Friday night philosophy.

Last week

As I write these recollections, I find that I am clarifying my thoughts, and I am trying to organise them into some sort of logical progression towards a coherent philosophy of life. So I think it is here appropriate to start laying the foundations of that philosophy.

In Max Erhmann’s lovely “Desiderata” he says:

You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

When I first saw those words, I knew I had found my truth. We travel through life on a lonely journey, where we consider ourselves as apart from everything else. We think we live in a “human centric” world, whereas we, in fact, live in a “universe centric” world. We are all a part of that universe. We are one with it. So, our philosophy of life should be based on that truth. Only recently, I was to come upon Albert Einstein’s words which state the universal moral truth as only he could:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." : Albert Einstein - (1879-1955) Physicist and Professor, Nobel Prize 1921

I like to think that we exist in a human centric world, but that we live in a universe centric one. In the universe centric world our thoughts can soar at the wonder of it all, whereas in a human centric world we are preoccupied with the irksome tasks of survival. I like to think the self actualisation layer in Maslow’s needs represents the universe centric world, whereas the lower needs represent the human centric world.

So, for our philosophy of life to develop, it needs to take account of both worlds; in one we soar, in the other we survive. Perhaps this is what Nietzsche was referring to with his “Will to Power”.

I propose to deal with the human centric world first. Niccolo Machiavelli’s words would here seem to be appropriate.

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527), The Prince

We live in a world of all three intellects. Nothing has really changed in human nature since Machiavelli’s time. Our human centric world revolves around one word, “survival”. And to survive we must abide by the biological truths as stated by Will and Ariel Durant. We must compete, select, and breed.

We compete individually within our groups, and with other groups, and we will encounter Machiavelli’s three intellects as we compete. We need to learn how to deal with all three. Of the three, it is evident that the third is the more difficult to deal with, yet it is by far the most common.

At the extreme, our groups use war as a means of competition. But as well as every group offering its benefits, so too does it demand obligations. And Machiavelli’s thoughts were very much about survival of the aristocrats with whom he was trying to curry favour through his writing of “The Prince”. That group was about enjoying the benefits of their group, but gave no thought to obligations. The lesson to be learned, therefore, is that we must be wary of those in our group who demand obligations, but are careless with the truth when attempting to convince us of the benefits. We must heed Max Erhmann’s words:

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you
to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

We value life above all. Yet there are those in our group who hold no such value for our lives at all, and would convince us that we should sacrifice that life for them. On occasion, with conscription, they have forced our young to do so. Our young, it is cynically noted, who have not had the time to complete their “awakening”, so are relying on untrustworthy emotion for their guidance. Dalton Trumbo has something to say about that in “Johnny got his Gun”:

There's nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor. Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not even if you're so great your name will never be forgotten and who's that great? The most important thing is your life little guys. You're worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don't let them kid you any more. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we've got to fight for liberty or whatever their word is there's always a word.

Just say mister I'm sorry I got no time to die I'm too busy and then turn and run like hell. If they say coward why don't pay any attention because it's your job to live not to die. If they talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life you say mister you're a liar Nothing is bigger than life There's nothing noble in death. What's noble about lying in the ground and rotting. What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What's noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What's noble about being an idiot? What's noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What's noble about being dead. Because when you're dead mister it's all over. It's the end. You're less than a dog less than a rat less than a bee or an ant less than a white maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You're dead mister and you died for nothing.

You're dead mister. Dead.

 

Johnny Got His Gun," Dalton Trumbo, Bantam Books, ISBN: 0553274325, March 1984 reissue (originally published by J.B. Lippincott Company, 1939).

 

So, we have determined that nothing is of greater value to us than life. We have also determined that others may not value that life at all. So, in order to survive we must take an interest in politics, lest those whom we have elected to a position of power take us into a senseless war and/or enhance the value to society of others in our group at our expense.

Our survival also depends on our ability to provide for our family’s material needs. And in a diverse society such as ours we are valued according to our contribution to that society. Or are we? I posted once on who is of most value to a society. Who would we most miss if their services were no longer available? In first place were the food providers. Second were the health and sanitation workers. Take either of those two out of our societies and our very survival would be threatened through starvation or disease. Some would argue that our warriors should be first, but without food and good health, those warriors are useless. Yet our societies are not structured to reward according to the contribution to that society. Instead, we see religious charlatans becoming millionaires while food, health and sanitation workers eke out a precarious existence, as do our warriors.

Why is this so? It is because we allow it to be so. We are so preoccupied with providing for the physical needs of Maslow’s hierarchy that we do not spend the time to develop a philosophy of life for ourselves. Instead, we allow others to impose their philosophy of life on us because of our mental laziness. This mental laziness, together with fear of death and misplaced faith in the power of religion to enforce morality, gives religion a favoured place in society that it does not deserve. Only now are writers such as Richard Dawkins pointing to the negative impact that religion has on our society.

 So, our politicians can ignore the many failings in our society simply because we allow them to do so. In our youthful awakening we have not learnt to replace emotion with reason as our guidance, and so are easily swayed by the politicians and religious proselytisers who appeal to the emotions, rather than to reason. But we should not blame the politicians. After all, they reflect the maturity (or mental laziness) of we who elect them. We can blame the unelected religious proselytisers though, who prey on our ignorance, while reinforcing it.

But we are also subjected to an insidious attack on our attitudes through the media we use every day to gather our information. Daily we are assailed with information designed to favourably influence our opinions towards certain groups in our society to their advantage. This is done both overtly through advertising, and covertly through the cynically named “public relations” consultants. The following article is long, but illuminating.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s10602.htm

Excerpts.

“Alex Carey wrote, 'The twentieth century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.' And then Carey went on to explain that in democracies like Australia or the United States, it's really advertising and public relations through which corporate propaganda is waged.”

And:

“Democracy is very dependent on people learning the art of rhetoric, learning the art of communications and being able to communicate their ideas and persuade others. What we're very concerned about at my non-profit organisation, the Centre for Media and Democracy, is public relations as an industry. And in the United States, it's a huge, invisible industry, probably over a $10-billion a year entity that's really only available to wealthy individuals, large multinational corporations, politicians and government agencies.”

… really only available to wealthy individuals, large multinational corporations, politicians and government agencies. Yes, folks, we’re not one big happy family at all. Someone out there is trying to sucker us. Nothing personal, you understand. But they just happen to think that their survival is more important than ours, and by controlling the information we receive, they seek to control our minds to their benefit.

It is a fact that the rich and powerful do live a privileged life.  It is a fact that the multinational megarich and powerful do run the world, no matter which political party is in power. It is a fact that they use religion to control the masses by superstition masquerading as supernaturally enforced morality. And there is nothing that you and I can do about that. That battle was lost many, many years ago. All we can do is to try to attenuate their power to some extent through the political process, and to blunt the power of the priests by exposing their fallacies.

We have to choose which political party or candidate to support, not because we have any illusions that they will be able to bring the megarich to heel, but because they will, as a matter of self interest, attempt to redress the imbalance if only for the preservation of their political perquisites. This is not to say that all who aspire to political office are there for cynical reasons of self interest. There are many who go into politics with high ideals, only to be chastened by an ungrateful electorate whose only concern is the hip pocket nerve. Machiavelli must smile when he sees his words verified time and time again.

But we have to work with what we’ve got. We have to look at the differences between the parties and candidates, including which party is more likely to pander to the interests of the rich and powerful. We have to determine whether we have a liberal or conservative worldview.

'Til next week.