philosophy – Page 2 – and the lack thereof

Dominate, pt. 2: Defiance

It’s overwhelming to live in a society which is besieged by such a wide variety of destructive forces. There is no unity against a great enemy, nor agreement about what the highest priorities are. Causes become like clothes, seasonally fading in and out. Devotion to an ideal becomes inefficient and impossible in the face of a populace with a memory that seems only to stretch back for a handful of years.

In an age of such relativity, where just causes must find their source and justification within the self, and not by any objective rule, we have not yet seemed to abandoned our desire for moral unity. The appeal of a story so wicked as a father raping his daughter in a basement cellar for twenty-four years is the complete lack of a grey area. It is as black as black comes, the depth of a depravity we like to think was extinguished with the end of the Nazi regime.

Yet, what I find most unsurprising, is the complete normalcy of the surroundings of this event. Mr. Fritzl was (at least, from all reports) not insane, nor dysfunctional, nor was he otherwise visibly different from you and I. He chose to do what he did, with full knowledge and complete mental capacity. Many people comfort themselves with notions that they are fargone from such a beast as Mr. Fritzl, yet it is just one choice that can send us into the blackness of that moral oblivion. Humans bear incredible responsibility; our choices have such infinite consequences that we will never know.

The more rapidly we embrace the ideology that nothing – no choice, no consequence, no means, and no ends really matter, the faster we will truly find ourselves there.

We must defy our instincts.

Dominate, pt. 1

A few years prior to the release of Half-Life 2, there was an infamous source leak that lead to a long series of delays for the final release. Shortly after the leak, however, one physics professor, while looking through the code, remarked that the programmers had stumbled upon another approach to the Grand Unification Theory. The basic idea behind the GUT is that all of the forces of physics can actually be merged into one force – that ultimately every physical interaction in the world can be defined by one formula. A theory of everything. There is currently no evidence that this formula actually exists, but that’s irrelevant for the topic at hand!

I am a universalist. I believe that humans are a part of a whole. I believe we’ve all got a lot in common, the foremost of which is that we’re all human beings. I believe that as such, there are universal facts and laws that are true for every last one of us, that cannot be escaped. I believe a single model can fit every human being. A theory of everything.

“Nobody knows the age of the human race, but it is certainly old enough to know better.”

#1: Humanity’s flaws are timeless. The Western world may taut stories of a society with less racism, less sexism, and greater equality, but the reality is that half the world lives in utter poverty, that the wealthiest 1% own more than the poorest 50%, and that this situation is not changing for the better any time soon. We are as hurtful and hateful and selfish as we have always been – just perhaps more ignorant to reality than before.

#2: Humanity has never been happier, nor more depressed. While the Industrial Age is hailed as the saviour for much of the (Western) world’s working class, I see no evidence that the Western world is, as a whole, any happier than before the divide was simply between rich and poor. The trick here is that it is impossible to gauge how happy any person is at any time. Yet, what did the poets and playwrights focus on in the Middle Ages? Love and war, politics and religion, friendship and hatred. What do our musicians sing about now? What kind of movies do we watch? Nothing has changed – we are much the same humans that we were back then. Our form of expression has changed, but that which we wish to express is in every way the same as it has always been.

#3: Humanity is in the constant pursuit of happiness, but most people will never find what they seek. I believe every person is ultimately looking for happiness, whether by money, power, love, family, enlightenment, or any combination thereof. If we could be happy shoveling sand all day and stopping occasionally to eat and reproduce, that’s what we’d do. But for some reason, we can’t. We always want more, no matter how unnecessary the extraneous portions are. I believe the process of seeking more simply makes us want more.

#4: No race, nation, culture, gender, or age is exempt from any of this. I believe every person is equally unhappy, and equally unsuccessful at making themselves permanently happier. This is especially important when examining culture. Many people praise other cultures for their difference in values. Consider the classic battle between independence/self-actualization versus selflessness/being part of a whole. The former is a highly Western concept, stating that you are responsible for your own happiness, that you are what you make of yourself and you are no one’s bitch. If you’re unhappy, it’s your fault and you’re simply not skilled enough to satisfy your own demands. The latter, a highly Eastern school of thought, states that fulfillment comes from serving the greater whole, that there is no greater honor than being a cog in the wheel, and that propelling others to greatness is what is truly worthwhile. I believe both result in equally unhappy populaces.

Once upon a time, a strong battle of cultures existed. Eastern cultures, especially, were highly ethnocentric, believing most (if not all) other races and cultures to be inferior, and therefore mandating domination and elimination. Globalization has toned down some of these conflicts (if only for the sake of doing good business), and in its place is the school of Relativism, that states it is not worthwhile to compare and contrast; every man knows what he needs, and if he is pursuing it, obviously that is what he needs. It states that we cannot know who is happy or unhappy, and as such, we can’t say who is happier. Under Relativism, we must assume every person is perfectly happy. That is not what I am suggesting.

In my mind, nothing productive comes of the observations of Relativism, and it forgets the nature of what it is to know. Most of what we “know”, we do not actually “know” – we heard it on the radio, we read it on Wikipedia, we saw it on TV. That is not knowledge, but a collection of factoids that, in the end, hold no relevance to what it means to be a human being. True knowledge comes from connecting the dots, putting the pieces together, seeing the whole picture. That is not anything that can be observed or proven. If I’m going to limit my powers of observation to everything that I can directly prove, then I may as well sit down, shut up, and accept that this world has nothing for me. No – we make thousands of choices, think thousands of thoughts every day based on what it is that we truly know, everything that we truly believe. I believe true knowledge is a matter of belief, and beliefs cannot be proven, nor disproven. What we truly know is going to trump what the reality is – if you truly believe it, it becomes a fact to us, a fact that can only be changed by altering our perception of reality.

Unfortunately, a handful of words and numbers are not what it takes to alter someone else’s reality. That’s why listing off a statistic like “half of the world lives on three dollars a day” does not evoke an emotional response. To allow our reality to be altered, we have to be presented with a compelling reason to change our perspective, and a viable means to change our reality accordingly. Relativism, I believe, can offer neither of those. It’s a belief designed to conform. It rests on the hope that everything might be okay, but it’s not willing to say one way or the other. When faced with conflict, it cannot offer a solution, because it is designed to work for anything and everything. It’s like a blanket. It’s comforting in times of peace and quiet, but is wholly useless when real conflict arises.

Hopefully to be continued.

Mean

An addendum to my lower entry.

I was pondering why exactly “normal” is considered the opposite of unique. From my words yesterday, it’s obvious that I don’t think normalcy at all a negative thing. Yet if you know me, you know I take pride in being unique.

I decided that people confuse normalcy with being average. It’s not a completely incorrect assumption; in many regards, what is average is what is normal, it’s what can and should be expected. A test score, income, life expectancy. In some ways, we’re forced into being average (which is when people are most prone to fight for identity). I’m a white middle-class male. Yet we wouldn’t say that’s normal, that’s just common. If we apply the same logic to other aspects of life, it becomes easy to see that correlation is not causation – being average doesn’t make you normal, they just happen to correlate with some matters.

My point is that it’s this distinction that allows one to be normal and yet outside the average, uncommon. Or, to modify the words of Mark Twain, “Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us would be average.” It’s a harsh reality that foolishness is the average for humanity, and I think we’d be hard pressed to find evidence otherwise.

That’s how I came to believe that the extraordinary are truly just normal.

I have high expectations for humanity, I guess.

Differentiation

Think about the word extraordinary.

1. beyond what is usual, ordinary, regular, or established
2. exceptional in character, amount, extent, degree, etc.; noteworthy; remarkable

It would be reasonable to say that most people in the world admire extraordinary people, they fantasize about extraordinary events, they pursue extraordinary things. There’s a sense that being extraordinary is worthwhile, that it sets one apart from the crowd, that it demands one go above and beyond the norm, that if you’re extraordinary, you’ve got something that everyone else wants, even if they aren’t willing to do what it takes to get it.

Yet, the nature of the word belies what it truly means to be extraordinary. Taken literally, it looks as though it’s simply the average plus a bit more, yet I doubt anyone would say “above average” is as good as “extraordinary”. It’s just plain more of the standard, the generic, the concept of normalcy taken seriously.

It’s in the pursuit of normalcy that I’m intending to leave Ithaca (and if you’re skilled at reading between the lines, you can see that I think highly of my path). I’ve mentioned it to some of you, but Colorado is my current destination. Whether I’ll make it there depends on a very large number of variables, but I have no intention of doing this half-assed or going any less than balls-deep with this plan. It should be noted that I’m not just hopping into a college dorm and living the life of my peers, but I’ll be working full-time for a year to attain residency, so I can start school up again, on my own steam.

Edumucations

I’ve often wondered how I came to learn much of what I know. More specifically, I’m intrigued by the processes I use to learn, rather than where I’ve learned it all – as the sources didn’t teach me how to seek knowledge, but instead just gave me the knowledge.

A standard practice of my learning is my utilization of a large variety of resources. It’s fascinating how many people I can talk to that will never interact with each other, and thus I can safely approach without fear of overlap, but still receive a wide variety of thoughts and experiences outside my own. My long-standing tendency to befriend people older than myself helps a lot with this, too.

Some of these are friends, whom aid by walking ahead of me (as the majority of my friends have been older than me, since the beginning) and allowing me to watch as they make lots of stupid mistakes. A few are mentors – not necessarily teachers, but the handful of guys I looked up to and seek out for advice and clarification. The last group would be my ‘audience’. The audience consists of all the people that get to experience the end product, and then supply feedback on where I am. These would be family, friends, acquaintances (peers and co-workers), and superiors (elders, teachers, bosses).

My process of learning begins before there’s even a real problem to address. At the earliest hint or inkling of any new issue, I inflate whatever I experience to what feels reasonable to me, in order to justify a measurable reaction. Reasonable is traditionally defined by how I see those I respect handle similar conflict within their lives – but as time marches on, I move closer to perceptual independence. I know that realistically, my situation is often a far cry from what most people are truly experiencing, thus when I set out to learn more about what a whole situation is about and how to deal with it, I preface everything with the knowledge that I’m young and inexperienced. The boons from this are twofold: my chosen teachers are more inclined to share what they have to know due to this candid confidence in them, and they’re also less likely to alter their translation in an attempt to appear more or less than what they truly are. If they know they’re not being judged for their views, but instead being relied on, they’re infinitely more willing to offer honest advice without consideration for bias. I can then make use of the availability of multiple extreme viewpoints, and taking them all into consideration, find the happy median, a balanced portion of everything I’ve heard.

Take a case example: for much of my early pubescence, I was entirely convinced of my need for some kind of romantic relationship. Some of the motivation for this could be cited towards bizarre parental relations (or lack thereof) in early youth, but looking back, it seems to me that I was attempting to tackle a problem that many men don’t ever figure out how to address, even into their last years. Spawned out of the rather irrational fear that I may have to deal with it for the rest of my life, I felt rushed to exterminate a weakness that I saw plaguing men greater than myself.

This is the formula I concocted, as best I can tell.

Step one: Encounter a new feeling that, ultimately, is insignificant. Examine it and compare it with what I know I could and should be feeling, were I in enhanced circumstances.

Two: Consider existing evidence on the matter and start watching others live out the situations I’m imagining myself in. It’s like living vicariously, but just taking notes on how other people are stupid and where I can afford to make mistakes. Once I’ve collected some concept of what’s normal and healthy, I start making more active efforts at addressing my self-made problem.

Three: Start discussing. Highly depending on the nature and sensitivity of the situation, but in general, I’ll find five different people I can trust to provide varied opinions on how reasonable my feelings are (remember that I’ve exaggerated everything in my head – what comes out to other people will sound significantly more realistic and reasonable than what I’m truly experiencing). A rough number, but I’ll keep talking until I feel satiated in the amount of information I’ve collected and the perspectives I’ve both assumed and received on the situation. I’ll process the information over (most typically) a week.

Four: Settle on one person to bring all my findings to that I haven’t talked to yet and present my situation and conclusions, but offered in the same manner as with my other friends – a dire need for advice, regardless of what I’ve learned thus far.

Five: Adjust, adapt, and record. I’ve successfully learned how to solve a problem that I haven’t experienced. By amplifying all my feelings in the situation and imagining myself in more epic circumstances than exist in reality, I push my perspective to a place that it won’t otherwise go.

People do a lot of things that they never realize.

I think too much.

Centrism

As children, the primary goal for our elders is to show us, by whatever means necessary, that the world does not revolve around us. Cultural nuances are what these people are attempting to instill within us: standards of common courtesy & manners, tradition, honor & respect. These form the foundation necessary for normal interaction within one’s world. How one creates and defines one’s world is another ocean of intrigue entirely – today, I ponder upon the evolution of our idea of self, among a sea of other selfs.

Generally, we define assholes by their sense of self versus our own and/or those we care for. How dare he let his dog shit on your lawn? What did his mother ever teach him? Probably nothing, lol.

I’m more and more convinced that personality is a matter of how well one can alter one’s perspective at will. This ability is more commonly known as keeping an open mind – but so many are convinced that the expansion of the mind is more related to politics, than to every day interactions, that few even ponder the true depth of such a concept. The open-minded person is capable of empathizing and sympathizing with every person and every situation with the fullest extent of his or her heart. This is an ability most often attributed and reserved for therapists, yet why would we try and treat such a fantastic trait with such aloof disdain by quarantining it to something so limited as a counseling session?

kaika_sk: I guess it is because of my interest in psychology that I love learning about people.
salandarin: exaaaactly
kaika_sk: Its kind of a hobby, I observe people everywhere I go.
kaika_sk: Probably why I tend to troll the forums instead of posting.
salandarin: i enjoy both sides of the equation. observing other people as they react to me allows me to observe myself in a more objective manner, but i get to learn about other people and myself at the same time
salandarin: i like to think of each interaction as a chance to improve on the last one
salandarin: constant state of improvement!
kaika_sk: *nods* That makes sense.
salandarin: it’s kind of like the real-life RPG 😉
salandarin: i wish more people thought of life like that.
salandarin: which might sound kind of conceited, but a lot of people have given up on improvement and growth
salandarin: and instead are just gunning for breaking even, survival
kaika_sk: I agree, I mean, I think too many people are not really seeing the bigger picture.
salandarin: i sort of understand – experiencing just two weeks of constant work work work work gave me a real case of tunnel-vision, it’s so easy just to get lost in the details of life
salandarin: life can be lonely and embittering if you don’t keep perspective
kaika_sk: Well, I think right now for myself, I am in the survival mode, but more so because of my financial situation, I just don’t have the time or energy for more.

This is my point. Why do we lose sight of self-improvement? The primary focus of our social education in youth is how to play nice with others. Yet once that eighteen or so years of learning are done, we somehow come to accept that “people are the way they are”, that who we’ve become by the time we have our degree is who we’ll be, for the most part, to our death-beds. It’s a state of docile acceptance: we treat our personalities and our perspectives as concrete, immovable objects that cannot be improved or harmed. Our environments and circumstances only “unlock” certain aspects of ourselves, good and bad (such as depression or contentment). Why are we content with what’s enough to make it through life, when we could be emotional and social giants, building each other up with even the most minute interactions?

Idealism sucks balls.

Death.

I was prompted to do this from a post on Eileen’s blog, but for different reasons than hers. This was also encouraged by an introductory thing we did as we’re starting Macbeth in English. We listened to famous audio clips from musicians who died young, while showing pictures of them and explaining how they died. I mused to myself how much it would suck to be them. I’ve never wanted fame or fortune (although money for the random things in life would be great), just from examples like all these people who chased after really retarded stuff in a vain search for happiness. I didn’t make this to mock those who have died in useless pursuits of satisfaction, though.

As I was pondering a comment to Eileen’s post, I got thinking a little bit. I’ve never really talked about death on here before, I figured it was long enough and fit for this context. Death has never really scared me. I look forward to it, in some ways, but that desire comes out of my faith, not from some emo self-preservation issue. In the same way, death around me doesn’t really scare me either. It may be a callous look on things, but I get tired of people saying the same things over and over again when it comes to others dying. National or international tragedies leave me highly unsympathetic due to the reactions I see around me. Very few people actually care, most pretend, or care out of obligation. This is not to say they shouldn’t care, but some elements of the facade could be done without. For me, dropping a dollar in the bucket for a charity just doesn’t make me feel like I’ve done my duty to help those in tragedy. I remember the school-run charities during Middle School when 9-11 hit, and giving a few dollars to get the neat-o red-white-n’-blue ribbons they were handing out for donations of more than 10 cents. Perhaps it’s the only thing I CAN or COULD do, but it doesn’t change that “I want to do something a little more” feeling. I doubt that will ever change. When/if I donate, I don’t do it out of a guilty conscience, but out of duty and the knowledge that it would help.

Back to the real point. Death. I don’t know about most of you, but death just doesn’t phase me. I don’t hold a lot of attachment to this life – most of it is spent working so that I can rest. Ironic, no? If anyone I was remotely attached to died, I’d be sad, don’t mistake what I’m saying for a lack of caring. What I would NOT do, is make bad resolutions to not make the same mistake most people do, which is not to live life to their potential. I’m not a fan of cheesy (no matter how dire or set in stone you may seem at the time) resolutions, either. The only thing I fear? Pain. A gun to the head doesn’t scare me, but drowning has the potential to make me quiver. Why? It would be pain that can’t even be soothed or aided, unstoppable, while you get to contemplate what happens to you in three more minutes. Another good example for this? Cancer. Cancer doesn’t scare me. The treatment does. The stories I hear about chemotherapy and radiation therapy really don’t sound pleasant to me. Sure, the cancer itself aint a walk in the park, but I somehow doubt it would cause the same kind of pain.

Enough of my musings, go do something else.

Category: philosophy