Marjorie Solomon

Marjorie Solomon

  • Books I Read In 2024

    Fiction

    There is enough ugliness in the world, so my fiction choices have been shaped to avoid dark or distressing themes. I have returned to favoured authors like Sebastian Faulks as well as ones that I trust will have an undercurrent of love and wonder (e.g. Robbie Arnott and Trent Dalton). I also frequently picked up easy reads.

    Zorba the Greek was a surprise for its out-there-ness. Ursula Le Guin met my high expectations. The Forbidden Notebook was intensely captivating – and a clear influence on the (extraordinary) Neopolitan Novels. Ghost Cities was, for the most part, quirky, lyrical, and quite wonderful – but the ending was abrupt and unfulfilling. The Extinction of Irena Rey was also fun and clever, but I found it hard going at times. The Clouds was a slog (maybe it was the translation), with bits of hilarity and brilliance.

    Non-fiction

    I have been spending a lot more time in libraries this year due to my chauffeuring home educator responsibilities. While I wait for my daughter to finish her library-based classes, I can spend time avoiding doing my own work by trawling through the library catalogues for books by writers I have heard interviewed. It has given rise to a more diverse reading experience.

    The availability of books in audio has also significantly influenced my reading. There are many books that I may once have been disinclined to pick up in print that I now get through quite easily in audio. It has almost led me to begin opening these types of books in print. And while audio is so convenient and efficient, I miss having the option to flick back over a book and see something in words. Sometimes, this is what you need for true absorption. The answer, of course, would be to have multiple sense ‘reading’ but few of us buy audio and print together.

    Like so many people, The Anxious Generation has been hugely influential on my parenting decisions. Jonathan Haidt’s substack, After Babel, is also important reading. All the related books on fighting the golden cage of online engagement have been eye-opening, inspiring, alarming, and so much more. My love-hate relationship with tech is something I will grapple with at some point in a blog or essay, but for now, I am trying to strengthen myself in this frenemy contest by reading more books.

    Autocracy Inc. was brilliant. As was The War on the West. It’s unlikely I would have picked up the latter if it weren’t for October 7 and its consequences. While Douglas Murray is brilliant, I am not yet an acolyte. But his arguments are compelling, and his recommendation to watch Kenneth Clark’s 1969 documentary series Civilisation was welcome, particularly in view of our home ed focus on ideas.

    A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, borrowed from the library for home education purposes, was a surprisingly interesting find. As was the short but riveting The Wreck of the Barque Stefano off the North West Cape of Australia in 1875, an account of survival by a 16-year-old shipwreck survivor and his shipmate, including their rescue by the Aboriginal people who took them in and cared for them.

    Non-Book Reading

    We are subscribers to The Age, which I check more often than I should each day, and The Saturday Paper, which I read in full weekly. I’ll often go through the Australian Jewish News, but not always. We get the Jewish Quarterly, I print out Sapir each quarter for Shabbat reading, and the occasional article from Mosaic.

    Interesting Documentaries

    I’ve mentioned Kenneth Clark’s series Civilisation which we are still getting through. I enjoyed the latest Bill Gates documentary series on Netflix, in which he once again tries to solve the world’s ills. But the most powerful documentary series I watched this year was Turning Point – The Cold War and the Bomb. It’s a nine-part series and thoroughly worth watching. On a homeschool front, my daughter and I enjoyed the Netflix docuseries Roman Empire (although it had lots of sex, so she was constantly looking away).

    On Reflection

    These Numbers are Not Good

    It feels like I don’t read much at all and am always staring at a screen, so the fact that I have compiled a list of 25 books read (plus some shorter pieces) seems, at first glance, to suggest things are better than I thought. But, on closer inspection, at least six of the non-fiction books were audio, meaning my eyes-to-print activity was pretty average. I also know that most of these books were read on Shabbat or Jewish festivals. This means I have lovely brain-nourishing days once a week but the rest of the week is overfilled with screen time. Furthermore, I read fast, which proves these numbers are meagre – at least, for someone who was once a voracious reader.

    Take Away: Read more! SPEND LESS TIME ATTACHED TO A SCREEN.

    I’m Reading Business Books?

    It’s been a surprise to develop an interest in business books. But that, I suppose, is a natural consequence of running a business. Most of these books are consumed in audio and complement many of the podcast interviews I listen to. They have been useful – not only on a business front.

    Not Enough Jewish Content

    Apart from the Jewish magazines, I don’t feel I am reading enough Jewish texts, especially for a publisher of Jewish texts!!! That needs to change in 2025.

  • Teaching Western Philosophy to Homeschool Teens

    In a world full of disinformation, finding ways to grasp truth and good sense is challenging. For younger people wandering the jungles of the hyper-algorithmed internet – unprepared and unprotected – this problem is surely even greater.

    While discussions often point to regulations and tech accountability as ways to protect our children, these approaches only scratch the surface. What young people really need are tools to help them navigate this online world now and in the years ahead.

    The Role of Education

    Education is vital in this endeavour. I don’t simply mean educating young people about online dangers – though this is important. What I really mean is that young people – in fact, all of us – are better off if we know more about the world we live in and how it came to be whay it is.

    History may not precisely repeat itself, but there are patterns that cycle through the centuries. Knowledge of the past enables us to see our present and future with a more focused lens. It is too easy for young people to think their generation is unique, but so much can be gained from understanding what went before us.

    And then there are the ideas that we take for granted – ideas that have emerged over millennia, creating a world that would electrify the imaginations of those who laid its foundations. The Modern Western civilisation in which we live may have its flaws, but, on balance, it is evolved, extraordinary, and inspiring.

    Building Critical Thinking Skills

    While history has shown that education does not always guarantee the creation of good and ethical people (think Heidegger), it is more likely to give them the tools to analyse, think critically, and make informed assessments of information they encounter.

    Our homeschool philosophy journey began unexpectedly with our daughter’s exploration of Jewish ethics. As part of her learning, she studied Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) with a family friend. This remarkable second-century text stimulated deep discussions and encouraged her to reflect on her life through its ethical teachings. As George Santayana famously noted, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

    A Philosophy Course

    My husband suggested using the young adult novel Sophie’s World as a framework for our course. We decided to run a teen home education course exploring the ideas that shaped today’s world. I set the level fairly high for this series, while continuously seeking to make each session accessible and engaging for students aged between 13 and 16, with different levels of comprehension and communication skills.

    Part One: Ancient Greek Philosophy (Five Weeks)

    Our five-week programme covered:

    • The Pre-Socratics
    • Socrates
    • Plato
    • Aristotle
    • Hellenism, including the Cynics, Epicureans, Stoics, Neo-Platonists, and Mystics

    Each week consisted of two sessions. The first, a late morning class, unpacked the material from the weekly required reading from Sophie’s World. These chapters provided accessible overviews of specific philosophers and their historical context.

    In the afternoon session, students discussed philosophical or ethical questions emerging from the morning’s material. Learning to read the class’s attention and engagement and then find ways to be reactive to their interest and energy was demanding but incredibly instructive.

    Applied Philosophy Discussions

    We examined provocative topics such as:

    • The responsibility of a citizen in the face of an invading army: should people fight and defend or run and hide?
    • For communities that have found safety in an unsafe world, who would be accepted as refugees and who would not?
    • What systems of government would be preferred in a post-apocalyptic society?
    • Which types of government are better for small and large societies?
    • Abstract concepts like the nature of truth and reality
    Part Two: Modern Philosophy (Seven Weeks)

    Our seven-week programme included:

    • Religious Origins to Renaissance Rebirth
    • Rationalism
    • Empiricism
    • Kant and the Enlightenment
    • Romanticism, Hegel and Marx
    • Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Existentialism
    • Darwin and Freud

    Students engaged with fundamental questions about:

    • Free will
    • The essence and importance of freedom
    • Determining right and wrong
    • Civic responsibility
    • The existence of God
    • The importance of belonging
    • The compatibility of science and religion

    During a session on Marx, we explored his iconic quotes. We had only two students that day, but the first two quotes particularly sparked their imagination:

    • “The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
    • “Religion is the opium of the people.”

    Unexpected Learning Outcomes

    One delightful surprise was the multi-subject learning that emerged:

    • English Literature: Discussing characters and literary devices from Sophie’s World
    • History: Understanding the historical settings and changes that led to new ideas
    • Religion: Exploring the influence of religious beliefs on philosophy
    • Philosophy: Examining the ideas and arguments of different thinkers

    Tools and Approach

    I made extensive use of ChatGPT for summary notes and teaching suggestions. However, as with all my use of AI, Chat was a tool, not a substitute for my ideas. Very often, the discussion ideas offered were thrown out, and I constructed alternative concepts better fitting to the class dynamic of the day.

    Reflections and Future Plans

    The Philosophy Workshop was an experiment and a success. It took lots of work, and I was relieved to be at the end of the series, but it was absolutely worthwhile. While running the series, I learned so much myself. I had been familiar with all the thinkers, but there were many about whom I had only the most superficial knowledge.

    For 2025, we’re considering two potential directions:

    1. In-depth text analysis of the philosophy texts we examined
    2. An exploration of ideas through another multi-subject course

    Currently, my preference is a series that will explore different historical periods by examining literature from each time. My vision is to have students read three short texts from a historical period, providing insight into the era and containing concepts suitable for class discussion.

    The journey of education, we’ve learned, is never truly about a single subject. It’s about cultivating curiosity, critical thinking, and a profound understanding of human experience.

  • The Future of Being Human in an Age of AI and Robotics

    The recent unveiling of Tesla’s humanoid Optimus robot, with its promise to soon perform most human tasks—from domestic chores to childcare and companionship—prompts deep existential reflections on the future of work and what it will mean to be human in the coming decades.

    The Rise of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

    As artificial intelligence and robotics advance, steadily encroaching on domains once solely reserved for human intelligence and labor, I find myself grappling with a disquieting question: What space will remain for humans in the future? What form will “being human” take when we no longer need to do very much at all?

    This predicament, while it feels unprecedented, echoes certain patterns in history. Aristocratic elites in slave and serf societies enjoyed lives of leisure while the subjugated masses toiled. Even in modern times, the wealthy have long outsourced much of life’s drudgery to the underpaid. But the question arises: what happens when robots and artificial intelligence systems become the new laboring class, potentially elevating everyone to a life of leisure once reserved for the few?

    Lessons from the Past

    In seeking to calm my existential unease, I turned to ChatGPT, an oracle of our time. It pointed me to the 20th-century philosopher Bertrand Russell, who, in his 1932 essay In Praise of Idleness, argued against the notion of work as virtuous and necessary for social stability, particularly for the working poor. “The morality of work,” he wrote, “is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.”

    If this was true in Russell’s time, how much truer might it be after decades of exponential progress in artificial intelligence and robotics? It is difficult to fathom how radically different the world may be for the next generation. Robots could cultivate our food, maintain our homes, operate our vehicles, and perform tasks that have occupied human energy for millennia. What will we do with our time, and how will we find meaning when the age-old imperatives of labor no longer dictate our lives?

    Inequality in a World of Automation

    History offers insights. The treatment of slaves in ancient Rome provides a rough model for how we might regard our non-human servants. Some robots will likely be treated as close companions, integrated into our families. Others may be viewed as disposable tools, worked to destruction in harsh industrial conditions. And just as slaves fought for the amusement of Roman crowds, it is not far-fetched to imagine robots being weaponised or used in warfare, serving the bidding of whoever holds the reins of power. The thought of autonomous killing machines obeying the highest bidder is chilling. Robots, like slaves, would lack the agency to refuse orders or extract themselves from servitude. Unlike slaves, they would never have an opportunity for freedom.

    On a societal level, these disruptions to paid and unpaid work will demand that we reimagine our entire socioeconomic order. We must find ways to avoid a despondent underclass while the robot-owning elite accumulates wealth at unprecedented rates. Some argue that universal basic income (UBI) will become inevitable to ensure social stability. Countries like Finland, Canada, and the U.S. have already experimented with UBI schemes, and advocates like Andrew Yang have made it central to their political platforms. In Canada’s Mincome experiment, for instance, recipients did not stop working entirely but shifted toward more meaningful pursuits. UBI could thus help buffer against the economic upheaval caused by automation without depriving people of purpose.

    Finding Meaning in an Era of Leisure

    These are all important issues, but for me, the more pressing question lies at the individual level: How will we, as human beings, structure our time and craft a sense of purpose in an era of endless leisure? What pursuits will we choose when survival is no longer the driving force?

    These technological advances—the artificial intelligences, the robotic companions, the automated systems that promise to shoulder our burdens—present us with an incredible gift: the gift of time. For the first time in history, we could be free from the daily toil that has consumed humanity for millennia. We would be free to pursue our passions, deepen our relationships, and explore the vast realms of our creativity and curiosity.

    But what of the structure and discipline that work provides? The modern system of education and employment has long offered a framework for our existence, giving us goals, a sense of achievement, and a reason to rise each day. Without such a structure, how do we prevent ourselves from sliding into a haze of shapeless living, devoid of purpose or intention? Will we drift into passivity, or will we create new models of living that cultivate fulfillment and meaning?

    These questions are not new. Dystopian science fiction has long explored the dangers of a technologically advanced future devoid of purpose. Films like The Matrix and Blade Runner reflect a world where humans have become subservient to, or even dependent on, the very technologies they created. The common thread in these stories is the fear that, in our quest for ease and liberation from toil, we may lose something essential to our humanity—the raw experience of living, striving, and overcoming.

    Drawing Inspiration from the Ancient World

    Despite the contemporary nature of these dilemmas, there are answers in ancient sources. Many spiritual traditions emphasise daily rituals, disciplines, and duties as paths to fulfillment, independent of external circumstances. The Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, whose ideas are seeing renewed popularity today, also provide a template for crafting a meaningful life through the cultivation of wisdom and virtue.

    In imagining the coming age of leisure, thinkers like Russell, John Stuart Mill, and Aristotle point to the opportunities for individuals to develop intellectually, creatively, and morally—to pursue knowledge for its own sake, to create art, and to engage more fully in family and civic life. The goal should not be idle amusement or shallow distractions, but rather a life rich in beauty, curiosity, and human connection.

    AI and Human Creativity

    However, the tsunami of AI developments suggests that it will not be long before even higher levels of human endeavor—creativity, research, problem-solving, and analysis—are performed better by non-breathing entities. AI is composing music, writing poetry, and painting. And it is doing it better than most of us already.

    But if we do not rely on being creatively competitive to survive, does it matter if a machine could do our watercolor painting, garden arrangement, or poem better? And what does “better” really mean? If we are no longer in a race with technology, but simply recipients of its services, then our perspective on creation, thought, innovation, and action can change altogether. Increased leisure time allows us to transition from outcome-based living to process exploration, much like elites have always been able. We will have the luxury of discovering the value of slow creation, a deliberate approach to learning, a brave form of experimentation, and a striving for perfection—the very things that a busy life may never have allowed.

    Human traits like empathy, humor, and individual expression seem likely to become more precious in a world filled with hyper-capable artificial intelligences and automation. And what of play, laughter, dancing, and joy? What if a machine-assisted leisurely life allowed us to be more fun, free, and experimental?

    What Happens with more Free Time

    Yet, as Russell warned, more free time is not automatically ennobling. He observed that the idle hereditary rich of his day frequently “never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers.” History shows us that a world of leisure need not be a world of enlightenment. The leisured classes of the past often spent their time in political rivalries and violent power struggles. If we are not thoughtful about how we use it, increased leisure time could easily lead to civil conflict, destructive hedonism, or increased alienation. Furthermore, our robot-enabled future may come with the hidden cost of increased surveillance and diminished freedoms, as Shoshana Zuboff warns in her work on surveillance capitalism.

    And while the prospect of liberation from mundane tasks (goodbye vacuuming) seems in principle to be an automatic win, many traditions reinforce the value of acts of service. Performing services for loved ones or society, from childrearing and housekeeping to public service and volunteering, is considered by some spiritual disciplines to be virtuous or even holy. But outside of this framework, the performance of burdensome and uninspiring tasks can provide people with a sense of purpose, a feeling of accomplishment, and a means of connecting with others. So, while humanoid robots may soon free us from mundane responsibilities, we may choose to perform these duties for any number of distinctly human reasons.

    Choice becomes a key element in this new world. Unless we move into a reality that includes sentient AI—in which case, all bets are off—choice will be one of the lines separating us from the machine. Choosing to do something—whether it be to learn, laugh, dance, connect, question, argue, practice, make mistakes, love, or vacuum—will be an expression of our humanity. And this freedom to choose will be the crucial distinction between us and our non-human companions. May these choices be good and meaningful.

    The Future of Humanity in a Technological Age

    Coming to terms with our changing reality will be no small task. We will need to be mindful in a world that encourages mindlessness and purposeful in a world that promotes passivity. These are concerns now and will be unavoidable challenges in the face of a deluge of disruption. In the end, the measure of our lives will not be in the conveniences we enjoy or the distractions we consume, but in the quality of our presence, the depth of our love, and the courage of our curiosity and convictions. These things make us human—and they are the very things we must fight to preserve as our world reshapes itself around us.

  • Remaking “Go Out to Play, Child”

    My thoughts on: Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation

    Realisation: A redefinition of the concept of “Go out to play”

    I am listening to Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation. As a mother to a teenaged daughter who spends too much time online, it is alarming. I have all the excuses, all the reasons, and the justifications as to why she is online for so much of her day. But it doesn’t detract from the essential problem: my child’s life, creativity, health, and potential are being minimised by her online dependence.

    Haidt’s words are swirling around and around in my mind. I think back to my Gen X upbringing, where we roamed the streets from the ages of seven, eight, or nine without parental oversight. We didn’t stray far, but we strayed.

    I think about stories from earlier generations of children being sent out to play in the morning and being told not to return until dark or dinner – whichever came first.

    I wonder how it came to the point where such an idea was unimaginable for our daughter’s generation. And why we thought it was better that they didn’t.

    The guilt rises (what have we done?) and then I think on it more.

    Our fear of letting our children roam free keeps them indoors. We believe ourselves to be shielding them from danger. But whether indoors or outdoors, children need to play.

    As with every generation, parents do not want to (can not be) the source of entertainment or play for their children all day. Nor should they be.

    And children playing indoors all day drives parents crazy.

    In previous generations, children were told to go out to play – to stay out of the house, to stay out of their parents’ way. Until they weren’t. Because nowadays we think children need to be kept safe – from the dangers that lurk outside, out of eyeshot, up trees, in puddles, on roads…

    But we still do not want to (can not) be the source of play for our children all day, to take them out always. And too much play in the house can drive us crazy.

    So we send them out. To play on Minecraft, on Roblox, on Fortnite, on Instagram, on TikTok. Online.

    Unsupervised, unmonitored, unprepared. Alone.

    It’s hard not to feel guilty about this. I do and I will (about this and many other things, of course). But what I have come to understand is that parents have always been sending their children out. In the past, that involved children going out to play and learn and grow in the world. Today, however, so much of the ‘playing’ of childhood and teenage life takes place in the artificial, disconnected world of the internet.

    The Anxious Generation

    Part of my thoughts on parenting pieces.