Meaning of life †Anthropology Essay

The Meaning of Life and Cultural Relativism What is the meat of life? Whats the meaning of life? is today a incredulity gener whollyy meant as a joke. This apparently wasnt true in the past. Religious teachers, from Jesus to Buddha to Mohammed, covered a clear meaning of life. Philosophers from Plato to Augustine to Voltaire to Nietzsche to William James also offered such a meaning, although in progressively less certain ways.Today, however, philosophers perk up nearlyly turned away from questions of the meaning of life (or when they discuss it, they may proclaim lifes meaninglessness, as does Nagel in this weeks reading). A big reason for this is that there are so many distinguishable beliefs in the world today they relativize all beliefs, and key out certainty problematic. A key principle of anthropology is cultural relativism this has become a central principle in todays world at large. How canister you know that your sense of the meaning of life is truer than al rou ghlyone elses sense of the meaning of life?This is why it may be difficult to be both a Christian and an anthropologist. And this is why this course cannot offer much advice as to the meaning of life. Meanings of Life in Anthropology Anthropologists thus cant discuss the meaning of life but they can see peoples personal meanings of life, as a way of remedy understanding how people are culturally and socially shaped. There is a fundamental difference between the meaning of life and meanings of life, and only the latter(prenominal) can be fully explored by anthropologists.Anthropologists explore culture the ways of thinking by which people live. Anthropologists study a range of different culturally-shaped fields, from economics to politics to religion to gender in different societies. However, a few(prenominal) anthropologists score directly studied meanings of life (maybe none, except for me ) This is because in more or less societies that anthropologists study, there is no or dinary word that people use to withdraw whats most important to them in their lives. However, the Nipponese language has such a term ikigai.Ikigai means that which sack ups your life expense living, or, more practically speaking, whats most important to you in your life. Common ikigai are work, family, apparitional belief, creative endeavor, or personal dream. 1 Why does only Japanese consider the term ikigai? Why dont other languages have ikigai? In any case, even if other languages dont have the term ikigai, people everywhere can understand what ikigai means. It is whats most important to you in life, what makes your life worth living. What is your ikigai?This is difficult for students, because you havent yet made the life choices of work and family that you probably will make over the next few years. But you can get some idea Is it pleasing your parents? Finding a boyfriend/girlfriend? Gaining intimacy? Getting good grades and a good future job? help the world become b etter? Pursuing creativity? Being blind drunk to God? The Sociocultural Analysis of Ikigai . Most Japanese books about ikigai take to task about it in a psychological sense how individuals seek and catch and lose ikigai.However, ikigai is also social all ikigai involve us in the world of other people whether you live for family, for your personal dream, for God, or for alcohol, all of these are social. Ikigai in this sense I define as that which most deeply links the self to the social world ikigai is what ties you to the world nigh you. This can take two broad forms ikigai as self-realization, and ikigai as shipment to ones group both are fundamentally social.hither is a one-sentence cross-cultural theory of ikigai On the basis of culturally and personally-shaped fate, individuals strategically formulate and interpret their ikigai from an array of cultural conceptions, negotiate these ikigai within their circles of conterminous others, and pursue their ikigai as channeled by their societys institutional structures so as to attain and maintain a sense of the personal meaning of their lives. We have ikigai because ikigai gives us a sense of the purpose and significance and worth of our lives but we necessarily hold these ikigai within the context of the society rough us, with which we constantly interact in forming and maintaining ikigai.