Alain de Botton, philosopher. July 2011. (19:20)

I. Identify the topic of the talk given by Alain de Botton

II. For questions 1-4 choose the best answer/-s:

  1. Which of the following secularized areas of life that are not going too well are NOT mentioned by Alain de Botton in his talk?
    a) education
    b) charity
    c) culture
    d) art
    e) oratory
    f) health care
    g) literature
  2. Alain de Botton posits that

a) education makes us into better and nobler human beings
b) institutes of higher learning are in the business of providing information
c) culture is looked to for guidance, for consolation, for morality

  1. According to Alain de Botton
    a) Art is propaganda
    b) Art should be for art’s sake
    c) Art shouldn’t explain itself
    d) Art is to remind people of what there is to love, fear and hate
  2. The speaker highlights that religions
    a) remind people of the important
    b) teach them how to sound convincing
    c) make people forget their sorrows and look on the bright side

III. Identify the thesis of the talk.

IV. Give the gist/summary of the talk.

V. Expand on the following in pairs. Do you agree with the statements?

  1. The secular world is full of holes.
  2. Our minds are like sieves.
  3. Art should be didactic.
  4. Religions are massive machines, collaborative, branded, multinational and
    disciplined.

VI. With the help of the script analyse how the speaker uses the following rhetorical devices:

a list of three, repetition, simile, contrastive pairs, humour, emphatic constructions, rhetorical question, intonation, speech tempo.

What effect does the speaker achieve?

One of the most common ways of dividing the world is into those who
believe and those who don’t —into the religious and the atheists. And for the last decade or so, it’s been quite clear what being an atheist means. There have been some very vocal atheists who’ve pointed out, not just that religion is wrong, but that it’s ridiculous. These people, many of whom have lived in North Oxford, have argued — they’ve argued that believing in God is akin to believing in fairies and essentially that the whole thing is a childish game.
Now I think it’s too easy. I think it’s too easy to dismiss the whole of religion
that way. And it’s as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. And what I’d like to
inaugurate today is a new way of being an atheist — if you like, a new version of atheism we could call Atheism 2.0. Now what is Atheism 2.0? Well it starts from a very basic premise: of course, there’s no God. Of course, there are no deities or supernatural spirits or angels, etc. Now let’s move on; that’s not the end of the story, that’s the very, very beginning.
I’m interested in the kind of constituency that thinks something along these
lines: that thinks, «I can’t believe in any of this stuff. I can’t believe in the doctrines.
I don’t think these doctrines are right. But,» a very important but, «I love Christmas carols. I really like the art of Mantegna. I really like looking at old churches. I really like turning the pages of the Old Testament.» Whatever it may be, you know the kind of thing I’m talking about —people who are attracted to the ritualistic side, the moralistic, communal side of religion, but can’t bear the doctrine. Until now, these people have faced a rather unpleasant choice. It’s almost as though either you accept the doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you’re living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

VII. Watch the talk again and note down how the speaker uses rhetorical devices, signposting language, humor, intonation and stress, and to what effect?

Working in pairs support the statement you agree with:

● Religion is a force for harmony in the world.
● Religion has been the cause of all the major world wars in history.
● Religion is a kind of fault line.

II. Answer the questions:

1) What did Karen Armstrong find out in the course of her study of religious
traditions?
2) In what way did Karen Armstrong rediscover religion?
3) What common tenet do the major world traditions highlight? Sum it up.
4) How does the speaker refute the assumption that religion has been the cause
of all the major world wars in history?
5) What role does she think religion should play in the modern world?
6) What does Karen Armstrong call for and how should it be achieved?

III. Paraphrase the statements:

  • The Golden Rule was first propounded by Confucius five centuries before Christ.
  • Religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action.
  • Pride of place in this practice is given to compassion.
  • Religion, too, has been affected by this violent ethos.
  • You could not and must not confine your compassion to your own group: your own nation, your own co-religionists, your own fellow countrymen.
  • his universal outreach is getting subdued in the strident use of religion — abuse of religion — for nefarious gains.
  • These traditions are so often at loggerheads now.

IV. Identify the topic and thesis of the talk.
V. Give the gist/summary of the talk.
VI. First expand on the statement, then agree or disagree, give your reasons.

  • Any ideology that doesn’t promote a sense of global understanding andglobal appreciation of each other is failing the test of the time.
  • It’s time that we moved beyond the idea of toleration and move towardappreciation of the other.