s question, and asking how proposed visions of the good life might be realized in the modern technological world. How do we find the golden mean in a world where social media fosters extremism? How do we live authentically in a world of superficiality and ostentation? How do we develop as rational beings in a world awash with misinformation? Do mystical experience and meditation have a place in a materialistic world? Should we reject new technology in search of a freer life?We will examine texts by writers from various philosophical and religious traditions, including (but not limited to) Plato, Aristotle, Zhuang Zi, Marcus Aurelius, Boethius, Aquinas, Attar of Nishapur, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, Victor Frankl, bell hooks, and Clifford Williams. We will also look at various texts on the impact of new technology.