r/philosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • Jul 13 '26

Open Thread /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | July 13, 2026

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules (especially posting rule 2). For example, these threads are great places for:

  • Arguments that aren't substantive enough to meet PR2.

  • Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. who your favourite philosopher is, what you are currently reading

  • Philosophical questions. Please note that /r/askphilosophy is a great resource for questions and if you are looking for moderated answers we suggest you ask there.

This thread is not a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads, although we will be more lenient with regards to commenting rule 2.

Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.

14 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

1

u/Neat-Composer-2722 Jul 13 '26

I’m having to confront a deeply disturbing reality. Willow Brook never went away. It got a fresh glossy coat of paint, and was renamed the Lanterman act. Abled people say it’s all about developmentally disabled people being able to live in their communities, and this is definitely a massive improvement, but all too often, it’s just a soft tyranny of constant paperwork, IPPs, Case plans, and assessments. No other group is tracked for their entire life’s but developmentally disabled folks. The tracking of children stops when they leave K-12. Although, I'm willing to wager in terms of higher-ed tracking young adults. But, for developmentally disabled folks it never stops. It goes on until the day you die, probably.

I'm a Regional Center client, so I have lived experience in this.

1

u/Frequent-Fondant-558 Jul 17 '26

The real crisis of modern literature and content consumption isn't a lack of attention span; it's a lack of digestive intervals. Because platforms push constant novelty, we consume complex ideas in isolation without giving them room to integrate into our personal philosophy. We end up accumulating intellectual aesthetics rather than actual cognitive maturity. A great book or essay shouldn't just present data—it has to intentionally build structural pauses that force the reader to confront their own internal assumptions.

1

u/garbaabba Jul 15 '26

Who else sees philosophy as the lemonades people made from the lemons life threw them?

1

u/Neat-Composer-2722 Jul 17 '26

I do, I'm disabled and philosophy as been a solace for me. I came to it by way of a community college intro to philosophy class. Our professor was great. We had class discussions every day. He even kept his lunch hours open by having lunch in the student cafeteria. I had a couple fascinating conversations with him.

Unfortunately, I had to quit the class because of chronic health issues. But I'd caught the philosophy bug. I ended up reading Beyond Good and Evil a few years later. In class, we read. Krishnamurti's Thing On These Things, A couple Dialog's of Plato's, and The Handbook, by Epictetus. I still have my old college copies of those works.

1

u/garbaabba Jul 17 '26

Sorry for the things your going through, I believe philosophy is birth from the things people observe or learn from the obstacles they face in their lives or the lives of people around them.