PHILOSOPHICAL
REFLECTIONS
Jan Vis, creative philosopher
Since the philosophy is not there for a
few privileged, but for all people, is the quote from the article simply
allowed. Sources, however, is appreciated. (Jan Vis, creative philosopher)
To other articles in Dutch: Conditionering ; Robot denken ; Op de vlucht voor je eigen denken ; Het gelijk en de dialoog ; Eenzaamheid en onvrijheid ; Het toenemend belang van het Atheďsme ; Geen God wat dan ; Godsdienst en Geloof
; Evolutie of Creatie ; De fundamentele intolerantie van de Godsdienst
; God bestaat niet ; Bedreiging van het
vrijdenken en het atheďsme ; De verdedigers van de Godsdienst ; Waarom is de Islam als godsdienst tegen de Westerse
Wereld..? zie no. 27. ; Toch nog een Theocratie- zie afl. 18 ; Ongewenst atheďsme- zie afl. 32 ; Verbieden van de godsdienst..?-zie afl. 21
; Hoe zit het
nou met god ; Discrimineert / onderdrukt de Westerse Cultuur..? zie
aflevering 60 / 61 ; Waarom is de Islam als godsdienst tegen de Westerse
Wereld ..? zie no. 27 ; De Islam ; Het staat in
de Koran- zie aflevering 36 ; De heilige wet-De Sjari’a
; Burqa, volg bladwijzer ; Nihilisme ; De
ontwikkeling van het denken ; De Vrede ; Conditionering en De
ontwikkeling van de West Europese Cultuur(zie links: te erg/te veel en
dubbelhartigheid ) ; Behoort Israël tot de Westerse Cultuur- zie aflevering 60…-onderdrukking van de Palestijnen, ; Kunnen Moslims zich invoegen in de Moderne cultuur..? – aflevering no. 37, ; Terrorisme / Taliban ; Hoe zit het nou
met Jahweh, God en Allah ; Een
korte schets van de menselijke sexualiteit
; Cultuur Filosofische Opmerkingen
;
Another article in
English: A Reflection on Individualism ;
Chapters:
1. The society as an object for making profit
2. Scientific philosophy
3. Search for reality
4. Serving society
5. Para-philosophers
6. What did philosophers study
7. A wrong belief
8. One philosophical truth
9. Description of the reality of
consciousness
10. Man doesn't really want a
good world
11. Individual development
12. About modern arts
13. Magna Mater
14. Banalities in western
theology
15. Theodicee
16. Social animal
17. Herd animal
18. The freedom of man
19. The upper-class and the
revolution
20. Look out for planners!
21. Modern slavery
22. Conversion to human
proportions
23. Recognized jobs
24. Technics and
technology
25. Technology
26. Communication
27. A question of
freedom
28. Religion versus
freedom
29. A question of
individualism
30. On atheism
31. More about atheism
32. Nihilism versus
indifference
33. Violent nihilism
34. Nihilism is positive
35. Religion and free
will
36. Humanity and values
37. The possession of
only the necessary goods
38. Equal distribution
39. Ideals and
ideologies
40. The significance of things
41. About the notion
'sign'.
42. The arts and their
value
43. Philosophy and
science
44. Understandable
language
45. Unconditional truth
46. Unbroken reality
47. Self-supporting
philosophy
48. Art as an expression
of the truth
49. Reality as idea
50. Reflection number nine
51. The carpenter and the
artist
52. A matter of
subjectivity
53. Philosophy is
stirring up things
54. Trustworthy
knowledge
55. Religious theories
56. To see reality
57. The modern-western
approach
58. A culture full of
rubbish
59. A deceptive hold
60. An inevitable accident
61. Living after living
62. Man and his Karma
63. The aim of life
64. Man's only tool is
thinking
65. The aimless human
being
66. The divine world
67. Religions as
institutes of power
68. Intuitive
self-knowledge
69. The supernatural
world
70. The reincarnation of the devil
71. A beautiful
invention
72. The powerful man
73. A strange
consequence
74. The human world as
a product
75. A mediocre world
76. The miscalculation
of socialism
77. The obstructing
rulers
78. The justification
of the rulers
79. Democratic
criterion
80. Awareness of true humanity
81. Anarchism versus
anarchy
82. Anarchy
83. The most effective
order
84. Demanding socialism
85. The unconditional
right to live
86. Myself as the only
criterion
87. There is but one
mysterious certainty
88. Three kinds of
certainty
89. Uncertain relations
90. Threatening knowledge
91. Overriding status
92. Mysterious
substance
93. Atomos
94. A volatile reality
95. Standstill of the
particles
96. Religion as
degenerated insight
97. Solipsism
98. Analytic thinking
as a social power
99. Power for the best
100. Power and dullness
101. The fairy tale of the
higher reality
102. Immaturity and power
103. Our world isn't worth
a penny!
104. Equality means
worthlessness
105. Spanning the gap
106. Warlike individualism
107. Nationalism and
genocide
108. Blut
und Boden
109. Authenticity
110. Frightening
liberation movements
111. Ancient Greek versus
Western democracy
112. Favors
and privileges
113. Pre-arranged
liberty
114. A clear outlook
on reality
115. The start of
inquiry
116. The relation
between reality and practice
117. The beginning of
modern times
118. Intuitive
knowledge
119. Scientific
knowledge
120. Two one-sided
developments
121. A badly needed
synthesis
122. A realistic
representation
123.
Consciousness as immanent vibration
124. Psyche as
body language
125. The notion
'warmth'
126. Psychical
communications
127. Modern
normative arguments
128. Philosophy
is one of the arts
129. A strange
kind of objectivity
130. Philosophy without discussions
131. Useless arts
and philosophy
132. Psyche's
functioning
133. Degeneration
of the psyche
134. The deceptive
mind
135. The notions
'sin' and 'guilt'
136. Man's own
decision
137. The breaking
of the whole
Back to: HOME
1. The society as an object for making profit
From the moment modern man definitively did his
entrance in the second half of the 20th century something changed in the
attitude of men facing the society. Unnoticed men began to think that society
is an object for making money, a good manner to get rich. Society became an
individual possibility for profit.
Before this one tried to make money by doing business
with other people with the intention to ruin the other men as soon and as
thoroughly as possible. Apart from that there was also a period which was
characterized by the plunder of the earth. Of course this is still going on and
in an intense degree. But something is added: the plunder of the society.
Earlier the opinion was that the society had to cover all individuals with the
dedication to promote the well-being of everyone, but nowadays almost everyone tries
to earn big money from the whole. The individual wants to make money out of it.
And if he does not succeed, then he is not willing to offer services to the
society. It is not worth the trouble.
There are more than enough examples: the railways have
to be lucrative, while in former times men considered them as a public service
that had to promote the quality of the society. There is no longer a public
interest, it is only the profit for shareholders and bankers that counts.
Previously it was permitted that railways cost some money. The government had a
fund for it. But today everything has changed….
2. Scientific philosophy
With the philosophy it has gone downhill in a very
woeful way. At first sight you would not believe it, because the philosophical
faculties at the universities can gladden themselves in a great amount of
students. The profession philosophy got lost of its dusty image and even the
philosopher enjoys some respect. Sometimes it even happens that he is asked for
advice in matters of social and moral nature. And the study and practice of
philosophy offers a lot of young people a good instrument to understand the
world around and to make it possible to deal with it. From that point of view
it may be strange that I still emphasize that it is miserably stated with the
contemporary philosophy. What is the case?
It is the task of philosophy to answer the fundamental
question 'what is the reality'? The object of the philosopher's thinking is
consequently only the reality and nothing else. He tries to find out how
reality is. Insofar it is understandable that there is a great need for
philosophy, because the modern world is extremely tangled and obscure. In
modern thinking the question how reality is seems to be asked, but that is
nothing but appearance. One thinks to seek for the reality, but in fact one
does not since a long time. Our modern way of analytic thinking lets the
philosopher but one possibility, namely that his question only is related to
the scientific reality, a more or less reliable theory about the reality. As a
consequence it is impossible for him to say with certainty what is the case
with the reality, because scientific knowledge is necessarily true until
further notice. That makes scientific knowledge useless for philosophical
thinking as a personal search for absolute truth. It is possible that the real
philosopher never will find that truth, but it is still his aim to search for
it. Modern philosophers do not know how to handle this problem and therefore
they fly into the security of scientific studies of statements of other
thinkers. By doing so they make a farce of their own profession, but on the
other hand I must admit that it gives them a higher social status. The real
philosopher is always more or less an outcast because of his uncommonly
critical attitude against men and society.
3. Search for reality
Even if you suppose that it will never be possible to
know all about reality - and there are good arguments for it, because your
description of it is inevitable rather rough- the task of the philosophy still
remains to find out what is the ground and the character of the world of
phenomena. It doesn't help you to fly to scientific knowledge. There are two
possibilities to gain knowledge about reality, namely, first to make scientific
researches and, second, to think as logic and independent as possible. But in
the first case all knowledge is part of a analyzed
notion of reality and therefore misleading. In the second case on the contrary
the difficulty is the question how to find a tenable criterion for certainty.
Just like in arts you are always confronted with the
necessity of going further. Every moment in time must be considered as a new
starting-point for your thinking, but at the same time the coherence of
everything must be remained. In modern science this coherence gets lost by the
analysis, however in philosophy coherence is a must because you cannot think of
one thing without thinking of the other at the same time.
4. Serving society
Indeed there has been a time that people found it
normal that society had to be served by the politicians. Even today politicians
try to convince you of their being 'called for the high post' of serving their
country. Of course nowadays it is a lie! Politicians are not called and the
highness of their job means nothing but a high level of their salaries and a
lot of other privileges. Society is a good object for making profit because
there is hardly any competition. Together with their friends they can decide
about production and prices. Thinking that society has to be served is a
consequence of thinking in collectives. Then it is reasonable that the
individual is submitted to the whole of society. In fact he or she exists to
the benefit of something else: community! Then it is considered as an honour to
be a useful member of it. But, with the awakening of individualism there is no
feeling left for this noble ideas so that nearly everyone tries to take
advantage of the big market that community seems to be. Seems, because in the
end the result of this behaviour is pauperism for everybody.
5. Para-philosophers
Some modern academic philosophers have taken the
insolence of calling non-academic philosophers 'amateurs' , 'outsiders' and
even 'para-philosophers'. That name refers to the parapsychology and that
psychology is considered as an unreliable kind of science. It is
pseudo-science! That means that non-academic philosophers are considered as
more or less betrayers and above all it gives you the suggestion that there is
no philosophy but academic philosophy!
Not only this is an extraordinary haughty point of
view, but it is also conflicting with nearly the whole philosophical tradition.
Philosophy has always been a way of pure thinking without the use of acquired
knowledge. Pure philosophy is not based on what one believes to know, even if
this knowledge has proved itself as absolute reliable. Of course there is
nothing against it but to find an answer to the question 'how is reality' it is
insufficient. Philosophy is autonomous and finds the truth in itself.
Remarkable is that many contemporary academic philosophers did not at all study
philosophy as an art of free thinking, but as an analytic study about
philosophy! So, as a kind of study of literature. And based hereupon they
produce a design of a critical survey of same philosophical theme. Most of them
however studied not any form of philosophy at all but other disciplines like
law, theology, mathematics and so on. That is fully understandable because philosophical
thinking cannot be learned like you learn a language or something like that. It
is a gift that only can be developed in yourself by constant asking questions
about reality.
6. What did philosophers study
Wittgenstein for example was an engineer who did
research in the technics of aircraft construction. Later indeed he studied
philosophy with Bertrand Russell in Cambridge,
but that study was mainly based on mathematics. Popper was a qualified teacher
in mathematics and exact natural science and he also was a cabinet-maker. Of
course there is nothing wrong with that, but the question is: how did a famous
philosopher like Karl Popper develop his thinking? And the answer is: by
constant asking questions about reality!
There is no academic possibility to study how to
become a philosopher and I mean a real philosopher. Evenso
it is impossible to be promoted on your own thinking. So there can be but one
conclusion: philosophy is always and inevitable a non-academic activity. And it
is very unfair to require an academic study from philosophers to accept them as
qualified thinkers. The truth of their ideas has to appear only from the
logical coherence of the train of thought of their thinking.
7. A wrong belief
The academic study of philosophy is just like all
other studies: one gets an extensive survey of the contemporary philosophy and
the history of it. This survey makes it possible to compare all different ideas
and from that one can develop same new insights about philosophical thoughts,
but inevitable these are not insights in the reality. They are acquainted with
the science of philosophy but not with philosophy herself.
Nowadays the general idea is that reality only can be
discovered by scientific analyses. And such an analysis has to be in accordance
with a lot of directions and criteria, once formulated by important leading
groups of scientists. Acting in accordance with that directions is considered
as a guaranty for reliability. Every deviation is of the devil. This means that
new ideas and theories can hardly become any acknowledgment until new groups of
leading scientists declare that indeed there is a necessity for adjusting the
directions and criteria. Of course this leads to adjustment of several theories
too.
In academic philosophy one acts also like this: the
ideas about and the interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy are at the
moment different from those of say 50 years ago. The philosophical truth seems
to be variable. The truth of yesterday is an other than the truth of today. So
the philosophers adjust their ideas, just like scientists. The philosophers
believe that it is good to maintain an enormous collection of criteria for
philosophical ways of thinking. And remark that these criteria are very
familiar to mathematical criteria. One believes that this gives modern
philosophy a high standard of reliability. But this belief is wrong…!
8. One philosophical truth
In fact there is only but one
philosophical truth. Reality is like she is and it is impossible to think of
two or more realities. Several thinkers assert there are many realities, as
many as there are men, but they do not understand the difference between the
reality itself and the perception of reality as it exists in everybody's brain.
Those images indeed are as numerous as people. But reality itself can be but
one constellation of movements, energies and material elements. There is but
one truth about this system of energetic processes.
An other question is whether or not we succeed in understanding
and describing this always moving energetic system. Modern philosophers find it
impossible and it is a fact that modern scientific methods are insufficient. So
they are right when they deny the possibility of understanding reality. Their
solution to this problem is to switch to scientific analytic philosophy,
because then they can fix their attention to the various notions of reality.
It is very difficult to convince modern
thinkers of the fact that you can indeed discover the truth about reality. And
it is much more difficult to make them understand that there are no criteria
outside one's own thinking. Within thinking itself exists the truth, but alas
our culture has no confidence in one's own mind. There has to be evidence from
outside, facts that can be checked in an objective way. Criteria like the inner
cohesion of one's ideas, thoughts and visions are not accepted, but are
considered as subjective. However it is a fact that there can be no truth
outside man's brain, just because men is the ultimate product of all the cosmic
processes. And in that quality man includes all existential varieties, with
this consequence that he can become aware of all the basic forms and situations
of reality.
9. Description
of the reality of consciousness
In fact philosophy is not a science but a
kind of art. Just like artists philosophers - I mean real creative philosophers
- try to get a clear view on reality behind the diverse notions in the human
perception. These notions are like photographs: they offer you only a more or
less truthful picture of your own world, at a certain moment and at a certain
place. It is nothing but your own 'reality' that exists in your perception. But
beyond that picture there is something else: a view of a universal world which
includes in a coherent way all the nuances of the energetic structure of
reality. Because it is a matter of 'nuances' it is not handling about 'this'
tree or 'that' house, but only of the idea or notion 'tree' or 'house'.
Artists of all times have always spoken of
'reality beyond reality' and they were convinced of its absolute truth. And
indeed this beautiful and truthful world is the only real connection with
reality. Not the scientific researches bring us real awareness of the true
world. They offer you the 'details' of reality, but not the 'nuances'. They are
only useful to discover fixed material phenomena, they tell us how the
composition of the material world is. In the future without any doubt they will
show us exactly the basic elements of the cosmos. But it will never be possible
for them to give us a true 'image', 'idea', of reality.
An idea is not analyzed,
it is not an assembly of detached fractions and its inner relations cannot be
calculated. It is a fully cohesive reality without any separation between one
thing and another. There is no border between them. The major characteristic is
its inner harmony. That is the reason why artists always have spoken of its
perfect beauty…
That image or idea exists in everybody.
It is the consciousness of man. And that
consciousness is absolute universal. Scientific knowledge seems to be
universal, but that is not the case. In fact it is the world-wide agreement of
scientists and other people, with a number of scientific criteria and rules,
that gives us the impression of universality. Arts however are fully based on
man's consciousness and it is obvious that they are really universal. It is to
say: the real arts and not the majority of modern playing with artistic ideas.
The real world of art is the same as the real
world of philosophy. In philosophy you give an intellectual description of the
universal reality and you try to do it as clearly and logically as possible.
The most truthful and beautiful description is tomorrow's, because the
philosopher always can go further on, just like the true artist. But also like
in arts every moment of the philosophers development is a moment of truth. The
first more or less primitive creations of the beginning artist are already
beautiful, therefore he is an artist. Once an artist, always and in everything
an artist! And with philosophy it is the same, or better: it has to be the same
but alas modern philosophy is of ten far from that…
10. Man doesn't
really want a good world
It is obvious that since the nineteenth
century there is an important progress in the standard of living in the western
world. The improvement of the state of health and education and in general the
social circumstances cannot be compared with those of the former centuries.
Important is the push back of the power of the religions, but of course the
activities of socialists and other liberal idealists have also been of great
influence. However, in general the new conception of human ability to build a
perfect new world with his own hands, based on and according to scientific
knowledge, is considered to be the real basic cause of the improvements.
The Age of Enlightenment had begun! One
believed that it would be sufficient to have a clear and logical blueprint of a
future society. Then the creation of that society would be a matter of time and
hard labour, in combination with reasonable human rights and a peaceful
coexistence of peoples and the nations. Of course people had to be educated,
not by teaching the opinions of preachers and other believers, but by
practising logic thinking. They believed a good world could be made indeed.
From that moment on all human activities seemed to be concentrated upon the
building of that beautiful new world. It was really a beautiful belief which
held out for two centuries.
Consequently thinking, nowadays, after
about two centuries of working on that beautiful dream, there should be a far
better world with reasonable behaviour of the leaders, care for nature and
support of the poor. But first of all it should be impossible that there is
still a third world overflowing with poverty and sorrow. The influence of
religion with its foolish ideas should have been liquidated. And also wars
should be impossible and the gap between the poor and the rich was closed a
long time ago…
But you cannot find anything of it at all!
It is perfectly clear that there is something wrong with the development of th at modern world. The general explanation of this
unexpected contradiction is that the construction of a new world is too
difficult to make a fast progress. And they also say that everybody is doing
his best but that there are always egoistic and asocial elements who disturb
the good work. So the general notion still is that it is true that since the
beginning of the 19th century man began to build a good world, in accordance
with the Enlightenment as a new phase of
the western culture. Unfortunately it was but a dream! And the truth is:
the building of a new and better world for all people was absolute not the
intention! It was on the other hand exclusively the intention of the individual
to realize himself as an owner of the world. The aim of modern man is not a
better world for all people, but only for himself and his clan. And it is
nothing but a lucky secondary circumstance for the others that they got a
better life.
11. Individual
development
In the 19th century the western culture
became effective after ages of trying and constant failure. That culture
contains the birth and development of man as an individual. Man becomes aware
of himself as a unique phenomenon between all the others. It is logical that at
first he has no thought for the others as equals. They are less important,
compared by himself. It is only 'me' that counts. So the development as an
individual person can be considered as a ruthless egoistic process, based upon
the notion of man as a 'particular' individual. What in economics and politics
is called 'capitalism' is the concrete realization of that notion.
The first phase of that process is the
aspiration to obtain as big a part of the world as possible, one way or
another. One has the feeling that the having of goods
gives the freedom to realize himself as an individual person, a
'particularity'. You have to admit that riches indeed leads to nearly unlimited
freedom! But of course it is a shabby form of freedom, because of the necessity
of continuously struggling for obtaining and maintaining that riches and power.
However, in the eyes of that new individual that struggle is always preferable
above being thrown in slavery because of poverty.
The background of this asocial behaviour
is the fact that man, being the ultimate result of the cosmic processes, in
principle is the master of all there is. That means that all the forms of existence
are included in the human phenomenon. He experiences that fact as an inner need
to come into possession of that content. So he gets to work…
When this human phenomenon becomes aware
of himself he is in fact a world conqueror who begins to snap up everything. In
the beginning concrete parts of his planet like countries and mineral
resources, later on in more abstract forms like money. And the most modern form
is knowledge.
However, to realize this aim he needs more
and more the support of other people and especially of those who are able to
work for him. Labour after all is the perfect way to obtain as much riches as
possible. Of course sick and paupered workers are of
no value, so our new individual starts a program of making life better for the
workers and their families. It is pure self-interest to do so !
This is the background for the better
circumstances of life of the western working-class: the realization of man as a
particular, individual person and the necessity of using well educated and healthy
other persons to obtain that goal. But it is by no means the objective and
unselfish strive after the creation of a fair world. On the contrary: western
development is totally based upon the conquering of a great part of the world.
And of course of making money. This is, on the other hand, the reason for the
poverty of so many people, for the injustice and all the cruel wars. But at the
same time this in principle negative case leads unintentional, slow but sure,
to better circumstances for lots of people all over the world. It is a
remarkable paradox that up till now a better world is a result of an egoistic
negative process, that by no means is due to the activities of an idealistic
upper class of, for example, socialists and other children of the Enlightenment.
However there is also the real positive fact that in the end everything, after
a very long and difficult way, will be turned over to a real human world with
responsible individuals who have discovered that their own existence includes
the unconditional right of the others to exist as well.
12. About modern
arts
A work of art speaks for itself, there is
no need for an explanation: the real language of art is universal. Of course
literature, for example, has to be translated and sometimes a painting shows a
kind of snapshot based upon certain circumstances. Paintings of older days are
often what photographs are today and then it needs some explanation. But the
essential message of real art has nothing to do with that 'snapshot-function'.
It is also a fact that some artistic forms can be difficult to appreciate when
you are not acquainted with them. That is often the case with music. Then you
have to listen carefully and very often. The only way to get acquainted with
arts is continuously observing and listening. The old Chinese philosophers
said: "When you wish to learn shooting the bow, you have to shoot
bow". Never any explanation like reading books, analysis of a work of art
or the following of artistic courses can make you understand it. Therefore but
one thing is necessary: the understanding of the universal language of arts.
It is the reality beyond the concrete
things that is expressed by the arts and that is an universal reality. It is
not the world of 'this and that' but a reality of general comprehension: not
'this' tree, but 'tree' as an essence of the tree.
Just because of this abstract condition of
the arts there can be a universal understanding and enjoyment.
Most modern arts cannot give you a
universal notion of the essential world, because they are expression of an analyzed reality. However, it is inevitable that, at the
same time with the analysis, that essential coherent world disappears.
Unfastened elements are unable to show the original cohesion of reality and
with the lose of that cohesion every shadow of
universality has gone into the fog. So, although modern art can incidental give
you nice feelings and emotions, it is absolutely incapable to speak for itself,
to speak that universal language without any need of explanation. It can enjoy
you and make you happy or give you a sad feeling, but never it can give you
universal understanding and enjoyment. It is understandable that nearly every
work of modern art goes accompanied with detailed comments. In particular
musical composers have 'more to say than to play': they tell you long and
boring stories about their work. They do not play their 'music' before you are
fully brainwashed and crazy because of their endless fine talks. Their making
music has changed into some form of theory, it has become an intellectual
pretension of making music. And you have to admit that they do it with great
passion. Even you can say that they pretčnd to make
music with great competence and integrity! And by no means it is true that they
should catch you by doing so. Of course there are exceptions…
13. Magna Mater
Religion is originally based upon a view
that man had on reality. Not a view on gods or other higher realities. And it
was undoubtedly an atheistic vision! One understood that the origins of the
phenomena could not be of normal material nature with properties as there are
form, weight, dimension, colour and so on. And also that this not-material
world logically must be indeterminated. It had to be
considered as timeless, infinite and also mobile and volatile. This reality was
called 'god', or something like that, and one saw it as a feminine reality
because, like a mother, it brings forth all the existing things. Indeed it was
the 'mother' of the universe and therefore one called her Magna Mater. She was
also associated with a big womb. But notice well that people didn't 'believe'
in her, like people in the modern world believe in their gods as higher powers.
The term Magna Mater was nothing more than a name, used to typify a certain
situation of the reality.
This Magna Mater had nothing to do with
power to control all things and living creatures, but on the other hand she was
present in all things and lives. Nothing was conceivable without this Magna
Mater. Just because of this situation it is even impossible to be powerful, for
power prerequisites distance between object and subject. Here however we have
to do with the unity of both and that excludes every form of power and
oppression. So it was not an almighty goddess!
The so-called Magna Mater has no masculine
principle next to her because she is the only and exclusive reality. So there
is nothing that can impregnate her: she creates out off
hers elf without any intercourse of something masculine.
That is the image of the virgin with her
child. All over the world you find old stories about the virgin and of course
the reason is that all over the world men understood that reality cannot be
impregnated by some principle from outside. In fact this idea makes the
existence of masculine extern gods impossible!
The western, from origin Jewish god, that
causes all the phenomena from outside and above is impossible within the
interpretation of the reality of that aid cultures. In fact such a god is in
general fully impossible, for there cannot be anything above and outside
reality and reality cannot be something else than feminine. If that masculine
god should exist he would only exist within that feminine reality, but in that
case there was no need to beličve in him: we could know
him in a scientific way, like all other phenomena. But that is, as we all know,
absolutely not the case.
The western religions, including the
Islam, force people to believe in impossible gods. Most western thinkers do not
know, or have forgotten, that this so-called gods are a corrupt vision on aid,
in fact atheistic, feminine notions of reality. That old notions are fully
understandable when you take in consideration that in farmer cultures man was
thinking in images and not in scientific formulas. Certain ideas about reality
were translated into images, or tales or songs. They became artistic
performances and it was the language people could understand.
The events that occur in those
performances did not happen in reality, but in fantasy. They were meant to make
something clear and not to give a report of certain concrete happenings.
14. Banalities
in western theology
In western culture only concrete things can
exist. Even so called abstractions are in their own way concrete, insofar they
are deduced from real existing, demonstrable and measurable phenomena. So it is
not surprising that for western understanding all events in old myths and
legends must have been really happening. There were gods who created the world,
there were virgins with sons, there were sons of gods, holy spirits and many
other divine creatures. And all of them once existed! Do you believe it?
Of course for the churches it is very
difficult to prove that all those things are real! Therefore it is just the
case to believe it. People are forced to believe in it. To take it for the
truth. The essence of the western religions is that the people accepts the
truth of the stories which are told. And the religious truth is that all events
really happened.
This so-called historical correctness must
convince people.
And it does!
When you listen to a priest or other
preacher it is easy to conclude that they always tell you stories about events and that they try to explain
where those events took place. They tell you the details and the causal
connections. But you will never hear anything about the possible real universal
meaning of the stories.
They do not tell you what, for example, is
the meaning of the virgin with her son, or the meaning of a
figure like Christ. Why did one say that
Christ came down from heaven to the earth and why he was, of all places, born
in Bethlehem,
which means 'the house of the bread'? Why there was no place for him in the
inn? And what is the meaning of the fact that his so-called father was a
carpenter, that is to say a 'builder of the world'? And why Jesus had to die
and to resurrect after three days? What can be the meaning of such old stories
that are told everywhere in the world and in nearly all cultures?
All those meanings and ideas are of no
importance in western thinking: there is only one thing that counts and that is
the historical background. That is what convinces people. So one invents a
fantastic history and hopes that men will believe it.
It is also very stupid that religious
people of the western world always consults old and unreliable scriptures like
the bible and the koran. They believe these books
come directly from their gods and therefore they call them revelations. Of
course: when you admit that it is a collection of old and primitive stories and
also often nothing but nasty gossip, nobody will obey the strict orders of the
priests. Just because those writings as such have hardly any philosophical and
cultural meaning - except some beautiful poetical passages - one must give them
extra value by giving them a divine origin. And then it is the western man who
gives them his confidence, against all better knowledge. That is what I call a
gigantic banality…! The only interest is some stupid collection of so-called
words of god or the prophet. And the old really meaningful myths and legends
are neglected…
15. Theodicee
In theology they speak about 'theodicee', that is 'the justification of god'. It is a
Greek term which means in practice that god allows people to commit the most
cruel crimes without any intervention from him. Questions like 'how can god
permit the Germans to murder so many Jews in Auschwitz?'
are central themes. Many answers are given, the one more ingenious than the
other, but when you become acquainted with those answers you can only laugh
about such stupidity! There are thinkers who assure you that god also has to
sleep sometimes and others try to make you believe that god means to examine
man. Although he is said to be omniscient he needs to test his people! And
there are also theologians who declare that man has a free will and that it is
impossible for god, however omnipotent, to prevent man to commit his cruelties.
The most exiting answer comes from thinkers who try to escape from the
difficulties of the 'theodicee' by declaring:
"The ways of god are unfathomable". Indeed, this is the most
reasonable explanation!
But in fact every explanation is absurd
and a terrible inconsequence. It speaks for itself that it has to be, because
there are no gods and every utterance on that matter is already nonsense in
advance. Yet it is astonishing that so many intelligent thinkers believe to be
busy with a very important question when they have discussions about, among
others, the theme of the 'Theodicee'.
I am convinced that this is an obscure
psychological process to avoid one's own responsibility for the cruel abuses in
the world. For now it is god who has failed to protect his people and if
failure is not the case, then it is the endless but not understandable wisdom
of god. Always there is a way-out when you
believe that the theme of the Theodicee is a
real problem. Therefore it is still in the center of
theological thinking. And therefore no believer has the courage to say:
"Even if you believe in God you must be an idiot to think about something
like a theodicee for by no means god is capable to
interfere because he is supposed to be a universal spirit without any material
existence".
But, on the other hand: in a foolish world
of immature people, with their injustice, discrimination, terrible weapons and
many other cruel stupidities, is always plenty place for foolishness like
religion and theology. Of course all leaders of this world are true religious
believers. How could it otherwise be possible that our world is such a mess?
Those leaders are absolutely sure of the fact that 'god is with us'. Never god
is with the others! And the pope is still an important person. His utterances
in public are published all over the world because of the so called wisdom of
it. In fact however those statements are ridiculous and in many cases dangerous
for the world and the people. Religious wars are going on every day and bring
sorrow for mothers, children and lovers. But still you are not allowed to fight
against religions: you are directly accused of being intolerant…
16. Social
animal
Often you hear from philosophers the
assertion that man is a social animal and that it is his duty to bring his
behaviour in accordance with that social component of him. However nobody
explains why this is the case. It seems to be obvious just like a religious
belief. But does it also mean that it is a correct conception of the nature of
man? I can make it plausible that this is not only a wrong conception, but also
a disastrous!
If man was a social animal, his
predisposition of being social was a from nature inborn program. For him there should
be no choice. He had no possibility nňt to be social.
Just like the cat for example, who has no choice: she cannot be something else
than a beast of prey, even when she lies purring in the windowsill without any
need for hunting birds or mice. It is not possible for the cat to deny her
inborn character.
But it is remarkable that man has really a
choice! He is able to be antisocial to his own liking. He can behave himself as
if he were the only creature on earth, without any care for his fellow creatures.
On the other hand he also can decide to be solidary with the others and even he
can pretend solidarity. Everything is possible. You never can predict his
attitude under several circumstances.
Obviously man has no inborn program, so
there are unlimited varieties in behaviour. In fact man is pure a solitary. His
strive for individuality is one of the consequences of it. He wants to be
himself and to live according to his own identity. He doesn't permit others to
prescribe him how to live and what to do or to leave. He has his own free
choice concerning his actions.
So, man cannot be compared with animals,
for he is totally free to follow his own will, in the contrary with animals who
are bound by the ties of imprinted natural programs like instincts. And also it
is wrong to believe that the nature of man is to be social, for you cannot
abolish his individualism. He is every bone an individualist without an inborn
program of being social. However, everybody understands that it is fully
impossible to get a good and fair
world with those antisocial individualists. Everyone should be the enemy of
every other man and the world should be one big bloodbath.
Indeed there is much bloodshed till now, but at the
same time there is always the feeling among people that fighting and murdering
is wrong and that it must come to an end. Everybody longs for peace. But that
feeling doesn't find its origin in some inborn program. On the contrary: you
find it exclusively in man's mind, in his intellect if you wish to say so.
In his best moments man experiences the world as a
fully coherent reality in which the one cannot live without the other. You
cannot think for yourself 'me' without thinking 'you'. When I exist, you exist
inevitable also. That is a very obvious truth, but it takes ages and ages for
manhood to learn acting in accordance with it. And becoming aware that the
existence of every human being is fully unconditional takes a lot more time.
Nowadays we believe that everyone has the right to live on this planet, but in
our hearts we are not fully sure that everybody has equal rights. We still like
to determine the criteria of the rights of the others. Having regular work for
example is such a criterion. And in many countries people find that criminals
have no right to live. I admit that it is of ten very
difficult to acknowledge the unconditional rights of everybody, for nearly
every day you meet very unpleasant persons. But there is no way out: they have
their rights without any restriction!
It is indeed a great paradox that the more individual
man is, the more he can be a social human being. Nowhere social awareness is as
developed as in the modern western world. It is true that there are many abuses
and nearly everybody tries to deny now and then his social feelings, but
western people are aware of these facts and that can only be possible when
there is a deep believe in equal social rights.
Alas there are many places in the world where people
do not even think of it, being convinced of their own right to decide about
life and death of other people. That is especially the case in cultural and
political collectivities, where the whole of the
society is placed above the individual.
Those societies are not very intelligent, but to my
regret I have to admit that up till now also many thinkers believe that the
individual has to submit himself to the whole, because the interest of the
society should be far more important than the interest of the individual. That
is what they believe, but it is a terrible wrong believe that in fact
humiliates everybody. And the whole of society stays far below her own
possibilities when the individuals cannot unfold themselves. This silly thought
finds his origin in old-fashioned religious fantasies about higher and lower
realities…
17. Herd animal
When great numbers of individuals act the same way
without any own personality one usually speaks of 'herd-animals'. It is a
negative judgement about man, but at the same time it is the expression of a
view one has about the real nature of man. One believes he cannot be something
else but a member of a group. And that idea acts as a kind of excuse for the
modern popular massculture. One has the intention to
make clear that it is all in order, because there is no other possibility for
man. He has to be a herd-animal.
The following reasoning is used as a justification of
that conception:
"Being a part of a mass belongs to man's real
existence. He originates from the animal world and as a consequence he needs to
live in groups. In fact he lived in herds for a long time after his first
appearance on our planet. At that time he was absorbed in his group without the
possibility of escaping from it.
And the rules of the group were forced to be his own
personal rules. Disobedience to the laws of the group meant a certain death. So
it is fully right to come to the conclusion that in essence man must be a
“herd-animal”. But I have to say that this argumentation is quite deniable,
stronger: it is terrible nonsense!
First of all it is remarkable that one exclusively
thinks in terms of herd-animals. Obviously one finds it inconceivable that the
evolution results in, for example, man as a beast of prey. It seems to be
unthinkable that man originally could have been such a beast. Essential is that
this concerns an animal that lives and hunts alone, a kind of animal
individualist!
Why this meaning has the upper hand in modern thinking
cannot easily be understood, but I am sure that there is a connection with the
dormant lying awareness of the necessity of some kind of social behaviour,
because man is totally incapable to survive on his own. He has no instruments
for it! So man needs the support of the others and that leads to several forms
of social behaviour. That is opposite to individualism. This is, so to speak,
an economic and pragmatic defense of the idea of
man's living in groups. That opinion is the upmost current one.
But, second, in the more recent way of philosophical
thinking there is a deep resistance against individualism, especially the
imperfect and inhuman forms of individualism, due to the actual immature phase
of man's cultural development. Being against that selfish and egocentric
individualism is fully reasonable, but it is not so very clever to believe that
this is the only appearance of individualism.
In general nearly every thinker believes that
individualism is inevitable inhuman. But this notion is absolutely wrong. On
the contrary, individualism is the one and only condition to learn how to act
like a real human being. One has to be himself. Being human is hidden in the
true intellectual nature of man and therefore he has to be an individualist. He
has to act like an independent and self-supporting phenomenon.
The need to prefer being a herd animal above a beast
of prey is rather primitive and short-sighted. Further on it is wrong to
associate such a beast of prey with individualism, for he is not
self-supporting at all. In every respect he is bounded to all the other natural
phenomena.
Man is not a herd-animal. Above that, he is by no
means an animal! Indeed it is a fact that he is developed out of the living
nature. He is a product of evolution. But, being the absolute final product of
that evolution he is in the first place totally free from that natural
evolution. His mind makes him independent of all the forced natural programs to
which all the other living creatures are fully tied. He is not a victim of
automatic processes and instincts. He is able to say 'no' to everything,
including himself. No other creature is able to do so. When you take this in
regard and reflect it carefully, then you understand that man cannot be
associated with any limitation like living in groups or states and that in
essence it is also impossible to make him inferior to temporal or spiritual power.
Man doesn't rule anything and also he cannot be submitted to other powers.
But till now nowhere in this world you can find a
human situation based on this absolute and unconditional freedom…
18. The freedom of man
The situation of man in the universe is rather
remarkable. That is due to the fact that man is the ultimate possibility of the
cosmic process that causes the appearance of all phenomena. The nature of that
process is material, but there is also a not-material component in it.
That component is based on the circumstance that the
origin of the universe consists of moving particles that cannot be totally
stopped, with this consequence that there are always and inevitable forms of
movement in the phenomena. There is nothing that is absolutely without any form
of movement, either intern or extern. In the end the intern movement appears as
an unrestrained, indefinite form of movement. Because it is indefinite its
working takes absolutely no time and because of that one cannot demonstrate its
existence in a positive scientific way. But it can be proved indirectly. Being
the ultimate possibility of the cosmic process, the mind of man is a
manifestation of that indefinite form of movement. Everybody can examine his
own mind and conclude that thinking of something, for example the moon, takes
place immediately, without expiring of time. On the other hand this fact makes
clear that man indeed is the extreme appearing phenomenon.
By the way: this last statement looks like a circular
argument and that it is indeed! In philosophy the circular argument is a form
of testing an assertion. The reasoning namely must be correct in all
directions, including the opposite direction. Scientists and many modern
philosophers have no understanding for it. That is because in sciences it is
forbidden to use circular arguments, and that is right. But that prohibition
doesn't concern philosophical thinking. Remember that philosophy is no science
at all. It is a form of art!
Well then, man is situated in the absolute end of the
history of cosmic development. Consequence is that his essence is to be beyond
the natural, material world. Man can act like a not- material phenomenon. This
makes him free from every material system, otherwise without the possibility
during his life to deny his material underground. Indeed you can call him
"a material object that acts as if it were not-material". Because of
his not-material freedom man cannot be subordinated to any kind of system or
power. Religious powers, political powers, liberal, collective or scientific
systems, ideologies and so on, they all are in conflict with human nature. Man
cannot live without being free from all that stuff. The song says: "Don't
fence me in…"!
That explains why every collective social system
collapses sooner or later. Man is born to be free and at the end of the
cultural development, when he is grown-up, he will be free. Then he will
organize his society not from above like he did up till today, but from the
bottom. And then his acting is really democratic. It is indeed the individual
who rules his own life. But he is by no means able to do so before he developed
himself to a true individualist. Only then he can understand that his own
existence includes the existence of his fellow human beings.
19. The upper-class and the revolution
A few years ago the collective system of the Sowjet-Union met an inglorious end. The economy appeared to
be a mess and the political powers vanished into thin air. They were not able
to organize a human society with existential safety for all people. The
socialistic ideology could not give answers on the questions of real daily
life. Its only interest was the heavy industry and of course the well-being of
its leaders. The society was organized from top to bottom. Already Lenin had
declared that a good socialistic state was dependent of its upper class, the
so-called iron executives. This rulers we re supposed
to be good socialists and guards of the purity of the ideology. In reality
however they were short-sighted, intolerant and tyrannical potentates. Their
expertise only concerned how to reach the top of the system by licking the
boots of their superiors and liquidating their opponents without mercy.
Care for the people, the farmers and the workers, was
out of the question. This only was a pretty fairy tale for the naive believers
in communism, who, by the way, mainly lived in the western world, far from the
cruelties of the Sowjet system. But nowadays it is
all history and the Russian people can make a beginning with the building up of
a new and more honest society.
A few things are remarkable. First of all: most of the
experts try to let us believe that the socialistic system collapsed because of
the intern inferiority of the economy. But they forget that an economy cannot
exist without a good foundation in the population. When there is no real basis
it is impossible to maintain an efficient economy. So you cannot state that
there was an inferior economy in the Sowjet-Union,
but you have to state that there was no economy at all. There was hardly any
production for the benefit of the people. Even simple medical instruments like
for example needles were lacking. Food and other consumption goods were
distributed in dribs and drabs. An efficient economy is a basic economy that
functions in the middle of the people, but an economy above the people is not
worth the name. It is a disastrous fiction of incompetent politicians who only
strive for personal power.
The second remarkable fact is that western politicians
believe that the collapse of the Sowjet-Union is a
result of their political efforts against the communist ideology. So they
believe that this second Russian revolution did come into being from above and
had nothing to do with the Russian people. All this goes to show that the
western leaders do not understand that a revolution can only succeed when it is
a movement of the people. The first Russian revolution of 1917 was also a case
of the people, but very soon Lenin understood that he had to do a grab for
power and with the help of a handful of his followers he seized his
opportunities. Of course this was accompanied with great terror, for the people
didn't want his power. This came from above and that was not the aim of the
Russian people.
Western politicians have no interest in the people
except when they have need for their votes. They cannot imagine that the crowd
is capable for anything but consumption. Give them bread and circuses and the
people' is satisfied. Therefore they think that the construction of a society
must be the work of managers and leaders. But in fact there are always the
people's activities that reforms the society, sometimes with violence and
mostly peaceful, step by step.
A very important factor is the education of the
people. This is a true paradox, because on one hand there is a big need for
educated people to run the economy and the industry and on the other hand
educated people become more and more capable to think and decide for themselves.
Education gives a state its possibilities and its strength, but is also
immediately a great danger for that state. Is was the education of the majority
of the Russians that made the second revolution possible. By no means that
revolution was due to highly placed persons from western or Russian origin. The
Russian people was the moving force behind the events. Indeed their education
was not very high, but it doesn't need to be so. It is enough that one becomes
some reliable information, for even this basic education is an important factor
to make men self-confident and less receptive to obscure powers. It is the
awareness of being a free thinking individual which gives men the power to
throw off all despotism.
Soon the Chinese people will be ready for its second
revolution. It is true that the Chinese leaders have given some freedom to the
people for a more personal economy in the hope to save the communist system,
but of course it is not enough.
Individual freedom needs more than the permission to
do some business. But at the same time even this little economic freedom,
combined with an increased education, will start an unstoppable process of
liberation. Men is not born for slavery…
20. Look out for planners!
It is a consequence of modern analytic science that
our world becomes more and more a collection of bits and pieces. The original
coherence disappears and makes place for several more or less academic
theories. Of course there is nothing against scientific theories, but when these
theories occupy the place of the reality man has a problem. He is victim of a
delusion and his activities become a shot in the dark. And the annoying thing
about the matter is that man doesn't know anything about it. One thinks to be
realistic, but in fact one acts like a blind person. In spite of all the
reliability of his theories his acting is totally wrong. A theoretic reality is
by no means 'the' reality. It is but an infusion of it.
Such an infusion has lost the moving and coherent
character of reality. It is an isolated and static part of reality without any
possibility of development. Therefore it is a big mistake to think that such
dead parts of reality are usable for planning a future world. For such a
planning one has to be creative and one must be able to think in processes
instead of static formulas and calculations. In one word: the planner must have
a clear view on reality.
Nowadays a planner is trained in analyzing
the society. with the elementary parts he has found he makes a blueprint of a
future world by extrapolating that information. So the basic actual situation
is in fact assumed to be essential for the future, with only this difference
that some parts of it will decrease and other increase. In the future there
will be more of something and less of some other thing, so more or less of the
same! It is not surprising that the notion of 'growing' is characteristic for
the ideas of that modern planners. But still it is about lifeless static
information.
In the blueprint that is made by a planner there
cannot exist really new phenomena. Nobody can predict what knowledge will be at
the disposal of future generations, but it is absolutely sure that there will
be several new ideas and possibilities that didn't evolve out of former situations.
Human reality is through and through creative!
When modern planners come to power they will try to
force the society to fit the blueprints they have made. Everybody has to obey
their prescriptions and they will work against every attempt to realize new
ideas. They will 'stand with their backs to the future' . New developments are
in conflict with their models and as such dangerous and unwanted. The result is
a society that falls short of its possibilities and, above all, is
unsatisfactory for its inhabitants. There is a great lack of freedom and that
results inevitable in a sincere indifference of the people. So, look out for
the planners…!
21. Modern slavery
There is a good example for the disastrous influence
of modern planners. This goes so far that you can speak of a form of epidemic
obsession. In their blueprints namely it is essential that everybody has a paid
job. They are convinced of that because till now a job is the only way of
becoming a useful and respected member of society. By consequence the future
systems within their blueprints are fixed upon jobs and everybody is obliged to
act in accordance with the criteria of that design. Of course this is a very
evi1 kind of slavery.
The obligation to correspond to a theoretical model
and above that to be employed makes any form of freedom impossible. One has no
right to make his own choice.
At the moment you can speak of a gigantic obsession, a
traumatic fixation on work. The only source of happiness seems to be work and
jobs. This idea is carried into the absurd. Even if one has no job he or she is
considered to be a worker, namely a worker who is temporary unemployed. Since
it is not the intention of modern rulers to be without a job they invent a lot
of jobs, obviously with as miserable wages as possible. Nobody is willing to
pay for the others! This low pay, however, is not found important: paid work is
the only essential notion. Even if the pay is too little to live from! Nearly
everybody believes that having a paid job makes one independent. Being totally
dependent of employers and selfish bosses obviously doesn't count. It is fully
impossible to burst through this delusion. It works exactly like a religion,
which is also indifferent to arguments. Yet it is an obsession that needs to be
conquered as soon as possible.
A future society cannot be judged from theoretical
principles which are deduced from an actual situation. Today's delusions cannot
be extrapolated to the future without any serious judgement. In the end society
exclusively can be seriously judged in terms of welfare, social justice and
individual freedom. But that really essential human notions are till today far
from being realized…
22. Conversion to human
proportions
As soon as man appeared on this planet a process of
conversion started. It is namely absolutely impossible for man to survive in a
natural way like the animals. He is obliged to convert the natural situation
into a human world. He has but one tool to do it with: his intellect. Nobody
has ordered him to do so, it is his own personal idea. This activity is the
so-called 'labor' and it is inextricable bound up
with man. Where he finds himself on this earth it is inevitable that there is labor. Nearly the complete human life on earth is a form of
labor and it means conversion of natural phenomena
into useful things. So it is not exclusively an activity of the man or the
woman and it doesn't concern only working on the land or in the factories and
offices. It is also the organization of communities and so on. Even the
expression of one's thoughts is a form of labor.
Even though labor is an
essential part of man's life nevertheless labor
became merchandise after some time. It was no longer a natural part of the daily
life, but something external that could be traded. Especially the industrial
revolution of the 19th century promoted the trade in labor.
By consequence this labor was no long er a free and unconditional human activity but became a
case of slavery. That remained till today! Of course nearly no one calls it
like that: slavery is considered as indecent and in conflict with human rights.
But nevertheless it cannot be denied that one has no choice. One has to get a
job. If there is no job for everybody and if it is not their own fault, the
society is prepared to support to some extent. But it is not accepted when
someone refuses to have a job and even it is considered as wrong when someone
wants to do labor that is not officially recognized.
Until recently the labor of women in the household
for example didn't count as a job! So, everybody is forced to do paid work and
that is without any doubt a modern and hidden kind of slavery…
23. Recognized jobs
In essence every kind of converting nature is labor, and everybody does labor,
one way or another. It is a natural activity of man.
When there was slavery in former times, it was a kind
of slavery that concerns the complete life.
Even the individual was a slave in the eyes of the
law. He was a material object, like a machine. So he was an individual without
any personality. After some time one began to understand that this slavery is
inhuman, because of the denial of one's personality.
But with the development of the western culture a
special form of slavery came into being and that was the wage-slavery. More and
more one understood that it is inhuman to make man a slave, but at the same
time one deprived man's labor and made it an object
of trade. This slavery proved to be much more profitable for those who had jobs
to give away. After some time nearly everybody had lost the possibility to do
his own labor, in the sense of converting nature. And
after some more time everybody had forgotten that labor
is a natural activity of man. Here the delusion starts…
Since the rise of the large-scale industry the idea,
that it is the duty of everybody to get a job, increased and today no one is
aware of the fact that it is a delusion. One is convinced that having a job is
a normal human situation and one cannot understand that from nature it is a
free choice. Nowadays the free choice of a job is current. Thanks to the
automation the process of converting nature can be done by less workers, so
there are no jobs for everyone. Therefore it should be reasonable that people
can make their own decisions whether they want a job or not. It doesn't matter
if they do not want a job, for there is enough to do to make this world livable. But the delusion of wage-slavery puts a spoke in
the wheel: everybody has to search for a job! If not, there will be no money
for the maintenance of life, unless one accepts to be considered as an
unemployed. That status makes every free choice impossible and that is a big
waste for the society!
24. Technics and technology
The scientific way of thinking has expanded enormously
from the second half of the 19th century. The most radical effect is the
tremendous technical improvement on nearly all fields of life. But, not
everything is as positive as it looks on first sight. The most negative
development is without any doubt the production of more and more deadly
weapons. But also the medical technics and the poisoning of the soil by a lot
of herbicides are examples of dangerous improvements. One way or another the
technics are capable to produce, except very useful necessities of life,
extremely endangering things. In fact for the technics there are no limits, or
perhaps it is better to say that there are no moral values. That is
understandable because the technics are fully occupied with the material world.
The production of material things is the aim of the technics. Good or bad, for
the technics nothing is excluded.
It must be admitted that the produced technical
results don't disappoint you! When the chemists invent a special disinfectant
indeed you can disinfect with it. The engine of your car do not let you down.
And even the high-tech weapons are sufficiently reliable. The results of the
technics comply with our wishes and from that point of view there is nothing
wrong with it. Yet there is a great distrust against the technics and the
question is why that is the case.
First of all you have to distinguish between what I
call 'technics' and 'technology'. As it appears from the above mentioned
examples 'technics' is the whole complex of producing-systems. In other words
it contains all activities of engineering. There are no questions of values and
morals but only of practical nature: can we make this or not and will it work?
Under 'technology' I understand a special way of
scientific thinking.
It is the whole of thinking about the status and the
role of the technics in this world and as such it contains far more than only
the producing-systems. Questions about the environment for example are of great
importance, or questions about the well-being of the people. And more and more
important become questions about recycling of goods. Consequence of these
insights are often new methods of production, but also one can decide to stop
with the production of certain goods because of its danger for life on our
planet. It will be understandable that values and morals are essential within
the technology. That means that one has to be concerned about the whole of
reality and has to protect manhood against breaking the cohesion of the reality.
Then it is possible that a certain product of technics is considered as
inferior although in itself it works superb. For example nuclear power stations
are excellent working technics, but from a technological point of view one has
to admit that they are disastrous inventions. They cannot produce cheap energy
and they stay far too long dangerous for future generations. Up till now there
is hardly any ethical awareness within the technology. The profits of a few are
much more important than the welfare of the many. By consequence one applies
technics long before one is able to guarantee the safety of the people. Making
money as soon as possible is the most important criterion, even when the
technologists claim to work for the benefit of manhood, for example within the
medical technology. All this explains why there is a rightly aversion towards
the technics and also towards the still unreliable technology. The only right
criteria for technics are the values of the technology, and those are without
any doubt values of humanity, and absolutely not profits!
25. Technology
In my opinion technology is the total complex of
thinking about the application of scientific knowledge. Within this complex
there are the technics as a concrete result of this thinking. As I said before
the technics for themselves operate without any ethical criterion at all.
Exclusively there are practical problems which in general come to questions
like "how to do it?". To find answers to these questions there are
the technical sciences, but this is something totally else than the technology.
It is to say: the technology includes all the ethical questions about the
environment, the rights, the welfare and safety of the people. Even you can say
that the technology is a way of philosophical thinking. It has to do everything
with the fundamental philosophical question: "How is reality?". And
care for the protection of the indispensable cosmic cohesion is a very
important aim of the technology. A special kind of technics may be effective
and even of economical importance, but at the same
time rejectable from a technological point of view.
Significant examples are the atomic reactors, weapons, weedkillers
and a lot of chemicals and artificial materials. The cosmic cohesion will be
disturbed by the production and using of these technical products.
The technology and the technics are essential for
human life on this planet. Man cannot live without them because of his special
position in the cosmos. With the birth of man evolution has passed her ultimate
material possibility. By consequence man has to rely himself on his
non-material side, namely his intellect. Man is an intellectual phenomenon
because there are no natural programs that force him to act in a special way
with the objective to survive and to maintain his species. On the contrary all
other living beings are fully submitted to the laws of nature without any
possibility to escape. This compulsive situation comes to an end with the birth
of man. By consequence he doesn't know how to live within natural
circumstances, but with the use of his intellect he is able to reform nature to
a human, cultural world in which in principle it is safe to exist.
To create this human world there is his intelligence.
He is able to make his own decisions in accordance with his ideas about a
future human world. The fact that this ideas till now are not so very human is
no argument against mans inborn duty to create a livable planet. For him there is no other possibility. And
to reach that aim first of all he has to use his technological thinking as
truthful as possible. Without a reformed natural planet there can be no
unconditional justice for all the people.
26. Communication
An important part of technology is communication. When
you consider all the people as a unity and by consequence compare manhood with
the human body, you can easily understand that there has to be communication
between all individuals. A network that connects every person with every other
person must be organized, just like the communication between the cells and
organs in our body. Of course it must be an horizontal organization without any
form of hierarchy. Governments and other high-placed institutes are unacceptable,
not only because of the vertical way of thinking of their members, but in
particular in connection with their indestructible need for power and for
bossing the people. When manhood is a unity like the human body there cannot be
any authority who rules the society. Society rules herself because of the fact
that the grown-up individual shall be able to act accordingly to three
essential interests, namely his or her own personal interest, the interest of
the relation between himself and his fellow-man and the interest of the all-
embracing whole of reality. The unity of these three criteria is the basic
condition for creating a good and safe society without any oppression by a
group or person. Till now one of the three criteria is absolutely dominant: the
whole of society in the form of the collectivity
named the government. The interests of the government are in fact the only
important affairs. Of course they claim to act for the benefit of the people,
but every-one can see that this is absolutely not true. The people cannot
change any decision of the government, in spite of a great number of so-called
democratic rules.
By the way, it is an undeniable fact that because of
its regulating character in general every kind of authority inevitable disturbs
natural human connections. Authorities have to poke their nose into everything.
That can be useful sometimes in a temporary chaotic society, but for a grown-up
manhood it is something detesting.
Nowadays there is a beginning of a free and
anarchistic network: the world wide web of Internet! And indeed, there is no
authority who can have power on this network because it is in the hands of the
people all over the world. That means that nobody is the boss. Alas it is not
excluded that in the near future some institution or government will try to
dominate this network, but I am convinced that the people shall find ways to
escape from such an attempt to seize power. The most important reason for this
independence is the fact that Internet is based upon pure technics without any
ethical background.
27. A question of freedom
Everybody who has paid his subscription to the
telephone company and to his Internet provider is free to communicate with
anyone else. No authority has the right and the power to decide what is
permitted and what not. By the way, it is not possible to control in advance
the messages and other publications which are mailed through the telephone
network, because of the technical protection of peoples
privacy.
Yet there is still a danger that authorities will try
to get power over our World Wide Web. They will argue that criminals use the
net for their dirty affairs like the publishing of pornography and that
atheists will tell the people immoral godless stories. And they are right! You
can find all those things on the Web but also you can find the terrible sermons
of the moral censors of religious origine. On the Web
everything is possible, but it is the responsibility of every individual who
wants to search for it. In fact there are no hypocritical authorities who run
the show. Everybody decides for herself or himself and that is good. It is in
accordance with the freedom and the right to self-determination of man. Too
long all sorts of busybodies have tyrannized over the people, but now there is
a chance to stop them. Let the Web people all over the world be alert to this
danger and defend the freedom that, for the first time in history, became
reality! Until recently communication all over the world was ruled by powerful
leaders who could decide to their own liking whether or not information was
available for the people. Much information was secret and is hidden till now.
It seems as if the world is not our world but property of an elite. But that is
contrary to the true situation of man in reality. The people, men, women and
children, owns this planet without any restriction. Those who claim the right
to rule the people are without any doubt villains who took their chances to
oppress their fellow-men. Of course nowadays they do it in accordance with
democratic rules and in many cases even with the agreement of the oppressed
people, who still believe in the fairy tale that they should be incompetent to
rule themselves. So those villains determine a lot of duties for the people and
in our modern times first of all they take possession of the communication
systems. Already Hitler and his criminal comrades were aware of the importance
of ruling the media and on the other side they were afraid of the radio
stations of the free world. Therefore the oppressed people had to hand in their
radio's to the Germans. Communication means information and information means
for the individuals the possibility to get a personal opinion. That is
dangerous for dictators. Without any doubt the modern 'democratic' dictators
will try today to get as much power as possible to rule the Internet. We have
to develop our technics to avoid that!
28. Religion versus freedom
All religions claim that everyone's life is in God's
hands and that only he has the right and the power to decide about life and
death. By consequence religious people believe that they are not free to act
against God's will and law. That is a remarkable opinion for people who
continuously intervene, not only in the life of men, but merely in whole the
reality. When their children are ill they went to the doctor for a consult,
when their mind is ill they went to their psychiatrist and when there are weeds
in their fields they thoroughly exterminate it. Never they let things take
their course.
Also in social matters those believers are great
regulators who leave nothing to chance or to God. The society for example must
be ruled with a firm hand. Although they say that this government rules in the
name of God it is clear it has nothing to do with obedience to some god, but
only with their own need for exercising as much power as possible, especially
over not religious fellow-men. For God is the lord of all people!
Every religion seems to make a slave of his believers.
It is as if everybody has to follow up God's orders, but in practice the
believers themselves determine which orders one can obey and which orders can
be pushed aside.
So those believers are remarkable slaves! They are
slaves with a free and independent will! In fact they act like normal people!
They pretend to obey God's orders but in fact they make their own judgments.
Their belief in God appears to be a fairy tale, good for innocent people. It
gives the believers a high status because of their familiarity with the almighty
God. So they are also authorities and by consequence they like authority above
all. This goes so far that those believers act as if they are more powerful
than God himself. For they try to use God in their own interest: he has to fulfill their wishes, like protecting them from disasters,
poverty, illness and even death. In reality they use their gods as slaves ...
Of course it is all insincere foolishness. The behaviour of those believers is
totally inconsequent, but above all they refer to something that doesn't exist:
there is no god, neither as an absolute spiritual power, nor as a servant of
man.
29. A question of
individualism
When, some 140 years ago, the Dutch freethinkers
started their actions against the Reformed and the Roman Catholic churches the
religion was a matter of collectivity. The people was
lost in an impersonal vast entirety in which there was no difference between
one man and an other. For everyone there was the same
god and there were the same rules. Exceptions were not made. It was a matter of
course that one belonged to the church. And even this applied for non-believers
who were considered as sinners and in that way also members of the church,
although very wicked members. In society the churches were extremely powerful and
even they ruled the sciences in a very large extend. For those freethinkers
this was the reality and it is understandable that it was their aim to get rid
of this tyrannical enemy. They regarded this enemy as one unique phenomenon so
that they believed it should vanish after some time as one whole. They didn't
realize themselves that only the collectivity of the
churches could collapse without doing any harm to the religion itself.
Nowadays you see that but a few churches remained and
at the same time there is a great revival of belief. God is back! He shows
himself in many shapes, in most of the cases under the cover of a great number
of misleading names like 'cosmic spiritual power', 'the big whole', the 'divine
intelligence' and so on. Some physicians call him the 'basic matter' and their
belief in it is more sincere than their former religious feelings. Nearly
everybody has his own idea of God. The god of the churches, either Roman
Catholic or Reformed, is replaced by a great number of personal gods, as a
consequence of the development of modern forms of individualism. For some time
the belief in those gods is very strong because of the scientific character of
its argumentations. They look very reliable!
This development is rather unexpected for the freethinkers
because it was their opinion that the sciences should drive away the religions.
But on the contrary there is an unmistakable revival of those delusions. In
fact the sciences only broke up the collectivity with
the result that now there are all sorts of individualists with a great variety
of personal beliefs.
Looking back upon it you can be satisfied because of
the fact that a personal belief cannot persist for a long time. The skeptic human mind will undermine it soon, so that in the
end the victory falls to the freethinkers and the atheists.
30. On atheism
There are two kinds of unreliable atheists. The most
extensive group consists of those who are indifferent to any kind of religion
or other higher realities. They do not think about reality and the questions of
life and death. They are not interested in our human origins and future. For
them it is enough to survive as comfortable as possible. In fact they form the
mass of the western people. Some thinkers speak about "modern heathens".
without any doubt indeed there is to speak about a certain secularization. On
itself that is a good thing, but the danger constantly exists that this
unbelief easily can be converted to religious fanaticism, in case of uncertain
and threatening social and political circumstances and under influence of
hysteric instigators. Because of the indifference of those atheists, those
heathens, it always remains possible that they become brainwashed by mentally
ill villains, for example leaders of spiritual sects. Recently we have seen
several horrible incidents with totally hysteric followers of those villains. A
second kind of dubious atheists you will find in so-called communist countries.
In general this is an outwardly form of unbelief because of the fact that the
government has forbidden to practice religions. In the schools the pupils are
told that there are no gods and that only the people of capitalistic societies
believe in higher spiritual powers. Those pupils have to understand that there
are only human higher powers, namely the leaders of the communist party. So
their atheism is not based upon indifference, but on hostility. In reality
hostility against the western capitalistic world.
This atheism also is very weak. When communism is
abolished people are no longer forced to be atheistic and immediately you see a
revival of religion. Of course it is fully understandable! One cannot force man
to deny his impression of reality, be this religious or not. Even a penetrating
education is unable to do so. By consequence the conclusion has to be that this
form of atheism is fully worthless. Perhaps you presume that agnosticism is a
third form of atheism. But, from my point of view that is a mistake because of
the fact that the assertion "I do not know anything about gods, for that
knowledge falls outside the possibilities of logical thinking" includes
that one takes the existence of gods for possible. It is true one admits to
have no valid reasoning for it, but exact that is the point! Believers also
have no valid arguments and that makes them believers! Therefore I prefer to
consider agnosticism as a variation of belief and not a form of atheism.
31. More about atheism
True atheism is more than only the denial of the
existence of gods. This denial goes inevitable accompanied by the fight against
religions. By consequence it is dependent on this opponent. There is no other
possibility than undermine the theological assertions and theories. But, when
nowadays the theology gets a more modern and realistic character, the struggle
against religion becomes a rather unreal undertaking for the atheists. Most of
their objections get lost in the fog of post-modern theological thinking. So
that you of ten can hear the complaint of believers
that they cannot recognize the religion the atheists fight against. It seems to
be a religion that only exists in the minds of the atheists!
Above that the atheists always are obliged to defend
themselves. Being religious is up till now considered as the normal ideology,
even by the unbelievers. So atheism must be a serious and dangerous exception
in the eyes of the common man.
Therefore first of all the atheist has to give an
explanation of his ideas. But in fact the common man considers that explanation
as an excuse for being incapable to think and live like decent people.
More than once believers say that atheists are ill and
that their ideas are intolerable deviations. Of course this is not a good
starting-point for a reasonable discussion on matters of religion!
In my opinion atheists have nothing to do with
believers. Their ideas about reality are not dependent on theological nonsense
and other tangled fantasies of frustrated scatterbrains. They have their own
cohesive reasoning about reality, on one hand based on scientific knowledge and
on the other on sober logical thinking. This leads to the conclusion that the
real existence of gods and other immaterial spirits is fully impossible and
that you only can find them in the mind of man. Gods and spirits are chimeras!
As usual these chimeras have an extraordinary inner inconsequence, are full of
contradictions and frustrated aggressive feelings against human life. Always
man is sinful and guilty and only a higher authority can reconcile man with
himself and reality. Of course the gods and spirits are these authorities,
which means that the reasoning is back to its own starting-point! That is the
way chimeras work! But it explains also why these delusions are so very
persistent. And at the same time it makes understandable that swindlers, who
claim to be representatives of these gods, can practice such an incredible
influence on believers.
32. Nihilism versus
indifference
Some sociologists are of the opinion that when atheism
is based upon spiritual indifference you should have to do with nihilism. And
they consider nihilism as a very serious danger for the society. They think
that the reducing of the values leads to a chaos. Of course they find it
necessary that there are values to justify rules and rulers. For them it is
fully impossible to think about a society without fixed values, rulers and, of
course, enforced obedience to the rules. And in some way they are right:
spiritual indifference causes an inhuman society, inevitable to a great extend
in the grip of criminals. In fact this indifference is based upon the denial of
the right of other people to exist. One feels no need to count with the others.
One can follow his own will. Exact that is the essence of criminality. Indeed
it is a fact that indifferent people are very receptive for it. Under these
circumstances it is easily possible for the most powerful criminals to mislead
the people so that they walk on behind them. Every authoritarian society shows
the same pattern. Its ideology pretends to give values and a reliable hold to
the people, while in fact a number of criminals exploit them. Indeed this is in
accordance with the theories of those sociologists. But all of this handles
about 'spiritual indifference' and that is totally different from real
nihilism.
Nihilism has nothing to do with indifference as a
passive attitude against reality. On the contrary, nihilism is an intellectual
attitude of life and it is far from passive. It means that one has developed
the insight that all phenomena are of the same value. There exists nothing of
greater value than something else. Because of the equality of values you can
also say that there are no values at all. But then there is the risk of
misunderstanding in this sense that one can believe it goes about the
above-mentioned spiritual indifference. Something like: "everything is
worthless". This leads to the neglect of everything in this world. So it
is far better to speak about "equality of values". From this point of
view you can say that the nihilist denies all differences in values between
things.
This doesn't mean neglecting of things but on the
contrary an equal care for al the phenomena.
The world is in good hands when everybody is well
convinced of true nihilism.
It speaks for itself that the nihilist cannot believe
neither in gods nor in human higher authorities. These institutes are the most
explicit expressions of surplus values and of course also of inferiority of the
rest. To the real nihilist this is abhorrent!
33. Violent nihilism
In the 19th century a lot of so-called political
nihilists were active, especially in Russia. They were killing members
of the elite, of course including innocent people, and they terrorized in many
other ways the Russian society. But they were convinced of having a fine excuse
for their actions! In their opinion the Russian society was rotten, so it was
their duty to blow up everything, in the first place the tsar and his clique.
Even his family was target for those nihilists. It must be admitted that they
truly meant to reform society and indeed it was high time to do so. The Russian
upper-class was totally incapable and by consequence the administration was
fully corrupt. But in spite of this true conception those political nihilists
were nothing but terrorists who tried to eliminate people, even in many cases
innocent civilians, as poor as they were themselves.
Under no circumstance there is an excuse for this
behaviour. Nobody has the right to kill his fellow-beings. Above that nihilism
doesn't mean destruction of people and things, but only devaluation of a world
full of values. This process takes place within the individual himself. It is a
strictly personal development, consisting of alteration of one's view on
reality.
As long as one beliefs in values there is a separation
between things of value and worthless objects. A part of the reality is of no
importance and can be neglected without any objection. Not only this is the
case with things, but especially people is victim of it. Mankind is divided in
a mass of unimportant people and a small elite of high-placed individuals who
have a number of privileges, including the right to rule the others. Of course
this is also a kind of violence. In fact there is but a few difference between
this and the above-mentioned political nihilism. This nihilism also maintains
several values, for example the right to kill people who are considered to be
condemned because of their inhuman social status. With their act of murdering
those opponents political nihilists become exactly the same villains and their
so-called struggle for a better world is nothing but an excuse for their
criminality.
Real nihilism is absolutely peaceful. Because of the
lack of normative values everyone is recognized and there is great care for
everything. Nobody and nothing is excluded.
34. Nihilism is positive
Nihilism has a bad reputation. That is a pity, but on
the other hand it is understandable. The way of thinking in the western culture
is based upon the notion that reality is in the first place a collection of
freestanding phenomena. That includes inevitable that one distinguishes one
thing from another. Everything has his own qualities. With the progress of the
western culture the distinction between things becomes more and more important
and that leads to a predominant system of values. Nowadays everything is judged
by the value one attaches to it. Remarkable is that nearly nobody is aware of
the fact that the phenomena have no value in itself. There is no 'intrinsic'
value. Of course not! How could reality distinguish in herself those qualities?
The phenomena simply exist! So all values are attached to the things by man. It
is the choice of man to attach more or less value to something.
And that choice is determined by the cultural
circumstances. For western understanding it is not possible to deal with the
reality without values and one finds it normal to divide the world into things
of more and things of less value. So we live in a world in which devaluation is
considered as a terrible disaster! In general the op in ion of modern men is
that the whole society should be without fundaments if nihilism becomes the
leading ideology.
But not only the value of things is an issue, it also
goes about spiritual values. Human life is considered to be impossible without
certain spiritual criteria that give man something to hold on. When those
values are lacking life should be rudderless and meaningless. So even most of
the freethinkers and humanists fight against nihilism. They don't see that
explicit the attachment of values makes the world chaotic, unjust and
unreliable. Things are not what they are but their existence has to be in
accordance with the ideas of man. Those ideas are variable so that it is fully
uncertain how to live as a reasonable human being. Every moment the situation
has changed. You can see it all over the world, especially in politics.
Political values change almost every day and often that costs the lives of many
people. But in commerce the case is the same. There is a large-scale trade
based upon changing values. In fact all those things go about nothing, but in
this world of values it is highly appreciated.
The future full-grown mankind is not interested in
temporary values but in the real character of things. And men are aware of the
fact that there are no differences in value between one thing and another.
Consequence is that nothing is neglected, on the contrary there is great care
for everything and of course for everybody. Even things considered as useless
have full right to exist. But also the overvaluing of so-called highly placed
persons belongs to the past! Why should somebody be more valuable than the
other? Indeed it is possible that somebody has great significance for the society
because of her or his extraordinary talents. That is respectable, but by no
means it gives more value, for example expressed in fabulous wages, out of all
proportions? In a just world all things are closely connected and in full
balance. This is possible only when there are no dominating values.
35. Religion and free will
Since the beginning of Christianity theologists have disputed about the question whether or not
man has an own free will. Never they found a satisfactory consistent answer,
because constantly they were confronted with a difficult paradox. The
omnipotence of God namely in principle excludes a free will of man. If man has
a free will it would be possible for him to break through Gods power. Then you
cannot speak of omnipotence. Yet on the other hand it was clear to the theologists that in many circumstances man goes his own
way. By consequence they had to admit that the free will exists. That leads to
the paradox that God created his own negation. Even for theologists
this goes too far! However, one-sided denial of the free will also was not
desirable. It was favourable for those theologists
and church-leaders to acknowledge a more or less independent will because of
their own need to rule the world. Having something like a free will justified
this ambition, although this freedom of course must be applied in the service
of God, so that in a sense it is a continuation of Gods will. But still the
case is not very satisfactory…
For the philosopher it is easy to understand that one
has a problem with this question, because indeed man has an absolute free will
and it is not possible to deny that clear fact.
Also in daily life this fact is evident. Being the ultimate
product of the cosmic genesis man has no bounds with something else, be it
material or divine from origin. The freedom of man negates every absolute power
of gods and other spirits. So the idea of Gods omnipotence is contrary to the
facts. It is a fully untenable thought!
Yet the believers, church-leaders and theologists find it necessary to maintain the omnipotence
of God, in the first place for their own legitimization as spiritual leaders.
The solution to this problem is as absurd as misleading: man is free to resist
to Gods will. He has permission to act like a rebel and he is free to fight
against his god. But, if he does so he immediately is a sinner. He becomes a
renegade who has to be punished! Even to a certain level one associates him with
the devil who also is considered as a rebel against God. The idea of the rebel
should be the inner contradiction of the divine reality. Just like the inner
contradiction of the Holy Trinity. But that contradiction doesn't neutralize
the absolute power of God. It is a nice story, but of course it is terrible
nonsense!
The right to resist is inextricably bound up with
slavery. It is unthinkable without oppression by some higher power. Considering
that resistance as a free will is totally wrong. In fact theologists
and other religious leaders do not recognize any free will at all. For them
there is but only one really free will and that is the will of the omnipotent
God! And man has to obey unconditional the orders of God without any arrogant
protest, just like a good servant…
36. Humanity and values
One can attach value to everything, be it concrete or
abstract. Religions, social ideals and ideologies are examples of abstract
goods which are considered to be of great human value, because of their
spiritual character. In western culture there is a healthy respect for higher
matters.
But, thinking about values our attention in the first
place goes to the material things. That is understandable because the material
things are the fundaments of life. The quality of life is fully dependent on
those fundaments. When there is a lack of the bare essentials it is hardly
possible to have a fulfilling life. In this case it is in all respects a
question of survival. One is constantly busy with the gathering of those essentials.
Also one's mind is fully obsessed by that. Under such circumstances it speaks
for itself that one starts to attach great value to those important things
which are so very difficult to obtain. A piece of bread for example is of vital
importance for a refugee in Uganda.
Because this bread is scarce it becomes valuable. One is willing to pay much
money for it. Normally even the money is lacking. But someone who happens to
have money to buy a bread pays a far too high price. And the poor fellows without
money are doomed to starve, thanks to villains who take advantage of the
situation.
In fact this criminal behaviour is common in a culture
which is not full-grown: our modern culture!
Since we be long to that
culture we consider such a behaviour as normal, evel
as a justified activity. And up till today we call it legal trade. To some
extend we are right, namely insofar on the long run the consequence is that all
kinds of goods become available for everyone. Trade is impossible without
distribution of goods. And it is also impossible when there are no buyers. So
the results are positive.
But attaching concrete values like money to the goods,
to obtain as great as possible profits for ourselves, is not positive, it is
totally wrong! Yet as long as mankind is not full-grown a number of sly egoists
is able to do so, indeed with the approval of the others who try to do the same
when they get the chance.
When more life essentials become available a decrease
of values to an acceptable level takes place, but still the underlying motive
for producing those goods are the profits one hopes to gain. Making those
profits is only possible by preserving the system of values and that is only
possible when there resists an artificial shortage of goods. This is an inhuman
system.
From a philosophical point of view it is
understandable that for the time being it exists, but at the same time it is
obvious that real humanity cannot go accompanied with the attachment of values
to the products of our planet. Real humanity means that man lives and acts in
accordance with a reality which is without any intrinsic value at all. This
also means that everybody has exactly the same right to the goods. But that
doesn't mean that it should be reasonable if everyone takes possession of all
the goods!
37. The possession of only
the necessary goods
It is remarkable that immature man possesses a lot of
things which are unnecessary. That is to say: he doesn't use these things in
accordance with their own intrinsic function. For him only the possession is
important as an outward sign of wealthy and good taste. It belongs to his
social status to have as many possessions as possible whereas for the rest
those things have no practical function. It is obvious that these possessions
are at the wrong place. For example many wealthy people have beautiful grand
piano's in their homes, without anyone capable to make music on it. The grand
piano is nothing but a valuable status symbol. But at the same time there are
marvellous musical talents who even cannot afford themselves a cheap Korean
electronic keyboard. The only cause of this inhuman situation is the attaching
of values to goods which in principle and at the first place have to be
available for those who can use them in a significant way. Otherwise rich
people can buy themselves really useful goods like fridges. Of course these
goods are at their right place. But people in hot tropic areas, who have an
urgent need for cold storage, have no money to buy a fridge. So, in this case
the injustice exists in the impossibility to obtain necessary useful goods.
Again an example of a wrong management, only because one attaches a certain
value to the goods. As a result the fridges are not available for people who
really need them. It should have been far more reasonable if the producers of
fridges at the first place took care for distributing fridges in the tropical
areas…
Of course there are many examples. All those problems
could be solved if there should be no values attached to the available goods.
In that case everything could be obtained freely without being accountable to
someone else. But in a childish culture people cannot stand such a freedom.
They wish to possess everything, which in practice means as much as possible,
useful or not. They are not able to restrict themselves to the absolute
necessary goods, being not aware of the fact that superfluous things need
constant concern without any meaning. Superfluous things are nothing but
tiring.
However, the childish man cannot be have otherwise
because he is not yet developed to a true owner of the goods of this world. A
'true owner' knows that everything is in every respect his own possession, but
he also knows at the same time that this applies to everybody. By consequence
he takes only what he needs and nothing more. But the problem is that he must
be aware of the things he really needs. Only the really mature individual is
capable of that. He knows what is necessary to improve himself in accordance
with his personal talents. I cannot agree with those who claim that it is a
problem of poverty. Obviously they don't see that on the contrary poverty is
one of the first results of attaching values to things. So it is evident that
it exclusively goes about values. Another inhuman consequence is the fact that
the movement of goods goes from above to below instead of the opposite way. The
rich, however being already privileged in so may
aspects, are at first qualified to obtain the products. And the poor, who are
poor just because the lack of goods, are the last instead of the first. Those
who need it most get the necessary goods in the end when there rests hardly any
'market' for it. It is comprehensible that for a very long time this is the
normal human behaviour, but confrontation with its criminal practice makes you
angry every moment…
38. Equal distribution
It is hard to believe, but often one deducts from the
fundamental equality of men as a universal phenomenon, a similar equality of
the individuals. One thinks that in principle all individuals are alike and
that by consequence everybody has the same needs. So it should be the duty of
the society to distribute the goods in an equal way. Everyone gets exactly the
same. To some extend you can agree with that opinion. Among others one must
have fresh air to breathe, clean water to drink and a certain quantity of food.
But even here are differences, something can be sufficient for one person, but
not for an other. And not everybody can agree with
the same food. Thinking about this matter you can best start from the point of
view that every individual differs from the others. There is but one exception,
namely concerning the human rights. But these rights are directly derived from
the above-mentioned universal phenomenon and not from the individual. So those
rights are universal as well. One might also think of the so-called intrinsic
value of man, but that is a value that doesn't exist, as I have argued before.
The members of the human phenomenon are equal, but the
real existing individuals are far from that. From this follows that equal
distribution is fully impossible, even inhuman because of the paradox that
equality results in terrible inequality!
In the communist world one cherished at the beginning
the ideal of equal distribution of all goods. The inevitable consequence was
that no body was happy, nobody was able to develop
him- or herself and above all nobody was interested in the social duty to
produce those goods and to take care of them. Of course the leaders found
themselves not equal at all. They tried to obtain as much as possible, not only
of the goods but especially of the power. Not one moment they believed in
equality. It was but a misleading fairy-tale for the poor people!
It is fully impossible to manage the distribution of
goods by external criteria. No authority is capable to determine what is needed
for the development of the individual. Only this individual can do it for
himself, but the question is whether he is really himself as a human being or
only a childish collector of everything he can get or steal. As long as man is
not full-grown he is such a collector. He has not yet learned that he has only
the right to obtain the goods necessary to develop his own life to real
humanity. Not to any kind of citizenship or obedient service to god or any
other ideology, but only and exclusively to personal humanity. All other aims
are based upon values that can change every moment because they are dependent
on temporary situations. Only humanity is a universal criterion.
And the distribution of goods lies within that
criterion, so that every real human individual - from my point of view a real
'individualist' - can decide for himself what needs he has. Alas, mankind is
still far from that…
39. Ideals and ideologies
In principle you cannot attach value to things. As I
said before, this leads to an unfair distribution and an inhuman society. But
not only the material things are valuated. It is also common to attach values
to ideals and ideologies. This however doesn't in the first place result in an
unfair distribution but in a mental slavery of the individual. The valuing of
material things is merely a social question, but when it concerns spiritual
matters the individual is involved. Of course that is understandable because of
the character of the human mind.
The most important characteristic of the western
culture is the dichotomy between a higher and a lower reality. And of course
the higher reality is considered to be the most important. By consequence
almost everybody believes that having ideals and striving for realization of an
ideology is the best fulfillment of one's life.
Material matters on the contrary should belong to the lower and banal reality
without any universal significance. They are but temporary and limited.
Therefore it is the task of man to grow above this material world and develop
himself to a spiritual being. In short this is the point of view within the
western Christian culture. It seems to be very noble, but in fact it subjects
someone to a planned intellectual blueprint of the reality which excludes all
alternative possibilities. There is but one way, beforehand invented and
justified as the right way. Deviations have to be punished severe, sometimes by
external judges, mostly by the idealist himself. His loyalty to his own
ideology or ideal makes him a slave of his own thinking about reality. This
slavery makes it impossible to run his own life in a free and inventive way.
His principles urge him constantly to act in accordance with the criteria of
his idealistic blueprint.
Regularly you meet people of principle with high
ideals. They seem to live with high human standards but in practice it appears
to be nothing but unfeeling theory. Almost everyone has some intolerance and an
obstinate attitude towards other ideas and opinions. They are blinkered so that
they cannot see that there are many ways to live a good life. Such behaviour
again is a proof of the negative effects of valuing ideas and making ideals and
ideologies of them. There is but one reasonable way of living a good and
responsible life: try to live without those valuated ideals and ideologies by
practicing free and independent thinking! Then the content of those ideals and
ideologies appears to be of great personal and even universal significance.
This content will show up well without any compulsiveness, intolerance and
mental slavery. The significance of ideas is totally different from the value
of ideas. Significance gives man the necessary grip on reality but values break
up reality to more or less important pieces.
40. The significance of things
Everybody lives within her or his own world. Of course
'my world' has much in common with 'your world', but even those common things
appear a little bit different for me and for you. The reason is that everything
becomes content of our mind. But not for everybody in the same way: in practice
our dealing with our daily experiences is strictly personal. It is dependent on
our inborn disposition and the quality of our abilities. The results are unique
for every individual. And most important is that the circumstances in which we
live are more or less different, even if two so-called identical twins grow up
in the same family and at the same moment. It is complete nonsense when some
scientist presume that two cloned persons will become exactly identical. Always
and inevitable the process of daily life leads to differences, if only because
of the fact that two things cannot be at the same place at the same time. Above
that it is the question if cloning gives exact copies: nowhere in reality two
things are exactly the same. The lack of differences is absolutely impossible.
Because of man's unique character every individual has
different needs. As a result for everybody there are special things which are
needed for the development and fulfillment of one's
personal life. In this context I use the not ion 'significance'. When the so-called 'significant' things
are not available life stays beneath its real possibilities and by consequence it
cannot be satisfactory. Of course in
the first place the elementary needs are 'significant', such as
food, clothes, homes etceteras. But above that there
are cultural 'significant' needs like human rights, education, information,
communication and so on. And finally
you see that man has personal needs, dependent on his special
talents. Especially these personal 'significant' things are undergone by nearly
everyone as absolutely essential. Their fulfillment
is, so to speak, the crowning glory of man's life. When he or she for example
has a musical talent instruments are of great significance, for a scientist
books are indispensable. Everybody has his own needs and in fact also the
unconditional right to fulfill them.
Significant things cannot be put on a par with
valuable things. The notion 'significance' means that something is of special
interest in the light of someone's unique personality. But something of
significance is not isolated from reality as a coherent whole! It is just this
coherence that makes it possible that for someone, in the midst of all
varieties of things, cčrtain things appear in an
extra light and as such count as significant. So the notion 'significance'
underlines the coherence of all phenomena. By consequence it can be considered
as real in every aspect, whereas the notion 'value' in fact refers to a
fiction, a delusion, because of its breaking up the coherence within the
reality. Valuable things are isolated from the whole of reality. They are falsely considered as the only existing
objects, or at the very least objects which have more rights to exist than
other things.
41. About the notion 'sign'.
Within the coherence of all phenomena a certain object
can represent the whole of the reality and as such count as the notion 'sign'.
So the notion 'sign' means that something on its own way is the reality.
Something is a specific form of existence of the whole of reality. Of course
this is an idea of man.
For his perception of reality something can be a 'sign', but in fact everything
is only what it is. But because of the inner coherence of reality man can
consider an object as a reflection of reality as a whole. A tree is nothing but
a tree, but for man such a tree can count as a 'sign' .
A true object of art for example is a 'sign', because it is a, in a certain image, sound, movement
or event condensed, expression of our reality. Such an object let us experience
the whole reality and her truth and beauty. Because of this fact the arts are
of extraordinary significance for humanity. They are the only human creations
which directly refer to reality herself.
This is also the case with philosophy, that is to say
the 'creative' philosophy in the form of personal practicing of pure reasonable
thinking about reality. Therefore in my opinion the practice of philosophy is
actually an art and not a science. The study of philosophy of course is a case
of science but 'studying' philosophy is totally different from 'practicing'
philosophy. That however is an other theme at this
moment…
It is possible that in the English language the word
'sign' is not so very suited to express the notion I mean. You can think for
example of the word 'symbol', but this word doesn't refer to the whole of
reality. It says something about a part of reality, for example "a symbol
of love", the Statue of Liberty as a "symbol of freedom", and so
on. Concerning the notion 'sign' it is indeed very important that there is a
reference to the whole as a unity of all there is.
42. The arts and their value
Everybody knows that a work of art in principle has no
value. The millions of dollars a collector these days pays for some paintings
are not based upon an real value of the objects involved, but on the contrary
upon financial speculations of irresponsible and even antisocial individuals.
Purely the possession of a famous painting, in combination with the
circumstance that someone else doesn't have it, is the cause of those high
prices. And above that the possession of a work of art increases someone's
status. Nearly all rich people agree with that and the poor are envious of it…
Yet you have to speak of something criminal! The works
of art are meant for everyone, to enjoy them and to feel yourself included in
beauty, truth and immortality. A work of art has a universal significance. It
is - as I argued before - the whole of reality condensed in an intelligible
'sign'. Just because of this association with reality as a whole it is wrong
when a work of art is grabbed by an individual so that it cannot be enjoyed by
all the people. In particular this applies to sculptures and pictures because
usual there is but one single original of it. Reproductions are good as an
incidental solution but never they can replace an original work of art. All
things of beauty have to be common affairs and in fact this is also the case
with the philosophy!
43. Philosophy and science
Sciences are not meant for everybody, they are for the
scientists. It is a terrible job for ordinary people to take note of the
complex scientific theories and discourses and without a thorough academic
education it is fully impossible to understand them. Above that the use of a
scientific language makes it more worse. Only high-qualified experts know what
it all goes about. That is reasonable because of the unbelievable deep analysis
of the various phenomena that scientists make.
For ordinary people remain the practical results on
behalf of their daily life and for those who have an inquiring mind there is,
to some extend, the popularization. But science on
itself will always be a case of exclusivity. All scientists are occupied with a
very small part of the existing material world and they are not interested in
questions about the whole of reality. They only want to find the fundamental elements
that things contain and how they are put together. Contrary to the ideas of
many New-Age supporters there is nothing wrong with it: scientists have to analyze the matter till they have found the fundaments of
the phenomena. Speculations and fantasies can be useful to give a boost to
further research, but the job of the scientists is strictly rational.
Totally different is the philosophy! Philosophizing
means that one searches for an answer on the question "how is the
character of the reality, the human phenomenon and the things around us"?
Asking for the character of something makes it
impossible to analyze the case. Instead of splitting
up to elements one has to examine it as a coherent whole. So this question in
fact cannot have any scientific significance, stronger: there exists no science
that can solve this problem. But for man it is of vital importance to find the
true answers. If he cannot find them it is inevitable that he stays a victim of
more or less dangerous delusions. Then things are not what they are and life is
just like a nightmare. Constantly one lives in the dark.
44. Understandable language
Because of the fact that philosophy is occupied with questions
of character and tries to eliminate individual delusions, she is obliged to
speak an understandable language without any scientific jargon. The language of
daily life is sufficient in every culture, even in so-called primitive
cultures. But of course it is necessary to have a very clear view on reality.
One cannot escape in technical terms. Philosophy by no means exists only for
the philosophers. She is meant for everybody! Just like art. Some philosophers,
like for example Sartre, understood this more or less. But he didn't know what
to do with this insight. Being unable to philosophize, speak and write in an
everyday language he sometimes resorted to literature. But of course this made
things worse, because in literature there is the disadvantage that it appears
to be very difficult to make things clear with a logical reasoning. In
literature one tells something about a succession of concrete material or
psychological events, but nothing about the character of reality itself, which
is in an abstract way cause of those events. So, literature is not suitable for
the expression of philosophical ideas. At best one can indicate something.
Nevertheless Sartre tried to do so and as a result I have to admit that I
suspect Sartre of having not a very clear philosophical view on reality. This,
for example, is also shown by his strange unworldly ideas about revolution,
communism and the Sowjet-Union. Yet, in spite of that
he became a famous philosopher! I think more due to his human attitude to life
than to his philosophy.
45. Unconditional truth
Since philosophizing deals with the true character of
things philosophical insights have to be unconditional truthful, also 'tomorrow
and the days after tomorrow'. So it goes about absolutely sure notions. This
implies that scientific knowledge cannot be used as foundation of philosophical
reasoning and ideas, and neither as a starting-point for it. This is because
scientific knowledge always has a temporarily character and because there is no
lasting real truth. Today something seems to be correct, but may be tomorrow,
after further research, it appears to be incorrect.
This is not a shortcoming of the sciences but on the
contrary an essential quality. In contrast with religions, which uphold
fundamental dogmatic certainties, the sciences always seek for better and new
knowledge. Of course man does so for he needs as much knowledge as possible to
make his existence according to real human conditions. He has to make the
planet to 'his' planet on which he can survive. Without proper information man
is helpless. He is absolutely not equipped to survive by means of natural tools
like for example claws, a perfect sense of smell or an excellent sharpness of
sight. So, research must go on, there is no other way! And always there will be
new and better information about things.
But concerning philosophy this knowledge is of no
primary use. Even if it should appear to be impossible to find the unconditional truth, philosophers have still the
task to search for it!
Just like artists who never stop trying to express the
beauty they experience within themselves.
Of course there is a secondary use of scientific
knowledge, namely in an incidental way as an illustration to clarify a certain
philosophical thought. But never scientific knowledge can be used as a
foundation for philosophy.
This, however, doesn't mean that philosophy should be
unfounded speculation and twaddle, like a lot of 'positivist' thinkers dare to
claim…
46. Unbroken reality
In philosophy one doesn't split up things, like
scientists do. On the contrary it is essential to look at the interesting
objects in full coherence with all surroundings. Never this coherence may be
broken. For the philosopher a certain theme can be compared with a spider in
her web: there are threads in all directions. By consequence one can reason
from the 'spider' to every other connection and one can also reason the
opposite way. But if reasoning reaches a deadlock or results in contradictions
it is sure that one has made a mistake and that it is necessary to turn back to
the beginning of the line of thought.
In fact the philosophical inquiry goes about a theme,
that is to say a facet of the complete and unbroken reality. It is as if there
falls a light on a certain spot. All the other things are still present, but
for a moment they are kept in the dark. After the inquiry of that illuminated
spot the philosopher has to check up whether or not all connections are still
correct. Only this approach opens a reliable way to obtain an unconditional
truth about the character of things. So, this character appears when all
cohesions, in all directions, are calculated within the line of thought. It is clear
that the philosopher preserves the whole of reality, but on the contrary the
scientist splits up reality. It should be a good thing if the scientist and the
philosopher became intellectual friends and worked together to obtain a better
view on reality. Our world should be much more social…
Immanuel Kant presumed that it should be impossible to
get universal knowledge about the true character of things. To some extend he
was right, namely insofar it was his opinion that for this purpose things had
to be analyzed. That is to say that things had to be
detached from their environment and divided into pieces. So his point of view
was scientific and not philosophical. Actually Kant was a very important
founder of modern analytical thinking, in sciences, but particularly in
academic philosophy.
47. Self-supporting
philosophy
Philosophical thinking is 'self-supporting'. The use
of instruments or scientific methods of research results in an unreliable
philosophy, because of the application of fundamentally unsure extern
information. Besides that, for the philosopher even it is impossible to verify
that information seeing that he cannot have sufficient training in every
scientific discipline. So concerning this information his thinking cuts out!
Consequently there are gaps in his philosophy…
Just like practicing arts the philosophy is an
activity of the individual mind. It cannot be the work of a collective like
technics or sciences, where the best results are obtained by teamwork. In cases
of art and philosophy the best results depend on the most talented individual.
By consequence we use to typify every philosophy by the name of her creator:
'The philosophy of Wittgenstein', for example. Modern academic philosophers
deceive us into believing that philosophy is objective and transferable like
every other science, so that it could be taught in the schools.
That is a big mistake! One only can tell the pupils
about philosophers and their philosophy and try to make their ideas
understandable. Even it is possible to put together a survey of the total
philosophy of the world. Actually every scientific approach is quite possible
but only concerning 'the' philosophy as a collection of already existing human
thoughts. It is obvious that it is very good to acquaint children with those
ideas, instead of the daily drivel of our modern, so-called intelligentsia. But
it is fully excluded that teachers can teach how to philosophize and that
students can learn the beautiful art of philosophy. One 'is' a philosopher or
one is not. Attending lectures of the most brilliant thinkers doesn't result in
being a real philosopher, in spite of the academic custom to qualify a graduate
as such.
48. Art as an expression of
the truth
Often I have noticed that there are many fallacies
about art. The most important is the opinion that art serves to express human
emotions. But also you can hear artists and thinkers say that it should be the
task of the arts to give a portrait of our era. A lot of trendy producers think
that the arts yield nothing but airy amusement to entertain the people. And
then there are the Marxist rulers who proclaim the theory that the arts have to
educate the people, a point of view of the fascists and Nazi’s also. In all
those cases there is an extern authority that determines the artistic criteria.
May be it is the artist himself, may be the common moral or the government. But
art has her own laws.
So in my opinion all those ideas are wrong. They are a
result of causally thinking, which means that everything must have a purpose in
connection with something else. This way of thinking is characteristic for
western culture in which it is essential
to know whether or not something is useful. This makes it possible to connect
values to it. And exclusively this values determine the appreciation.
In connection with the arts however it is not totally
undeserved to ask for their use. Of course arts can be of great use for man,
for example to take some distinction from the hectic daily life now and then.
One can calm down while enjoying a work of art. Sometimes it even happens that
a work of art clarifies someone's outlook on reality. And indeed the arts bring
much joy to people!
But these pleasant qualities of the arts are not the
main point. They are but secondary. Essential is that arts are manifestations
of a reality 'behind the ordinary things', so to speak. This reality is not
possible without those 'ordinary things' , otherwise she could not exist
'behind' them, but on herself she has nothing to do with the world of the
concrete things. For her there are totally different relations. These relations
are like a cobweb and no one of them is more important than the others. By
consequence one cannot say that arts have a special task, for such a task
presumes some special relation with something else.
In spite of the existence of special relations between
things, they are basically standing alone. That means that they do not need
something else to justify their existence, whatever their special relations to
other objects. For example a nut is related to a bolt, but his existence
doesn't depend on this facto Both of them can be used for many other purposes.
But the objects within the reality as an idea 'behind' the ordinary things,
being object of art and theme of philosophy, are not standing alone. They all
are connected with each other so that one thing cannot exist without another.
The existence of A includes directly the existence of B and vice versa. You can
speak of a 'web' or a 'network'. Because of this situation the arts and the
philosophy find their justification and their meaning exclusively in themselves
and nowhere else.
49. Reality as idea
There are three situations in which reality appears to
man. First there is the concrete world of phenomena around us. Of course this
is a pure material world. I call it 'reality as phenomenon' .
The second situation is 'reality as image' and this
relates to the concrete phenomena insofar they are reflected in our mind. For
example: in my mind exists an image of my bicycle! And on the third place man
has a universal and general idea of reality, so this is 'reality as idea'.
The reality as phenomenon is concrete object of the
technics in every sense of the word. The primitive using of a stone to serve as
an axe is already a form of technique and the same is the case when you make a
cup of tea! In our daily life we are constantly occupied with those things.
They be long to the tangible fundaments of life.
The reality as image is a faithful portrayal of the
reality as phenomenon. She has an intellectual character, so science,
technology, law, polities etcetera belong to it. All kinds of knowledge,
scientific or daily, make up the whole complex of of
our minds' content. But in a certain way this is yet a concrete world also,
because of the fact that the objects are concrete. Only our thinking about
those reflected objects, the really existing phenomena, is abstract.
The reality as idea is totally abstract without any
material criterion or definition. Within this reality there are no
demarcations, but only transitions from one nuance to another. This makes an
indissoluble cohesive web or network of it. With this entity the artists and
philosophers are occupied, at least those who are real lovers of truth and
beauty and by no means running after the delusions of their time.
50. Reflection number nine
In 'Philosophical Reflection' no.9 (Instalment no. 02)
I have called the reality as idea 'image'. Of course it is not a mistake, it is
only another approach of the matter. This can give some confusion, thanks to
the fact that the philosophical concepts are very close to each other. For
example the reality as idea is in a certain way also an image, which can be
crystallized in a work of art or a philosophical essay. For example the painter
tries to catch her shape in a picture. This picture has a temporary and local
character, contrary to reality as idea as it is. So the notions 'image' and
'idea' sometimes have more or less the same meaning.
To some extent terms are not so very important in
creative philosophy. She has to be clear on itself, without the use of
pre-defined technical terms, which only are understandable for experts. She is
absolutely without any scientific linguistic usage. Important is only the
subtle description of the case in question.
In fact also this 'Reflection no.9' gives a rather
clear view on the reality behind the daily things. It can be useful to read it
again and to substitute alternatively the term 'image' for 'reality as idea'.
But, what really matters is the understanding and the insight in the real
situation. That is more important than the occasional use of different words.
Apart from that there is something else: a philosopher and an artist more or
less have the disposition of a child! I mean that they constantly experience
the reality as idea like something totally new. This continuously new world
requires every time an original and open-minded approach. By consequence the
philosopher speaks about her in rather varying words and the artist gives
varying expressions to his ideas.
This is a process that always and constantly repeats
herself. The development of philosophy and arts doesn't depend on more
knowledge about the reality as idea, but exclusively on fresh new insights.
Although they gain much experience in their work, the philosopher and the
artist handle as if they do it for the first time!
51. The carpenter and the
artist
The carpenter becomes a master craftsman by increasing
his knowledge and capabilities. Once he has learned to make, for example, a
stairs he can reproduce his actions as of ten as
needed. The next moment he learns to make a window, and then a door and so on.
Every time he adds something to the entirety of his capabilities. Although this
development is impossible without any insight in the matter, yet it is in the
first place a question of increasing capabilities. So it is a case of quantity.
But it speaks for itself that the quantity inevitable results in quality. How
more the skill, how better the carpenter!
The development of the artist - and of course also the
philosopher - is quite different. It is not in the first place a matter of
increasing capabilities, but increasing insight in the reality as idea to make
her more and more clear. This results in more beautiful and truthful creations.
The more clear the insight the better the creation. This clarification cannot
be learned neither from teachers, nor from experiences with drugs, hypnosis or
other special therapies. It is mainly a matter of an open mind for reality and
freedom from prejudice. Because of this a lot of things strike the artist and
the philosopher and inspire them to wonderful creations.
Of course the artist and the philosopher have their
capabilities, but basically they are not exercising to increase this. Above
that it is impossible. How to train putting your thoughts into words? How to
train transposing your ideas into brushstrokes or musical notes or dance steps?
Their only care is to clarify their insight in the reality as idea. But,
indeed, at the same time they know that a better capability to express their
experiences is an inevitable consequence. But it is a secondary matter. First
comes the quality and after that the quantity of their capabilities. The
drawings of Rembrandt for example give you the impression that he didn't have
much routine in drawing. He had colleagues who were far better in it, but in
fact only as draftsmen. Rembrandt had nothing to do with such a virtuosity,
because his aim was to express reality as idea. And in this he was unsurpassed.
52. A matter of subjectivity
It must be admitted that art and philosophy cannot be
tested with objective criteria. For the philosophy applies: whether or not
someone can judge one of the assertions of a philosopher is a matter of
personal insight in reality as idea. Without a more or less clear awareness of
this 'reality behind the things' every reliable judgment is out of the
question.
That means that it is also complete impossible to
convince another with the help of objective scientific arguments in case one
has an essentially different view on reality, or no view at all. One is not
able to recognize those arguments as such. For someone like that those
arguments are a shot in the dark.
This has nothing to do with misunderstanding. Even if
one recognizes and understands the objective scientific arguments it is still
impossible to accept them as valid. So one takes note of it and that is all! Of
course this is especially the matter with philosophical ideas which don't allow
any concrete research.
Phenomena like love and beauty for example cannot be analyzed. By consequence they fall outside the ground of
the sciences so that so-called objective scientific arguments, put forward by
some thinkers, are inevitable without any meaning. There is but one possibility
to convince someone of the truth of a certain philosophical thought: make her
or him aware of the reality 'behind the things', so the 'reality as idea'. As
far as this appears to be successful there can be communication between the
philosopher and the person he is speaking to.
In fact the communication between them goes the same
way as the listening to music and in general the enjoyment of works of art.
Somehow a kind of spiritual agreement arises between people. This agreement can
exist because of the circumstance that 'reality as idea' is absolutely
universal. For everybody it is the same reality, regardless all differences in
culture and development. On this universal reality philosophy and art are
grounded.
53. Philosophy is stirring
up things
The philosopher reflects upon reality as idea. Then he
tells the story of his discoveries. This story is characterized by logical reasoning,
which means that every step follows from the preceding step without introducing
something improper. That means that it isn't permitted to use any more or less
reliable knowledge from outside. Things he believes to know because he has
learned them from teachers, or by reading books or by his own experience are
improper arguments. So, for example the introducing of God to explain the fact
that the universe is constantly in motion is false, but also the use of
scientific knowledge like the information that the quarks are the elementary
materials of the universe. These arguments can't be deduced from reality as
idea. They belong to reality as image. Whether or not they are correct on
themselves is not important for the philosophical reasoning, because they are
forbidden arguments. They may not be used, take care: they may not be used as a
valid argument!
The philosopher indeed can say something ŕbout God or the quarks, but in that case this doesn't deal
with arguments to found another proposition. He pronounces his opinion
concerning those phenomena. This opinion of course is also a result of a line
of reasoning, in accordance with the abovementioned criteria.
The listener or reader of a philosophical line of
thought will be convinced of its truth, not in the first place by the mentioned
facts, but by the logic and coherence of the reasoning. This will cause a more
or less intense resonance with one's own inner reality as idea, so with the
universal truth. These things have nothing to do with substantiating a
statement or proving one's point. On the contrary it is a case of stirring up
one's consciousness of the reality as idea. As a result the listener or reader
gets in his own way the same view on the theme involved.
Every attempt to transform philosophy into some
scientific discipline will irrevocable result to the ruin of the beautiful art
of philosophy. It has to be considered as very tragic that most of the thinkers
all the time confuse the logic and coherence of the line of thought with science
as such. This remarkable fallacy has something to do with the modern opinion
that only scientific knowledge could claim truth. Being scientific should give
the philosophy a higher status!
54. Trustworthy knowledge
The fact that scientific knowledge can't be used to
prove a philosophical thought is founded on three arguments. The first argument
runs as follows: the sciences are occupied with the material things.
Those things appear unto man within his reality as
image. He examines this image and then inevitable meets with dark spots. He
starts research which results in a number of scientific data. Of course it is
his intention to obtain reliable knowledge. But this knowledge and the criteria
for reliability belong exclusively to reality as image. As such it has no
evidential value for the philosophical reasoning which is grounded in reality
as idea. The second argument is related to the personal character of reality as
image. Everybody's own reality differs from someone else's reality. As a
consequence there is no fundamental similarity between all those imaginations.
People have solved this problem by agreement. If, after a number of special
examinations and tests, a majority confirms that certain knowledge is correct
and reliable it has to be considered as such. So this correctness depends on a
quantitative criterion.
Concerning the material world there is no other
solution because this world consists of quantities of material elements. All
scientific knowledge is quantitative knowledge and the judgment is also a
matter of quantities. Within the world of sciences this is all right, but
within the world of philosophy those knowledge is useless.
The third argument: scientific knowledge is by
definition temporary knowledge, because scientific inquiry is a process. So in
the future our knowledge undoubtedly is more accurate than today. In a certain
way today's knowledge is unreliable. But philosophers are searching for the
universal truth, a knowledge of eternal truth without the demarcation of place
and time. Therefore they can't use this knowledge in the philosophical
reasoning. But for the purpose of illustration of a line of thought it is very
useful, even indispensable! Of course it has to be trustworthy knowledge,
provided by upright and competent scientists.
55. Religious theories
Whether or not people consider certain knowledge as
reliable and useful depends on agreements. These agreements are of ten result of thorough scientific research, confirmed by
the majority of the qualified scientists. But also they are consequence of
lengthy practical experience in daily life and craftsmanship. Particularly this
was the case before the development of the modern western scientific method.
This method doesn't require craftsmanship but education and training in
theoretical analysis.
But at that time responsible theoretical foundation
was rare. One tried to do so but every time it was a failure. As a rule the
argumentation was inferior, because of the lacking of the necessary analytical
ability. So one didn't know yet how to do research. By consequence the usual
theories were neither here nor there!
In spite of that, in practice this knowledge as such
was very useful. There was much craftsmanship. The results were of ten extraordinary effective! For example one built
excellent ships, houses, musical instruments, cathedrals and so on, even
without any design.
Inevitable at that time was that many attempts to
theoretical foundation of knowledge were based upon the bible and other
religious fantasies. Long after the Age of Enlightenment, halfway the 19th
century, researchers like Charles Darwin were still opposed by means of
scriptural passages, nota bene brought up by qualified scientists! According to
the bible man was created by God. The idea that he was result of an evolution
out off apes not only was considered as a folly, but
also as an insult towards man and God.
Even now one can hear supporters of the so-called
creationism declare that the complete universe
is created by God, some thousands of years
ago.
His creation of Adam and Eve should be an absolutely
reliable historical event.
Of course this kind of knowledge is result of blind
belief, but more than that it is an expression of absolute inability to analyze things. Undoubtedly it is an absence of the
capacity for logical thought.
Contrary to almost all thinkers I don't consider
religious knowledge as a matter of belief, with an own authentic significance,
next to science. From my point of view it is a question of poor thinking: one
seeks for the truth about reality, but alas one doesn't know how to do it! The
religious thinking, culminating in theology, is one sequence of despairing
efforts to analyze and explain reality.
Many thinkers are at the same time religious believers
and scientists. It is incredible! They seem to have no problems with this
glaring contrast. I have been acquainted with someone who was honestly
convinced of having seen - "with his own eyes" - the virgin Mary
sitting in a tree near the church. She was speaking to a few children and an
old woman. But this person wasn't mentally ill. His profession was scientific
researcher in the Shell Laboratory! For him belief and science were two
different realities, which existed at the same time, but for me there is a
serious defect in his personality and thinking.
Yet there is still an agreement between the majority
of the modern people about this religious knowledge. All over the world it is
accepted as a kind of metaphysical thinking. Even in modern universities these
delusions are lectured, as if they were scientific facts! In spite of science's
conquest of the world still an irrational thinking prevails, both with
scientists and laymen.
56. To see reality
Cultures are inspired by the fundamental need of all
human beings to be acquainted with their world. The modern-western culture is
based upon the splitting up of things. One wants to get acquainted with the
fundamental material elements from which the phenomena are composed. So one is
obliged to analyze the reality. The general idea is
that the from analysis obtained knowledge of these elements will drive away all
delusions. Then the darkness and despair of men can come to an end. In other
words: according to the modern-western thinking the truth about reality can be
found by inquiring the matter.
However, next to the question 'how is the reality
composed' one can ask another question, namely 'how is the character of the
reality', a question which refers to reality as a whole. It speaks for itself
that this question can't be answered by splitting up things. Even it is
impossible to examine reality as image, because this reality is split up on
itself! The content of the reality as image is a collection of separated
things. For example, my chair is not my table and even there is a clear
distinction between two or more chairs. Everything is separated from
everything.
The only solution to the problem is to direct the
attention to the reality as idea. Within this reality the universe indeed is a
whole. And now it is the trick to find out the character of this whole.
The results of the reality as idea's inquiry can't be
put in a formula. A formula is a set of symbols expressing the composition of a
phenomenon, but there is no composition within the reality as idea! It is a
unity, a oneness of everything. It is but one reality, in itself varied,
nuanced through and through, without any possibility of splitting up and
analysis. This means that one only can give a description of it. Such a
description has to be logical and above all understandable, thanks to the use
of common language (see Reflection No. 44).
In the antiquity the results were told in metaphorical
stories. Every metaphor had a special meaning. Very often those meanings were
hidden, mostly for security reasons. Exclusively to insiders it was allowed to
understand them. Therefore nowadays it is rather difficult to find out what the original
meaning was, but anyhow these stories didn't concern concrete events. Even if there was talk of certain historical events one
didn't mean to report on this. It only was a go ad and revealing cause to tell a story about reality as idea. So
these events became metaphors.
After the antiquity Christianity adopted most of those
metaphorical stories. It turned out to be very useful to get power. But,
already belonging to the modern-western culture, the Christian patriarchs were
not able to understand the metaphorical character of the so-called gospels.
They were convinced they had to do with reliable historical reports. And of
course many of them feigned this conviction with the intention to mislead the
people. Anyhow, from now on the real meaning of the aid stories got lost.
In accordance with the new way of thinking the
phenomena indeed should have been created in six days by an almighty god and it
was considered a historical fact that this god had sent down to earth his only
son to save manhood from sin and trespasses. Also the miracles really should
have taken place. These views seemed to be satisfactory to solve the mystery of
the universe. The theologians and other thinkers possessed reliable material to
formulate a truthful theory about the world and human life.
Actually this religious theory is as primitive and
ridiculous as can be! In spite of its pretension to be scientific it is a
terrible delusion! But it still is a theory and, as is customary with theories,
one can accept it or not. Actually the criteria for accepting are also theoretical.
It is exclusively a matter of reasoning and reconciling to the so-called facts,
which are confirmed by a majority of powerful religious leaders.
As I said before this has nothing to do with the real
insight in the reality as it was expressed by the metaphoric stories of the
antiquity, which later-on produced the concrete material for western
Christianity. They aren't delusions at all. By means of those fantastic
stories, full of symbols, and by means of meaningful rituals the insiders told
about the character of the reality. It is true you have to
trans late them into modern concepts. But after doing
so a world of wisdom appears…
57. The modern-western
approach
In the modern-western culture, beginning with the
Roman culture, the theoretical approach of the reality is essential. This means
that reality as image is based upon knowledge which has to be result of
scientific theoretical reasoning and thorough research. Nothing is accepted as
correct and true without a reliable scientific background. One is obliged to
substantiate all his claims. If one succeeds to do so people are willing to
accept the offered knowledge. Then they believe that the facts and the theories
are correct and in that case they speak about 'belief' and 'faith' .
In fact it has nothing to do with these notions. It
will be obvious that it isn't a matter of a corresponding insight in reality,
as is the case with the notions 'belief' and 'faith'. The only decisive
criterion is whether or not the theoretical reasoning is satisfactory. For that
purpose it has to meet all the requirements of what at that moment is regarded
as logical thinking. This procedure is fully dependent on the common opinions
and the personal mentality
of both, the provider of the data and the receiver.
But yet this theoretical reasoning is always
normative.
This remarkable procedure has several
consequences. In the first place it is obvious that this modern-western culture
is punctuated with the smooth talks of sly swindlers who are trying to come
into power. The only necessity for them is to dish up an apparently logical
story with strong arguments, accompanied with the support of so-called
scientists. It is hardly to believe how absurd most of those talks are. Yet the
modern-western people take them easily as true!
In the second place the influence of that
theoretical thinking about reality leads to a fully theoretical reality as
image. One becomes convinced that this theoretical reality is 'the' true
reality. But that is a tragic delusion. Even if this image of the reality is
scientifically correct it is absolutely wrong to consider it as reality. At
best it is a reliable blueprint of one's reality, but a blueprint isn't the
same as the case as it is. A street-map of a city may be as accurate as can be,
but never it will be the same as the real city. It isn't difficult to
understand this, but actually mankind has still big problems with it. One of it's most important causes is the fact that the theoretical
scientific procedures of the western culture are so very reliable and
successful nowadays. But the one-sided fixation on the human reality as image,
together with the terrible negligence of the reality as idea, leads to such a
delusion. Only reality as idea makes it possible to correct an error like that,
thanks to the fact that this reality shows an unbroken unity to man. In such a
unity there is no place for delusions which logically are based upon splitted images.
58. A culture full of rubbish
It is a strange paradox: precisely a
scientifically oriented world, in which the criteria for reliability and truth
are grounded upon theoretical reasoning and substantial argumentation, is a
rich breeding ground for rubbish. Every cunning twaddle can be accepted when it
gives a serious scientific impression. Only the way of reasoning counts. And
there is hardly any possibility to verify the matter because of the fact that
modern man isn't capable to overlook the whole of the reality. At best he has a
survey over the totality of concrete facts and data within his own reality as
image. But such a survey differs absolutely from overlooking the whole of the
reality.
Most outstanding is the religious rubbish.
It concerns not only the so-called facts in the bible and the strange behaviour
of God and his son Jesus, but also the morbid ideas about devils, demons,
witches and heretics. And what to think of the religious opinions about
sexuality, life and death and the presumed life after death in a heavenly
bliss? Over more than 2000 years one believes this nonsense, thinking that the
argumentation, used by learned clergymen, is reasonable and logical.
The rubbish of the New Age adepts is also
first-rate! In this case the connection with the sciences is obvious. It is
true that they rightly draw attention to several neglected strange physical
phenomena and that they warn against the one-sided analytical thinking, but
their adoration of occultism, their belief in reincarnation and things like
that is as foolish as can be. Again: the pretension of being scientific is sufficient
to convince most of the people.
There is also the political madness. The
basic delusion is the generally acknowledged opinion that people has to be
governed, otherwise it becomes a mess. Meant is a government from above,
managed by theoretically trained specialists, men and women who are presumed to
be capable to boss the society. They make it appear as if they are acting for
the benefit of the people, but actually they grimly try to realize their own
blueprints of a well-regulated world. This they call 'polities'!
It isn't difficult to understand that
their political ideas never correspond to the little everyday things of life.
These things can't be calculated beforehand and it is impossible to provide
them by law and other rules. But especially these everyday things are the
essence of life. Life is a sequence of unpredictable and non-reproducible
events. Nobody can really control them. So the polities are even dangerous
delusions, in spite of the goodness and integrity of many modern politicians.
These goodness and integrity don't prevent those politicians from being real
cheats…
59. A deceptive hold
At the time of the Enlightenment almost
every thinker believed that on the long term the sciences should drive away all
delusions and nonsense and give people something to hold on.
The common opinion in the 18th and 19th
century was that in the near future man would become a soberly thinking realist
and even a rationalist. Scientific knowledge would take the place of religious
and other supernatural drivel. Education, in combination with improved medical
and working conditions, were considered to open the way to this purpose.
From a scientific point of view this
prediction came true. In general one can say that the modern sciences, especially
the physics, are based upon rationalism and that the acquired knowledge is
reliable to a high extent. Nowadays this knowledge is the universal material
for the schools, so most of the people get acquainted with verified facts
instead of fantastic nonsense.
However, in our 20th century it became
slowly but surely clear that there is something wrong with the original idea of
educating the people. Of course it is true that in daily life the exact
knowledge is applied, but concerning the incalculable, so-called spiritual,
things people are just as ignorant as before. The reason for this remarkable
development is that scientific knowledge results in a theoretical 'reality as
image' with absolutely no relation to man's spiritual world, in fact his 'reality
as idea'. This theoretical reality is a kind of collage, consisting of a great
number of separate pieces. Each of these pieces corresponds with the truth, but
together they are nothing but a delusion, which gives no hold to modern man.
Men can't live without some kind of hold.
So they search for something which can give such a hold. Nearly everything can
serve as a hold, for example an ideology, a religion, a marriage and so on. But
on the long run these holds aren't satisfactory. The only tenable human hold is
the reality as idea, because this reality is a case of truth. Reality as idea
is the absolute universal truth! And this is what actually man is searching
for, not only nowadays but constantly during his existence on earth, from
prehistoric times till now.
The traditional religious answers are no
longer sufficient for modern men, they need well founded intellectual answers.
In fact exclusively the philosophy is capable to give such answers, but alas
modern philosophy is degenerated to an analytical way of thinking which doesn't
differ from the other exact sciences. So this philosophy is fully useless. She
doesn't give any answer at all!
Modern men feel intuitively this failure
and as a result many of them resort to several pseudo-philosophies, like for
example New Age thinking, Anthroposophy and traditional Oriental wisdom.
Others go back to fundamental religious
notions, especially of the Roman-Catholic church and the Islam.
They all mean that they now are in
possession of the ultimate hold, but in fact they are even worse off. They have
lead themselves into slavery, brought under the yoke of the divine laws. Seldom
you shall see someone who takes the chance to think for herself or himself.
Freethinking is still frightening!
Summarizing one can conclude that modern
men are mislead by their own scientific culture, on
the one hand because of the theoretical character of their 'reality as image',
on the other hand because of the absence of a clear 'reality as idea'. Because
of these facts the modern world becomes more and more unmanageable.
60. An
inevitable accident
It is still hard for people to accept, but
our solar system exists quite by accident! There is absolutely no reason for
this phenomenon to come into being exactly on this place and at this time in
the endless and timeless space. All phenomena are coincidences which just as
well could have stayed away at that time and at that place. Indeed they are
coincidences! But, these coincidences are remarkable in this respect that they
can't stay away within the immeasurable universe. You can't say where and you
can't say when, but you can be absolutely sure that 'one day' somewhere a solar
system forms itself. So, it is impossible to predict place and time, but
without any doubt it will happen sooner or later. In this case one has to speak
of an 'inevitable accident'.
I admit that the above statements are
rather dubious because one can't speak about time and place in connection with
an endless and timeless space. In fact the notions 'time' and 'place' are
dependent from the existence of something like, for example, a solar system.
Time and place need points of reference, but those fixed points don't exist in
an infinity. Yet I maintain my statements, for I don't know how to explain this
case in an other way. For us, living within a solar
system, there are points of reference and by consequence we can work with the
ideas 'here' and 'now', 'where' and 'when' and so on.
It is the opinion of many astronomers that
the genesis of the universe, and especially our solar system, shouldn't be an
inevitable, but on the contrary an absolute accident. They think that there is
no fundamental need for the phenomena to come into being. In their eyes
everything is nothing but a stroke of luck. From this point of view it is
understandable that most of those scientists are convinced that there is but
one planet earth with living beings: indeed, in this case it is unthinkable
that there should be more of those strokes of luck…
There are also philosophers who think that
there is but one 'living planet'. They argue that such a planet is the utmost
possibility of the genesis. And in their eyes this genesis goes according to a
plan. May be not a divine but a physical plan, but yet a plan! This should mean
that we have to do with the 'ideality' of a planned
process. Then of course only one 'ideality' is
conceivable. These 'idealistic' philosophers are right with the opinion that
the earth is the terminal station of the development of our solar system, but
logically this doesn't include the impossibility of the existence of more
terminal stations in one solar system. Theologians also mean that there is but
one planet earth and they don't believe in a coincidence. For them it is God
who planned and created the world and it speaks for itself that this act of
creation is once-only. Creation of more worlds logically means creation of
innumerable worlds, but that doesn't fit with the theology. However, in fact
this ideas can be neglected because of their arbitrary and capricious
character.
For members of an immature civilization
like the modern western, the accidental character of the existence is very hard
to accept. They want to believe in a planned world with a clear sense and an
elevated aim, so that they have the feeling to live for something…
61. Living after
living
In antiquity the old Egyptians meant that
death was a conversion to another way of life. An eternal life! Therefore it
was of great importance that one's body stayed intact. And of course he needed
his personal belongings to live as agreeable as possible in this new world of
the death. So, body and soul had to be preserved as an unbreakable unity,
reason why these Egyptians carefully mummified their deceased.
In the opinion of the Christians one's
body is nothing but an inferior material thing which has to be considered as a
dungeon for the divine, immaterial, soul. In this conception man got rid of
this imprisonment after dying. Then the soul was set free. The old Greeks
thought that the human soul was of divine origin and that he should return to
this divine reality. In a way the Christians agree with this conception,
however with this restriction that exclusively the souls of godliness people
will be saved in a beautiful hereafter, in heaven, near to God and released
from sin, guilt and banal corporality. With the future return on earth of
Christ these blessed souls will be revived, but before this moment they have to
stay in heaven and wait. Their farmer bodies are of no importance because their
souls will be housed in brand-new perfect bodies.
Modern men consider the Christian
conception of the hereafter as not very satisfactory. They don't like to be
delivered to the judgment of God or Christ for continuation of their own lives.
Bath are
considered as figures from an old-fashioned patriarchal and coarse religion.
There is a need for more abstract notions which correspond better with the
modern sciences. So, in fact the argumentation has to be more scientific to
convince people who are educated in a modern way! Instead of the notions 'God'
and 'Christ' they prefer to speak about 'spiritualism' , 'the powers of the
universe' , a mysterious 'whale' and so on. For example the so-called
scientific language of the New Age prophets sounds much more reliable than the
solemn biblical verses. But also ideas of the mysticism and the gnosis are
attractive for modern people, especially intellectuals, this rather rightly by
the way. In connection with this ideas there is a renewed interest in reincarnation.
Especially since psychologists think to have discovered the possibility to call
up memories of farmer lives, the belief in reincarnation became more and more
popular. Indeed it is very attractive: not only one has a future life but also
a fascinating past. None of the traditional religions can offer this coherence
between past and future. Now life can be considered as a continuity, with in
itself a sequence of individual physical phases. Without any interruption lives
follow an upward trend and at the end there shall be the intense desired divine
perfection. It is astonishing how inventive man's subconscious is. The most
bizarre histories about previous lives turn up, often so incredible accurate
and convincing that it is difficult to realize that it is pure fantasy. For it
is fantasy, because neither there are farmer lives, nor future lives. The idea
of an individual immaterial human soul, which passes through a sequence of
material lives to obtain a kind of perfect ion in the end, is absolutely
untenable.
The notion 'soul' refers to an essential
situation within living phenomena. Actually the human soul is nothing but the
human 'reality as idea', an awareness of the complete reality within the
material phenomenon called 'man'.
Without this material thing there is no
'reality as idea'. With other words: a soul outside the individual human body
is quite impossible.
The notion 'human mind' is also used in
connection with reincarnation. Then it is this human mind which is considered
to move from one body to another. But the notion 'mind' refers to another human
situation, namely the 'reality as image'. This situation exists at the absolute
end of the genesis. Its manifestation is man's brains. However, being connected
with the end of the material genesis it is also for this 'human mind' complete
impossible to stand alone on itself.
By consequence the individual doesn't live
before or after his actual life. For him there was nothing before his actual
life and after his life there is nothing but a very deadly death. And of course
there remain memories!
62. Man and his Karma
If one believes in reincarnation and hopes
to obtain a new and better individual life after dying, the experiences of one's
present life are of great importance. One has to acquire a good 'Karma'. This
seems to be a kind of destiny. The circumstances of life, good deeds and bad
deeds, love and hate, they all belong to the notion 'Karma' and count for the
determination what the quality of one's new life shall be. By consequence it is
advisable to live in an utmost responsible way to make it possible to
reincarnate under better conditions. But, how to define a responsible life?
Almost everybody has a different opinion about good and bad. And what to say
about better conditions? Actually the criteria of such conditions depend on
personal circumstances, needs and convictions about life. So the development to perfectness is as uncertain and
subjective as can be and there is no objective standard for it. In the meantime
this process is supposed to go on and on until the moment of perfect ion has
come. Then the reincarnation is considered to be finished, in spite of the fact
that no body knows the meaning of the notion
'perfectness' .
The sense of all this stuff is rather
incomprehensible, for what is the use of becoming perfect? An eternal
immaterial life, what makes it so desirable? In fact it is a state of absolute
standstill. Nothing changes and by consequence nobody can have experiences and
feelings. This isn't an eternal life but this really is death!
But above that: where are today all those
perfect souls from the past, not only of ours but of all living planets in the
universe? Logically thinking there is but one reasonable conclusion, namely
that the universe is totally filled up with perfect souls, because the past
covers an endless time backwards.
Apart from the fact that souls don't exist
and that, if souls should exist indeed, it is impossible for them to have an
own identity because of their immaterial state, it is remarkable that believers
in reincarnation have a profound need for making their lives and personalities
dependent from external standards. On one side they are bounded to their
previous lives while on the other side one has to take in consideration that a
future life must remain possible. So the actual life can't be free and independent. One depends on the past
and one is bounded to the future and there is absolutely no chance to escape
from this destiny.
It is understandable that such a
consistency once offered a reliable hold to most of the people, but nowadays it
is at least very childish and thoughtless. It is obvious that those fantasts
have not the slightest idea of the real freedom of man to make his own life.
Actually such an ignorance is not unusual
for members of our culture.
Reliable philosophical knowledge about the
character of reality and the phenomenon man, especially his state in the
universe as the utmost result of the evolution, can't be obtained exclusively
by analysis of the material world. One has to reflect deeply upon reality as a
whole to discover her nature and disposition.
63. The aim of life
One of the most remarkable characteristics
of the human phenomenon is its independence, concerning first of all its
biological origins. Man isn't bounded by natural programs like for example the
way of gathering food or the rituals to come to sexual reproduction. Of course
he has to food and reproduce himself, but he is free to do it on his own way.
This means also that man can't beconsidered neither
as a herd animal (see Reflections 16-18), nor as a member of a collective.
Every culture and even every individual
has specific customs and traditions, as a result of the choices made by a
majority of the people and thanks to the fact that everybody can make her or
his own choices. Some biological processes, like the beating of one's heart, go
automatically indeed, but in case of emergency even this can be influenced by
man. Generally speaking one can state that, contrary to the remaining living
world, the life of man is no longer submitted to inescapable programs which are
inherent in the evolution of life. Actually every not-human organism has its
own specific evolutionary program. It isn't possible to escape from it or to
change it, because such a program is characteristic for its way of life.
However, not only for its own life. There is also a coherence with the lives of
the other creatures, namely as a link in the food chain. That means that each
organism is dependent on the next for food.
For this purpose their bodies are fitted
with a great variety of tools, like fangs, claws, eyes, ears, sometimes deadly
poison, etcetera. Every organism has its own specific tools which are developed
for the gathering of its individual kind of food and also for the defence
against a lot of enemies.
Of course it is more than a matter of
tools. Essential is that the organism's whole life follows principles, strictly
laid down by the evolution. Also the use of those tools is a result of the
evolution. It is a not escapable, all-embracing program. In the execution of
this evolutionary prescribed program lies the universal aim of the world of
living beings. Every action is expression of this universal aim and nothing
takes place meaningless.
As I said before, there is one exception:
man!
64. Man's only tool is thinking
The circumstance that man has no tool to
make survival possible doesn't mean that he really is defenseless.
On the contrary! On further consideration it turns out that he surpasses all
the other organisms in capabilities of survival. His invincible weapon, of
course, is his independent and not regulated thinking. With this weapon he is
able to overcome all difficulties, even it is possible to change his
environment to make it easier for him to gather his food and to defend his
life. And if he needs tools for special occasions, he invents them himself. So,
in fact his thinking makes him mightier than every other living being. At the same
time the absence of any special equipment means an absolute freedom, namely to
approach every new situation in the most adequate way.
Of course it is the ruling culture and the
thinking that goes together with it, which determines the content of the notion
'adequate'.
By consequence this means that man has
also the power and the ability to destroy a lot of things, not only his
biotope, but in an equally terrible way his body and his mental life.
The danger is that he, as a result of his
technological development, begins to think that his body is nothing but a
chemical factory and that his brains are exact the same as a computer. So, man
gets the idea that he is a machine and that he can manage this machine in a
scientific and technological way. Therefore he analyses the phenomenon 'man' so
that its biological and mental life becomes predictable. A predictable life is
a life that can be controlled. One thinks that in the future this will be
possible when the managers have got enough scientific knowledge to their
disposal.
However, man isn't a machine! He is a
fully cohesive whole, a constantly moving organism, not analyzable
and, thanks to that, not predictable. By consequence the result of such a
technological approach will be a great number of terrible 'cultural diseases'
which can't be cured. Nowadays you can establish that alas there already is a
great growth of such diseases in the modern western world.
65. The aimless human being
Everybody can find that the body of man
doesn't have any equipment which can serve as a tool to survive. He hasn't even
a fur or something like that to protect himself from heat and cold. And of
course, in coherence with this, his mind isn't evolutionary programmed to let
him perform fixed special actions. Actually he is brought into the world
without any inborn program. By consequence he is incapable for everything. It
means also that he doesn't cohere with his outside world. He is a stranger on
his planet, so to speak! You rightly can call him an 'aimless being', totally
useless and in fact conflicting with his natural biotope.
But also he doesn't fit in the
not-material, so-called spiritual world, thanks to the fact that he can't shake
off his physical covering. He may daydream as much as he wants about spiritual
matters, but never he will succeed in reaching a totally immaterial state.
Somehow or other he himself is aware of
his strange cosmic position whenever he wonders who he is, where he is coming
from and where he is going to. This isn't simply a quasi
profound theoretical question, but mainly an expression of uncertainty
and despair. Man is totally in the dark concerning his own existence.
Actually this isn't a very difficult
question, but as long as man culturally is immature he indeed isn't able to
understand his own literally 'dissolute' position in the universe. During this
period of human development man wants to stay with his roots. He needs
something to belong to, a kind of family, clan or group so that he has an
unmistakable aim in life. Then there is something to live for and there also is
a kind of, from outside enforced, program which has to be obeyed. The presence
of such a program seems to cancel the uncertainty, especially because of its
resemblance with the evolutionary nature.
Since man has a dual nature, namely
material and at the same time not-material, he also longs for a higher reality
to look up to. So he creates a divine world, a beautiful and fair spiritual
reality and it is his aim to end up in this welcoming home.
It is reasonable that man searches for a
significant aim in life, just because he isn't bounded neither to a natural,
nor to a spiritual program. In principle for him there is nothing like a goal
to live to. So, if he didn't create anything like that he wasn't capable to
act.
But for a long time, namely during his
cultural immaturity, he lives under the delusion that an aim in life must exist
outside himself, exactly like it is the matter with the natural world where he
evolutionary comes from.
Therefore he creates something like a
higher and divine natural world, an ideology which forces him to act
accordingly to a spiritual program. He thinks to follow up its orders, but in
fact they origin from himself…
Being grown up to cultural maturity man
has acquired the insight that aims in life don't exist outside himself but
within himself. Thanks to his unconditional cosmic position extern goals to
live for are impossible. So man makes his own objectives within the context of
his concrete everyday life. Now his life gets a real meaning.
66. The divine
world
Man looks up to a divine reality because
he needs an aim for his life and also something to hold on. Contrary to the
religious presentations, in which is suggested that it should be god's creation,
this reality is man's own creation. The idea of a divine origin of heaven and
earth is to be considered as the most far-reaching delusion of mankind. In
spite of the tremendous scientific discoveries of the last centuries this
delusion is incredibly persistent. The question is why this is the case?
Well then, my starting-point is the
conclusion that the phenomenon man has a dualistic character. On the one hand
it is a material, on the other an immaterial living system. Originally it
descends from the natural world as a result of the evolution of life. Although
this evolution produces phenomena which are lively in themselves and in this
respect not-material, they can't be rated to the 'immaterial' reality. Living
is a case of activity and as such a not-material situation within the material
composition of an organism. But man, with whom the process of evolution
absolutely comes to an end, has also an immaterial character besides his
material and not-material underground. This is based upon the fact that the
limit of a process essentially is a denial of that process.
And this means that the evolution of life,
being a material process, is also denied. By consequence the matter begins to
act as if it wasn't matter at all. It pretends to be the primary reality,
before the genesis of the phenomena.
This primary reality consists of
indivisible particles, which are ever moving, totally without any definition of
time, place and properties. So this primary reality is eternal and infinite.
Nothing can affect it, only the intrinsic moving of the particles can produce
alterations which at some moment result in the genesis of the universe.
The uninhibitedly moving particles are the
substance of all there is, including of course the phenomenon man. With his
birth on the planet the primary situation comes back, although with this
difference that now it is a totally developed material object that 'acts' as if
it were no material object at all. It acts as if it were reality as substance.
This is what I call an 'immaterial' system.
The vague awareness of being at the same
time a material and an immaterial product of the activity of the primary
particles manifests itself in man's opinion to be body and mind. And the fact
that it is his final destination to belong to an eternal and infinite reality
becomes apparent in his religion, actually in his belief in higher powers like
gods. These gods are considered to be creator and at the same time almighty
ruler of the universe. So they are the be-all and end-all of reality, so-called
'alpha and omega'.
Especially this is the case with
monotheistic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These
religions are essentially masculine, thanks to the idea that God exists, 'like
the impregnating man', outside and above the whole of the universe.
He is considered to be the begetter of
life, the father of the phenomena. And of course these religions are masculine
as a result of the association of their gods with power, which is wielded over
the totality of the universe. This is a quantitative conception of reality,
contrary to a feminine, qualitative concept ion which is connected with reality
as a coherent whole.
Since the traditional religions refer to
real, but to an immature mankind incomprehensible, situations of reality it
takes a long time before the belief in gods will be conquered and replaced by a
true insight in reality and the position of man. In fact this is the case until
maturity of mankind. As long as the feeling exists that man is submitted to
higher powers one way or another religions will persist. And by consequence man
will be dependent.
67. Religions as institutes of power
Usually atheists over look that the
essence of religion is an intuitive feeling about the substance of reality.
This feeling on itself exclusively concerns this substance and in no case gods
or something like that. The reason is obvious: because these things cannot
exist. In fact gods are nothing but delusional interpretations of intuitive
experiences with the fundamental reality.
During his immaturity man hasn't the
slightest idea of his own character as the ultimate result of the evolution. He
interprets the qualities of this limit as an external and higher reality. So,
to him the qualities of reality as substance, namely eternity, infinity and
absolute clearness seem to belong to an unreachable, but at the same time
omnipresent, divine world, far greater than human beings. The fact that
actually it concerns himself escapes him. The reason is his immaturity.
Yet in history, at the end of antiquity,
there was a moment of awareness: the fundamental idea of early Christianity. It
was the conviction that the supposed extern and higher divine reality had
turned out to be inside man. This insight was expressed by the metaphor that Christ,
the son of God, did come down to earth as a human being and even as a perfect
and mature human being! This means in fact that God is considered to be
immanent in man, not as a concrete god, but as the true essence of human life.
Let us say 'the spiritual nucleus of man' !
Of course this is a pronounced atheistic
idea, a kind of pure early humanism. But also it is a manifestation of
anarchism, real socialism and communism. Indeed these notions were the themes
of the early Christian communities. For example people didn't recognize rulers,
considered both, women and men, as equal and unconditionally as a full member
of the society. During the first three or four centuries of our Christian era
these magnificent societies were thoroughly wiped out by the Roman Catholic
church-leaders, who had come into power thanks to the recognition of
Christianity by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great in the year 313.
Obviously they had no interest in independent free people. And they couldn't
bear the fact that those early Christians refused to submit themselves to the
bishop of Rome,
who was regarded as the devil incarnate. Above that the freedom of women was
them a thorn in their flesh.
It is obvious that the disobedient
Christians had to be punished. For that purpose these church-leaders needed an
almighty God of which they could derive power to oppress the people. All too
often one forgets that the Roman Catholic Church is an altered continuation of
the Roman Empire and as such an institute of
power. This church strives for ruling the world.
God is useful to realize this goal and the
name of God is a very convincing argument to justify the oppression of the
peoples and the much too many terrible crimes, committed to mankind.
The Roman Catholic Church as an institute
of power can hardly be considered as an expression of man's awareness about his
real immaterial character. In practice there is only the intellectual and
political idea that man has to be ruled by an almighty divine instance, outside
and above the concrete world. Its qualities are nothing but an invention of
priests. And people is forced to subscribe their pronouncements and rules. In
fact it is of no importance whether or not people believe in God and the
statements of the priests. Important is that they pretend to do so and behave
themselves accordingly. So it is a case of behaviour, an obedient and
subservient attitude to life. Every deviation from that attitude is a sin which
has to be punished. The history of Christianity shows that the religious
leaders weren't afraid of the most cruel actions against all kinds of unbelief.
For example against heretics and so-called witches they proved to be real
sadists.
Especially modern theologians don't like
to admit it but there can't be any doubt that the three monotheistic religions
are through and through institutes of power.
68. Intuitive self-knowledge
It has to be admitted that the origin of
the basic ideas of the three traditional monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity
and Islam, is a correct, but vaguely experienced, intuition of man's immaterial
aspect. It concerns an intuitive suspicion about the substance of reality and
man's universal situation. Considering this one should be tempted to conclude
that those three world-religions are significant for man's self-knowledge and
that they should show the way to realize the ideal of antiquity: 'Know
Thyself'. But alas this isn't the case at all, because the mentioned intuition
is interpreted in the usual way, namely within the scope of world-power. And
exactly that is disastrous for real self-knowledge of man. The priests have
misused the truthful intuition to create a delusion which hardly can be broken.
Man isn't led to himself, but on the contrary to slavery. He is expected to act
as a 'Servant of God' and this means of course slavery to the religions and
their leaders. So there is nothing to expect from these institutes.
Totally different is the case with the
West-European mysticism. Actually this is a strictly personal affair which has
nothing to do with any extern power, in spite of the fact that it occurs within
the religious institutes of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Even mysticism is
absolutely in conflict with those institutes and their theology, at first
because of its individual and not collective character and second because of
its universal and abstract way of thinking. For the mystics the notion 'God'
doesn't mean an omnipotent concrete ruler of the universe, but a
not-describable spiritual reality which forms the essence of all there is. And
the mystics try to unify their inner self with that essence. So the not ion
'Know Thyself' is indeed a reality for the mystic.
Famous are the sermons of Meister Eckard (early 14th century), who combined the divine world
with the individual existence of men. The Holy Trinity for example had to be
understood as 'memory', the Father; 'reason and ideas', the Son; the 'will',
the Holy Spirit. Obviously it was Meister Eckard's
opinion that the unification with 'God' takes place within man, without any
interference of a so-called mediator, in practice of course a representative of
the church. It is an open-minded state of silence, of peace, beauty and love.
In everything the opposite of the usual religious practice. It was bound to happen that Meister Eckard was
charged with heresy (1325). He was forced to retract his doctrine and after his
death the Pope condemned 28 of his theses. The philosophy of Meister Eckard was too dangerous! This means in fact that the
individual isn't allowed to search for his inner-self and that the way to
maturity is closed. The claims of the religions on humanity turn out to be
nothing but fairy tales which serve only one goal: the absolute domination of
all people.
I hope it will be clear that the above evaluation
doesn't mean that there should be no honestly faithful people within the
setting of the mentioned religions. But inevitable they are individuals who
distinguish themselves from the officially enforced
belief. In a sense they are dissidents! The possibility of this remarkable
phenomenon shows unmistakable that the religious institutes aren't interested
neither in belief nor in truth.
69. The supernatural world
Gods, goddesses, spirits, ghosts and all other
supernatural phenomena, they don't exist in reality. Although nowadays in
practice nearly everybody agrees with this assertion people appear to be very
reserved in admitting it publicly. They are afraid of getting an argument with
their families and friends. Above that thinkers usually declare that it is
impossible to prove such an assertion, just because it shouldn't be permitted
to substantiate a statement about things which are considered to be absent.
Trying something like that should be contrary to the logic. By consequence they
find themselves incapable to do justified statements about these matters. So
they refuse to say anything about the existence of a supernatural world and
they call themselves in a distinguished way 'agnostic' .
I must say that I dislike such a point of view,
because well considered it justifies the opinion that the existence of this
spiritual world is quite possible, in spite of the lack of proofs. For them
there might be such a world. But in addition to this I don't agree with it
because it suggests that there shouldn't be any logical argumentation to make
plausible that there is no supernatural world. This however is not right!
Really one can find an answer, in fact by showing the
reality. The only thing one has to do for that is producing a coherent
philosophical, absolutely not physical, line of reasoning about the genesis of
the universe. Indeed it is the intention to make clear the final situation in
which the matter finds herself. Then it becomes evident that supernatural
phenomena can't exist on themselves. So the knowing of the real facts includes
the knowing of the false ideas. And even the origin of these false ideas can be
discovered!
Insight in the real material situation leads to the
discovery that in the end the matter, being resulted in the phenomenon man, is
characterized by the capability to behave as if it were supernatural indeed.
The composition of the material elements has reached such a condensation that
all possible structures are present in one all-embracing whole. And this means
that at the same time there are no structures left, a situation which can be
considered as beyond the material reality. So it is man himself who is
supernatural!
However as long as he is culturally immature he
experiences this quality as a case of an exterior and higher reality. By
consequence he believes in gods and other st range
spiritual phenomena and he is convinced that they are real existing things.
This delusion persists until maturity when man has come to himself so that he
knows that the spiritual world is exclusively his own world.
70. The reincarnation of
the devil
Although the supernatural and spiritual beings don't
exist in reality, it isn't a bad opinion that those beings very well exist,
namely in the mind of people. For those who believe in it, definite there is a
real God. And it has to be admitted that on itself the Christian God, as the
ultimate manifestation of love, isn't the worst human invention… Nowadays
however many people are convinced of the existence of several other
supernatural powers. But, concerning this phenomena, one can easily establish
that for the most part it is terrible rubbish. The decline of the majority of
the former collective spiritual holds activates people's hidden feelings for
magic. The result is that they hand over themselves one way or another to the
most fantastic delusions.
Mainly these delusions concern an immortal,
independent, human spirit. This immaterial being should be capable to do
everything that is impossible in a natural way. It is a real 'omnipotent'
creature. Omnipotent of course, for it has to serve as a replacement for the
traditional god. In fact however it is evident that we have to do with modern
varieties of the devil, the traditional adversary of the old Christian God.
It is very remarkable that in the old folk religion
the devil is represented as an immaterial masculine apparition. He is capable
to go through walls, to ruin the crop, to make ill the people and the cattle,
to get women pregnant and to give men an eternal life and the power to rule it
independently. He acts like God, but actually he is a human ghost and as such
of course he is God's absolute enemy. There is also a feminine variety of the
devil, namely the witch, as well with demonic powers. But usually these powers
are used for the good health of man and animal and not to do any harm to them.
Both the devil and the witch correspond rather exactly with the modern ideas
about supernatural situations. For example the idea of reincarnation is based
upon a human soul which has left his body and searches for a new one. And in
spiritualism there are also souls existing fully on their own. All these souls
are considered to have disposal of unlimited occult powers. It is rather
something to be a spirit!
Of course these popular supernatural powers are in
conflict with the original religious belief. Therefore the church leaders and
the theologians speak about 'superstition'. It doesn't belong to the official
religious doctrine of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. But at the same time
these religions have their own devils, with on top of them the Satan. However,
the not ion 'superstition' doesn't apply to these theologically recognized
devils. These creatures be long totally to the religious phenomena. The reason
is that they aren't fully independent because of their supposed divine origin,
and also because of the fact that their function is to fight against God. They
are important as the absolute evil, which has to be considered as a complete
negation of God.
Both the popular illegal supernatural creatures and
the official devils of the churches are in fact inferior manifestations of an
utmost vague feeling about man's universal state. Immateriality, omnipotence,
unrestricted sexuality for example are notions which in a certain way concern
the human phenomenon. As a popular superstition this comes to light in a very
childish and foolish way but as a part of the theology it is terribly morbid
and frustrated. This is understandable because the aim of this theology is to gain
power and therefore it is necessary to frighten the people in a terrible
psychological way.
It is impossible for rather uneducated people to fight
against those mysterious chimeras.
71. A beautiful invention
Concerning the religion, particularly Christianity, I
prefer to make a distinction between 'faith' on the one hand and 'worship' on
the other. The first concerns an intuition about the true relation of man
within the reality. Although it is a false interpretation of this intuition,
the basic feelings are real. The second on the contrary is a matter of
indoctrination by means of education. It is a conviction which is pressed on
the people, especially during their youth. The essence of this convict ion is
the subjection to a higher institute, a powerful collective. On the one hand
there is the aim to keep the people under control and on the other hand the aim
to rule the complete world in an absolutistic way. To some extend faith and
worship overlap each other in practice, but in fact they are not the same.
First of all it is essential that faith is an individual affair. So it has
nothing to do with any collective at all. On the contrary it is based upon a
person's own conviction about the divine character of reality, namely that there
exists an immaterial world above the material universe and that actually this
is the real world. He considers it as a beautiful and peaceful place in which
it is good to stay. There is no death, no illness, no envy, no war and
everybody loves everybody in a completely altruistic way. The existence of this
world is very comforting to him. He trusts in this delightful reality which is
personified in the loving Christian God. So he loves his God who frees him from
the miserable life on this earth. And he sings beautiful songs to express his
love to God. Indeed these so-called hymns are pure love-songs. He experiences
God as his eternal lover.
In general one can say that the love to God is also a
mine of inspiration for artists. Especially in the past many artists based
their creations on their love to God and the divine world. The usual opinion
however that the religion as an institute of worship inspired the artists isn't
right: all in all the inspiration comes from the love to God and not from the
bondage to some higher power.
Thanks to the fact that faith is a quality which
exclusively belongs to the individual, a collection of dogmas, a so-called
scientific theology and other regulations are absent. In fact the individual
has his own moral principles and it will be understandable that those norms
show a high level of warmth and humanity. It is a strong feeling about the true
reality which causes this honest behaviour, although the idea of a personal God
actually is a delusion. But this delusion is based upon a real insight, only
the interpretation is false. Of course it isn't God but man himself who created
this beautiful reality: this sweet divine world belongs to man's finest
inventions!
The divine worship on the other hand isn't such a fine
invention at all. It leads man into a crafty form of slavery, a bondage to
something spiritual which runs the show in every aspect. The religious
institutes claim to be the representatives of that fiction and by consequence
also the right to make decisions about life and death. They deprive all
responsibility from man. It will be obvious that this creates dangerous fools
who are capable of anything. To this very day the religions cause the most
cruel slaughters. They stir up hatred because of the stupidity that everyone is
thinking that God acts in accordance with his wishes. 'Gott
mit uns' is always an
excuse for murdering each other. So the divine worship has to be judged as the
most terrible invention of mankind…
72. The powerful man
The divine worship, as it is required by every
religious institute, isn't a case of intuition and vaguely experienced feelings
about the true reality, but exclusively a matter of indoctrination. From
childhood it is firmly fixed in the mind of the people that there is an
almighty God who bosses the universe and by consequence also all the people.
They will be rewarded for obedient behaviour and on the other hand punished for
bad things.
A long time ago this God created the world and then
stipulated his orders in a holy book, the Bible, especially the Old Testament.
These 'Ten Commandments' are considered to be absolutely human. They should be
characterized by high moral standards, thanks to the fact that this God knows
all about good and evil and also because his deep love for his people. He
wishes all the best for them.
But in return the people is obligated to obey these
divine orders without any unfavorable comment. By
consequence it should be a token of ingratitude if man refuses to act
accordingly to God's commandments. Then he is a sinner so that he has to be
punished. But this God turns out to be a cruel and unreasonable ruler, for the
descendants of such a sinner also deserve punishment. An offence against God is
absolutely unforgivable.
It will be obvious that this strange story originates
from the inborn human need for omnipotence. Contrary to the prevailing opinions
this need isn't negative on itself. It is only the interpretation of the
immature man which makes it something highly improper. Man claims this power
exclusively for himself as individual. The immature man isn't yet capable to
consider the fact that of course everybody is born almighty. This unlimited
power is a natural consequence of the circumstance that man emerged from the
evolution as final phenomenon. Being this final phenomenon his mind is able to
understand all preceding phenomena and their underlying processes. This means
that man can control his reality. That is the reason of his instinctive need
for power. So actually this need originally isn't a nasty quality, but only the
childish and irresponsible use of it by the culturally immature man.
After a long time of cultural development, when
finally men will have found themselves, their selfish behaviour will come to an
end so that they can use their unlimited powers to create a safe, friendly and
peaceful world.
For the time being we are forced to accept, although
never without severe suspicion and criticism, that man uses his inborn powers
in the first place for personal interests and that the welfare of his
fellow-men comes at the very last. He doesn't recognize them as equal
individuals. He even thinks that he has the right to oppress them and to use
them for his own benefit. But, also for this selfish immature man counts that the
existence of the one inevitably includes the existence of the other. So there
are always some profits for these fellow-men. Even for them there turns out to
be a little progression, as the history of the western world shows.
73. A strange consequence
With the birth of man on this planet an almighty
creature has come to life. He owes this power to his mind, which makes it
possible for him to analyze all things. He is able to
discover and alter the inner structure of the phenomena. This leads to the result
that he can force nearly everything to his will, at least the concrete things
and alas to some extend also his fellow-men. For man this ability is a dire
necessity, because he has no inborn physical means to survive. In a certain way
he can be considered as an impossible creation of nature!
So, since man can't change himself into a real natural
being, a real evolutionary programmed mammal, he is obliged to change his
biotope.
He has no choice, he has to make his own human world.
Therefore he must use his intellectual possibilities. Actually the use of this
power is more essential for human life than anything else.
The circumstance that man's material and cultural
development necessarily is a case of applying power has a very strange consequence.
It means in principle that the powerful rulers of our world are within their
rights! More or less they realize themselves in accordance with the universal
nature of man as an intellectual phenomenon. They use their intellectual powers
to change the actual world into an artificial one, which secures their daily
life. That means at the same time that they have reached a high level of
freedom, in the sense of independence from the material world of necessities.
This freedom belongs to the unconditional state of man as a final cosmic
phenomenon.
It will be evident that this independence also gives
much social freedom to the rulers, which inevitably is accompanied by the
possibility to govern a considerable part of the society. Through all ages
these leaders were, in a material sense, able to live like real human beings
who have guaranteed their existence as much as possible. Of course they also
are bounded to a number of unpleasant coincidences like illness and death, but
generally speaking they can control their lives in their own way.
Concerning the above the most obvious conclusion could
be that I mainly speak of sovereigns, statesmen and other politicians. Indeed
they usually are called 'rulers' and 'leaders'. However that is not meant by
me. It is namely but partly correct. These customers actually do nothing but
take control of the human power on itself, without the essential activity of
changing natural things into human necessities. In a false way they pretend to
humanize the world, but in fact they take advantage of the work of others, the
so-called economic undertakers. These undertakers by definition take the lead
concerning the improvement of the civilization because they provide the
indispensable material underground to daily life. Although it is true that they
exclusively mean to realize their own independence, the fact remains that the
necessities for life become available. without the activities of the
undertaking man there should be not a single development of human life. These
activities have to be, of course in a human and rational way, free from
government interventions.
The interventions by higher powers like governments
don't result in products so that they don't suit to develop the circumstances
of daily life. They only result afterwards in rules and regulations, which are
important indeed, but exclusively in connection with the relations between the
individuals.
74. The human world as a
product
The activity of converting the natural things into
'cultural' things is a matter of production. After a long period of collecting
man started product ion with agriculture, a kind of activity very close to his
natural origin. During the development of the civilization man's production got
more and more an intellectual and abstract character, not only in technical
respect but particularly concerning the relation between man and his labour.
The not ion that there exists a fundamental cohesion between these two became
more and more vague and resulted in a special kind of indifference to the labour
as such and the quality of the products. When the profits are sufficient, then
labour is considered to be useful and advisable, even if there is no need for
its products. In our modern world it
even isn't unusual that a lot of managers judge an extreme dangerous
engineering like the generating of nuclear energy as a safe activity. And the
product ion of horrible weapons is seldom rejected. This disintegration is
consequence of the increasing analysis of the reality. Although this is an
indispensable scientific development, it destroys at the same time every
feeling of cohesion between man and his universal biotope. By consequence
nowadays people mostly consider labour as a necessary evil with hardly any
other goal than earning as much money as possible. And it would crown it all if
one could get the money without working! All this means that the labour has
degenerated to merchandise. The employees possess it as energy in an
intellectual and physical form. Of course they try to sell it at the highest
profit, but the employers refuse to pay their price. These employers have a lot
of work to do, but they constantly complain about a worsening of their position
on the labour-market when they should agree with a bet ter
payment. Consequently the employees are forced to extort decent wages from the
employers.
It is logical that only a special kind of labour is
valued, namely economically profitable labour. Every other, of ten socially
more important, work has no economic value and can be left to volunteers. The
organization of the modern society is completely based upon these delusions.
Although man has lost touch with his work the idea
remained that labour is the way to human independence and freedom. This leads
to a remarkable confusion of concepts, with the tragic consequence that our
world stays far underneath her own possibilities…
75. A mediocre world
The meaning of work or labour is that man converts the
natural world into a human biotope in which he can live safely and comfortably,
every individual on her or his own personal way. For everybody counts that
'surviving means working and working means surviving'. And of course the notion
'work' or 'labour' involves every reasonable occupation, from writing poems to
building bridges, so to speak.
Although this activity is a personal matter, bounded
to man as individual, the idea is false that labour exclusively would serve for
personal profit, without taking to account that there exists an indissoluble tie
between all human beings. Neglecting this relation is a revealing proof of an
immature cultural development. The mature situation is that everybody's
particular activities automatically include usefulness for the world as a
whole.
There is also something else: many thinkers are of the
opinion that the mentioned kind of egoism would be characteristic for modern
individualism. Indeed it is a fact that immature individualists usually act
accordingly. However, real individualism totally differs from this opinion.
This individualism just involves a mature attitude to life in which all
fellow-men are included completely and unconditionally. The strive for
one-sided personal profit on the contrary is a quality of immature men,
whatever their political or cultural opinion may be. Immaturity makes it
impossible for them to recognize the fundamental relation between themselves
and the others. They are totally occupied with their own realization. Therefore
it is logical that essentially the others are excluded. Immature men can't bear
the circumstance that everybody is fundamentally equal to everybody. This has
several consequences.
First of all it results in an inhuman contrast between
rich and poor people, not only concerning their material means, but in particular
their independence and freedom. Poor people live more or less in slavery and
the members of the rich and powerful upper classes more or less in freedom.
Whichever way one looks at it, the rich have much more
possibilities than the poor. It is evident that the latter are quite dependent.
In a sense it is very remarkable that in modern times the situation is still
the same, in spite of the fact that there is democracy, at least in the Western
world.
In the second place it is inevitable that the
production of necessities can't come up to its best possibilities, for only
profitable things are taken into production. And, to make matters worse, the
quality of these things has to be more or less mediocre with a view to the
competition on the market. In the third place there are many important
activities which hardly meet any social appreciation. In spite of their
importance they don't result in independence and freedom but, on the contrary,
in a sorry existence. A revealing example concerns the position of women. The
notions freedom and independence don't apply to women who prefer to stay at
home with their children. They are considered to be part of a man's world and
even they are obliged to carry his name. If women want to be respected as free
and independent, they have to work like men.
In the fourth place the products don't reach the
people who need them mostly. Generally speaking these are the poor, but there
is no money in them. Consequence is that these people stay on needy for a
considerable longer time than would have been strictly necessary.
Anyhow, the false idea that labour is a means to get
personal independence and freedom, in combination with social power, leads to a
mediocre level of prosperity for all the people, including those who are
succeeded to become relatively rich and powerful. But on the other hand it is
real indeed that everybody's own activities on the long run realize a safe and
just world for everybody, provided that the welfare of the fellow-man isn't
neglected. So one's activities aren't allowed to go at the expense of someone
else, a situation which obviously is found normal by immature people.
76. The miscalculation of
socialism
In the so-called socialistic economies one has made an
attempt to realize the idea that the product ion of necessities should be a
community affair and by no means a matter of private enterprise. The rulers
were of the opinion that private employers would have no other intention than
to make a totally unlimited profit for themselves. By consequence the society
would become divided in rich and poor people, just like the western world.
Therefore they meant that the product ion had to be controlled by the
government, because this institute would be able to look after the interests of
all people.
It seems to be a reasonable story, but in fact there
are at least two severe shortcomings in the underlying line of thought.
Firstly those communists didn't understand that it
belongs to everybody's character to realize exclusively himself as an independent
and free human being. So it was surely bound to happen that, after some time,
these governmental rulers would start a lot of manipulations to get rich for
themselves, obviously at the expense of the society. The socialistic ideology
could not prevent the party bosses from this human need! And because of their
nearly unlimited power they had the opportunity to enrich themselves in an
inconceivable way. Although this behaviour isn't very consequent and even more
or less criminal, it has to be considered as fundamentally human and as such
inevitable. As I said before it is the immature, egoistic and childish
manifestation of a real human speciality, namely to live like a free and
independent phenomenon. Therefore it is necessary that there is a good material
underground. In the second place the socialists and communists denied the fact
that it is only the individual who is able to develop an efficient production.
This individual anticipates on the daily needs which he sees in his direct
surroundings. This results in starting a business. Of course he does so because
he wants to make profits, but what matters is the fact th
at he meets the needs of his community. As a result of this activities a fine
infrastructure can come into being. But if these possibilities are missing
there is not a single chance for the society to grow into maturity.
Thanks to the fact that in the western world the
individual is the basic assumption, nowadays there is an extraordinary fine
network of interpersonal relations. This network isn't an invention of any
authority or scientist. In essence it has nothing to do with power, neither
with scientific planning and management. Its origin is nothing but an impulse
of alert people who are looking for a reasonable way to survive as independent
and free as possible. So it is exclusively the individual who is able to
organize the world and even it is a fact that leaders hardly do anything but
obstructing this process in a terrible way. They call their fuss 'ruling the
society' and they find themselves very important and even indispensable, but in
fact they have to be considered as the top of an antisocial and inhuman
underworld.
77. The obstructing rulers
It is very remarkable that one can hardly find any
thinker who points out that every ruler, from the distant past till today, is
an exponent of criminal antisocial behaviour. On the contrary it is evident
that the existence of such rulers appears to nearly every thinker as something
absolutely natural. Of course this shows that there is a vague feeling of the
real character of the phenomenon man, but actually I think that mainly the fact
that powerful leaders exist since immemorial times causes the idea that power,
particularly in the hands of governmental rulers, would be essential to guide
the minor people. This idea especially dominates educated intellectual
thinkers. Instinctively they feel themselves superior to the others, for their
education gives power to them: "Knowledge is power"!
Because of the fact that the sciences are the essence
of our modern western culture everything revolves around power. Even the
personal relations show a struggle for power. Therefore it isn't surprising
that nobody recognizes the criminal origin of the power system. More than that,
even nearly everybody is convinced that this system can be taken as an
indication of civilization. This goes so far that in times of crisis the
negotiations remain in the hands of the representatives of the concerning power
systems. It is hardly important whether or not these representatives are
villains or even criminals.
Shortly after the birth of man on this planet, some
individuals turned out to be a little bit cleverer than their fellow-men. Of
course this is normal. And also it is normal that as a result they obtained a
better insight in their reality, so that these slyboots
could gather more knowledge. This gave them the power to subject the others,
who became more or less slaves of these new rulers. From this moment on the
individual inventiveness of these subordinated people was ruled out. Now they
had to act in accordance with the will of the powerful leaders.
This is a crucial fact because all actions of these
leaders inevitable work out as a brake on the cultural development of the
people. Exclusively the activities in the interest of the leaders are
permitted. It is obvious that there can be no room for anyone's personal ideas
and development.
Result of this situation is a disastrous form of
conservatism. Up till today every government, without any exception, in the
first place is conservative. Only in case of utter necessity a government is
willing to do something progressive, in spite of their boasting that they
always are looking forward to the future.
78. The justification of the
rulers
As early as in the 5th century before our era there
existed a kind of democracy in Greece.
And before the Middle Ages, so before the nobility and the clergy came into
power, there were simple forms of democracy among the farmers in the West
European world. But with the rise of feudalism nearly all democratic systems
vanished. At last, with the Enlightenment in the end of the 18th century the
people awakened more or less so that the demand for democracy no longer could
be ignored. Today democracy is considered as the most reasonable form of
government, although true democracy actually is still far away. The notion
'democracy' more concerns the appearance of the matter, like free elections for
a parliament and majority decisions.
By consequence it became the habit of modern rulers to
appeal to the support of the people. They like to create the impression that
such a support would be a justification for their power and a guarantee for
reasonable behaviour, totally in service of the people's welfare. Of course it
is a lie! It is the usual story that every modern ruler tries to make us
believe.
The old-fashioned feudal monarchs however had nothing
to do with the people to justify their dictatorial use of power. The people had
nothing to say in this matter. The rulers owed their power to God, the nobility
of their family or upper class and the lands they had in their possession. Even
nowadays kings declare that they are sovereigns 'by the grace of God'.
Of course the maintenance of this kind of power includes
continuous plotting and, in connection with it, not being afraid of committing
awful crimes. This however was no problem to them because their power was
absolute. They made the law and the rules. For their sense all this belonged to
the legal behaviour of nobles, who considered themselves as representatives of
their god. As such they were above the law! In fact the people didn't really
exist in the opinion of the rulers, at least not in the quality of a human
being. Even in the 18th century most of the nobles meant that everybody beneath
the rank of baron didn't count as a man. This idea was connected with the
feudal organization of the society, in which the ordinary people, farmers and
craftsmen, only functioned as the material basis of the world. And as such they
belonged to the inferior part of reality.
With the Enlightenment and the French and American
Revolutions the people came on. Men became conscious of being full human
creatures. They made clear that rulers are totally powerless without the support
of the people. The reaction of these rulers was the invention of a new concept.
This resulted in the birth of a modern ruler, who was supposed to be rooted in
the people. But of course it couldn't be something ot
hers than the beg inning of a new and persistent delusion, namely that from now
on the rulers would act for the benefit of the people and the society.
This is the modern way to justify the need for power
of the world's smooth customers. No longer it is possible for them to refer to
God or some other valuable thing with a high status. The so-called 'nobility
criterion' has lost its legitimacy. Now the only justification is, true or
otherwise, a fundamental connection with the people, so we now have to do with
the so-called 'democratic criterion' , which means that the modern ruler is
obliged to have his roots in the people.
In practice this 'democratic criterion' covers up the
real situation that, in a still immature world, the individual inevitably tries
to rise himself above the others. In the end he wants to be the only existing
phenomenon. He strives for making the world exclusively his world.
Actually this violates the society as a whole and
makes it impossible for her to function optimally. Always there is the
opposition of power-seekers who try to promote their own interests, which of
course are opposite to the public interest. The latter is availed by good
public provisions, but power-seekers have but one aim, namely to get rich and
to become as powerful as possible.
79. Democratic criterion
Modern leaders and monarchs no longer can avoid the
so-called 'democratic criterion' , but this doesn't mean that they would strive
for a true political democracy. By several devious means they can shake off
this democracy so that they can wield personal dictatorial power. Of course
they can't admit it officially without making a fool of themselves. On the
contrary these rulers have to make the world believe that they honestly comply
with this 'democratic criterion' . An appeal to God or nobility is yet only an
archaism for old-fashioned kings, queens, underdeveloped sovereigns and fanatic
religious leaders of theocratic countries.
In nearly all modern countries the rulers don't only
subscribe to the 'democratic criterion' , but also prefer to maintain a
political democratic way of governing. Therefore they organize elections with
which they try to tempt the people to support them. This is the so-called
democratic way to assume power. In this manner power seems to be optimally embedded
in the modern society, but in fact it is nothing more than that…!
During the elections one makes the people marvelous promises, suggesting that it would really be the
intention to keep them and to do everything necessary for the welfare of the
people. However, everybody knows that in the end promise is no debt at all!
Promises are nothing but baits to gather as many votes as possible. It has
nothing to do with the protection of the people's interests, on the contrary it
is only the way to individual power. That's what it's all about…
It looks strange indeed, but when the individual tries
to get personal power he instinctively is trying to become the true 'mature'
individual. This 'mature' individual will be the ultimate perfection of the
human phenomenon. And above that not only the perfection of this human
phenomenon, but at the same time the perfection of our solar-system as a whole.
With mature man the genesis of this part of our cosmos has come to an end. By
consequence this fully developed human phenomenon, this 'true man', represents
all foregoing situations of the eternally moving matter. In a vibrating way
these situations are his content.
Thanks to this fact the immature man wants to possess
everything, because during his development he is realizing the fact that, in
principle, all phenomena are his content. It speaks for itself that everybody
is doing so, but not everybody succeeds to the same extend. Whether of not one is successful depends on his cleverness and of
course also partly on the actual circumstances. Many come off worst during the
struggle for life. After Karl Marx they are called 'proletarians', which
actually means that they are losers. Indeed, in the 19th century one or another
liberal said that 'every proletarian has to be considered as a failed
capitalist' . Most thinkers of the Enlightenment and especially all socialists
didn't agree with this idea, but on closer consideration one has to admit that
it is terribly true. The history of the modern western world proves it.
80. Awareness of true humanity
Although it is an unmistakable fact that man's
struggle for life displays the cultural growing to maturity, it is also a hard
fact that this development on itself is a matter of complete immaturity. Man
doesn't know who he is. Especially he hasn't yet discovered that his own free
existence immediately includes the free and unconditional existence of the
others. His complete interest concerns his own well-being. So, because of the
exclusion of his fellow-man, the result of this business is fundamentally
inhuman, even criminal in many cases. An immature world is inevitably without
real humanity. It is true that it happens regularly that someone performs an
act of humanity, but this doesn't mean that the world as such is human…
History shows us that the most important and powerful
figures are awful villains at the same time. And conversely you can also say
that as a rule the most cunning villains manage to achieve fame, standing and
power. It is a difficult paradox indeed: on the one side one has to do with a
development to maturity and humanity and on the other side at the same time
with an inhuman practice in which men give free rein to their aggression,
murderousness and greed.
It belongs to an immature world that acts of humanity are
very exceptionally. Nevertheless it is remarkable that continuously people
speak about humanity and that even in the modern world there are institutes to
stimulate it. Always there are men who try to live accordingly to their ideas
of goodness, fairness and love, so to their ideas of humanity. Obviously there
exists a more or less vague consciousness about the fundamental disposition of
the human phenomenon. A disposition which in the end of the human development
will turn out to be typical for man.
One can call it 'virtuousness'. Already Socrates spook
about it, but he and his friends didn't know how to cape with this notion.
Today one can know that it includes nihilism, anarchism, socialism and
communism. Right from the beginning of his life on earth these four qualities
apply to man. They are indissolubly connected with the human being and actually
they are constituting its essence. Successively they mean that nothing is
valuable, that man rules himself, that his own existence automatically and unconditionally
includes the other's existence and finally that all people belong together. The
realization of these qualities takes ages and ages. It isn't only a matter of
intellectual and cultural development, but also of economy, technology and
engineering. The reason is that nihilism is connected with the availability of
goods for everybody, that anarchism needs free access for everybody to all
knowledge, whereas socialism and communism are impossible without a fine
network of free communications.
These four qualities determine the 'virtuousness' of
every individual. But, as long as this individual is immature they cause a
great number of misdeeds. For example nihilism can degenerate into indifference
for one's fellow-men and to the neglect of things. This nihilism concerns but a
part of reality and therefore it has nothing to do with humanity. On the
contrary it is completely criminal. So, for immature man as a rule the four
qualities are a source of misery and for mature man the essence of his
humanity…
81. Anarchism versus anarchy
Since the phenomenon man is situated at the very end
of the genesis of our solar system, it is no longer bounded by the initially
inescapable laws of nature.
This doesn't mean that these laws are expired, do no
longer exist, but it means that man isn't obliged to act in accordance with
them. He is able to say 'no' to every law of nature. Even it is possible for
him to say 'no' to himself and to deny his own existence, namely by committing
suicide, an ability which the other living beings are missing. Of course the
consequences of such a denial are often very disastrous, so that it isn't
advisable to say 'no' to everything. But, what matters is the fact that,
contrary to every other creature, man is able to deny the laws of nature, one
way or the other.
The real consequence of the ability to say 'no' to
everything is the fact that man is making his own laws, not only in a legal
sense, but especially concerning his daily life. The phenomenon man is
characterized by ruling itself in all respects. This manifests itself by
everybody's continuous need to take decisions: shall I go to the left or shall
I go to the right? This situation can be described by the notion 'anarchism' .
It is possible to trans late it in a political way.
This is common practice. Then it means that man doesn't acknowledge governments
and other imperative powers, including those of so-called divine origin, like
for example the Jewish, Christian and Islamic God. And there is also a kind of
anarchism in science, at least if we believe the unconventional physicist Paul Feierabend (1924-1994). But these varieties aren't
important at this moment. Important now is only the fact that man is ruling
himself within his own daily life.
Always and inevitably man's life is filled with taking
decisions. This goes so far that he even can say 'no' to his fundamental
self-government and then decide to hand over his autonomy to someone else! In
principle this is the case with immature man. It belongs to his characteristics
to look up to divine or human higher powers and to obey their orders. Actually
his entire life is regulated by powerful outsiders who justify themselves with
an appeal to some God, the public interest, decency and even to reasonableness.
Since his childhood they have been drumming into him that he would be a great
sinner if he wants to make his own rules. The common opinion is that he is far
from being a God and that he has to realize that he is nothing but a miserable
creature. So he isn't authorized to
take his life into his own hands.
Of course there are always rebellious freethinkers,
individualists with a more clear insight in reality. Result is that they feel
themselves more free and independent and that they are not so very obedient.
They make their own rules and assume full responsibility far
it. But the vast majority hands over its autonomy and make itself fully
dependent on same kind of government. That is the overall picture of the
immature mankind.
Now and then, mostly in times of social instability,
the rulers are losing their authority. People are beginning to distrust them
and more and
more they refuse to obey their orders. Consequence is social disorder and
aggression, directed towards everything related to the government. People even
try to destroy their awn society. This seems to be a kind of awakening to
individual freedom and self-ruling, but in fact it is nothing but a desperate
seeking for a new and powerful government, be it divine or human. Without such
a government and ruling from above they are unable to live in a decent way. For
them it is a matter of vital importance.
A situation like this has absolutely nothing to do
with anarchism, but on the contrary everything with 'anarchy'. It is a terribly
violent manifestation of immaturity.
82. Anarchy
In general one makes hardly any distinction between
the meaning of the notions 'anarchy' and 'anarchism'. Indeed one understands
the first as a real, but rejectable, social situation
of a society in which the government has collapsed as a result of the loss of
credibility. And one considers the second as a complex of more or less abstract
ideas about the society and its government. That is to say: a society without
any government al all. Although politicians dislike
this anarchistic idea also, they nevertheless are willing to admit that it may
be considered as an interesting political idea. Of course yet a distasteful
idea in their opinion. If eventually such an idea would come true they like to
call the then created situation 'anarchy' as well. They suppose that anarchy
would be the concrete manifestation of anarchism. This however is totally
wrong!
The notion 'anarchy' is exclusively connected to
power. It concerns the society as an immature national state. It is one of the
situations in which this national state can fall. In this case it is a
situation of disorder, lawlessness and lack of government. As such anarchy is a
denial of the normally ruled state. It occurs because of the fact that the
governmental values are deteriorated.
But the negation of the state is still the state,
including all its values. Deteriorated values still are values! And the
immature people can't miss them. By consequence everybody tries to restore the
declined values or tries to replace them by others which seem to be better.
Thanks to such a process most of the people are losing their hold and a great
number of them get angry at the society and its rulers. Then you can speak of
'anarchy'. In fact it is the collapse of a social system, like at this moment
is the case with the Russian society. And it will be obvious that it is a
receptive ground for corrupt ion and criminality.
Anarchism is totally different from the above
mentioned anarchy. At the first place it has nothing to do with powers. At the
second place there is the circumstance that anarchism isn't possible in
combination with the maintenance of values. This includes every divine and
human value. In fact anarchism isn't possible without a preceding nihilism. At
the third place anarchism is not a situation of social disorder, but on the
contrary a situation of an exceptionally effective order.
83. The most effective order
The notion 'anarchy' concerns an immature society in
which exists a situation of complete disorder. Of course this goes about the
till now present society, in case of losing its values and by consequence also
its rules. The notion 'anarchism' on the contrary says something about the
character of a mature society, in which exists a situation of the most
effective order, created as an organic whole by mature individuals, without any
differences in human values and powers. It is an universal matter.
Real anarchism is preceded by nihilism (see
instalments 09 and 10 of my Philosophical Reflections) and followed by
socialism. The latter notion means that every individual unconditionally
acknowledges the existence of the other living beings, especially all human
individuals. Consequence of this nihilism is that all people are equal and that
pretending to be more valuable than the others is fully impossible. Ascribing
oneself surplus value actually must be considered as inhuman and even criminal.
Consequence of socialism is that everybody counts as
an independent and free human being. Nobody is excluded from society. So the
self-ruling of man is connected with equality, independence and recognition. If
only one of these qualifications is missing or restricted anarchism is
absolutely out of the question.
Under these circumstances the totality of all
individuals functions as a living organic tissue. In other words: the totality
has grown into a whole. This is the utmost possibility of the society and it is
the real meaning of democracy.
By the way, it is important to understand that this
situation has nothing to do with the, till now customary, collectivities,
in which the individual is subordinated to the representatives of the totality.
On the contrary, the whole is result of the voluntary personal efforts of all
individuals. These individuals 'form' the society. Just like our body: it is in
optimal condition if every cell is able to function in its own specific way. So
nothing and nobody is subordinated. Everything functions in accordance with its
own character without any restriction.
When the world has grown into anarchism it is
impossible that the social system becomes rigid and gets bogged down into
bureaucracy with a lot of unshakable regulations. This only can occur in a collectivity, like for example the communist state. Further
on it is impossible that the quality of the society stays below the mark as a
result of personal pursuit of profit. The question whether or not a certain
social act is reasonable determines the behavior of
the individual. And the nihilistic condition of people cancels out the
differences in value between the individuals. This makes it possible for them
to confer with each other about all social matters. The result is that
constantly the right men are on the right place.
And to crown it all, the world is definitively released
from those villains who claim to have the right to 'rule' the people, actually
to tyrannize them, because they find themselves more valuable than the others.
84. Demanding socialism
The real meaning of socialism concerns an attitude of
life of the individualist. Seeing that this individualist has found himself as
the true phenomenon man he is able to recognize unconditionally the existence
of his fellow-man. This means that the notion 'socialism' applies to him. He is
fully aware of the fact that his own free existence immediately includes the
existence of the other.
The usual concept of socialism however has a political
intent. In that case it concerns an idea about the organization of a society in
which capitalism as an individual strive for wealth and power is abolished. As
a consequence the means of production exclusively are property of the state,
which is the concrete representative of the totality of the people. The
individuals are submitted to this state and its interests go before the interests
of the individual. So the collectivity is the only
reality that counts. The rulers of this collectivity
are the leaders of the people, which actually means that they run the show
without any participation of the people. They aren't their representatives but
their bosses.
In the western world this socialism hasn't got any
chance. At best it came to the organization of political parties, namely if the
leaders agreed with a democratic structure of the society, with universal right
to vote in free and secret elections.
This democratic political socialism indeed strongly
influenced the western culture. In particular it stimulated the self- respect
of the working people, the so-called proletarians. At that time they were
nothing more but slaves who lived in very sorrowful circumstances, exploited as
they were by the capitalistic rulers of the economy. Since Karl Marx published
in 1848 his 'Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei' these proletarians started to claim their rights.
Thanks to their number and by consequence the growing
power of their political parties they succeeded more or less in improving
people's living conditions.
This political socialism is characterized by a strong
dependence from other people and even from governments and its rulers. It is a
'demanding socialism' because its supporters are asking, even begging, for
recognition by the leading upper class. Their opinion is that 'the others' have
to change their attitude towards the poor and the workers and recognize them as
a full member of the society. So the line of thought is moving from the others
to the subject, who states that those others have the human obligation to
respect him and to recognize him.
In fact the fundamental character of this socialism
can be described as expectantly, combined with a negative kind of self-respect.
It is hard to say, but it is the self-respect of a slave, an underdog. So it is
revealing that the then socialists considered the name 'proletarian' to be an
honorary title. They were proud to be a slave-worker and an underdog. In fact
this is the first moment of an awakening self-respect. Nobody understood this
better than the famous Dutch anarchist Ferdinand Domela
Nieuwenhuis (1846-1919) who said at that time to the
socialists that they actually were free human beings and that the world also
was their world. He didn't believe in a socialistic political party, just
because of the fact that something like that emphasizes the subservient
self-image of the people. Domela Nieuwenhuis
indeed was a champion of mature individualism and as such he was really 'a man
of freedom'. Nowadays the demanding character of the political parties is less
obvious. They have reached a lot of power, but the result of this development
is that they are abandoning their collectivistic ideas of the individual's
submission to the whole and becoming more or less followers of liberalism.
85. The unconditional right
to live
The immature man expects from the others the unconditional
right to live and to be himself. So the quality of his life depends on their
good or bad nature. From the moment on that he is becoming aware of his
dependent situation he can be considered as a socialist, in the political sense
of the word. This notion also is applicable to other people who refuse to call
themselves socialists. The awareness of being dependent and subordinated,
followed by the attempt to change this situation by claiming social rights is
sufficient for me to use still the notion 'socialist'. This concerns some
Christian and other religious parties, some liberal parties and of course also
the communist and Maoist parties. So, crucial is the demanding character of
their political objectives. Sometimes this demanding character results in a
violent attempt to seize power and even to a revolution, like we have seen in
1917 in Russia.
And also it is reasonable to look upon the French Revolution as a kind of
socialistic awakening. Anyhow, the notion 'socialism' covers much more than only
that which is named socialism.
In fact however the real notion 'socialism' is fully
different from the above mentioned political meaning. It isn't the crucial
question whether or not the others are willing to recognize someone's life,
existence and personality, but whether or not someone is willing to recognize
the others. So actually it is just the other way round!
This is a rather difficult theme. Political socialists
don't like its idea, for it is their opinion that this attitude doesn't result
in any social changes. They argue that no body is
interested in such a generosity. It leads nowhere, they think, because the
leading upper class has a lot to lose. So recognition has to be extorted, in
which pressure and violence form the only effective way.
Most of the people however reject the idea because
they aren't willing to accept exploiters, thieves and murderers, rapists and
all the other criminals. Afterwards eventually they will recognize their right
to live, if these unlucky persons have paid the penalty and if they are capable
again to decent behavior. So in fact most of the
people really attach conditions to their fellow-men, namely to antisocial
individuals, who in their eyes have no right to live in their own rejectable way. Unconditional recognition is fully out of
the question.
Indeed it has to be admitted that it is very difficult
to understand that everyone yet has an unconditional human right to live, even
if he violates the society and her members. It is hard to accept that criminals
have to be respected in this right, although their way of life is fully
unacceptable. Yet a mature attitude to life demands from the individual that he
doesn't state anything as a condition to the existence of his fellow-men.
Actually the difficulty is that accepting
unconditionally everybody's right to live also means accepting that criminality
can occur and that it is totally wrong to deny on that ground someone's right
to live. It is one of the possible aberrations of nature. Thanks to bad social
circumstances and severe brain-defects some people go off the rails. In fact
they are dangerously ill and of course their illness has to be treated. Their
fellow men and in general the whole society is in duty to recognize their
illness at the same time as they recognize their right to live as decent as
possible. So it is a question of accepting the illness of some people. Mostly,
in an immature society, this accepting comes much too late, due to the fact
that men have no interest in each other.
Actually recognition of the other in the first place
means care for each other, so in a mature society one also has care for the
criminal. By consequence there always exists a kind of guidance, right from the
childhood of such a patient. He or she isn't excluded from daily life, like it
is the case in a immature society, but contrarily
always surrounded with good caring people.
86. Myself as the only
criterion
In an immature society by definition people are
totally dependent. Everybody expects recognition from the others with the
result that always the others determine the character and quality of someone's
life. In the last resort the others are represented by a collectivity,
for example a state, a union, or any other association. It will be clear that
this situation essentially differs from the real human phenomenon. In the first
place the phenomenon man is depending from entirely nothing, thanks to the fact
that it is the absolute final result of the genesis. As such it has left behind
every material and natural quality, the laws of nature are no longer
inevitable. Its fundamental state now is that literally every forced natural
program is existing in a negative way. By consequence man is able to say 'no'
to all things, including himself. And this means that he also has the ability
to say 'no' to the other men. He isn't obliged to comply with the others. The
individual is completely on her or his own. The philosopher Ortega y Gasset said: "Man is an absolute loneliness".
In fact this is man's fundamental status. So, people's
dependence from each other is really inhuman, although understandable in the
light of social immaturity.
In the second place it should be noticed that it is
only possible to be conscious of oneself.
Even if one knows nothing about oneself, neither one's
origin, nor one's destination, there always remains one certainty: 'myself'.
Whatever one's character and position in the cosmos
would be, even if man is nothing but "a dream of Buddha", inevitably
there will be the existence of myself. 1t is the only real and indisputable
certainty. All other phenomenon’s, except myself, are nothing but perceptible
things with which one can become familiar only in an indirect way. So, making
myself dependent from outsiders means delivery to something uncertain, anyhow
to something strange which doesn't belong to myself. As such it is inevitably
disturbing my integrity. The trick is finding exclusively myself and make it
perfect, which by the way doesn't mean that the aim would be to become a saint,
but on the contrary to develop myself to a true human being. Only this makes it
possible to recognize my fellow men and to take good care for them. Then I can
say that "I am my brother's keeper"!
Contrary to the usual line of thought a good social
life isn't the result of collective agreements, which are differing from time
to time and from region to region, but exclusively of the consciousness of man
as the very final phenomenon brought forth by the cosmic process of genesis. So
it concerns the mature man. His intellectual clarity makes evident to him that
all other people for themselves are 'myself' as well. By consequence this
mature man has not any need for compelling collective agreements. Maturity
contains that man recognizes everybody's unconditional right to live, which
also means that one tries to allow the others to rest. The annoying
interference of today's people has come to an end. 1nterference has nothing to
do with care for each other. Care presupposes respecting someone's person and integrity,
but interference on the contrary affects it.
87. There is but one
mysterious certainty
It is the task of the philosopher to find out what is
the case with reality. Therefore he needs a valid starting point. For the
beginning of his line of thought has to be absolutely reliable. But it seems as
if this highly necessary, perfectly certain, starting point doesn't exist.
Everything is uncertain, because everything is dependent from many external
factors. The one thing determines the quality and the function of the other
thing. And the universe forms a complete network of dependent relations so that
there can't be found an absolute certain point of departure for the
philosophical line of thought.
Yet for philosophical reliability absolute certainty
is necessary. This certainty can't be obtained from the phenomena outside the
philosopher himself because he isn't able to eliminate the mutual dependency
between himself and the outside world. This outside world only can manifest
itself through man's senses, so by consequence he never can be sure whether or
not he has the right idea of it. He even can't be sure of its real existence.
So, outside man himself there is no unconditional
certainty. But inside himself he has an inborn certainty. That counts for
everyone. It is completely impossible to deny that fact. If one eliminates
every personal particularity and every self- knowledge there always remains the
awareness of some kind of presence.
This indefinable certainty is the only certainty there
is. By consequence it is the only reliable starting point for the philosophical
line of thought. Nothing is certain, nothing exists on its own and nothing even
can be known completely, neither by experience nor by scientific research. But
everything can be understood as a result of philosophically thinking, if the
thinker takes his own mysterious presence for starting certainty.
But pay attention to the use of the word 'understood'!
Understanding reality is quite different from knowing
in a scientific way. The first notion concerns the quality and the character of
reality in general, while the second notion is a matter of quantity and
composition of concrete things. So, for example, the first says something about
the notion 'tree' and the second about a special tree, on a special time and
place.
There are many thinkers who don't agree with the idea
that 'presence' is a real certainty. They argue that one has no means to verify
his knowledge about himself. without an external checkpoint such a knowledge
also would be a shot in the dark. From their point of view they are completely
right, but only concerning any kind of knowledge which one has about himself.
In fact however they forget that the notion 'presence' presupposes a complete
ignorance of all knowledge. It presupposes an absolute emptiness of the mind.
One knows nothing about himself and just then there remains one single fact,
namely 'presence'.
Others are of the opinion that 'presence' would be a
useless starting point because of the circumstance that it doesn't include
concrete information, since everything is eliminated. But this is a very
inconsistent reasoning because it is just the trick that this sort of
information is lacking. So it is the task of the philosopher to find out what
can be done with such an elusive affair and it will be obvious that everything
is impossible except one thing: recognizing the certainty of the 'presence'.
88. Three kinds of certainty
Starting with the notion 'presence' one can reason logically
to the essential nature of reality. This 'substance' can't be something else
than an infinity of moving, indivisible and indefinable particles. From here it
is possible to work out step by step the composition of the universe. Of course
this isn't a physical theory, based upon analysis of the phenomena, with the
use of instruments or otherwise. So it would be incorrect to speak about any
form of science. On the contrary it is a strict logical description of the
increasing complexity of the relations between these moving particles. Result
is a clear overview of reality's base, its frame, so to speak. Being acquainted
with this frame is the most important condition for a reliable philosophy.
Alas, most of the modern philosophers resort to the scientific method and trust
in the knowledge obtained by analysis of the phenomena. Result is that they
can't find any absolute certainty and that as philosophy their thinking is
totally worthless. There is no truth in their philosophy, but only suppositions
and probabilities, which can change every moment when there are new ideas about
some matter. The modern analytical and positivistic philosophies be long to the group of relative certainties.
The first is the group of the absolute uncertainties.
When the moving character of reality finally manifests itself in the very end
of the evolution, namely in the phenomenon man, we have to do with this
uncertainty. Since man isn't submitted to any imprinted inescapable program it
is impossible to predict his behavior. This is, in a
philosophical sense, a fundamental uncertainty. In human life nothing is
certain.
Note well that this is fully in accordance with the
fact that man is optimally dependent from all external phenomena. His before
mentioned independence only concerns imprinted programs, but not man’s external
relations.
From a philosophical point of view the sciences belong
to the second group of certainties. Scientific knowledge extends in a
cumulative way, so that every certainty can be considered as true as long as a
there is no following new one.
So there is a succession of alternating certainties
and uncertainties.
This can be named 'relative certainty'. Besides that
there is a wide uncertainty due to the fact that scientific knowledge never can
be isolated from its circumstances. There is, for example, an inevitable
relation between the researcher, his instruments and the object of his
investigation. By consequence all scientific knowledge is valid only under
specific circumstances.
Philosophy can be reckoned to the third group. It is
the aim of philosophy to work with 'absolute' certainties. The meaning of this
is that a philosophical truth has to be valid under every circumstance and at
every moment and place. If now and then it proves to be impossible to discover
such a truth it is the philosopher's duty to keep silent. But, of course he
actually can speak about the relations and dependencies of something. Bis opinion about such matters can be absolutely
independent and as such a sign of a real philosophical truth. But it is
important to understand that the philosopher's statements on itself have to be
generally valid.
89. Uncertain relations
In principle the outside world is completely uncertain
to man's self-awareness. In fact he knows nothing for sure so that the
classical expression "may be the world is nothing but a dream" proves
to be precisely to the point. Everything man knows has passed a system of
faculties by which objects are perceived. Some kind of selection takes place.
As a result it is impossible for him to retrieve the real character of the
phenomena around him. Completely inevitable there is the activity of a mediator
which influences the observation and interpretation of things and he hasn't any
instrument to determine the degree of distortion. Even scientific research
can't bring any help.
Actually the philosopher Kant was right by asking for
the true nature of things and then concluding that it was completely impossible
to get acquainted with the things on itself. Yet he made a mistake, because
this opinion exclusively concerns the attempt to obtain scientific knowledge
which indeed only can give 'relative certainty'. Since on the contrary
philosophy, as a result of her independence, is based upon 'absolute certainty'
she really can give an answer.
But also there is something else. Most of our
knowledge about reality is passed through others, for example by teachers.
Especially in our modern culture education is an important source of knowledge.
But also this is a matter of indirect experiences. Very little of our
knowledge, be it scientific or commonplace, nowadays is based upon unique
personal experience. This means that there are much more mediators than only
our own senses, sa that in the end no certainty is
left at all. In this case the only acceptable possibility is to have faith in
someone's knowledge and above all in someone's integrity.
The presence and the activity of all these mediators
indeed make man dependent, but actually not in all respects. Of course he can't
abolish the relations as such, because he too is existing as a phenomenon
amongst the other phenomena. But yet for him there is a way out, thanks to the
ability of his mind to alter the evolutionary inborn natural programs, even to
deny them. So he isn't dependent on them, he is absolutely free and he is
forced to make his own programs. It means that he can decide for himself how to
handle with his external relations and as a result he can find certainty in his
own presence. Not only that this is a reliable starting point for philosophy,
but also it makes it possible for the coming mature man to obtain a clear
insight in the whole of reality.
For such an insight it is necessary that the bits and
pieces, resulting from the analysis of reality, are united and coherent. Then
reality will be comprehensible for people so that they can get rid of their
everlasting alienation.
90. Threatening knowledge
The most striking feature of our modern culture is the
intellectual alienation from everyday's reality.
Especially this is the case with the upper classes, anyhow with higher educated
people. Mostly this fact isn't noticed, neither by the leaders and politicians,
nor by the majority of the intelligentsia. Even the philosophers don't mention
it, although at that time Hegel (1770-1831) introduced the idea of
'alienation', be it in a more spiritual way. But today it is a very farreaching affair. Its consequences take effect on nearly
every field of the society.
The usual opinion is that the scientific development
has to be considered as the most remarkable and important feature of modern
times. Indeed it has to be admitted that the sciences did expand enormously.
And it is true that the resulting technology became capable to produce a great
number of goods, useful in a positive as well as in a very threatening negative
way. But it is my opinion that this isn't so very remarkable. Actually every
period in human history shows important scientific improvements.
The idea that in our culture this development would be
more extensive and speedy really is an illusion, because what counts is not the
quantity of results but on the contrary the quality of original inventions.
Nearly all special results of the modern sciences and technology can be traced
back to just a few fundamental discoveries and inventions. As far as this is
concerned there is no difference with former cultures. The then living people
also experienced the scientific development of their time as astonishing and
speedy. So, the matter as such is in fact not so very remarkable. Nevertheless
there is a fundamental difference between the preceding cultures and the
modern, originally western, culture. This doesn't concern the tangible results,
but on the contrary the cultural status of the sciences. From now on these
sciences and their development are constituting the essence of the modern
culture. So, we have to do with a completely new item in the cultural history.
Science is no longer a normal human phenomenon.
Starting with the Enlightenment at the end of the l8th
century science is grown into something crucial around which everything
revolves. Of course this is of great influence on the modern society. At the
beg inning the general opinion about this was very positive, expectations ran
high indeed! But in the meantime these hopeful expectations of the people of
the Enlightenment, namely that this influence would bring about a reasonable
and fair world, turned out to be vain. In spite of the scientifically based
education the modern world shows an astonishing lack of fairness and humanity.
But above all there has grown a terrible alienation.
Actually man has lost his contact with the reality so that nowadays he lives
completely in the dark. The light of the Enlightenment turned out to be an impenetrable
darkness. Especially the leaders of this world are good examples of this
situation. They show a great deal of unsteadiness, indecisiveness and
incompetence. But they do deceptively as if it would be something like
scientific precision, a conscientious weighing of the pros and cons against
each other. Mostly this isn't a deliberate deception. One honestly believes
that such a behavior indeed has to be considered as
scientific.
91. Overriding status
It speaks for itself that it has to be the aim of the
sciences to promote the quality of people's daily life. They are providing
people with many useful facilities, in order that life becomes endurable to
them. Of course this is also the case with the modern sciences. One even can
say that they are extremely successful.
But besides that there occurs an enormous immaterial
effect, because of the overriding cultural status of the sciences. By
consequence modern man is judging his complete world in a scientific way, at
least in a way he believes to be scientific. In any event, this means that
everything is subjected to analysis. But analysis inevitably transforms
people's concept ion of the world from a practical into a theoretical. Not the
concrete experiences determine the character of this conception, but the
knowledge, provided by the sciences, by means of innumerable forms of
education. Scientific knowledge no longer elucidates one's concept ion of the
world, so that the matter becomes trustworthy and safe. On the contrary modern
man fits his conception together out of the bits and pieces, resulting from the
analysis. This leads to the situation that modern man transforms his reality
into an intellectual construction. This has several severe consequences.
On the first place modern man loses his grip on the
practice of life. When he takes particular measures with the intention to
realize a certain social purpose it regularly turns out that they were
inadequate. The everyday reality totally differs from his intellectual, from
scientific education obtained, impression of reality. Result is an
uncontrollable situation, an increasing chaos. Today's modern world is a
meaningful paragon of it.
Secondarily it has to be noticed that the absence of a
real world view leads to a dangerously increasing criminality. Not only that
the prevailing standards fade away, but especially that the individual attains
to an isolated position. He isn't able to understand this and as a result he
becomes terribly confused. Then he gets the feeling that the others stand in
his way. Now they are his enemies so that he needs to attack them. This is the
basic ground of the so-called 'aimless violence' of many young persons.
On the third place it is remarkable that there is a
tremendous expansion of religious movements. The uprooted people search for a
shelter. Thanks to the prevailing confusion they are satisfied with nearly
every spiritual idea, provided that it offers an all-embracing whole in which
one can sink away. In fact people long to go back into the universal womb!
Apart from the Islam the officially Christian churches lose their influence,
because of the above-mentioned alienation, but on the contrary the religious
salvation-movements are still more abundant.
Of course there are much more manifestations of
alienation. Concerning this one can speak of a 'tragic paradox', caused by the
fact that this alienation is consequence of a science which is more and more
reliable..!
92. Mysterious substance
Starting with the notion 'personal presence' it is
possible to compose a coherent conception of reality. This notion is absolutely
needed for the basic certainty of the philosophical line of thought. Crucial is
the fact that 'presence' must be defined without any concrete property, in
order that every condition of time or place is expired. Herewith an absolute
certainty is obtained. This is very important because every philosophical
statement has to be valid under all possible circumstances.
Not only this 'circumstantial' validity is an
essential precondition for philosophy, but there is also another indispensable
prerequisite.
It concerns the great demand of a 'multilateral
coherent approach', which means that a certain theme must be approachable from
every conceivable direction, without the occurrence of whatever any
contradictory.
So, every starting point of a line of thought about a
philosophical theme is usable, provided that one has the intention to think
freely, honestly and logically.
For example one can think about the question whether
or not spiritual powers like gods exist, starting with the assumption that
there really is a god. Thinking along the line of certainties, originally based
upon the 'personal presence' , one finds a reliable answer. For this matter it
turns out that the existence of gods is absolutely impossible.
Being fully aware of the notion 'presence' one
immediately is confronted with the fact that unmistakable there is something
else. Again: one doesn't know what it is and even it isn't permitted to sort
out what it possibly could be, but it is for sure that something else exists.
As a result one is able to conclude that 'this' exists and that also 'that'
exists. So reality is intrinsically divided. It is possible to split her up in
a number of 'this-things' and at the same time a number of 'that-things'.
By the way, the expressions 'this' and 'that' only
function as arbitrary indications. Every 'this' at the same time can be
indicated as 'that' . What counts is that reality has to be considered as a
compound affair. The fact that reality can be split up is extremely important,
for this leads directly to the final conclusion that the basic substance of
reality is formed by indivisible and infinitesimal 'things'.
Meanwhile the philosopher knows that he knows nothing
in particular about these 'things'. Now the question is what can be said of
such a mysterious reality…
93. Atomos
The primary substance of reality is made by
'particles' about which nothing can be said concerning shape or any other
distinction. Because they exist beneath material reality it is logically
incorrect to call them 'particles' for this word precisely is referring to
something material. But alas I have no other word to indicate them. Actually
they are totally indefinite, so they are immeasurable, elusive and by
consequence they aren't demonstrable at all. They only manifest themselves at
the very end of a line of thought which starts with the certainty that reality
is a compound affair. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that there are
basic elements without any particular property. And of course they all are
exactly similar.
The idea of primary 'particles' is very old indeed.
Long before the Christian Era several antique Greek philosophers, like Leucippes, Democrites and
Epicures were speaking about 'atomos', which means
indivisible particles. Later on there also was the Roman Lucretius with the
same idea. Although these philosophers were thinking in terms of 'atomos', they supposed at the same time that these
particles were internally different in form, movement, weigh and so on. They
didn't realize that difference is contrary to indivisibility, since difference
is result of a compound. In general the old Indian and Arabic thinkers too were
adherents of the idea of primary 'atomos'. But all
these thinkers however weren't able to deduce the existing phenomena from their
supposed primary substance. An important reason is that they overlooked the
crucial meaning of the fact that the 'atomos' are
moving, eternally and without any cause at all. It was their opinion that the
primary particles must have been set in motion by some mysterious power like a
god or eventually the gravitation.
Anyhow, the antique thinkers couldn't see that the
universe can't be something else than a spontaneously
moving system and that the genesis of the phenomena is
nothing but a logical consequence of this eternal motion. Their thinking was
exclusively fixed upon the 'atomos' as particles in stead of their universal motion.
By the way, till now many modern thinkers and
scientists also search for a fundamental starting power. For them the universe
once started to move, for example with the famous 'Big Bang', while in their
eyes standstill has to be considered as the original situation of the universe.
It seems as if they don't note the fact that such a fundamental starting power
presupposes some kind of motion as well. It is totally impossible to think of
some power without thinking of some motion at the same time. without motion no
power!
94. A volatile reality
Thinkers who belong to our modern western culture find
it hard to understand that it is possible to say something about the mysterious
'particles'. It is their opinion that in this case every contention must be
speculative, which means in their language that it only can be utter nonsense!
However, it is possible to make some very essential remarks. The fact that
nothing can be said concerning these things turns out to be extraordinary
important and the advise of many modern philosophers
to be silent if there is nothing to say isn't very clever indeed.
Actually it isn't difficult to see that these
'particles' necessarily are agile, even in a totally unobstructed way.
Absolutely nothing can influence their own movement. Of course that's only
logical, because any obstruction would mean that there is an immanent
possibility to react to something else, which contradicts the fact of their
indivisibility. All these things lead to but one logical conclusion: the primary
substance forms a clear, transparent, timeless and everlasting volatile
reality.
Concerning this it is remarkable that people in
ancient times of ten had a deep feeling about this basic principle of the
universe. For example in the ancient China followers of the Tao spoke of this
volatile reality in terms of a clear mist from which everything emanates
eternally. In the Chinese arts of painting and drawing there is always a hazy
background and the landscapes and persons loom up from the mist.
The philosophers of ancient India used the notion 'Nirvana'
which is connected more or less with the same case. It means that it should be
the aim of man to reach a situation of perfect peace and rest in which the
material phenomenon is removed totally. They strived for denial of the matter
to achieve a state of brightness and volatility. Then the cycle of death and
re-birth would be broken through.
In Jewish religion the notion Yahweh refers to the
same innominate reality of which is said moreover that it has to be considered
as the 'alpha' and the 'omega', the be-all and end- all of the universe.
Yahweh, the Jewish God, is also believed to be a divine spirit which goes
through all phenomena. Consequently to his innominate character it is forbidden
for Jewish believers to speak out his name and to make a picture of him. And of
course the Christian theologians claim exactly the same.
So, the idea of a volatile primary substance isn't st range at all, especially now that contemporary creative philosophy
leads to the same conclusion.
95. Standstill of the
particles
The primary substance isn't exclusively situated at
the beginning of the universe's genesis or eventually also at the end.
On the contrary, it remains exactly the same
throughout the whole genesis of the phenomena.
Actually reality consists of nothing but an endless
sea of eternally moving 'particles'.
It is easy to understand that it is impossible to find
a logical alternative, because the primary substance is absolutely untouchable
and it always remains freely moving. If this wasn't the case, it would have
been possible that the 'particles' brought each other to a standstill. But
then, in the light of eternity, the universe would be motionless from the very
beginning, which is evidently an absurdity!
Yet there is something else that is changing, namely
the complex of relations between the movements of the 'particles'. If these
relations by chance appear to be identical, these freely moving 'particles'
stand still in proportion to each other. This standstill of the particles is
the fundamental essence of the phenomena.
For example one can think of two next to each other
running trains. It is a well-known experience of the passengers that the two
trains seem to stand still. And, actually this is the case indeed: the two
trains stand still. They farm one object, while their motion only can be
detected by an external observer. This means that the universe is filled with
internally motionless objects which however are still moving in proportion to
other objects. In the universe there is na phenomenon
which absolutely stands still. As proved before this would be absurd because of
the eternally moving primary 'particles' , but also because of the fact that it
is impossible for same object to stand still in proportion to the universe
itself, thanks to the endlessness of the universe.
96. Religion as degenerated
insight
Originally the world religions had nothing to do with
the worshipping of gods in the modern western meaning of the word. Even it is
justified to state that it was a kind of atheism, in spite of the belief in
phenomena like gods and goddesses. Actually it also isn't correct to speak in
terms like 'belief' because for the ancient people the co-called divine world
meant a fully concrete reality of which it was possible to obtain a lot of
reliable information. So their 'belief' was more a question of knowledge, even
science, than a matter of speculation and acceptation of improbable
supernatural ideas from sly spiritual leaders.
The people from ancient times used a scientific
language that differed totally from afterwards western world's language. People
expressed their scientific knowledge by means of fairy tales and myths in which
special relationships within reality were personified by celestial bodies,
divine persons, animals and plants. For instance the heavenly virgin, with or
without her masculine child. She represented the whole of the universe and her
child referred to that whole's total content of the various phenomena.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love, of course also virginal, was supposed to be
barn out of the foam of the sea, the mixing of a masculine, air, and feminine,
water, principle.
Anyhow, the ancient people expressed their knowledge
about reality by means of images. It is pure figurative language! Actually
their so-called belief in these figures was nothing but their specific way of
scientific formulation of their ideas about reality. It has nothing to do with
subjection to same higher and almighty power. On the contrary ancient man was
convinced that he would end in this original, fundamental and substantial
reality. In the very end he would be 'divine' himself. Divine reality was
supposed to be the essence of his own practical human life. In a special way
this essence went beyond man's more or less narrow daily life, but this wasn't
a question of higher power. So any farm of worship and subservience is
absolutely out of the question.
Thanks to the fact that these people were interested
in reality hers elf their ideas about it were automatically truthful to a great
degree and of ten even of an astonishing clarity.
Although they expressed themselves in a poetical and
metaphorical way, their insight in reality was very deep indeed. And one of
their ideas was that reality was based upon a volatile substance, without any
property and absolutely everlasting. They called it a divine reality and of
course they spook about it in respectful terms.
This wasn't a religious dogma which should be endorsed
by the believers, on the contrary, it was a form of real insight. Later on this
insight became an essential part of the new world religions like Christianity
and Islam, but alas in a very corrupt way. The idea of a basic pre-material
substance changed into the supposition that there would be an omnipresent and
almighty personal God who once created the world and now is ruling this
creation. So, an idea is transformed into a concrete facto This is typical for
the modern masculine way of thinking as it became usual in the Western world.
97. Solipsism
In a way the idea of self-existence as the only
certainty can be recovered in the philosophical movement of 'solipsism'. The
term originates from the Latin words 'solus' and
'ipse', meaning 'only' and 'myself'. The content of this philosophical idea is
that I am the only existing reality while all other phenomena are nothing but
imageries. Actually I can't ascribe any concrete existence to the me
surrounding world. Even it is possible that this world is nothing but a dream,
as Buddha stated in his days.
In principle this is correct, but, as I have
demonstrated before: it is exclusively correct as an indisputable starting-
point of a truthful philosophical line of reasoning. But, then it only concerns
the essential certainty, the basic notion that underlies the philosophy.
However, if thinkers try to convince us of the idea that the entire external
world would be nothing but a fake of our own mind, then they are totally wrong!
Even the fact that they are able to establish that there are so-called
imageries should convince them of the existence of something else, totally
unknown indeed, but evidently some kind of an external reality. At the
beginning it is impossible to find out what it is, but it is absolutely certain
that there is something outside of the phenomenon man. Something that isn't an
imagery but a real existing reality.
Anyhow, the only way of becoming acquainted with it
isn't the direct confrontation to research the case, like most modern thinkers
mean, but the return to the primary reality of the undefined moving virtual
particles. Because of the discovery that the existence of an external reality
is an undeniable fact, it is also certain that reality is a compound of
independent and indivisible primary particles. This means that there is 'one'
particle and immediately 'another' particle. Existence proves to be through and
through dual. This knowledge makes it possible to work out how the phenomena
could come into being.
98. Analytic thinking as a
social power
The conviction that philosophy should be exclusively a
matter of logical thinking, without the help of any concrete research or
instrument, isn't popular nowadays. If necessary one is willing to admit that
philosophy requires logical thinking, but that's a walk-over, because logical
thinking is a requirement for all human activities.
The addition however that the use of material research
and instruments is quite unacceptable regularly arouses much opposition, even
aggression.
An important factor at this is the fact that this way
of thinking is considered to be a pure personal affair and that as such it has
nothing to do with a scientifically justifiable procedure. Because it takes
place within the seclusion of one's own mind it is impossible for outsiders to
verify it. More than that, they even are shut out from taking part and
influence.
This personal way of thinking is totally conflicting
with the scientific regulations concerning reliability of knowledge. Scientific
data must have an objective character in order that everybody is able to check
them, for example by repeating the underlying concrete research. Opinions, only
based on thoughts arouse sincere suspicion, especially with the practitioners
of the exact sciences. From their point of view they are absolutely right, but
alas their point of view isn't a philosophical one!
In our modern culture thinking is oriented towards
analysis of the material phenomena. One is convinced that the truth about
reality lies within the compound and that separating the ingredients will
result in reliable and significant knowledge. Of course this is correct, but
only insofar this analytical approach applies to reality as matter. However, it
is just this material reality which proves to be essential in modern culture.
So, it doesn't only concern an opinion of a scientific upper class. On the
contrary, it is one of the most important, more or less hidden, themes of
modern culture. Actually that's what it's all about with everybody. Thanks to
the penetrating involvement with reality as matter, this analytical thinking
has great social power. Even it is the only recognized way of correct thinking,
not only for scientists but also for politicians and ordinary people. Today
every self-respecting member of the society bases his or her opinions on
analysis and research. Often this goes so far that its results take the place
of thought and insight. Then it is evident that real thinking is no longer
required under those modern circumstances. This is a disastrous development,
because a very important and crucial human ability is completely disregarded,
namely the ability to think in a creative way. And by consequence mediocrity is
rampant.
As a rule every kind of power results in dullness and
mediocrity. This isn't only the case with social power but also in science
power plays a fatal role. The opinions of the majority of scientists, of ten
sponsored by powerful concerns, dominate the academic world to a great extend. Actually this is a shame because other and
possibly better ideas get hardly any chance, not to speak of the various
philosophical ideas which mostly are totally ignored. The intellectual level of
mankind could be much higher if all kinds of ideas we re
valued equally and then fairly tested in the same open-minded way.
99. Power for the best
The op in ion that power has to be considered as a
reasonable instrument to rule the society is generally accepted nowadays. Of
course this is accompanied immediately by the restriction that this power
should be used for the public welfare. The usual political line of thought is
as follows:
"Applying power for self-interest must be rejected absolutely, because it
doesn't correspond to the modern democratic form of government. Contemporary
rulers are indifferent to any personal power. Only social power, provided to
them in a legal way by the citizens, is acceptable. This power is necessary for
good social management, because it is evident that regulations and standards
must be exacted from the people. Without this possibility a well-organized
society is absolutely out of the question.
Moreover it is absolutely necessary that it is the
people itself who chooses their rulers and decides about the social
regulations. This is very important for this course of events guarantees a
reasonable use of power and excludes misuse of it…"
This political line of thought seems to be
philosophically correct, but on the contrary a closer look at it will show
something else. As a matter of fact this argumentation practically justifies
the continued existence of an overpowering upper class so that consequently we
still are living in a society riddled with power struggles, enjoyment of power
and even tyranny. The idea of so-called power for the best doesn't keep people
from executing personal power if they seize the opportunity. And in the end the
results aren't different from other sorts of power exertion: you have to obey
and to do what is ordered. Of course the point is that power for the best doesn't
exist at all!
The notion 'power' involves that 'I' force someone
else to change her or his personality in accordance with 'my' ideas. So one man claims the
right to interfere in the life of another man and he justifies his claim with
an appeal to some higher authority like a god. But not only gods are legitimate
authorities, nowadays an institution like analytical science scores very high
as well. And, as it is typically the case with every divine affair, nothing can
be tolerated next to it. For example, one states of the old Jewish God,
Jehovah, that he is an envious God who can't accept the equivalence of
something else. Well, in a way the same can be said of the modern one-sided
practice of analytical thinking. In accordance with this intellectual culture
analysis is considered to be the only reliable way to discover the truth about
reality. So the statements on behalf of this religion can simply make claim to
unconditional credibility…
100. Power and dullness
Concerning man's exertion of power actually it doesn't
matter if he is in the right with his ideas. What counts is exclusively the
fact of his interference in the life of the others. Although this is believed
to be reasonable, it is on the contrary just characteristic for an immature
mankind, in which reality is divided into a higher and a lower order. Every
affair which is, one way or the other, considered to be connected to the
so-called higher reality counts as normative and can be applied as such to wield
power. Because of this superior status it is acquainted with the real truth and
that counts as sufficient legitimation for interference.
Actually it is inevitable that the majority of the
people can't come up to scratch, because a lot of their qualities doesn't suit
the ideas of the higher classes about a well ordered society. Especially
people's own initiatives are discouraged for they would lead to disorder, at
least in the eyes of the rulers and managers who are afraid of loosing their power. As I said before: rulers, standing in
the light of a higher reality, think that a good world only can be the result
of good, just and human government by a reasonable and intellectual minority.
They really mean that the lower-class people is complete unsuitable for such a
job.
Indeed man has many asocial and even criminal
qualities, so it seems to be justified to suppress them. But, on closer
consideration this opinion also proves to be incorrect: criminal qualities,
although in every respect reprehensible, are essentially human as well. The
reason is that man is able to say 'no' to everything. This feature can't be
eliminated. The circumstance that of ten its results are undesirable is no
argument for suppression, but only for steering in the right direction, which
is something totally different!
Suppression always leads to mental morbidity, but
steering has a healing effect so that also these unlucky persons can make
better use of their positive human talents.
The wielding of power by a higher minority is
suppressing many human qualities with the inevitable result that the society is
dull and mediocre. without the maintaining of this established order the world
would show much more intelligence, liveliness, inventiveness and even social
justice…
101. The fairy tale of the higher reality
The phenomenon man emerges as the most extreme
possibility from the genesis of the universe. with his birth on the planet not
only this genesis had come to an end, but also the evolution of life. Further
structural refining of the material systems, living or otherwise, can't take
place. Because man is the personification of this end product he is
characterized by the not ion 'border', a notion which refers to the change from
material to immaterial situation. The latter situation is usually, in
connection with man, called 'spirit' and in connection with a divine reality
'God' or 'Holy Spirit'. The vague understanding of this existence of another
reality finds expression in these terms.
Seeing that the immaterial world concerns a following
stadium after the material genesis, one believes that it would have a higher
status. So, the immaterial reality is convinced to rise above everything else.
It speaks for itself that this idea lies at the basis of the religions and that
it goes back to the dim and distant past. Also today one can see that nearly
everybody stands in awe of immaterial things. Even freethinkers and humanists
look up to it, be it that they don't use religious terms. Anyhow, the origin of
all kinds of power lies in this immaterial world.
In fact there is not any higher reality to which man
has to submit himself. The whole hotchpotch of higher and divine realities is
nothing but a terrible fairy tale! On the one hand it satisfies man's immature
need for an all-embracing fatherly love and on the other hand it justifies the
childish will to uplift himself above the others.
Nevertheless, all this doesn't mean that there would
be 'nothing' at all! At the utmost border of the genesis occurs the dual
phenomenon 'material versus immaterial'. Within the whole of this phenomenon
the not ion immaterial doesn't concern a special kind of an independently
existing reality, but on the contrary a different situation of the real
existing matter. This means that the material systems begin to behave
themselves as if they were no longer material! They start acting like the
original virtual particles.
In the past this variation of the material reality is cal led 'spirit' and it is very remarkable that the then
people used the word 'spiritus' in the meaning of
volatile matter. Although these people believed in God as an almighty higher
authority they made a sharp distinction between this God and the so-called Holy
Spirit, to which they didn't ascribe any power. Obviously they had a feeling
about the true situation of man in the universe.
102. Immaturity and power
The not ion 'power' has different meanings, at least
two of them are important in connection with the development of human societies
during man's existence on earth. In the first place there is the circumstance
that, thanks to the fact of his being situated at the very end of the genesis,
man essentially is able to exercise power over the complete world of phenomena.
It makes it possible for him to convert natural things into human, cultural,
objects. This kind of power isn't deniable because it is a direct consequence
of the cosmic position of man.
Since this 'universal' power is oriented towards all phenomena
it is, in the second place, bound to happen that initially some individuals
find it reasonable to exercise power over their fellow men. But such a power,
which is exercised by one man over an other man,
doesn't belong to the phenomenon 'man' at all. Every individual counts as the
ultimate phenomenon so that there can be nothing outshining him. As a
consequence nobody has the right to lift up himself pretending to be the boss.
This can be considered as the 'philosophical' argument against power. In
addition to this one can use the 'practical' argument, namely that the exercise
of power makes it impossible for people to be themselves, resulting in a very
mediocre world - see my Reflections 98,
99 and 100.
Although this kind of power is totally reprehensible
and can be considered as a terrible disaster for the world, the complete human
history shows a daily and never ending struggle for power. The reason is that
till today man isn't fully developed. Mankind is still immature.
According to the common opinion it has nothing to do
with maturity and development. The idea is that man always will seek for power
so that inevitably there will be tyranny till the end of times. So for man
there is not a single hopeful prospect. The usual answer to this abuse is that
there has to be the just exertion of some kind of power for the best, in order
that people will be forced to go along with a system of reasonable agreements.
But, if this is true ordinary people couldn't have any other choice than
obeying a highly placed elite and for no one else th
ere would be any opportunity to manifest hers elf or himself as a free and
independent individual. The ultimate result of the universe's genesis would be
nothing but a privileged minority, exactly as it is the case till now, somewhat
more reasonable but in essence the same. It will be clear that this is total
nonsense. Actually on the long run every individual will be a fully
acknowledged member of a horizontally organized society and nothing of today's
inequality will remain…
103. Our world isn't worth a penny!
When people realize that our world with its cruel
wars, its inequality, poverty and injustice isn't a very nice place to live,
they like to say that our world isn't worth a penny! Of course this saying is a
disapproval which includes the presupposition that the world could be much
better than is the case today. Actually this is completely true. Even if one
considers that mankind still is immature, the development of thought, science
and technology has reached a sufficient level to create good social
circumstances for all people. But, at the same time man's mental condition is
still primitive to such an extend that the present
possibilities can't be used in a reasonable way. An important factor is the
attaching of values to everything.
In connection with the notion 'value' the line of
thought runs as follows: man is the ultimate result of the genesis; because of
this he has a dual nature, namely material and immaterial at the same time;
then he experiences unconsciously the immaterial part of his nature as a
valuable higher and divine reality. Although this feeling is very immature, in
the form of religions and other ideologies it characterizes every civilization
till now. Man considers himself as the utmost valuable phenomenon. He calls
himself 'the crowning of the creation'. By consequence he behaves himself as an
absolute authority. Of course this has several consequences.
First of all it leads to the idea that he has the
right to rule the entire universe, including his fellow-men.
To be able to do so in practice of course he also has
to be all powerful.
Actually this isn't a problem at all, just because of
the same circumstance that he is the apotheosis of the universe. He actually
contains, in a virtual, vibrating way, all existing situations of the primal
matter, including the vibrating system that he is himself. In this case the
notion 'containing' stands for 'possessing'. When someone possesses something
means that he is exercising power over it.
Of course it is bound to happen th
at man attaches the highest value to himself. Then he attaches a mass of
different values to all surrounding things, dependent from the use he makes of
them. This leads to the strange situation that a part of the reality stands in
high regard and is well kept while another part is neglected to a terrible
degree. Of course his own value surpasses everything so that in the very first
place he takes care for himself and next to his relatives. The value of all
other people depends from their usefulness. Some people doesn't count at all,
which means that under circumstances they can be wiped out.
These above mentioned faulty consequences of man's
real immaterial aspects originate from his initial and still continuing cultural
immaturity. Therefore he is totally directed towards his own existence.
Absolutely nothing else counts. But once he will come to himself and then
discover that th ere is nothing valuable in the
entire universe.
104. Equality means worthlessness
The leading participants in the French Revolution of
1789 promised the people liberty, equality and fraternity. Of course the
character of these notions was mainly political, for the revolution concerned
the then society, in which one practically couldn't find a gleam of these three
ideals. Although after the revolution people's conditions improved, especially
concerning the way of thinking about their human dignity, the whole matter
didn't turn out very well. Even in the modern western world one can find no real
freedom, no equality and absolutely no fraternity. Indeed there is the
possibility to go one's own way, officially there are equal rights and there
exists some sort of cooperation. But this has nothing to do with the real
philosophical meaning of these ideals.
The common opinion of the modern political and
philosophical elites however is totally different. Strangely enough they think
that freedom positively exists in the western world, although regulated by a
number of legal restrictions. At the same time they are convinced that
fraternity is nothing but a romantic fantasy which is absolutely unreal. So
they hardly feel the need to reflect upon liberty and fraternity. Result is
that these ideas are more or less neglected. What remains are rather trite interpretations.
On the other hand in particular the notion 'equality'
has occupied many thinkers. In a way this intellectual struggle started with
the biblical promise that once all living creatures will be equally peaceful.
The Roman Catholic church preached right from the beg inning of Christianity
that 'before God's face' all people would be equal. Very sly her priests didn't
mention that the servants of the church claimed to be more equal than the
ordinary people. And on payment of a substantial sum of money one could obtain
the utmost equality by the right of eternally sitting next to God in heaven. A
delicious prospect!
Also in communist theories equality occupies an
important place. One honors the point of view that,
concerning their necessities of life, all individuals should be absolutely
equal. So everybody has the right to the same goods, whatever someone's
material or cultural needs. Actually this idea isn't so very difficult to
realize, because as a rule people in communist countries perish with poverty
and need. Equality in poverty is the widespread equality in our world…!
Shortly after the revolution in Cuba surgeons and pianists were
forced to join the harvesting of sugar cane, a stupidity that also originated
from the communist holy doctrine.
It is remarkable that these different ideas of
equality have one thing in common: they all have a quantitative character.
Equality means the same quantity of goods, material goods of course.
This is typical for modern western thinking, which is
characterized by a masculine way of reasoning, a mode of thought which is
highly developed these days. It causes extremely refined sciences, but in a
certain respect it is very short-sighted. The notion 'equality' namely doesn't
concern a quantity but a value. So equality means that there are equal values.
Reality however doesn't know anything of values. All
phenomena exist just like that and by consequence they are totally 'worthless'.
One day man will be full-grown and then he will be familiar with the fact that
reality is without any value. Awareness of this fact makes equality to a
significant characteristic of future mankind.
105. Spanning the gap
Right from the beginning of man's life on earth he
started with attaching values to things, especially to his fellowmen. In
ancient times the differences in value didn't separate rigorously people of
value from the others because of the fact that everybody was fully embedded in
the indissoluble unity of a maternal reality. Actually there was but one really
valuable man: the ruling sovereign. As such he also was an absolutely
independent individual. More than that, he even was the only real existing
individualist, in the modern sense of the word. Especially the people of the
antiquity had a strong suspicion about man's special position in the universe
as a phenomenon which goes beyond the material world, so by consequence they honored their sovereigns with a divine status.
This relatively uncomplicated relation between the
valuable monarch and the inferior common people persisted, in several different
manners, a long time after antiquity, actually till the era of European
Enlightenment, so till the end of the l8th century. But, even nowadays the
royalties of our world like to appeal to their allegedly divine origins by
declaring that they exercise their high duties 'by the grace of God'. In the
course of the 19th century the development of modern individualism did change
the situation in this way that from now on all people became personally
valuable. Of course the one was supposed to be more valuable than the other,
but value was no longer exclusively reserved to some superior divine sovereign.
Besides that: thanks to the fact that the indissoluble unity of the human
reality was ruined by the rise of individualism an unstoppable estrangement
took place with the people. Instead of playing a role within a coherent and
meaningful whole man's personal worth became predominant. This resulted in a
social system with countless variations in importance. This is the situation till
today.
Each of these variations is essentially separated from
the others by a gap which by no means can be stopped. This is impossible just
because of the fact that the one never can be the other. The only possibility
of making contact with each other is to admit on the first place that indeed
there is an undeniable gap and then to attempt to span it. Or, with other
words: replacing the original, but now broken, unity of the one and the other
by a special relation between the two. Such a relation is special because it
inevitably is based exclusively on occasional mutual interest.
However, the question whether or not someone can be
useful for someone else is futile if it isn't preceded by the recognition of someone's
real existence and also someone's utility and value.
Although we have to do with a conditional
appreciation, based as it is on the practical value that someone attaches to
someone else, it can't be denied that the individual counts to a great degree
as an independent human being. The cultural anonymity which is fundamental for
the antique idea of reality as an organic whole has gone once and for all. From
now on everybody has a specific name and in modern times even an own number.
This conditional independence is the very beginning of a network of cooperating
people. It is the start of a reasonable society with an acceptably operating
democracy.
Of course all this is concerning the pragmatic part of
the story. It explains how real people experience the matter. But in the very
depth of human life there is an abstract cultural process going on, namely the
development of man to maturity. The basis of this maturity is man as a real
independent individual.
106. Warlike individualism
The cultural process of growing to individualism
actually starts with the Roman civilization. At that time one became aware of
the fact that there exists an important distinction between the one and the
other and by consequence the idea arose that every human being should be
considered as an independent phenomenon. Of course this also means that man has
the right to weigh as an absolutely free being. A very remarkable and till
today respected result of this discovery is undoubtedly at first the famous Roman
Law. In here the idea finds expression that man isn't only obliged to blindly
obey the orders from above, but on the contrary can claim responsibility for
his own decisions. In the cultural history of mankind this was a totally new
moment. A fit of real individualism, so to speak! But this idea of individual
rights was rat her primitive for the time being, because these rights only
applied to recognized Roman citizens. All the others were completely without
laws.
This misunderstanding of outsiders occurs every time
when the idea of individualism manifests itself in the form of a group and its
representing leader. Real individualism can only exist in relation with a
single person, completely without any kind of connection with any group,
collective or power. The notion 'individualism' belongs to the conclusion of
the genesis. It concerns man as the ultimate result of the process of the
phenomena's coming into being. Man as this result is absolutely free from the
laws of nature, so he is also essentially free from compulsory bonds with other
people. One can say that he is fully 'self-supporting'.
So, if individualism occurs as a quality of a
collective it can't be anything else than a motivation to make a negative
distinction from others who count as inferior and mean outsiders. So: 'We are
the good guys and they are the bad guys'. It speaks for itself that beforehand
these outsiders are enemies who can't claim any humanity and therefore it is
permitted to wipe them out if they are standing in the way. And sooner or later
they definitely will stand in the way…
107. Nationalism and genocide
The 'group-bounded' individualism has many
manifestations, but the most radical is political nationalism, which of ten is hidden under a fine ideology, like communism or some
fundamentalistic religion. By definition these
ideologies are intolerant towards dissenters, as a result of the fact that they
claim to be in possession of the real and absolute truth. Since the existence
of two or more truths appear impossible to the leaders of ideologies every
dissenter is considered as a dangerous enemy.
Although it has to be admitted that most of the modern
adherents of a religion usually don't behave intolerant any more, the nucleus
of every religious system is pure absolutism, namely the unity with the
supposed, only existing, divine reality. Every deviation from it has to be
condemned and punished.
As a rule 'group-bounded' individualism in the form of
political nationalism is personified by a dictator to whom everybody is
subordinated. Of course he is the only existing individualist and as such he is
invested with absolute power. So it isn't so very difficult for him to whip up
the people. Therefore he needs an external danger. That is easy to do by making
the most insane accusations on former friends, neighbours and colleagues. It is
remarkable that already since the Middle Ages always the same kind of horror
stories are told: the others are betrayers, wicked atheists, child murderers,
rapists, poisoners and sadists who eat the eyes and genitals of innocent
people, and so on. Under these circumstances people's nationalistic
frustrations will reach an aggressive warlike level after some time. It is
nearly inevitable that suddenly this aggression explodes. Then an unstoppable
murderousness takes possession of the people. A terrible cruelty is the most
striking feature of such a mass hysteria.
Nowadays such a terror is happening on the Balkans, in
Africa and the Far East. Indeed it is the
bloody and painful beginning of the development to individualism, a process
that can't be avoided, but it is to be hoped that soon the cruel genocides come
to an end.
108. Blut und
Boden
As I said before nationalism can be defined as
'group-bounded individualism'. Although it undoubtedly concerns some kind of
awareness of people's authentic identity, it has as a rule little to do with
true human relationships. The nationalistic identity purely concerns rough
existential principles, therefore only accidental affairs with no real human
significance. By consequence practice shows that nationalism goes accompanied
with a lot of disgusting intolerance and discrimination. Not only foreigners
are discriminated, but also members of one's own group, if occasionally their
ideas differ from the officially required nationalistic ideology. The
nationalistic solidarity is never based upon cultural opinions and ideas, but
on the contrary on the origin of the group and supposed kinship of its members.
It belongs necessarily to nationalism that the members
of the group react against all outsiders. These strangers don't origin from the
same soil and, worst of all, they haven't the same blood, so they are inferior
in all respects. But it will be clear that prejudices of that sort are invented
and stimulated by sly leaders and arrogant thinkers, who are trying to obtain
more power. Before these criminal leaders are setting up the people at one
another's throats people live more or less in peace with each other, without
giving much attention to possible cultural differences. But as soon as
authorities begin to spread gossip there's no stopping them. Of course this is
a very primitive behavior of the people, but the
final responsibility lies with those criminal leaders.
Actually nationalism is a well suited instrument for
getting power, because it is based upon a close-knit group of thoroughly
drilled people for whom every outsider easily can count as an enemy. For cheats
this is the ideal situation, for it inevitably leads to exclusion and
extermination of undesired opponents.
There is a German expression, namely "Blut und Boden", which is a revealing characterization
of the matter. The underlying idea of "Blut und
Boden" is referring to a farming community, which is considered to be the
original base of every society. Within the philosophy of existentialism this
agrarian not ion is normative for people's so-called authenticity, the
prototype of man, so to speak. In particular it is a crucial conception of the
German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889- 1976). This is very remarkable
indeed because from a philosopher one wouldn't expect such a narrow opinion
about manhood's existential and spiritual essence. In fact it is more likely a
political idea of a rigid fascist than a wellconsidered
judgement of a famous philosopher. Alas, history shows that Heidegger isn't the
only thinker who has overstepped the mark…
109. Authenticity
Although the usual philosophical conception of
authenticity turns out to be untenable if used in the meaning of the most basic
existential characteristics of man, it has to be admitted that it is possible
to think in terms of some kind of authenticity. And in this case it also has
something to do with the prototype of the phenomenon man. But contrary to
connecting it to a kind of concrete existence like farming, one absolutely
can't postulate any connection at all. For the phenomenon man, being situated
at the very end of the genesis of our solar system, is completely free from
every, in advance valid, connection and relation. This phenomenon is the one
and only absolutely free being in the entire universe. So, an eventually usable
conception of authenticity has to be based on this absolutely free situation of
this ultimate phenomenon. This 'authentic' man is a free being without any
alliance with special soil or blood or social status. In this respect he is
born on this planet as an unknown quality, guiltless and without an
evolutionary past. That's to say: of course there exists such a past in a
material sense, but for man as an intellectual phenomenon it doesn't count. He
is characterized by the fact that he is able to say 'no' to it.
By the way, the recognition of this absolutely
unconditional authenticity obviously leads in a significant way to severe
consequences concerning religions and other ideologies. In fact the phenomenon
man isn't subjected to any divine or secular authority. This however can be
considered as 'old news' !
On this moment it is a more interesting fact that, at
least in the Netherlands,
many members of the Humanistic Society reckon themselves to the so-called
'modern religious humanists'. They believe that they are bounded with something
eternal and infinite, namely the universe, which they consider as a kind of
immaterial divine power. This suggests a deep insight in reality, but in fact
it is absolutely inconsistent, because they don't recognize man's universal
freedom. More than that: again man is subordinated to something else, external
to himself. It means that this humanism, which originally explicitly confirms
man's freedom, now appears in a very improbable and unreliable daylight.
Religious humanism with its belief in an abstract higher power is fully
contrary to the absolute freedom of the phenomenon man. But it has to be
admitted that as such this belief has a reassuring result for uncertain souls.
Now the primitive need for a higher and normative reality is satisfied. And at
the same time it has become easier to deal with the true believers in God and
his churches. Actually this 'religious humanism' can function for the weak
brothers as a valid excuse to avoid painful confrontations.
110. Frightening liberation movements
If it is true that nationalism can be understood as a
'group boundedindividualism' the future modern world
will show an increasing number of liberation movements. Indeed this turns out
to be correct: all over the world rather small collectives are fighting for
what they believe to be freedom. Actually this believe is a misconception, for
these movements still are based exclusively on the mentioned primitive affairs
like history, religion, ancestry, native ground and so on. The development to
real individualism is just beginning. It is at an initial stage in which man is
still unable to break away from his group. As a result he doesn't claim
individuality for himself but only for a leader who represents his group. This
situation makes formation of a state possible, but obviously by no means a
democracy with free and voting individuals.
Since the entire modern world already is divided in a
number of states, the formation of a new state inevitably is at the expense of
an existing one. For the government of such a state this seems to be a very
frightening situation. The leaders think that it would mean an important loss
of power, not only political but especially economic power. This however is a
very outmoded idea, based as it is on a short-sighted feudal conception of
reality. It amounts to the theory that the partition of territories leads to
conflicts between them. This was true in former days when the economy was
restricted to small domestic activities while only the possession of land was
crucial for one's power. But nowadays the international economy counts as the
most important cause of welfare and power. The modern form of trading knows no
borders, so that by consequence practical independence doesn't exist any
longer. The world has become a network of economic dependencies and there is no
possibility of getting away from it. So, what does it matter if a group of
close people is searching for their own identity and if they want to create an
own state?
The struggle of the Kurdish people can serve as an
example. They want to get back their original country from Turkey, Iraq
and Iran, that's to say the
original Kurdistan. But especially the Turkish
government refuses every cooperation and tries to wipe out the Kurdish
liberation movement with military means. Their terror really is inconceivable.
Why? Nobody knows! No one is bothered if the Kurdish people lives happily on
that small piece of poor soil. But the Turkish government, nota bene an
important member of the so-called civilized NATO, is afraid of losing power and
standing, which results in killing Kurdish people and destroying their villages.
This course of action is typical for governments, but it shows a dangerous
misunderstanding of the modern development to independence of man as
individual.
111. Ancient Greek versus Western
democracy
The term 'democracy' comes from classical Greek. 'Dčmos' means people and 'krateoo'
means to rule. Democracy is a very old social conception of the then Greek
thinkers. Already statesmen like Solon (c.638-c.558 BC) and later on Pericles
(495-429 BC) were devotees and designers of a democracy in Athens.
The original meaning of the not ion 'democracy' is
based upon man as a free and independent individual, who rules his own society,
together with the others. Although by no means everyone counted as a really
free person, yet the original Greek expression 'dčmokratia'
referred to something like government by the people.
However not democracy in the meaning of a group
consisting of anonymous members, like usual in the western world, but on the
contrary as a kind of an addition sum, consisting of various individuals,
everyone
with his own personal contribution to the whole. So
the society isn't taken as a collectivity but as a
collection of people, with the individual as starting point of the line of
thought.
In fact this classical Greek democracy is totally
different from the modern western one. In a way, namely regarding the idea, it
even turns out to be far more mature. However in practice of course it didn't
amount to much, just because of the circumstance that only a minority of officially
free men had the right to participate in the government.
In spite of the fact that the essence of the western
culture is the realization of man as a free and independent individual, its
democracy isn't based upon that conception, but contrarily upon the collective.
While the ancient Greek thinking went from the individual to the collective,
western thinking goes in the opposite way, from the collective to the
individual, so that the latter is defined by the standards of this collective.
Individual man is deduced from it. He is considered to be it's
smallest element. And of course also his democratic rights stay restricted
between these standards.
Already before the western Middle Ages the knighthood
and the clergy started to wipe out the original rural democracies which existed
all over Europe. Independent free people were unwanted. People had to be
classed in collectives and their rights as individuals deprived. This was
necessary for the rulers to get power and to realize themselves as free and independent.
Every European state came into being in this way. So, the beginning
self-realization of man as an independent and free phenomenon is characterized
by his attempt to form a collective by subjecting the people and appointing
himself to their representative and leader. The reason for his need to subject
people lies in the circumstance that he is but a very primitive individual
himself. His thinking still is seized within the old-fashioned concept ion of
reality as a whole and an almighty sovereign as representative.
By the way: it is self-evident that in the practice of
daily life such a submitted collective was obliged to support the sovereign and
to provide him with everything he needed in his unbridled stinginess. The
submitted people was considered to be the working class, only living for the
welfare of the, mostly divine, sovereign. He himself was too superior to do any
work. It will be obvious that in the meanwhile there isn't changed very much…
112. Favors
and privileges
Western rulers regularly declare that in Western
democracy everybody is free and independent. They substantiate this opinion by
pointing out that every citizen has several democratic rights, like for example
the right to elect her or his rulers, at least the representatives. These
rights are usually presented as an unmistakable prove of persona1 liberty. In
relation herewith the Western states are characterized as constitutional
states. This involves that without any restriction rights are considered to be
normative for al1 human relations. As a result there are equal rights for
everyone and class justice is impossible.
Another very important peculiarity is the freedom of
speech, which is also an evidence of recognition of the individual. He has the
right to be himself in an intellectual way, so evidently a vague understanding
of man's immaterial condition is existing.
In principle all these things are true in connection
with Western democracy, and they stay true even if people of ten disregard
these essential achievements if they get the opportunity. They always try to
hide these misbehaviors and not rarely they feel
ashamed about it.
In Western democracy it is impossible to depart openly
from its principles of justice. So, for democratic leaders it is also impossible.
In case of manipulating these principles they are obliged to pretend as if
something else is involved.
Indeed it can't be denied that the application of
rights belongs to the idea of individualism. Unmistakable people in the Western
democracies count as individuals. However, in fact the question isn't whether
or not these rights really exist, but from which basic idea these rights are
developed, because the quality of these rights is totally dependent from this
basic idea, this starting point of the line of thought. Inquiring this problem
it turns out that it is the notion 'collectivity'
which lies at the bottom of all Western democratic rights. This means by
consequence that the social collective, the community or the state determines
the boundaries of right. As a result the interest of the leaders of the
collective is the only decisive criterion. They honestly may be convinced of
being exclusively occupied with the national interest. But it is inevitable
that they have their own conception of it. So, the individuals within such a
collective are submitted to the more or less reasonable ideas and power of the
leading elites.
Under these circumstances it is absolutely excluded
that people are really free and independent individuals. Their so-called freedom
is conditional in every respect and actually their rights are nothing but favors and privileges, provided by rulers who once, long
ago, conquered their authority by violently subjecting peaceful ordinary
people. History shows that there was no nobility in the beg inning of the
Western culture. But soon, supported by the Christian clergy, a number of
cunning brutes started to tyrannize their fellow men. And exactly this forms
the foundation of the present democracy with its forcibly obtained rights.
113. Pre-arranged liberty
Unconditional freedom and independence of man is not
in the interest of the current democratic states' leaders. Of course the
explanation is that this is a matter of power. The leaders don't want to lose
their high status with its power, its ample income and its relative personal
freedom. So, for them it isn't really important that they owe their power to
the democracy. Any other social system would also be good, even better. Crucial
is the fact that they stand at the top of a collective, may it be a
dictatorship, a democracy or anything else. Indeed modern leaders are
pretending that they swear by the democracy, but daily practice shows that a
great number of politicians easily switch over to new social relationships,
after some kind of revolt. Of ten in their hearts they even prefer dictatorial
relations because of the better prospects for unbridled tyranny and profitable
corruption. Anyhow, the need for power is essential for all sorts of leaders.
This fact counts in an economical and also in a psychological way.
Besides power the philosopher can discover another and
more underlying motive for the rejection of civil independence and freedom.
This is a matter of cultural development. Mostly one isn't aware of it, but the
matter is related to the complete inability of the present immature man to
abandon his thinking in terms of collectives. As a result he is convinced that
a community can't flourish without management from above. It is his opinion
that the individual citizens are too ignorant and unable to overlook the whole.
Above all he thinks that they constantly will be quarreling
with each other. He believes that a firm authority is needed to steer the
society in the right direction. This prejudice has several consequences.
In general authorities are dead set against all kinds
of referenda.
They argue that people can't judge the implications of
measures, planned by the government, and they fear that referenda will produce
so many different opinions that making a good decision becomes unfeasible. On
closer consideration it turns out that only the more or less secret interests
of certain elites will be in the balance. But on the other hand ordinary people
are very well able to judge affairs of general interest. It will be clear that
the individual isn't really free. His possibilities are limited by the
collective, in fact its elite.
There is talk of free elections. Indeed free elections
be long to man as individual. But in fact modern democratic elections aren't free
at all! The political parties are setting up their own candidates and the
voters can do nothing else but making a choice between them. Nobody knows who
did appoint those candidates, but sure is that their appointment is a result of
a tough struggle for power. For the citizens this entire business stays out of
the picture. Again: this has nothing to do with free and independent
individuals. What counts is exclusively the interest of the collective. So,
although it evidently concerns the development of man as an independent
individual, the current democratic systems are still based on principles of
slavery.
114. A clear outlook on
reality
As a matter of fact the ancient Greek idea of
democracy is rather simple. It is based upon an absolutely free individual who
rules the society in cooperation with the other free individuals. Pressure
groups and other coalitions, in order to increase power for imposing one's
self-interest, are not accepted as participants in the political discussion.
This also means that political parties are excluded too. The decision making is
always a matter of ample discussion between individuals.
On itself this is the most fundamental conception of
democracy and as such it is really a mature idea, thanks to the fact that it is
only the individual who counts and by no means the collective. But, of course
all that glitters is not gold! It is for example rather stupid that just a few
individuals were recognized as free men and also the discrimination of women
tarnishes the matter to a large extend. As usual it was the masculine enjoyment
of power that ruined the practice of a beautiful social concept! It still is
the case till today. Anyhow, concerning the maturity of the Greek democratic
idea it's the cultural principle what matters at the moment.
The idea of democracy came into being in the Greek
culture, at the very end of antiquity. This is an extraordinarily interesting
period in history, for man's outlook on reality had reached a state of complete
clearness so th at he was able to see how reality
truly is. As a result man obtained insight in the character of reality. It is
for him as if the light in an originally dark room is slowly turned on. From
now on the objects in the room and their mutual relations are completely
identifiable.
The Greek sculpture for example shows that man has
discovered the true beauty of the human body. The Aphrodite of Knidos by the
sculptor Praxiteles, who lived mid-4th century BC, and the famous Venus of Milo
(c. 100 BC) are amongst others marvelous specimen of
this new development. And in the same way the discovery of the democracy, based
on man as an independent free individual, is unmistakably an expression of a
clear insight in the reality, an insight that unfortunately, due to the
following culture of analysis, little by little faded away in Europe.
115. The start of inquiry
The then cultural situation at the end of antiquity
produced a clear outlook on reality. This doesn't mean that it directly would
result in reliable scientific knowledge of reality, its materials and its
composition. On the contrary, concerning the nature and its phenomena people
were almost completely ignorant. For example Empedocles (c.493-433 BC) proposed
that the universe is composed of air, fire, earth and water. And Heraclitos (c.544-c.483 BC) believed that fire would be the
fundamental material. But just the fact that man started to ask questions about
the concrete structure of the universe, so, in other words, started to analyze the phenomena, shows that on the one hand there was
a clear view on reality and on the other that the composition of the universe
was completely a mystery. And at the same time people became aware of the
possibility of scientific inquiry. Perhaps it is surprising to learn that the Christian
Gospels also originate from the same cultural development. Contrary to the
current religious opinions these documents are the reflection of ancient ideas
about reality, without any connection with the later Christian churches. The
stories, told in the Gospels, are representations of that which was the result
of observing reality, without analyzing it. As usual
in those days, the seers expressed themselves by metaphors. In fact their
figurative stories deal with the relation between the world and the true mature
man.
But this theme isn't exclusively discussed in the
Gospels: amongst ot hers the myth of Dionysus and the
countless stories about virgins with their child concern exactly the same
subject.
So, the end of antiquity shows a completely developed
seeing of reality accompanied by the tentative start of inquiry.
116. The relation between
reality and practice
Comparing the concrete day-to-day reality with the
observed true character of universe leads inevitable to the conclusion that the
latter must be timeless and endless, anyhow greater than the everyday things.
It is considered to be a higher, even divine, world, although populated with a
kind of humanly gods and goddesses. Anyway it is not a heavenly residence of an
abstract, almighty, untouchable, male god like for example the patriarchal
Jewish Jahweh.
The Greek pantheon is by no means a from man isolated
reality. On the contrary, the then thinkers rightly believed that it was man's
essential place of living. So it concerned at the same time a world that should
be applied to the living, individual, man. This means in other words that the
so-called divine world had to go down to the people and become their standard
of life. Man should stand in the light of this true reality.
These things explain, by the way, the by the Greek
thinkers constantly asked question for virtuousness. Socrates (c.469- 399 BC)
for example argued that a virtuous man corresponds with the character of
reality. But also the evangelical metaphor of the son of God who descents from
heaven to earth belongs to this kind of ideas. Actually this has nothing to do
with a real father and son, like nearly every Christian believes till today.
The not ion 'son' draws attention to another situation of God, namely as
immanent in man.
Even Aphrodite, the goddess of love, came regularly
down from the Olympus, amongst others to fight
against the Greeks on the Trojan battlefield. On that occasion she was wounded
and left the battle crying. For Greek sense it was completely normal that a
goddess gets involved in human affairs, acting like a human being.
Usually later western thinkers quote this fact as an
example of the ability of the Greeks to see things in their proper context, but
actually it is more a result of the mentioned humanizing of the divine world, a
process of so-called secularization.
But the simple fact that this development took place
doesn't mean that man would have reached a situation of maturity! On the
contrary: his view on reality was clear, but he looked at it like a child and
his understanding of it was completely childish.
Nevertheless, at the end of the antiquity a supposed
higher reality was projected downwards to the daily life of men, the immaterial
world became a material one. But the Western-European culture is quite the
opposite. At the end of antiquity people started to project themselves upwards
to a superior immaterial reality, which again was situated outside and above
the daily world. Result is the elsewhere mentioned 'supernatural upgrading' of
reality (See my article "Some remarks on atheism and humanism").
The hero in the Proto-Germanic and Scandinavian
literature is a typical representative of upgraded man. Siegfried for example
became, after defeating the dragon, invulnerable, which refers to immortality.
As boy he lived in the woods with a smith, so he was an ordinary child - more
or less who was upgraded later on to some kind of divinity. It is remarkable
by the way that in older legends this Siegfried was described in a mythical way
as a godson who descended to earth to bring the people salvation and
fruitfulness, just like Christ and many other mythical figures. So, here one
also can see the complete movement: from a divine world to the earth and then
in the opposite way from the earth to heroism and immortality. This second part
of the movement goes accompanied by the cultural development of man as a mature
individual.
117. The beginning of modern
times
A clear view on reality on itself isn't sufficient for
maturity of man. It is indispensable for artists and philosophers, so for the
world of ideas which shows an incredible riches at the end of antiquity. But
all this has hardly anything to do with the real daily life of the people.
Concrete human maturity however does not only require a faithful image of the
universe, but also reliable knowledge about all phenomena, their material
composition and their mutual cohesion. So actually a very thorough
scientifically based knowledge is necessary. This means that the objectively
existing world must become man’s property, in this way that reality has to be
included in the mind of man. The mind of every man of course! The universe has
to be converted into a virtual content of the very last phenomenon, because
this phenomenon is representing the entirety of all preceding material systems,
so the entirety of the universe.
In order to obtain detailed knowledge about the
phenomena people definitively started at the end of antiquity to analyze their images of reality. From now on analysis
becomes the predominating cultural mechanism. Everything is judged from an
analytical point of view. Of course everybody does so in his own way, but in
principle nobody can escape from it. Inevitably for a few smart fellows this
leads to conscientiously scientific inquiry, bound by universal rules of logic
and verifiability. It belongs to the process of analyzing
that the from inquiry obtained results can be checked up by other researchers
so that it becomes generally accepted. Little by little this changes the minds
of the people so that the original existing supernatural delusions can fade
away.
This is a very slow process! Even nowadays, af ter some twenty ages of
cultural development, it has hardly scored any considerable success. The inertia
of this development is due to the fact that the obtained scientific knowledge
must become something that goes without saying for the people.
Contrary to the farmer idea of the thinkers of the
enlightenment it is impossible to convince people with
logical arguments and to learn them thinking in a
reasonable way. The scientifically reliable knowledge has to become part of
man's self-awareness and that's a matter of cultural development but by no
means a matter of education. Our modern western world shows a relative high
level of education, but in spite of that the foolishness runs rampant! The
sciences still belong to a separate world and they hardly are penetrated into
man's inner self. By consequence there is much scholarship in this world but
very little wisdom…
118. Intuitive knowledge
The antique world stood in the sign of intuition,
thanks to the fact that the cultural development was concerning a process of an
increasing sight on reality. Man's view on the world was slowly clearing up so
that reality itself, tag ether with the various included objects, became more
and more recognizable. That process resulted in a world-view of an in itself
closed whole in which all numerous recognized coherent phenomena were closely
connected with each other. These things weren't separated but on the contrary
joined together like the organs in the human body. By the way, this comparison
is striking insofar that in primeval ages people even compared reality as a
whole with a woman, a universal mother, and they were convinced that all
phenomena originally were products of this Magna Mater, the creating mother of
the entire universe (see instalment nr. 03, item
013).
Knowledge derived from a view on reality doesn't
presume a logical reasoning. Such knowledge arises immediately in someone's
mind, like a kind of vision. Because of the lack of foregoing theoretical
argumentation it is justified to name it 'intuitive knowledge' . Of course it
isn't sure at all whether or not such knowledge is actually correct, more than
that: mostly it will even turn out to be nonsense. However, at the same time
these intuitions usually concern highly imaginative artistic descriptions of
reality's real character, its objects, inner relations and processes. So
actually they prove to be no nonsense at all, but the difficulty is that their
language isn't based on formulas, like the modern Western languages, but on the
contrary on metaphors. If one takes the trouble to trans late this figurative
language into the modern way of thinking a wonderful world manifests itself.
Indeed, similar to all fairy tales the facts are
practically incorrect, the mentioned situations are absolutely impossible, but
nevertheless the antique stories are qua content unmistakably an expres sion of a very clear and essential
insight in reality.
Antiquity actually is teeming with this intuitive
knowledge, put into words as myths and legends, parables and sa on. It is a period full of wisdom and beauty, embedded
in an atmosphere of peaceful feminine oneness. But for the modern way of
analytically thinking its fairy-tale stories are almost incomprehensible. By
consequence most members of the modern Western culture reject them as obscure,
unreliable and above all absolutely unscientific.
An example: there is a story about two lovers who
immediately died at the first moment they saw each other. According to modern
thinking bath of them at least must have been serious cardiac patients sa that they couldn't bear the erotic emotions. Anyhow, the
modern explanation of this tragic event is founded on concrete facts and the
lovers are diagnosed as poor patients. Totally different is the antique idea
about this story! It means that real love belongs to man as a not material
phenomenon and that such an intense love only can come true when the material
system is completely wiped out.
So, death makes love possible.
In the early Western world a similar story was told,
namely the story of Tristan and Isolde and also Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,
be it that the entourage of these stories is much more a succession of concrete
events.
119. Scientific knowledge
From the moment that, at the end of antiquity, man had
obtained a clear sight on reality it became possible to analyze
the phenomena. So in the Western world the modern culture started, particularly
in the Roman Empire.
Analyzing needs the image of a reality composed out of concrete material objects,
that can be separated from each other. So reality has to be a collection of
different things and not an in itself nuanced whole. Mutual cohesion is no
longer interesting, for contrarily breaking off the relations between the
components of the phenomena is the new task.
The fact that people of the new analytical culture are
directed towards the world of concrete things perverts the content of the from
antiquity inherited world-view. The true artistic character of the fairy tales
is automatically converted into information about real events. This results in
a couple of opinions: on the first place one rejects this strange information
without searching for a possible hidden meaning and on the second place one
believes that it hand les about miracles. The first attitude is typical for
scientists and the second for religious believers, but of course both are
distinct fallacies. Nevertheless the development of the modern objective
inquiry is accompanied by terrible partiality and superstition, due to these
follies…
This strange character of modern man's thinking isn't
surprising if one takes in consideration that the material phenomenon only can
be broken off into its composing parts, but in this way never can be understood
as a coherent system within the whole of reality. The famous philosopher
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) recognized at the time this difficulty so that he wondered
what could be the character of things on itself. He believed that his own
perception was deceiving him and prevented him from accurate inquiry. In a way
this is correct, but more essential is the mentioned fact that analysis never
can result in true understanding. Thanks to this there always and inevitably
remains some kind of mystery. The entire history of western sciences
demonstrates this remarkable fact. Yet it is necessary for man to gain concrete
knowledge about reality because he cannot stand still with only an image of the
reality. If he would do so the indispensable practical basis of life is
missing, with the inevitable result that real maturity remains fully
impossible. Idealistic thinkers regularly forget it, but man cannot live in a
humanly way if he hasn't arranged his natural circumstances.
120. Two one-sided
developments
Man's cultural development starts with obtaining
intuitive knowledge. This knowledge is a direct result of a steady brightening
up of man's sight on reality. On itself it is an important human growth process
but in spite of this it contains at the same time not a single possibility to
organize the daily life in such a way that everybody can be optimal safe.
Safety can be considered as a crucial condition for man's life on the planet.
But this isn't a matter of intuition and dreams but contrarily a matter of
practical provisions.
Intuitive knowledge on the other hand gets stuck in
metaphors, in beautiful artistic imaginations, in fairy tales and parables. It
belongs to the land of dreams and ideas, but in spite of the fact that reality
is still intact because analysis hasn't yet broken up the inner cohesion, it is
nearly impossible to get information that is useful to convert the planet into
a livable and safe home.
It is obvious that inevitably after a long time the
more and more clarified sight on reality leads to asking questions about the
concrete composition of the phenomena. Man is wondering how things are put
together. From now on man's reality is turned into an object of numerous
scientific activities, which results in a completely changed kind of knowledge
and its language. Even in the philosophy one substitutes the original artistic
and literary description of the reality by analytic treatises in which one
tries to formulate in a scientific way. The beauty of the description makes
place for the terse style of realistic writing.
During the immaturity of man there exists a logical
succession of cultures. Each of them has her own special theme. As a rule
people are hardly conscious about this. Even most of the sociologists,
historians and philosophers either don't know anything about it or deny that
anyhow there would be a kind of logical succession in the cultural history of
mankind. It is their opinion that for example Hegel's "Weltgeist"
doesn't exist. But regardless of this ignorance concerning these cultural
developments everybody is involved with the essential theme of his or her
culture.
So, in modern times analysis is the essential cultural
characteristic of all people. As a result of this common feature mankind
considers at the end his world as a construction of completely separate
elements. Reality then counts as a collection of bits and pieces, basically
without any fundamental coherence. This coherence is totally different from a
relation between things. The absence of coherence doesn't mean that there
wouldn't be any relation between the fragments. There are always and inevitable
relations between the pieces, but that is a logical consequence of
fragmentation. Relations only can exist between strictly separated objects.
They hold the pieces together, accordingly to physicists by several kinds of
attracting and repulsing forces. Anyhow, finally analysis results in man's mind
in an extensive knowledge about relations between things accompanied by a
really absent image of a coherent reality.
Both of them, intuitive knowledge and analytical
knowledge are absolutely one-sided. By consequence on itself they aren't a sufficient
basis for real maturity. Actually they prevent man to find himself as a real
human being. At the same time however they are indispensable phases in man's
cultural development.
121. A badly needed synthesis
Intuition has to be accompanied by science and science
by intuition. According to reports it was Einstein who stated that it is
absolutely necessary for the science, especially the physics, to get help from
the philosophy if the world will prevent herself from ending in a tremendous
disaster. In principle this idea is right, but the question remains which kind
of philosophy is meant.
Modern philosophy namely is useless because she
happens to be as analytical as the other sciences, which means that her results
also consist of a vast collection of separate items with hardly any coherence.
Items indeed of a very obscure character due to their isolation. A vision of
reality as an all-embracing continuous moving system is generally considered to
be old fashioned and out of date. By consequence also modern philosophy herself
is split up into many different disciplines. And again: there are many
complicated relations between those disciplines, but actually there is no
mutual coherence.
Yet the philosophy can be helpful. Not however with
this modern analytical way of thinking but exclusively if the philosopher
practices thinking in a creative way. This means that he doesn't split up his
reality by analyzing her, but contrarily that he
describes her as clear and subtle as possible, just like the painter creates
his paintings.
It is a fact that the scientists need an image of the
coherent whole of reality in order to recognize the bits and pieces they have
obtained from the analysis. These particles as they are don't show any long er some peculiarity concerning their position between other
things.
This means that if they don't have such an image the
scientists, and after some time also the ordinary people, are losing more and
more their grip on reality, with several kinds of despair as a result. And
apart from that: without such an image it is completely impossible to handle
ethically. If he hasn't an independent and reliable frame of reference man is
unable to judge whether or not his scientific activities are reasonable and
responsible. So he is obliged to recognize just this universal standard that he
dramatically has lost by only analyzing his world.
122. A realistic
representation
It seems as if the mentioned representation of the
modern world is too negative, but a better look on today's world leads to the
discovery of many disturbing affairs. They all are characterized by a desperate
being in the dark, indecisiveness and even annoying ethical cowardice. In a way
the trendy philosophical movement of 'post modernism' for example can be
considered as a result of the mentioned development. The essence of this
philosophy is made up by the idea that it shouldn't be allowed to judge on the
morals and behaviors of other people. Everybody would
have the right to his own interpretation of good and evil, provided that his
standards are corresponding with the culture in which he lives. This cowardice
of the post modern philosophers goes so far that for
example they allow frustrated religious leaders to mutilate young girls by clitoridectomy. "It belongs to their culture",
they say…
These 'thinkers' are lacking an universal frame of
reference which makes clear to them that one has to leave alone those children.
But the post modernists argue that one hasn't the right to enforce Western
opinions to members of other cultures. They call these opinions "great
stories" and associate them with imperialism. In fact that's all bullshit!
Basically these Post-modern thinkers are afraid to admit that a lot of Western
opinions are universal, thanks to the fact that in the Western world human
rights came to development. Another disturbing example of analysis'
consequences is the worldwide increasing difficulty with decision making. There
are so many factors to be considered that one can't see the wood for the trees.
As a result everybody comes with his own solution to a problem and no body is capable to give the right answer. Actually every
answer seems to be equally right! But if th ere
existed a clear sight on reality as a whole it wouldn't be so very difficult to
find the correct solution. This clear sight shows everything in its mutual
coherence and as such it functions like a beacon at sea.
But most of all the loss of mental warmth is a serious
threat to the welfare of the people. Already today one can conclude that
practical calculations have taken the place of spontaneously reacting to each
other. Most of the modern people are afraid of unaffected, emotional and
psychological behavior. Actually for officials it is
forbidden to behave in such a manner, because of the general idea that acting
on the basis of feelings can't be well-considered and as such it certainly must
be wrong.
Indeed, in connection with complicated technical and
social problems it is in every way defensible to prefer reasonable thinking
above impulsive emotions, but in daily life reasonableness degenerates to
chilliness and even to inhumanity if there is no warmth in people's mutual
relations. And without such a warmth the one can't trust the other so that the
society remains unsafe for the individuals.
123. Consciousness as
immanent vibration
May be the conclusion that human relations which are
entirely reasonable without any warmth result in an untrustworthy society isn't
very obvious. According to the common opinion a reasonable relation should be
in the first place a calculated one. The notion 'warmth' is more or less
automatically interpreted as a rejectable complex of
subjective emotions with arbitrariness as main quality. If the notion 'warmth'
is interpreted in this way it would be absolutely right to judge it negatively.
But in fact it has hardly anything to do with
emotions. On the contrary it is referring to an essential condition of all
material systems, namely that immanent in each of them a fundamental movement
is existing. This is a kind of vibration which is characteristic for the basic
particles which are the building blocks of the universe. When the fundamental
movements of a number of these particles are parallel the result is that they
stand still in relation to each other. In this case the particles form a
phenomenon that seems to be a motionless piece of matter. Bidden under its
stiffness however it contains an eternally moving substance.
At a certain moment the immanent vibration becomes
manifest on a planet. This means that, assuming that the environmental
circumstances are optimal, life comes into being. This goes via a process of
transformation, in which some phenomena on the planet transform themselves into
living systems, provided with consciousness. Of course the notion 'living' is
related to the concrete internal liveliness of the constantly moving cells and
beside it to the external movements of the entire phenomenon. It concerns the
living thing as it is, in the meaning of a thing that is not dead. This is
objectively perceptible because it concerns the concrete phenomenon, let's say
'the body'.
But the notion 'consciousness' doesn't concern the
phenomenon as such and consequently it isn't objectively visible. It is a
vibration based on the fundamental movement of the primal particles within the
phenomenon. In a virtual way this vibration is immanent within every living
system.
This latently existing vibration includes the complete
range of the entirety of concrete vibrating systems in the universe, so that in
a vibrating way the external world exists within the living being. Result is
that this living being can be aware of her environment and react efficiently to
the ever changing circumstances. This is the meaning of the notion 'consciousness'.
124. Psyche as body language
The virtual vibrations are working like those which
are produced by the string of a violin. Normally they aren't existing in any
material form, but if they are provided with a suitable soundboard the
situation changes entirely since this soundboard attains vibration itself. So
the virtual vibration makes the related matter vibrating, because it starts to
function like a soundboard. This vibrating system is the so-called 'psyche'.
Contrary to the common opinion this psyche is a particularity of every living
system, so the notion 'psyche' applies to animals as well as plants and of
course to men.
Actually the psyche isn't a complex of feelings or
accidental emotions caused by personal circumstances and experiences.
It has also nothing to do with sentiments that
inevitably are influenced by cultural customs and traditions. On the contrary,
in itself it is a universal kind of feeling and as such it is essentially
autonomous, free from every external influence. Yet there is one restrictive
factor concerning the manifestation of the psyche and that is the condition of
the soundboard, just like it is the case with the violin. This means that the
body of the concerning organism determines the quality of its psychical
functioning.
Actually it is the consciousness that makes herself
recognizable in this rather imperfect way. By means of the psyche she shows
herself as a kind of body language. In the end, with the phenomenon man, this language
is the most revealing and extensive, thanks to the utmost complexity of the
human body. But it is often totally ruined by the way man gets on with it…
125. The notion 'warmth'
The notion 'warmth' is concerning the effects of the
vibrating consciousness on the matter that farms the concretely living
phenomenon.
Stiffness is characteristic for the material dimension
of the phenomenon, but consciousness and psyche are determined by agility. This
is evident because the material dimension concerns particles which stand still
in relation to each other, but consciousness and psyche are based upon the
original movement of the particles. As explained before this original movement
is in a virtual way cause of the vibration of the consciousness. In case of the
psyche consciousness' vibration produces resonance of the stiff composition of
the phenomenon. The most important result of the resonating is warmth, just
like it is the case with common physics.
All living beings produce two kinds of warmth: first their
body heat, due to the fact of concrete living and secondly a feeling of
'virtual' warmth insofar they show themselves psychically. Of course these
effects aren't reserved only for human beings. The entire living world is
riddled with physical and psychical vibrations. Actually these vibrations are
its uniting powers.
The psyche itself cannot be corrupted by man's
capricious interferences. People can try to suppress its working but it is
impossible for them to eliminate the uniting powers of the psychical world.
Particularly concerning the people's social life the psyche and its warmth is
of vital importance. It is the only way people's individual consciousness can
make herself perceptible for others in a truthful way and realize herself as
basically a universal, no longer individual, affair.
Of course people can ignore their psyche and
exclusively talk about their consciousness, but it is inevitable that it
results in the best case only in a more or less correct interpretation of their
inner world. Besides that such an account necessarily must be imperfect it is
easily possible that it is completely a terrible lie in the worst case. In fact
one is free to tell every fantastic story and try to make it credible. Nobody
is able to verify it!
In history there are many examples of rulers who tell
touching stories about their love for the people's welfare, for justice and
truth. They pretend to be warm-hearted and sympathetic towards the people. If
there is but a little feeling of psychical warmth the people can easily be
deceived by the ruler's so-called good intentions. As a result they are willing
to follow him with his criminal polities. There is no psyche which can show the
real truth to the people.
The modern world has to contend more and more with
this situation of concoctions. As a rule these tales are
intellectually substantiated, with the help of
scientific terms and formulas. This leads to a shadowy world. As a result of
the increasing fragmentation, caused by the cultural analysis, people lose
touch with their psychical reality and this process goes on till every kind of
hold has vanished. Distrust and despair are the consequences of these
developments. A world without the existence of a psychical reality, a world
without warmth, has lost his contact with the whole so that he is risking a
total ruination.
126. Psychical communications
The perception of a work of art takes place through
the psyche. The artistic vibrations and the warmth that make up the essence of
every real work of art are transmitted to the receiving enjoyer, who can feel
them thanks to the resonance of his own physical soundboard. Indeed it produces
a kind of concrete vibration that can be felt in one's body. Because it is the
character of the human psyche to represent reality as a whole the artistic
communication is understandable to everyone, regardless of her or his culture
and erudition. This is because man's consciousness is a generality which
includes in a vibrating way the entire reality. By consequence it is for every
individual exactly the same immanent reality. Thanks to this common condition
in principle man is able to communicate with the arts. This ability however is
thoroughly neglected in rational modern times, so that usually nothing will
come of it.
There is, by the way, yet another restriction, namely
that the artistic way of expressing must correspond, somehow or other, to
impressions which are familiar to the people. However, this gives problems with
most of the contemporary arts. Due to the modern wave in art to analyze reality psychical communication is nearly
impossible. The disintegrated manifestations of the arts can hardly generate
any resonance in the people's physical soundboards. Therefore modern works of
art need an explanation, or at least a title to make clear what the meaning is.
But this way of communication is totally rational and as such inferior to enjoy
arts.
Analyzed art can't speak for itself, so it is absolutely impossible to speak a
universal language. Result of this is twofold, namely first th
at the appreciation of the arts by the people depends on the description that
goes together with it, and second that the judgement of its quality becomes an
academic affair. It is no longer a case of clear intuition, no longer a case of
a personal ability to seeing or hearing. But on the contrary a question of
scholarship and professionalism with, of course, the need for good marketing,
based on fine words and slippery argumentation. Today nearly everybody thinks
that this state of affairs is normal, but that's absolutely incorrect.
127. Modern normative
arguments
It is inherent in modern culture that a scientific
approach is considered to be the only reliable way of dealing with reality.
This means among others that it is the general idea that each problem has to be
solved by means of a special scientific research, followed by a theoretical
description of the matter. Such a description must comply with a system of
verification, together with rules and standard formulas, otherwise one can't
trust the results of the inquiry. In fact it is a formal procedure that
provides modern man with reliable knowledge, at least: that's the general
opinion of modern men.
In spite of the fact that the present-day sciences,
technology and engineering undoubtedly are very successful and that these human
activities can't function without rules and standard formulas there are some
important comments to make.
First of all one must realize that each scientific
criterion is based upon a number of rational agreements which are formulated
through the years by as many experts as possible. It leads to a kind of
universal language, created on ground of numerous experiences. Of course in
itself there's nothing wrong with it, but one has to realize that the matter
inevitably has a provisional character and not a universal. In connection with
this one must consider that the modern normative arguments can't have an
absolute value. They are through and through relative.
In the second place it is good to consider that there
are many things in human life which basically aren't relative and temporary at
all, because they rest on the human consciousness and in line with this, upon
the psyche. In connection with arts this means that, regardless of the question
whether or not a work of art can be judged as a true and beautiful expression
of reality, it is and remains at all times its essence to represent reality as
a timeless and endless whole. So a scientific approach actually is impossible.
Such an assessment of arts even can be misleading because the artistic criteria
concern an agile process without any laid down requirements, but the relative
scientific criteria are totally normative and based on compelling agreements.
128. Philosophy is one of the
arts
One of the most terrible errors of our time is
undoubtedly the idea that philosophy is reckoned to be a branch of science.
This is related to the circumstance that it belongs to the nature of a culture
to take possession of everything and to convert it in accordance with her own
ideas. The entire world is judged by the prevailing standards of the concerning
civilization and it is hardly possible to break through the prejudices of such
a period.
The modern culture is characterized by analysis of the
phenomena. This results in the situation that, from the moment this splitting
up of reality in principle is effective, everything becomes object of
scientific research. The results of this research are indicative for the
reliability of modern man's world view. His indispensable hold on reality
depends in every respect from it. Lucky for him this is no problem, because the
obtained scientific information seems far more trustworthy to him than every
other so-called truth, proclaimed by priests and other swindlers.
Alas for the philosophy the scientification
of the world turns out to be a very doubtful case. Mainly from the beginning of
the 19th century philosophy is converted step by step from the art of inner
contemplation into a causal system of so-called objective examination of
things. This conversion seemed to be necessary with a view to promoting the
reliability of philosophical statements. And indeed, during some time the
philosophy gained in clearness and logic. The loose talk of usually religious
people disappeared to a great extent and was replaced by scientifically
justified treatises.
But it didn't take much time till the scientists,
mainly physicists and mathematicians, took possession of the philosophy. They argued
that philosophy would be a science just like the others. Actually they
substituted thinking in a scientific and logical way by science as such,
presuming that both activities are the same. But that's a terrible mistake!
Nevertheless one can explain it because in the modern culture the entire
universe is made to a scientific affair. Analytical science needs concrete
objects. If philosophy is considered
to be a science she also is dependent on quantifiable information, like the
other sciences.
But for philosophy exists actually no information of
that sort, just as little as for the arts. By consequence the modern
philosophers are obliged to turn their minds to the numerous opinions of their
colleagues. This provides them with much work that rightly can claim a
scientific status. Now philosophy has become 'the science of philosophy', which
has everything to do with cleverness and ability, but not hing
with intelligence.
129. A strange kind of
objectivity
It is a well-known fact that in matters of art there
are no possibilities to prove whether or not one has to do with a real work of
art. And, in connection with this, it is also impossible to lay down in advance
concrete standards and rules to which a work of art has to comply. Actually the
arts are completely incalculable so that its creation never can be the result
of the working out of a generally received formula. Inevitably a judgement
afterwards is the only possibility, but alas: also for such a judgement
objective criteria are absolutely lacking.
The reason for this remarkable situation is that the
artistic communication is exclusively a personal affair. It takes place via
man’s psyche as a combined action of vibration and resonance. There are two
reasons why this communication can't be concretised. At first the circumstance
that psyche's vibrations are caused by man’s consciousness, which is reality as
a general image. Nothing within such an image can be determined and isolated
from the rest. So it is impossible to express it in any formula. Then,
secondly, it is impossible to get grip on a vibrating phenomenon, unlike in
genera 1 terms. In both cases nothing is predictable.
One can say that the world of art is a world of ideas
which has nothing to do with the concrete reality of things. Nevertheless the
whole of these things is positively existing, namely as virtual content of this
world of ideas, thanks to the fact that these ideas are entirely based upon
man’s consciousness. This is a universal reality, immanent within the
phenomenon man and as such equal to everybody. As far as this is concerned all
individual particularities are excluded - by the way, not to be confused with
the fact that these particularities strongly influence the extent of
functioning of the consciousness. In the Western rational culture for example
this influence is nearly completely negative, so that most of the people are
hardly aware of their inner reality. As aresuit it
usually is too difficult to philosophize on it. The philosophical experts find
it 'not-done'. Immediately they will condemn it with the argument that it
doesn't concern philosophy but only a distasteful kind of occult
'New-Age-thinking'. In spite of these trendy positivistic opinions of most of
the modern philosophers there is an equal consciousness in every individual and
this isn't occult, mysterious or metaphysical at all.
Actually just this virtual reality is the only real
objectivity because every coincidence is excluded. So, the arts, including the
philosophy, can pride themselves on being occupied with the real world. But it
has to be admitted that it is a very strange objectivity indeed. For the time
being one doesn't know what to do with it. At the same time it is a recognized
fact that it is unsuitable for any practical
Job…
130. Philosophy without
discussions
According to modern thinking people do not find it
hard to admit that one can't argue whether or not a work of art is beautiful.
Everybody has her of his own view on that matter,
which is understandable because the appreciation of arts goes through the
artist's and the enjoyer's individual psyches. And besides that everybody has
her or his personal preference. Especially the last mentioned fact is generally
used to explain that there are no rules for so-called objective judgement. It
is generally accepted that the appreciation of arts can't be discussed. So
nobody can prescribe how a work of art shall be. Art is unpredictable. Yet
there lies the inescapable fact that the arts are manifestations of the truth,
representations of the only really world. By consequence, there is a difficult
problem for modern man. His analytical tradition tells him that the truth only
can be obtained by impersonal inquiry and reasonable discussions between
experts. If these criteria are lacking, he finds that the matter has no
reliability. But, concerning the arts modern man will turn a blind eye to it,
just because of the fact that he considers it as a matter of accidental
feelings without any practical value.
Things are different when the philosophy is involved.
In this case modern thinkers absolutely cannot accept that the relations are
exactly the same and that philosophical discussions about the truth are
completely meaningless. Of course, discussions not to be confused with the
exchange of ideas on this subject. For such an exchange of ideas really has a
clarifying effect on the conversation and the ideas. It can be a very valuable
experience indeed. But as a matter of fact many of the modern thinkers aren't
exchanging opinions at all. They are, on the other hand, constantly attacking
their opponents and trying to trip up them by means of formal arguments as
applied in mathematics. If they encounter something that seems to them to be
illogical they immediately jump at it. Usually they find something like that a
sufficient ground for repudiating the opponent's opinions and work. If
philosophy belonged to the sciences those critics would be absolutely right,
but philosophy isn't a science. She has her own way of thinking and verifying.
And besides that, a little imperfection doesn't undo the truth, just like a
simple inaccurate brushstroke doesn't ruin the beauty of a painting. But, of
course, both in arts as in philosophy everything has to be as correct as
possible.
131. Useless arts and
philosophy
It can't be denied that art and philosophy play an
important role in human life. The arts are capable to comfort and to calm down
people while philosophy gives insight and understanding above that. But in
practice they are completely useless. One even can't make a cup of tea with the
help of art and philosophy. It isn't an unjust opinion of some philosophers
that these human activities would represent an impossible aspect of the
phenomenon man, because of the circumstance that man finds himself at the
absolute extremity of the genesis of his solar system. Thanks to this he has
the possibility to be his own antithesis, the negation of himself as result of
the development of the material world.
From the viewpoint of this material world the
mentioned antithesis must be considered as something fully absurd, reason why
many rational people find themselves too distinguished for those childish
activities like arts and philosophy. They want to have their feet firmly on the
ground! This however doesn't prevent them from trying to hog as many works of
art as possible and to become experts in philosophy if they see an opportunity
to gain money. This misuse is common nowadays. As a result the opinion has
taken root that arts and philosophy aren't useless at all and that they even
have a social interest. But all these things have nothing to do with art and
philosophy as such and with their social role.
Plato described ideal states in his works The Republic and The Laws in which he advanced
the thesis that philosophers are to be considered as the best imaginable rulers
of societies. He argued that these men would be settled in the home of ideas
outside the daily world. By consequence the philosophers were acquainted with
the use of logical arguments instead of experiments with and analysis of
material things. Thanks to this ability the philosophers's
thinking is free of temporary and local limitations sa
that a clear vision on reality becomes possible. According to Plato this would
be the best guarantee for people's welfare. Alas, Plato was wrong…!
Of course, as it is obvious in modern times, it can't
do any harm when rulers have at their disposal a little bit of wisdom.
Nevertheless ruling a society is not a matter of wisdom in the first place, but
a case of practical engineering. The planet on itself isn't livable
neither for man as individual, nor for the society. Man is obliged to convert
the planet into a human world, provided with artificially produced necessities
of life. Sciences, technology and engineering as well as communication,
organization, production and distribution are indispensable. All this isn't a
matter of wisdom but exclusively of practical expertise, based on thorough
scientific research, according to rules laid down for testing conclusions.
Ruling a society requires a clear insight in the concrete daily needs of the
people.
For those dreaming philosophers there's granted a
completely different job, namely thinking about the reality, the world and
human life to get understanding of it. This understanding makes man capable to
judge his own daily activities. Without any philosophical insight man cannot
arrange his world. Modern people think that they can manage it without this
ideas, in full trust on the politicians and the scientists, but that is a
dangerous mistake. Trusting in advance these experts means being at the mercy
of a broken world view, which is the inevitable consequence of one-sided
analytical treating the reality.
132. Psyche's functioning
The most simple definition of the notion 'psyche' runs
as follows: "psyche is the by the vibrating reality as consciousness
generated resonance of a living material system". This situation can be
compared with a violin on which one is playing. The vibrating string causes a
resonance in the body of the violin so that it starts functioning as a soundbox. The then created sound is a reflection of the
string's vibration. But this reflection has a relative character. In a certain
respect it is totally different from the original vibration of the string. For,
given this vibration, there is still this restriction that the quality of the
body of the violin is essential for the final sound. If the quality of this
body turns out to be bad it remains fully impossible to produce a beautiful
piece of music. By consequence a violinist always will look for the most superb
instrument.
The situation with the living systems is quite
comparable with the violin's. In the first place there is the vibrating reality
as consciousness. This vibration is necessarily perfect, being the virtual
manifestation of the universe as a whole. It can't be influenced by anything,
even for man it is completely out of the question to manipulate his own
vibrating consciousness. In fact it isn't his 'own' consciousness at all! On
the contrary it is reality herself, in the form of an all-embracing vibration
which is immanent in every living being.
Within the phenomenon man she is grown into a perfect idea
of the true reality. Although man inevitably is a certain individual,
determined by heredity and a complex of circumstances, this immanent idea is
absolutely universal.
So it really is an objectivity, a hidden one indeed,
but that won't effect its truth. It is a pity for the
modern positivistic philosophers, but by comparison with their opinion about
objectivity this hidden one is much more reliable. They think that a
philosophical system is reliable if it consists only recognized
non-metaphysical facts and observable phenomena. But herewith they disregard
the circumstance that it remains their own choice whether or not they are
willing to accept a fact and besides that the notion 'observable' is at least
rather dubious. To avoid as many misunderstandings as possible the positivistic
thinkers have made binding agreements about these questions.
On the other hand it has to be admitted that the
content of the mentioned true objectivity can't be demonstrated and passed on
to others. The only possibility of each individual consists of the removal of
every darkening obstacle between one's perception and one's consciousness. So
this is a matter of developing self-awareness.
133. Degeneration of the
psyche
It is the most obvious conclusion that the material condition
of the human body would be the cause of an imperfect psychical functioning. If
one suffers from a severe illness the psyche easily can be disturbed, but this
isn't inevitable. Actually it regularly proves to be a matter of character
whether or not such an illness ruins someone's psychical condition. Many
serious patients show an admirable cheerfulness and human warmth. So it isn't
necessary that one's physical condition is indicative for an eventual psychical
disturbance. Mostly someone is able to take no notice of her or his physical
condition, actually by the strength of mind.
But absolutely disturbing are the cultural and
intellectual views which people have about themselves, both concerning their
physical as their mental existence. It is absolutely essential how they think
about right and wrong and how they are indoctrinated by the morals of the
society in which they have to live.
Nearly in every civilization a lot of limitations and
prohibitions form an insurmountable obstacle for the psyche to manifest herself
freely. As a justification one brings forward that it is necessary to keep man
under control because he always would have the propensity for doing evil
things. Of ten these things are considered to be
evilly only by the social and religious authorities. They always are afraid of loosing their power and therefore they force people to obey
the laws. These laws are made for the benefit of the authorities, but of course
not without a relation to real human virtues like respect for the society and
the fellow man. Such a relation is needed to convince the people some
considerable time of the legitimacy of the promulgated laws. It is namely
inevitable that people constantly have a vague suspicion about the content of
their own psychical reality. But apart from that there is the opinion of many,
mainly religious, thinkers that the human psyche, of ten
described by the notion 'soul', is fundamentally imprisoned in the nature, in
the human body. By consequence the making of limitations and prohibitions
belongs to the normal course of events. It is really inevitable so that the
only concerning question is whether or not these regulations are reasonable. So
the idea is that it would be absolutely impossible for man to make free his
psyche.
In fact this view rests more or less on a real
situation, for of ten the psyche can't be herself
freely. But usually the mentioned thinkers argue mistakenly that it would be
the material phenomenon which inevitably causes this captivity of the soul. The
phenomenon's character of dark restraint and fixed material structures is
supposed to make it to an inescapable dungeon. With religious believers this
view is quite understandable because all religions state one way or the other
that the matter must be reckoned to the inferior world, the world of darkness
and sorrow. And only death is considered to be the only effective way of
escaping from it. But as a matter of fact man's mind is the real culprit of the
unfreedom of the psyche, the so-called soul.
134. The deceptive mind
The human mind creates within itself an image of the
actual world, presenting this image as if it were a representation of the
eternal truth. In its entirety it forms the content of man's perception. It is
characteristic for the perception of immature man that he experiences the
physical world as an inferior reality. As a rule he speaks of 'natural' things
as a counterpart of the 'spiritual' world. Then he thinks that this inferior
reality ought to be submitted, in order that he becomes able to realize himself
as a spiritual phenomenon, which he considers to be the real human being.
By the way it is remarkable that Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939), the founder of the modern psychoanalysis, although not a religious
man himself, valued highly the process of 'sublimating'. It means that man
would be able to convert some unwanted natural passions into rather social
acceptable cultural behavior. So actually the strive
for sublimation is a matter of upgrading, but at the same time it is a dubious misjudgment of the psyche's freedom. Anyhow, the results
are exactly the same as in the case of religious fighting against so-called
sins.
Alas all this means that man delivers himself totally
to his own reality as perception, with the result that he can't avoid
mistrusting himself as consciousness and also himself as psyche. Of course this
self-image is nothing but a delusion, but nevertheless the consequences are
tremendous as long as he is immature in cultural respect.
Concerning his psyche immature man has no choice, he
must truly believe that he has to imprison his psyche the way the rulers of his
culture tell him. Immediately that's the first psychological disaster, because
a cluster of rationally thought-out rules becomes normative for man's life. Of
course these rules are invented by spiritual, economical
and political authorities with a view to preserving the social power system.
The second psychological disaster is concerning the fact that in the modern
western world everything is influenced by a masculine way of thinking. One of
its most important results is without any doubt the abusing of the feminine
world, explicit manifestation as she is of the reality as psyche. The notion
'feminine' is grounded upon the idea of reality as an all embracing whole which
functions as the creator of the entire universe. In the early antiquity people
made mention of the 'Magna Mater' (see my reflection nr.
13, inst. nr. 3.). But it just is this whole which
characterizes reality as consciousness and of course also reality as psyche…
135. The notions 'sin' and
'guilt'
Concerning man's misbehavior
thinkers usually put forward the argument that the physical system of the human
body is cursed with a lot of passions, instincts and other irrational
tendencies, which continuously disturb man's good intentions. This is
considered to be the cause of all evil in the world.
These thinkers say that the so-called natural
qualities, in their opinion immanent in blind and inhuman nature, inevitably
belong to the phenomenon man as well. He can't escape from it. So their meaning is that it is the entire
physical world which is guilty for man’s bad conduct. Nature is the instigator
of evil. In the Christian religions this relation between nature and evil is
known as the notion 'sin' or 'original sin'. In a certain way one can't blame
man for it: his existence automatically includes his sinfulness. In accordance
with Christian belief only God is able to rectify this situation. For childish
believers a good reason to obey God's laws…
Many other thinkers argue that it is incorrect to
qualify the entire nature as fundamentally wrong. They state that within nature
only the possibility exists to make faults incidentally. They are right! In
fact these faults must be considered as little imperfections. It is the matter
with all things so also with the phenomenon man.
Because these disturbing elements aren't fundamental
they can be restored by man himself. It means that actually man has the task to
fight against his personal shortcomings and to practice self-control. Result of
this efforts is the so-called civilization. Obviously the religions have
exploited this situation too, namely by introducing the notion 'guilt' Within
the Jewish and Christian religions an extensive theology is constructed around
the human shortcomings. For example the notion 'guilt' is subject of the
stories about the 'Lamb of God', which ought to be sacrificed to redeem man’s
guilt and, as is well-known, the crucifixion of Christ has the same meaning.
Of course it is nonsense to blame nature for man’s misbehavior. By consequence the notion 'sin' is completely
meaningless, in spite of the fact that the today church leaders and even some
philosophers still use this foolish idea. In accordance with this opinion the
material world is still considered to be a bad and inferior reality, unworthy
for the civilized man. One finds that it is his destiny to educate himself to a
spiritual being, highly elevated above the irrational and arbitrary nature.
With complete misjudgment of
the animal world it is still habit of moralists to qualify misbehavior
as a kind of satisfying one's bestial desires. But of course it has nothing in
common with animal conduct. Animal's conduct is consequence of a complex of compulsive
inborn programs within a coherent natural whole. These programs function
automatically. By consequence qualifications like good and bad, superior and
inferior, are absolutely misplaced. Therefore it is incorrect to ascribe misbehavior to the natural world.
Above that a moral judgement is never allowed in case
of inescapable evolutionary occurrences. They are part of the logical routine
in the universe and as such they can't be thought away. Ergo, it is wrong and
meaningless to search in the material world for an explanation of human
misconduct. This world is exactly itself.
But the case with the notion 'guilt' is different
insofar it is a fact that man of ten makes mistakes. As far as this is
concerned man is always able to compare his former conduct to a better actual
one. Indeed the fact that under circumstances man is more or less guilty
because of his mistakes can possibly be associated with nature, in which the
recurrence of disturbances is normal.
136. Man's own decision
With a view on human conduct is isn't very important
that people make mistakes, with the result that occasionally the notion 'guilt'
is valid. The essential question is from where till today humankind
continuously shows criminal behavior.
Mistakes are inevitable, even the coming mature people
will not be able to avoid them, but criminal misbehavior
basically is a matter of man's own decision. Always there is a possibility to
make a choice and to say 'no' to criminality. The fact that man is able to
refuse performing bad actions is the ground of the not ion 'criminality'.
For the record it has to be accentuated that in a
psychological way someone can be forced to act criminally, because of the
pressure of external or internal passions. Such a pitiful person has no choice
at all, the urging to do so is far too powerful. As a result he isn't free to
make his own decisions. Thanks to some mental deviation his decisions always
and necessarily are compulsive.
But in that case it handles about a mentally sick
individual. The above mentioned possibility to say 'no' however is concerning
the phenomenon man in general. It is a matter of his basic qualities. The
ground of these qualities is the circumstance that man, being the absolutely
final result of genesis, has passed in a virtual way the world of material
phenomena. In fact his essence is it's complete denial: he has arrived in the
'not-material' world.
Contrary to current ways of thinking this doesn't mean
that man would be a non-material phenomenon. Already long ago people invented
all sorts of angels and devils. They were expressions of the idea of human
phenomena without material bodies. And heretics and other religious fools tried
zealously to get rid of their corporality. Everything in vain of course.
In fact it means that man is no longer subjected to
inescapable programs, impressed by the evolution of life. Consequently it is
always his own decision to act the way he wants. Logically this also means that
he easily can make a 'criminal' choice. Especially during his immature period
it is nearly impossible to avoid it, thanks to the fact that he is forced to
realize himself as an autonomous individual.
137. The breaking of the
whole
Because man is free to make his own individual
decisions he is able to break the whole. This 'whole' is content of man's
consciousness, so it is content of the reality as idea. As such it is fully
coherent in itself. Breaking of this inner reality has to be judged as a crime.
Animals aren't free to make their own decisions. As a
result they can't break the whole of reality. So it is completely impossible
for animals to commit crimes. How cruel the actions of a predator may be in
people's eyes, criminality is absolutely out of the question. But for man the
situation is totally different: he is really free to do so. At this very moment
everyone can decide to kill someone else. Actually there is basically nothing
that can stop him. No intrinsic moral, no feeling of solidarity, no conscience,
consciousness or religion is in a position to obstruct his plans.
Indeed, the fact that normally one doesn't commit such
a crime says nothing about some inborn basic goodness, moral or conscience of
man, but contrarily all about the quality of the decisions she or he makes. In
many cases man isn't aware of the fact that he makes decisions, but
nevertheless he positively does. For example most of the cultural choices
aren't recognized as such. They take place automatically. Even today it turns
out to be very difficult for many doctors to see that being against applying
euthanasia, also on religious grounds, just as much is a decision. In short
man's universal freedom means that all his actions originate from decisions,
aware or not, rational or not.
Anyhow, as long as man is immature he is busy with
developing himself as an autonomous individual, say 'the' individual.
Therefore he is mentally forced to isolate himself
from the other phenomena, especially his fellow men. All his activities are
concentrated towards his own welfare, so his riches and power. These qualities
are important for but one purpose, namely his fundamental freedom as the
ultimate phenomenon, so his essential freedom as man. This means that this
'self-isolation' must be considered as a necessary human process which can't be
avoided. But at the same time it causes a breaking of the true reality as it is
content of the consciousness. The only true reality is broken by man who is
developing himself to real humanity. This is a remarkable paradox indeed…!
As breaking the whole of reality is the ground of
criminality, it is defensible to qualify immature man as 'criminal' . However,
this doesn't mean that every man or woman practically is a criminal. It will
say that till today the essence of the civilizations is criminal, so that
decent behavior belongs to the exceptions, which
usually are praised as if it were something particular. Indeed it isn't very
difficult to see that criminal misbehavior belongs to
the order of the day, on the ground of authorities as well as civilians.
Since the philosophy is not there for a
few privileged, but for all people, is the quote from the article simply
allowed. Sources, however, is appreciated. (Jan Vis, creative philosopher)
To other articles in Dutch: Conditionering ; Robot denken ; Op de vlucht voor je eigen denken ; Het gelijk en de dialoog ; Eenzaamheid en onvrijheid ; Het toenemend belang van het Atheďsme ; Geen God wat dan ; Godsdienst en Geloof
; Evolutie of Creatie ; De fundamentele intolerantie van de Godsdienst
; God bestaat niet ; Bedreiging van het
vrijdenken en het atheďsme ; De verdedigers van de Godsdienst ; Waarom is de Islam als godsdienst tegen de Westerse
Wereld..? zie no. 27. ; Toch nog een Theocratie- zie afl. 18 ; Ongewenst atheďsme- zie afl. 32 ; Verbieden van de godsdienst..?-zie afl. 21
; Hoe zit het
nou met god ; Discrimineert / onderdrukt de Westerse Cultuur..? zie
aflevering 60 / 61 ; Waarom is de Islam als godsdienst tegen de Westerse
Wereld ..? zie no. 27 ; De Islam ; Het staat in
de Koran- zie aflevering 36 ; De heilige wet-De Sjari’a
; Burqa, volg bladwijzer ; Nihilisme ; De
ontwikkeling van het denken ; De Vrede ; Conditionering en De
ontwikkeling van de West Europese Cultuur(zie links: te erg/te veel en
dubbelhartigheid ) ; Behoort Israël tot de Westerse Cultuur- zie aflevering 60…-onderdrukking van de Palestijnen, ; Kunnen Moslims zich invoegen in de Moderne cultuur..? – aflevering no. 37, ; Terrorisme / Taliban ; Hoe zit het nou
met Jahweh, God en Allah ; Een
korte schets van de menselijke sexualiteit
; Cultuur Filosofische Opmerkingen
;
Another article in
English: A Reflection on Individualism ;
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