5 QUESTIONS

Years ago, when I was teaching at the University level, I would provide the following paradigm for students to use when studying various different perspectives on things.  I would ask them if they could discern the author’s understanding of each of the following: 

1.         What is the human condition?  I.e., what does it mean to be human?  What makes a being uniquely human?  What is both necessary and sufficient to being human?  

2.         What are the principle/fundamental problems humans have to deal with?  I.e., greed, craving, sin, ego, delusion, ignorance, etc.  

3.         Why do these problems exist?  What are their causes? 

4.         What does this author offer as the ideal solutions to the problems?  Discuss in terms of methods, techniques, resources, etc. 

5.         What, in your opinion, is the ideal solutions to the problems?  Discuss in terms of methods, techniques, resources, etc. 

Reading through a lot of the posts on Facebook, I wonder if analyzing them in terms of this paradigm might be useful in understanding other’s perspectives.