The Self-Conscious Sceptic

Freedom

2008-12-30T22:21:00.007-05:00

"Everywhere man is free, but everywhere he is in chains." With this phrase, Jean Jacques Rousseau was immortalized in the minds of moderns.

Freedom is based on the sovereignty of the individual. For this reason, it is defined in the negative sense--as freedom from (namely state interference). However, the modern individual is chained to behaviours, psychic automatisms and duties that require the repression of natural urges and wills. These are the requirements, or the price to pay, to be a member of society. They represent the social contract.

Nietzsche, the therapist of modern culture, begs his disciples to be free. And he is very explicit in how he wants them to be free:

You call yourself free? Your dominant thought I want to hear, and not that you have escaped from a yoke. Are you one of those who had the right to escape from a yoke? There are some that through away their last value when they threw away their servitude.

Free from what? As if that mattered to Zarathustra! But your eyes should tell me brightly: free FOR what?

What is the significance of this passage? What is Nietzsche's intention?

Freedom from is meaningless. Nothing is anything solved by running away.

Freedom for what? Free because the fate of humanity hasn't been written by a divine hand up in the sky. Free because there are many alternatives to our current reality. Not for a revaluation of values where right means left and left means right. But for a radical revaluation of values, beyond good and evil. Free for the future.

In Nietzsche's view, philosophising is not about uncovering its "truth", but about finding "health, future, growth, power, life." We cannot justify humanity by finding its purpose or meaning. Rather, we have to create our purpose and meaning.

We can't just run away from the mess we created. We must take a step-- No. We must LEAP into the unknown, become comfortable with uncertainty, and become the legislators and judges of a new set of values. For this reason, we are free.

Immortality

2008-03-28T20:05:00.004-04:00

In his novel Immortality, Milan Kundera writes that "the face is only the serial number of the specimen." He says that figuring out our identity is to get over the surprise that the face we see in the mirror is just the outcome of an accidental string of events. And we don't just have to realize this, we have to identify with it; we need to believe that the who we present to others is unique and has an essence. Consequently, we don't simply have to identify with ourselves, we need to do passionately - to the point of life and death.

We, therefore, seek to immortalize our essence through speech and action. We go to great lengths to ensure that the image we present to the world is one we wish to be remembered by. The problem is, according to Kundera, that we have no control over how we will be perceived once we have passed. While we may believe strongly in our greatness, piety, or moral superiority, we may just be seen as an arrogant SOB.

All this to say, no matter how passionately you defend your cause or try to convert people to it, actions speak louder than words. Rather than piss people off, do what you believe in, and some are sure to notice and hopefully be inspired to do something too.

More on (anti-) consumerism...

2008-03-26T21:54:00.003-04:00

Planet Green says, find happiness without buying it.

A suggestion made is to imagine you have no money and ask yourself what you would do to make yourself happy. Rather than focus on material accumulation, they suggest spending time with friends, or enjoying nature.

You know one thing I'm sure many of us would not do if we had no money (or needed it) is work, especially at a monotonous, boring job, sitting in front of a screen, breathing in bad air and dealing with annoying people.

Although we know the things we buy won't bring lasting happiness, if we labour to satisfy the life process (i.e our 'needs'), and try to restrict ourselves from buying stuff, then it's like, what are we working for? As mentioned in a previous post, being a labourer means being a consumer. Therefore, if you're anti-consumerist, your labouring almost becomes meaningless and it's all the more boring and depressing. So, my point is, if there is something wrong with consumerism, it's because there is something wrong with the labour process.

Feminism is dead

2008-03-04T14:27:00.005-05:00

Ask some people how they feel about feminism and they'll say, “Feminism is dead. It’s accomplished.” However, while women (insert any power minority) have a great deal more political equality than a hundred years ago, they still lack social equality. That is, people's identity, i.e. race, gender, sexual orientation, puts them at a social (dis)advantage. While quotas in the workplace can be dangerous and ineffective in that they risk reducing equality to a common denominator, to deny someone a job because they have a vagina (or are black or gay), is to treat them adversely because of a common denominator.

Contrary to popular belief, feminism does not base equality on sameness. Feminists believe that equality should be based on distinctiveness. However, feminists resist the argument put forth by those who fear feminism that the distinctiveness of women should be based on traditionally inscribed gender roles. To do so is to contradict one’s argument for distinctiveness because it reduces women to a common denominator (their vagina). Furthermore, the problem with basing gender-equality on traditional gender roles is that the traits and characteristics, even “virtues,” traditionally associated with women is that they are not valued in society.

A consequence of this devaluation has been the association of femininity with weakness/inferiority which has become accepted by society as natural and normal. Not only is this demeaning to women in that it imposes artificial limits on what they can achieve or who they can be, it is also demeaning to men because it reveals the instability of their masculinity. Put differently, if women pretend to be less intelligent or less strong than men, to maintain consciously the illusion of weakness in relation to men – in order to make men feel more secure about their masculinity – then masculinity and its associations with strength and superiority are undermined.

Consequently, although political equality has been achieved, it is not meaningful unless society’s assumptions have also changed.

Oh, the humour!

2008-02-27T22:17:00.004-05:00

I'm surrounded by a bunch of hippies who don't want to buy into the 'machine,' or the 'corporation.' These people who deem themselves anti-consumerist seek to emancipate the labouring classes around the globe through fair trade and sweat-free production. Oh, the fallacy! What they don't realise is that being a labourer = being a consumer. You labour to produce products that you then consume to sustain yourself so that you can then wake up the next day and go labour again. It's an endless process.

What Nunavut and Africa need are jobs! They need to labour, so that they can then be free and buy things. And people in Asia and South America need unions and labour laws to ensure that they have adequate time to spend their hard earned money, because, you know, we don't want their blood, sweat and tears to be in vain.

There are real social issues beyond my sarcasm. However, my point is that the notion of 'emancipation' of the labouring classes, while considered a challenge to the status quo, relies precisely on the fact that we are consumers. In making labour more fair and equitable, we aren't emancipating ourselves from labour and our consumerism, we're only making these very processes run more smoothly, and, in doing so, we only perpetuate the endless cycle of production and consumption.