These College Professors Will Not Bow Down to A.I.

… Where does this leave college students? Gen Z is not giving up on the arts or the pleasures of reading and thinking for themselves. As A.I. creates chaos and uncertainty in the market for entry-level jobs, more students may react by following their passion for the humanities; why begrudgingly major in tech or business if it doesn't even lead to employment? There's some evidence that humanities departments are rebounding after a long period of decline. U.C. Berkeley, which is considered one of the best public universities in the country, has seen a nearly 50 percent increase in majors in their arts and humanities division over the past four years.

Ketabgian told me a story that shows just how powerful keeping the humans in humanities can be. She described a student who was really anxious about leading a discussion of Le Guin's novel at a library, because public speaking was stressful for her. Ketabgian coached her through her fears, and she ended up having such a great time leading the talk, she joined the library's reading group to make new friends.

This is everything humanities should be: engaging the community, talking about ideas, making intellectual bonds. We don't need to surrender that to bots.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/opinion/humanities-college-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

“Happiness isn’t very good for the economy…”

A.I. Is Shedding Enlightenment Values

A historian sees the dangerous parallels between artificial intelligence and the Enlightenment.

...It is here, with this question of engagement, that the comparison between the Enlightenment and A.I.’s supposed “second Enlightenment” breaks down and reveals something important about the latter’s limits and dangers. When readers interact imaginatively with a book, they are still following the book’s lead, attempting to answer the book’s questions, responding to the book’s challenges and therefore putting their own convictions at risk.

When we interact with A.I., on the other hand, it is we who are driving the conversation. We formulate the questions, we drive the inquiry according to our own interests and we search, all too often, for answers that simply reinforce what we already think we know. In my own interactions with ChatGPT, it has often responded, with patently insincere flattery, “That’s a great question.” It has never responded, “That’s the wrong question.” It has never challenged my moral convictions or asked me to justify myself.

And why should it? It is, after all, a commercial internet product. And such products generate profit by giving users more of what they have already shown an appetite for, whether it is funny cat videos, instructions on how to fix small appliances or lectures on Enlightenment philosophy. If I wanted ChatGPT to challenge my convictions, I could of course ask it to do so — but I would have to ask. It follows my lead, not the reverse.

By its nature, A.I. responds to almost any query in a manner that is spookily lucid and easy to follow — one might say almost intellectually predigested. For most ordinary uses, this clarity is entirely welcome. But Enlightenment authors understood the importance of having readers grapple with a text. Many of their greatest works came in the form of enigmatic novels, dialogues presenting opposing points of view or philosophical parables abounding in puzzles and paradoxes. Unlike the velvety smooth syntheses provided by A.I., these works forced readers to develop their judgment and come to their own conclusions.

In short, A.I. can bring us useful information, instruction, assistance, entertainment and even comfort. What it cannot bring us is Enlightenment. In fact, it may help drive us further away from Enlightenment than ever.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/opinion/artificial-intelligence-enlightenment.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk8.XmNh.Witef6iO7cfb∣=em-share

Happiness Is Other People

The solitary journey toward contentment is a self-help truism that isn’t really true.

...Self-reflection, introspection and some degree of solitude are important parts of a psychologically healthy life. But somewhere along the line we seem to have gotten the balance wrong. Because far from confirming our insistence that “happiness comes from within,” a wide body of research tells us almost the exact opposite.

Academic happiness studies are full of anomalies and contradictions, often revealing more about the agendas and values of those conducting them than the realities of human emotion. But if there is one point on which virtually every piece of research into the nature and causes of human happiness agrees, it is this: our happiness depends on other people.

Study after study shows that good social relationships are the strongest, most consistent predictor there is of a happy life, even going so far as to call them a “necessary condition for happiness,” meaning that humans can’t actually be happy without them. This is a finding that cuts across race, age, gender, income and social class so overwhelmingly that it dwarfs any other factor.

And according to research, if we want to be happy, we should really be aiming to spend less time alone. Despite claiming to crave solitude when asked in the abstract, when sampled in the moment, people across the board consistently report themselves as happier when they are around other people than when they are on their own. Surprisingly this effect is not just true for people who consider themselves extroverts but equally strong for introverts as well...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/opinion/sunday/happiness-is-other-people.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk8.7Nd-.5shggyBsaHe5∣=em-share

What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

Lesson No. 1: It’s not about how fast you can go.

...The researchers behind this study, called “Vanishing Time in the Pursuit of Happiness,” randomly assigned subjects to one of two tasks: One group was asked to write down 10 things that could make them become happier, while the other wrote 10 things that demonstrated that they were already happy.

The subjects were then asked to what extent they felt time was slipping away and how happy they felt at that moment. Those prompted to think about how they could become happier felt more pressed for time and significantly less happy.

This jibes with the argument the journalist Ruth Whippman makes in her 2016 book “America the Anxious: How Our Pursuit of Happiness Is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks.” Trying too hard to be happy — downloading mindfulness apps, taking yoga classes, reading self-help books — mostly just stresses us out, she writes. So what should we do instead? Maybe simply hang out with some friends, doing something we like to do together: “Study after study shows that good social relationships are the strongest, most consistent predictor there is of a happy life.”

...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/opinion/sunday/swimming-happiness.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk8.DhY_.9Lpxh5fCNvye∣=em-share

The general’s greatest conquest

Grant's battlefield heroism was matched by the courage to complete his memoirs, pain and pressure be damned, as cancer closed in and the light dimmed. When he finished writing,
he was done.

Equally impressive was his winning battle against alcohol. Twain understood:

"Mark Twain had struggled with similar cravings for alcohol and tobacco. When they discussed the subject, Grant mentioned that although doctors had urged him to sip whiskey or champagne, he could no longer abide the taste of liquor. Twain pondered this statement long and hard. "Had he made a conquest so complete that even the taste of liquor was become an offense?" he wondered. "Or was he so sore over what had been said about his habit that he wanted to persuade others & likewise himself that he hadn't ever even had any taste for it." 95 Similarly, when Grant told Twain that, at the doctors' behest, he had been restricted to one cigar daily, he claimed to have lost the desire to smoke it. "I could understand that feeling," Twain later proclaimed. "He had set out to conquer not the habit but the inclination—the desire. He had gone at the root, not the trunk." 96 Although Twain hated puritanical killjoys who robbed life of its small pleasurable vices, he respected abstinence based on an absence of desire."

— Grant by Ron Chernow
https://a.co/1C1oYrI

Expand your focus, don’t chase

Those who focus purely on happiness often end up feeling lonelier and less satisfied over time. Here's a healthier approach to living.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/transformative-leadership/202507/the-misery-of-chasing-happiness

Third places

Cornhole? 🌽 Not for me, but to each their own. My "third place" is wherever my dogs and I walk, every morning. And the library. The ballpark. Warner Parks. And, like yesterday, it's Parnassus Books/Donut Den (can't do the one without the other).

"You deserve a space where people know your name and are glad you showed up.

Spaces like these are what sociologists call a "third place" — a space that's not home and not work where you still feel like you belong.

Some people find third spaces in book clubs, fitness centers, church choirs, or bowling alleys. But psychologist Michelle Thompson suggests turning to your local cornhole league."
— Lauri Santos

https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DMs0XYcvaRM?xmt=AQF00vyFsKLT23VmuPirkVN_0a1BKEeph3LLXHxc7KNPag

WJS Newsletter (NEW!) – William James Society

Summer edition-
https://wjsociety.org/news/

Joyspan

… Joyspan is a term coined by Kerry Burnight… In her upcoming book, "Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life's Second Half," she says that a lengthy life span does not equal a life well lived: You have to like your life, too...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/well/is-joyspan-the-key-to-aging-well.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare