Nicomachean Ethics, Uncovered

Over the course of this week I was intrigued by Aristotle's ideas in Nicomachean Ethics. This work, though at first frustratingly in-depth, delivers such a broad scope of ideas, it seems to try to explain every aspect of life and the meaning our lives themselves. Aristotle's intense obsession with finding the greater good and ultimate happiness caused me to step back and examine our current culture in comparison to the mindset of Aristotle and many of the great thinkers of his time. Individuals in our society today seem to be so overly concerned with instant gratification, that thinking in a broader scope is practically unheard of in the common, first-world civilian. 

So the question is how do Aristotle's years of thinking and analyzing affect us?

To answer this completely, I am not sure, but humans have the same desires as in Aristotle’s time, we all have a dream of an ultimately happy life. A point that Aristotle makes clear is that self-control is a key component to being "good" (in the humanly-achievable sense). This is an idea that is slowly fading into the background of our society, as pop culture and the media are reflecting a risky and rebellious nature as the ideal personality trait. The goal of many young individuals is to act however they want now and worry about the consequences later. At this, I believe Aristotle would have shuddered.

The issue that I see with applying Nicomachean Ethics to today’s standards is that it has that “easier said than done” approach. It is quite simple to say, “ live an honest and self-controlled life,” but the second a person is put in a stressful situation they are going to do what they need to in order to protect themselves, sometimes over what is right.    

I believe that this is where Aristotle saw the use of Rhetoric come into play. That by using words, images, tunes, or whatever medium, that one could create their own good and influence others to do the same. Rhetoric is a powerful tool that cannot be overlooked by leaders in our world. Think, if every leader used their influence for good instead of how to get the next hit or make the most money, where our society would be. It's not even possible to fathom because this would be practically impossible, but this is what Aristotle begged for, for noble and honest leaders to rise up and use rhetoric to spread their insight with their people.

Aristotle compares this search for the ultimate or greater good to politics, but personally I feel that his definition of politics is very far off from what politics have become today. His definition of politics is how our government should operate and the mindset that our leaders should have, but unfortunately their have been many cases through the year where leaders have fallen short and failed miserably to "strive for the greater good."

After examining the many aspects of Aristotle's work, Nicomachean Ethics, I discovered that though many of these theories can be applied to our human nature, that it is very hard to translate these ideas into tangible guidelines for life. Aristotle gives his personal outline on how to success in life, but it is one of the many beliefs out there about human nature and how choices in our lives can effect our greater happiness, and eventually the greater good.