The inclusion of JFK's We Go to the Moon speech in this chapter really coincided with another program specific class I'm taking this quarter. We analyzed the rhetoric of the speech, including his repeated references to America's colonial past and the concept of "conquering" the moon to achieve peace. While America was wracked with the schisms of the 60s, JFK instead chose to focus the resources on a new frontier. The speech was an apt choice to include in a chapter about our reach for flashier and shinier technology. Without designing actively to do good or with a categorical imperative, the space race is just conquest manifested on a different scale.
The concept of Eudaimonia was also interesting to me. To me that seemed similar to the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. On Aristotle's Isle of the Blessed, people are able to go beyond external goals and think more about intrinsic happiness. These aesthetic impulses the chapter argues are innate, but I also think they tend to emerge from hibernation when our most basic impulses are satisfied.
When we talk about aesthetics as self emanicipation it makes me think of all the spheres in our daily lives that must be designed with intentionality. From clothes we wear to style of communication to makeup to language used, all these must be conscious decisions. To self emancipate in all spheres, to loudly declare who we are with every decision, seems tiring to me. Is it consistent to express aesthetics in one domain while leaving another complacent? Are we relinquishing our freedom by doing so?