Some years ago, before my morning walk regime, I spent some time
at a local gym working out on the treadmill.
I told my son, Tobias, who is in spectacular shape, that it depressed me
to slog away and then see someone on the next treadmill going twice as fast,
and uphill. He gave me some very wise
advice: “Pay no attention to them. Just concentrate on your personal best.”
With that in mind, I hereby report my personal best. Never mind The Big Bang Theory or The Rachel
Maddow Show or Huffington Post or
even a Noam Chomsky video, all of which get more views on YouTube in a day than
I could get in a lifetime. My first
lecture on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
is eight views away from hitting the 50,000 mark!
To be sure, it falls off rapidly after that, so that the
ninth and last lecture now has only 3554 views.
But still, 3554! That is probably
ten times as many people as I taught the Critique
to in a fifty-year career.
Wacky how the Interwebz amplify our words and ideas, isn't it? And these days, our polarization and anger, too.
ReplyDeletesigned,
the only kid in your Harvard Summer School high schoolers class in 1986 who argued against the Leviathan and in favor of democracy
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for these great lectures, professor. Inspiration is a chronically overused concept but I'm certain that your lectures had a significant effect on my decision to pursue philosophy. Thank you very much for these excellent and inspiring lectures.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Edwin