I believe our duty to “society” is a moral obligation to a free society and government. I should very specific in noting that I when I reference free society, I’m referencing liberal democracy in the socially contracted form which it operates in the United States and other similar nations in Europe and elsewhere. The notion that our duty would be to a liberal democracy plays an important role in what I believe to be a moral obligation because the specific role that government and society has historically played in the progression of humanity. The overarching duty that we, as members of society, have to the state is really one to other members as a whole. By participating in the social contract with the state, obeying the laws, practices, norms, etc, established by a free society, we participate in a communal act of national maintenance that holds together the fabric of liberal democracy that has given the world so much. By serving the state, and society, we are serving humanity by proxy. Certainly liberal bourgeoisie democracy is not perfect in its current state, however in a pragmatic sense it has been the most effective and free system which human history has produced to this point. Under its rule, we have substantial individual liberty, of which we must sacrifice a bit to keep stable our government. We as well, most importantly, have a regulated and controlled system in which to institute change in the form of elections and a legislature of representatives at a state and national level. As supposedly active agents in this system, we are not only beholden to the state in upholding its laws, but to be informed and participatory members of that democracy which is so dependent on its constituency. The efficacy of the state, to which we have a perpetual moral obligation as it serves humanity’s best interests, is reliant on its participants being active and informed about the decisions which the citizen body arbitrates. If the demos is to have the power that it has in a liberal democracy which it so flourishes under, then it must also be responsible members. The duty of the constituent of a free society is two fold: to obey the laws which that society has created, and to be informed and active participants in the process of the creation and execution of those laws so when they are unjust or unbefitting to the nation, there is a conscious effort to remediate injustices. I cannot speak, however, for a society whose system of government is not so free, other than that they should work, as best they can, to progress towards liberal democracy in their own way.
The act of serving the state, if done in the appropriate manner, should come with some reciprocity. This would befit the state’s and society’s sides of the social contract in that the sacrifice of certain liberties by the people should put a burden as well on society and the state to protect and serve the people. This reciprocation comes in the form of governance as far as “society’s” systematic end of the social contract. By obeying the laws and sacrificing small measures of individual freedom, the state then attains the ability and is burdening with the responsibility of upholding order in society so that the people can exercise what liberty they are granted in whatever way they then see fit. This responsibility manifests itself in the executive enforcement of laws and the provision of national security to protect the safety of the citizens who say, give up the right to own tanks and RPG’s. What society as a whole, besides through the contribution of government, owes those who obey the social contract is a more complicated issue. Delineating exactly the nature of what the body of society consists of is a problem which I’m honestly not sure I can answer fully. The United States, as an example, does not have a “greater community” that seeks to or is responsible for serving the country other than its government. The other side of “society” I suppose would be the generally unintentional amalgamation of private persons. The responsibility of this perhaps unwilling collective could possibly be the service and charity of the greater good. Redistributing wealth on a private scale, providing food and medical care to the underprivileged, efforts normally associated with motivated non-profits and many times demonized when done by governments. Social welfare would be the normative category that these “responsibilities” of non-governmental society would be placed under. Many activists, political theorists and public figures from Arendt to the John Birches believed that it was not in the jurisdiction of national politics to govern over the social practices and welfare of the nation. I personally believe that the social welfare of a collective people must be maintained by some body, and from a pragmatic perspective I would say that private interests do an incredibly poor job mobilizing and distributing effective and widespread aid in the social sense that is necessary to uphold the common good to the standard I believe it should be held to. While the mandate for upholding social welfare may not be popular sentiment, I believe that it should and will be as society liberalizes, and people will realize that the responsibilities of society are best manifested through actions of the state as those actions will be best dictated by an efficient and democratic body. While the efficacy of the state in the US may be in serious question in the present moment, the social welfare it provides and the good it does, combined with its potential, far outweighs that of the private sector of society, better fulfilling the responsibility of social welfare that society is beholden to.
While I do love Thoreau, and his relentless questioning of everything institutionalized and communal has led us well to today’s liberal democracy, I do not believe that civil disobedience has a rightful place in today’s society. I understand full well the constant need for shifts in policy and structure in government and in our laws to meet the demands of a perpetually changing society and world. I as well understand the need for great flexibility when it comes to satisfying the needs of individual liberty necessary to uphold an effective and free society. However, the reason our republic is wholly in service of human progress, and the underlying reason I believe that its constituency is so beholden to upholding its laws, is that it provides a system in which to contest the laws within the government itself. We can have “bloodless coups”. There can be reform on a massive scale without breaking laws in a liberal democracy. We have free speech, universal suffrage, legislatures of representatives so that when the demos feels there is an injustice, it can be righted with extralegal action and the order of society may be upheld. Impatience is understandable, and widespread reform is slow to take hold because of very intentional safeguards against the “mob” (the main pitfall of democracy). Certainly in the past as well, democracy has failed in protecting the basic rights of its citizens and unjustly took far too long to right those wrongs. However, in an effort to uphold government and society as we now know it, even if the people want to overthrow the government and establish an entirely new one, it can be done within the laws of the current institution (theoretically). In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson says very explicitly the right of the people to dissolve the entity which rules them if they see fit, as they are the ultimate and just wielders of power in any government. Luckily, we have established a government whose systems allow for the maintenance of the state and order while simultaneously allowing for radical reform is necessary or desirable. The effects of such radical reform, judicial activism, etc, within society or government are certainly debatable, however I do believe that the laws and bureaucracy’s in their current state have the ability to function ideally so that all reform can be done within the regulations of society.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
I Think, Therefore I Think About Thinking
I believe a prudent place to start the conversation about thyself, or myself as the case may be, is attempt to define me. From a metaphysical vantage point, there is a quarrel to be had over what I am. As much as I have read about the idea of consciousness, be it dualistic (Descartes) or mechanistic (Dennett), there is very little clarity about what it is we are. The main problem in most writings, however the common point of agreement amongst the different sides of the issue, is that inside our physical skull is a brain that in one way or another, functions in a way that is beyond mere machine. There is an “us” in our heads that makes each person unique as an individual, that allows them to process different phenomenological occurrences in distinct ways, and somehow creates a consciousness (and certainly an unconsciousness) that humanity has come to associate with the metaphysical individual, whether or not this consciousness is via a “soul” or a function of the brain. The composition of my consciousness not being the crux of the question at hand, I’ll defer to expounding about it for the time being, however I think the idea of establishing that there is a consciousness, perhaps not separate, but somehow intertwined or a part of, the physical being that comprises our everyday, tangible selves. The first step in knowing thyself, I think, has to do with one’s idea of consciousness, which forms the view of the application of “thyself” in the world, and the minds interactions in context with its surroundings, and all that amalgamates into an individual.
To know oneself, is to understand ones own metaphysical composition, conscious and unconscious, how it interacts and interfaces with its surrounding environment, and why it does so. Myself is a very broad term. If I were talking about myself, I could very well be talking about my foot or my arm, however this is not the self I am referring to. Those objects may very well be important to my idea of self, but only in relation to the way I thought about them. The process, consciously and unconsciously, through which I think about different objects, ideas, etc, is an extremely important part of self. Predating that in the perpetual chronology of self-formation is why those phenomenological objects are thought of in the way they are, or what effects do they have on me. Let’s say I walk into a room with a friend, and suddenly, I see a giant ice sculpture of an ostrich. My friend remarks, “Is that not the most majestic, piece of avian grandeur that you have ever laid eyes upon.” Upon not hearing me answer, my friend looks over to me and sees that I have fled the room in terror at the sight of the frozen bird. These are clearly different reactions to the same object (let’s assume that we’re discounting the significance of the incredible ineptitude and subjectivity of our physical perceptions for the time being). My friend, quite puzzled, walks out of the room and finds me inconsolable on the ground, and asks, why did I have such an immediate and drastic repulsion to, what to him, seems like a benign piece of ice sculpture. The answer is differences in self. Upon viewing the ostrich, I processed the object in an incredibly distinct manner than my friend. Perhaps physically, our brains actually went through the same transduction of physical sights, however I ended up having a conniption while my friend was awed by the sight. My self, my unconscious brain, upon seeing the ostrich, recalled that when I was five, I has been mercilessly chased down by this vicious, Serengeti horror and was permanently phobic of the mere sight of it. When we say something scars us, like I would lament about this incident, it may have very well scarred our visceral being, however it molded the very malleable conscious and unconscious self which composes together to create the manner in which we will think in the future. That rundown in the desert created an imprint on my “self”, that was unique to my brain, and further shaped my thinking as to create the display of terror witnessed by my very confused friend. Clearly this is an extreme example, however, it represents my view on some of the formation of the self. In the hallway, being the meta-cognitive being that I’d like to think I am, can look back and see the origin of my manner of processing the phenomenological viewing of the ostrich, as well as why that manner of thinking exists. To understand why I have this reaction is a very important piece of my life and my understanding of self, as it is clearly the driving force behind all of my action and thoughts.
On a very functional level, there is importance in understanding that this ice ostrich isn’t going to hurt me and that I should reenter the room and face my frozen fear, so that I can attend this party and socialize like a normal human being. On a somewhat evolutionary and societal level of function, it is important that I understand that I actually should be afraid of live ostriches that have a very real ability to harm me, and not frozen ones, so I can socialize in this setting a be a member of society. Such a case is rare, however, and I think the real importance in understand oneself is to understand motive and meaning in ones life. I just didn’t decide one day, arbitrarily, that I would be liberal, or that I’m interested in Social Sciences, or that I have pragmatic tendencies. These ideas are meaningful and fundamental to my life because I have explored them internally, with hopefully some depth and my life is given a greater sense of meaning in understanding exactly how I interact with the world. By metacognitively dissecting exactly why I enjoy the things I enjoy, or like to study the subjects I like to study, I can stand on what I consider to be a legitimate grounds and defend my liking of certain objects or ideas, and consider the nature of my liking for them and the ethics involved with their resultant happiness or displeasure. I don’t mean to say that one can’t like something if they haven’t identified the exact moment in their life when it became important to them, or the exact protein in the DNA sequence that predisposes them to being liberal or conservative (if there is such a thing), however for any of those likes to have meaning, one must understand why they like them, why these things are important to them, and then go from there.
My greatest weakness is that my mind tends to be inherently dogmatic. In a cliche way, I tend to be a “big picture” kind of thinker. In that way, I do not always validate or qualify certain “truisms” that I may come across, or accept them too quickly on initial positive reaction without further criticism. Its unfortunately to some degree a detached dogmatism that usually takes hold. When I read Ayn Rand, I found a great deal of validity in what she said because I looked at it as a dogma solely in the context of her book. However, when I further thought about her ideas in a relation to the my own inherent beliefs and in a much more pragmatic sense, in the scope of efficacy in the functioning world around me, her ideas were much more clear to me, and in many ways much less true for me or in the greater scope of humanity. Struggling with the inherent sense of dogmatism of my mode of thinking is an ongoing battle and requires much more than critically probing certain ideas to fit them with myself and pragmatically with the world around me. There is a large degree of finding myself in the process, in that I must figure our what in “myself”, what I am using as the standard against these ideas, do I really consider true, and true to me. Fleshing that out is certainly a lifelong process that involved the full scale of the every day experimentation that is life rather than a more abstract discussion of the ideas involved in it.
I would like to think that my biggest asset is a sincere intrigue in the world around me. The nature of that intrigue is one that is ever-changing as my epistemological and ethical views shift as a student and participant in life, however I have found that engagement, in one way or another, to be intact no matter its manifestation. For that reason, I have never relented in my own self-intrigue. I don’t mean this in a egocentric way, however my first and foremost academic goal is to apply my knowledge internally in an effort to understand myself, and then advance from there. Now clearly I cannot halt all understanding of the outside world, and admittedly considering the conditions of the stage of my life that I am about to enter, my focus has largely turned to external concerns, not just in college but in the subjects which I hope to one day have a profession in, or just have a general interest in getting a head start on for college. (That doesn’t nearly capture the entirety of my fascination with the non-self world around me, however it will have to do for now.) However, I am intrigued by ambiguity and questions, I have an instinctive need, good or bad, to chase that which eludes in an epistemological sense. Some may take this desire in a bad way, akin to the competitors consistent need to win at all costs, however I do not really see my greater understanding of the world, and its relation to understanding myself, as being some sort of contest deserved of its own entity with winning or losing. I consider its value inherent and in the overall process, as understanding that in and of itself leads to a greater understanding and greater meaning on an individual and contextual level.
Metacognition and comprehension of oneself in a complete sense in probably one of the most difficult tasks one can undertake. No study in general is without the inherent precondition of human ineptitude that comes with the nature of knowledge and subjectivity, however the study of ones own consciousness is especially so due to its involvement with the subject and the object of study being the same. No humanistic study, be it social sciences or humanities, is every without the folly of self-importance and narcissism in its own regard. I’ve always wondered what a brilliant psychologist thinks of himself? If he thinks him or herself immune to the silly foibles of those not intellectually as gifted as he? Does he, understanding what really happens to the brain in times of grief, not mourn for the loss of a relative? From a qualitative and quantitative apporach, we are heavily biased for ourselves, how could we not be? How far would we really get if we naturally believed ourselves to be so flawed and illogical, in an evolutionary sense? Looking at ourselves is equally as difficult because, in my opinion and in reference to my first point, there are not two selves in the brain. We are not looking at another self when we think metacognitively, I believe that it is the same brain. Even if there were a soul, whose cognitive function were delineated from that of the physical brain, it would still have to think about itself as the same entity, an almost paradoxical thought. Its a process akin to looking at ones own face. One can do it through mirrors, or a photograph, or scant glimpses of ones own nose if one goes cross-eyed, however they will never see it for it is them. A different perspective, the process to which I would attribute through inter-subjectivity to be about as “true” as perspectives get, is impossible from a first person vantage point. I don’t view this limitation as a deterrence, however. A truth understood solely in the context of the individual, his or her society, and humanity as a whole is in no way incomplete, rather it is lacking the unseemly idea that this truth can somehow transcend the humanity within which it was created, or from the individual from which it sprang forth.
To know oneself, is to understand ones own metaphysical composition, conscious and unconscious, how it interacts and interfaces with its surrounding environment, and why it does so. Myself is a very broad term. If I were talking about myself, I could very well be talking about my foot or my arm, however this is not the self I am referring to. Those objects may very well be important to my idea of self, but only in relation to the way I thought about them. The process, consciously and unconsciously, through which I think about different objects, ideas, etc, is an extremely important part of self. Predating that in the perpetual chronology of self-formation is why those phenomenological objects are thought of in the way they are, or what effects do they have on me. Let’s say I walk into a room with a friend, and suddenly, I see a giant ice sculpture of an ostrich. My friend remarks, “Is that not the most majestic, piece of avian grandeur that you have ever laid eyes upon.” Upon not hearing me answer, my friend looks over to me and sees that I have fled the room in terror at the sight of the frozen bird. These are clearly different reactions to the same object (let’s assume that we’re discounting the significance of the incredible ineptitude and subjectivity of our physical perceptions for the time being). My friend, quite puzzled, walks out of the room and finds me inconsolable on the ground, and asks, why did I have such an immediate and drastic repulsion to, what to him, seems like a benign piece of ice sculpture. The answer is differences in self. Upon viewing the ostrich, I processed the object in an incredibly distinct manner than my friend. Perhaps physically, our brains actually went through the same transduction of physical sights, however I ended up having a conniption while my friend was awed by the sight. My self, my unconscious brain, upon seeing the ostrich, recalled that when I was five, I has been mercilessly chased down by this vicious, Serengeti horror and was permanently phobic of the mere sight of it. When we say something scars us, like I would lament about this incident, it may have very well scarred our visceral being, however it molded the very malleable conscious and unconscious self which composes together to create the manner in which we will think in the future. That rundown in the desert created an imprint on my “self”, that was unique to my brain, and further shaped my thinking as to create the display of terror witnessed by my very confused friend. Clearly this is an extreme example, however, it represents my view on some of the formation of the self. In the hallway, being the meta-cognitive being that I’d like to think I am, can look back and see the origin of my manner of processing the phenomenological viewing of the ostrich, as well as why that manner of thinking exists. To understand why I have this reaction is a very important piece of my life and my understanding of self, as it is clearly the driving force behind all of my action and thoughts.
On a very functional level, there is importance in understanding that this ice ostrich isn’t going to hurt me and that I should reenter the room and face my frozen fear, so that I can attend this party and socialize like a normal human being. On a somewhat evolutionary and societal level of function, it is important that I understand that I actually should be afraid of live ostriches that have a very real ability to harm me, and not frozen ones, so I can socialize in this setting a be a member of society. Such a case is rare, however, and I think the real importance in understand oneself is to understand motive and meaning in ones life. I just didn’t decide one day, arbitrarily, that I would be liberal, or that I’m interested in Social Sciences, or that I have pragmatic tendencies. These ideas are meaningful and fundamental to my life because I have explored them internally, with hopefully some depth and my life is given a greater sense of meaning in understanding exactly how I interact with the world. By metacognitively dissecting exactly why I enjoy the things I enjoy, or like to study the subjects I like to study, I can stand on what I consider to be a legitimate grounds and defend my liking of certain objects or ideas, and consider the nature of my liking for them and the ethics involved with their resultant happiness or displeasure. I don’t mean to say that one can’t like something if they haven’t identified the exact moment in their life when it became important to them, or the exact protein in the DNA sequence that predisposes them to being liberal or conservative (if there is such a thing), however for any of those likes to have meaning, one must understand why they like them, why these things are important to them, and then go from there.
My greatest weakness is that my mind tends to be inherently dogmatic. In a cliche way, I tend to be a “big picture” kind of thinker. In that way, I do not always validate or qualify certain “truisms” that I may come across, or accept them too quickly on initial positive reaction without further criticism. Its unfortunately to some degree a detached dogmatism that usually takes hold. When I read Ayn Rand, I found a great deal of validity in what she said because I looked at it as a dogma solely in the context of her book. However, when I further thought about her ideas in a relation to the my own inherent beliefs and in a much more pragmatic sense, in the scope of efficacy in the functioning world around me, her ideas were much more clear to me, and in many ways much less true for me or in the greater scope of humanity. Struggling with the inherent sense of dogmatism of my mode of thinking is an ongoing battle and requires much more than critically probing certain ideas to fit them with myself and pragmatically with the world around me. There is a large degree of finding myself in the process, in that I must figure our what in “myself”, what I am using as the standard against these ideas, do I really consider true, and true to me. Fleshing that out is certainly a lifelong process that involved the full scale of the every day experimentation that is life rather than a more abstract discussion of the ideas involved in it.
I would like to think that my biggest asset is a sincere intrigue in the world around me. The nature of that intrigue is one that is ever-changing as my epistemological and ethical views shift as a student and participant in life, however I have found that engagement, in one way or another, to be intact no matter its manifestation. For that reason, I have never relented in my own self-intrigue. I don’t mean this in a egocentric way, however my first and foremost academic goal is to apply my knowledge internally in an effort to understand myself, and then advance from there. Now clearly I cannot halt all understanding of the outside world, and admittedly considering the conditions of the stage of my life that I am about to enter, my focus has largely turned to external concerns, not just in college but in the subjects which I hope to one day have a profession in, or just have a general interest in getting a head start on for college. (That doesn’t nearly capture the entirety of my fascination with the non-self world around me, however it will have to do for now.) However, I am intrigued by ambiguity and questions, I have an instinctive need, good or bad, to chase that which eludes in an epistemological sense. Some may take this desire in a bad way, akin to the competitors consistent need to win at all costs, however I do not really see my greater understanding of the world, and its relation to understanding myself, as being some sort of contest deserved of its own entity with winning or losing. I consider its value inherent and in the overall process, as understanding that in and of itself leads to a greater understanding and greater meaning on an individual and contextual level.
Metacognition and comprehension of oneself in a complete sense in probably one of the most difficult tasks one can undertake. No study in general is without the inherent precondition of human ineptitude that comes with the nature of knowledge and subjectivity, however the study of ones own consciousness is especially so due to its involvement with the subject and the object of study being the same. No humanistic study, be it social sciences or humanities, is every without the folly of self-importance and narcissism in its own regard. I’ve always wondered what a brilliant psychologist thinks of himself? If he thinks him or herself immune to the silly foibles of those not intellectually as gifted as he? Does he, understanding what really happens to the brain in times of grief, not mourn for the loss of a relative? From a qualitative and quantitative apporach, we are heavily biased for ourselves, how could we not be? How far would we really get if we naturally believed ourselves to be so flawed and illogical, in an evolutionary sense? Looking at ourselves is equally as difficult because, in my opinion and in reference to my first point, there are not two selves in the brain. We are not looking at another self when we think metacognitively, I believe that it is the same brain. Even if there were a soul, whose cognitive function were delineated from that of the physical brain, it would still have to think about itself as the same entity, an almost paradoxical thought. Its a process akin to looking at ones own face. One can do it through mirrors, or a photograph, or scant glimpses of ones own nose if one goes cross-eyed, however they will never see it for it is them. A different perspective, the process to which I would attribute through inter-subjectivity to be about as “true” as perspectives get, is impossible from a first person vantage point. I don’t view this limitation as a deterrence, however. A truth understood solely in the context of the individual, his or her society, and humanity as a whole is in no way incomplete, rather it is lacking the unseemly idea that this truth can somehow transcend the humanity within which it was created, or from the individual from which it sprang forth.
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