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Nader_Never_Wins
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Name: Chris
Birthday: 3/25/1990
Gender: Male
Interests: Comics, Video Games, Movies, Music, Girls, Physics, Chemistry, History, Mathematics etc., etc.
Expertise: Comics, Video Games, Physics, Chemistry
Occupation: Other
Industry: Fundustry
Message: message me
AIM:  Brainlessflip540
Member Since:
1/27/2005
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| I've been wondering lately what it really means to be "free". Freedom is a term that is thrown around a lot, especially in American culture. We take it for granted that we are free in America, that there is something inherent in our Democracy and culture that allows us to exercise our right to freedom. But is anyone in our society truly free? I mean, what is freedom truly, that we can say that one is free while another is not? Is it a political construct, a social idea, or is there something more to the idea of freedom? It seems that the idea of freedom as a social or political construct must be wrong, or at the very least misses most of the point of being truly free. So than how can we get at the very roots of what freedom is, how can we tell when one is free and when one is not?
Everyone would seem to wish to say that they are free, whatever that may mean. The idea of being controlled by another is generally not something people aspire too, and many of our collective hopes and wishes tend towards the idea of "being one's own boss" or living a life that is free from the control of others. But when is this even possible? Even now, writing this entry I censure myself because of the metaphorical gaze of others. It is the stare of society, the glaring eye of those around me that causes my actions to become changed and modified, so that I will act in a way that society finds acceptable. In this way I torture myself at all times, allowing the sight of others to effect the way that I live my life, and in this way we all allow others to torture us in one way or another. The control of another consciousness is asserted simply from a gaze, a glance that makes one fully aware of themselves at all times. Their is no escape from this self made prison in the glare of visibility, and so we try to hide ourselves behind false pretenses and ideals. We pretend that the gaze no longer effects us, or we dress in a way that would seem to make the gaze of others less harsh. But this is simply sidestepping the problem of the gaze. Just lessening the effect to which we feel the gaze effects us is simply playing itself into the power of the gaze, we allow our freedom and our consciousness to be controlled by the gaze even in trying to assert our dominance over it. And so we become the ones who assert the gaze, in order to try and control it, but this seems to only be a readjustment of the gaze. We do not actually move beyond it, we do not overcome the gaze, we simply harness it for ourselves. But there must be a way to avert the gaze, a way to defeat it so that we may become truly free.
This freedom to most is crushing. It is a sensation of having every possibility before oneself, both the good and the bad. It is a frightening feeling, and many are crippled by their fear of this freedom, although most do not recognize this fear. Probably the best example of the crippling effect of this fear comes from the example of the motorist, who while driving down the highway realizes that they could swerve their car into a pole just as easily as they could keep on driving. They face their freedom, and instead of delighting in the complete control they have over their lives they move towards controlling elements like religion so as to no longer be the ones completely in control. They allow themselves to be dominated by others so that they no longer have that fear, they rope off the edge of the canyon so that they may longer jump off. But does this freedom need to be a crippling sensation? Sartre seemed to only talk about freedom as if it were necessarily a frightening thing for humanity, as if freedom was naturally followed by a sense of complete and total dread. But it seems to me that it cannot be the case that freedom is a dread filling sensation, instead could not freedom be an overflowing of joy? When stepping off the canyon wall, could you not instead of feeling dread at the thought of your ability to choose feel overjoyed at the very fact that you were able to choose, that it was you instead of another who ultimately had control over yourself? It is this overjoyed feeling of freedom that I feel is the true sense of freedom, because it is a freedom untouched by the inhibitions and uncertainties of humanity. It is a freedom from the gaze, a freedom from the control and domination of others, because it is a freedom of which only you have control. Well if this freedom exists, then there must be some form in which it shows itself to us in life.
The dread filling freedom that Sartre talks about shows itself in the need for humans to be controlled. They beg for order, for a higher power to control their lives, it cannot be that we are alone in this world because if we are alone then it is only we who are accountable for and in control of all of our actions. Authenticity to Sartre is one of the few ways that he feels we can assert our freedom, because the Authentic man is one who does not try to hide what he is for the sake of the gaze, he is a person who is completely at peace with whatever he may be. But perhaps freedom can show itself through another tool, through humor?
Hobbes said that all humor was the domination of one person over another, he said that we are humorous so that we may dance a flamenco dance on the chest of others. For him humor simply came about because of a relationship between consciousnesses, it was a way for one person to feel superior to another. But this seems to miss the point, because what then of self depreciating humor, or puns, or all of the other types of humor that are not at the expense of any single individual? It cannot be that every time we personify a situation so that we may feel dominant over it, or that this even makes sense, because to be dominant you need something to become subservient to you. In other words, another person can bow to you, you can cause them to become your underling, but a situation will never bow to you. You may assert your dominance, but it will never also assert your dominance, it will merely not respond. Humor then may be, instead of the assertion of ones dominance, the assertion of ones freedom over the gaze of others, or the domination of a situation over ourselves? When we make a joke in any situation we are asserting our ability to point out something about another thing, whether it is the ridiculousness of a situation or something we find wrong about another person. When it is done correctly, we cause a rush of joy to those around us, and even to ourselves. It is a sense of power, a sense of control over a situation that we would otherwise not have if we did not point out the humorous in the thing. But at the same time it is a sense of freedom. By making something humorous we put it into our control, and assert our freedom over that thing. We reject its power, and assert our own through the joke. By making something seem humorous, we are able to assert our freedom over that thing, and although at times it may be an assertion of freedom through our domination of the other being in actuality it is an absolute assertion of our freedom over that thing. We do not allow it to control us, because we through the use of humor are able to assert our freedom over that control.
We see this play out through many different situations in which humor may be used. If we look at making fun of another, it is domination that we are trying to assert here. We are taking away the power from the gaze of the other through the use of humor, we control them by shining the glare of their sight back towards themselves. This is also the case through self humor. If you fall down while walking in a large crowd, you may make a joke so as to ease the embarrassment of having fallen down in such a way. But really you are making a joke so as to nullify the effect of the gaze upon your mind. By using humor you are capable of asserting your freedom over the gaze, you make a joke and move beyond the gazes power over yourself. In any case you may use humor, you are simply asserting your freedom over the controls that something may have over you. In an awkward situation, one may make a joke simply so that you can ease the tension, but what is truly going on is an assertion that this situation does not bother you. You are at ease, and through the use of humor your assert your freedoms from that which would make you uneasy.
But if humor is simply a mechanism used to assert ones freedom, than why do others laugh at the use of humor? Why are jokes funny, why do we find the assertion of others freedoms to be so joyful? (Notice here that laughter and humor are separate things. An infant may laugh, but still not be capable of understanding a joke. The "laugh" that I am speaking of here is the sense of joy that one feels when something is considered humorous to them. This laughter is different than say the laughter of being tickled, because it is not a reactionary laughter to a physical stimulus but rather a laughter through the constructions between individuals).The sense of joy one feels swell up within them when they find something funny, I feel is a reaction to their nervousness about their own freedoms. They see the precipice, they can feel the pull of their minds towards the possibility of swerving their car into the wall, and instead of being crippled by their fear laugh in the face of it. They feel the joy of their freedoms, they see that they too are free, even for a second, and are overcome with joy at the thought. The swelling of joy in their stomachs from the joke is a reaction to the sight of another free individual, they feel joy because they also see their freedoms within the assertion of the individuals assertion of his own freedom.
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| Ok, so I've decided that I don't really believe in the idea of absolute truths, at least up to the point that there must be an absolute good or an absolute evil, or that things can ever truly be decided upon. But I do feel at least that it's probable that at some point in time, mankind will all have the same basic set of morals and ethics, and therefore it will seem like an absolute truth (although it is not necessarily true that this is the best of all possible worlds). For instance, all morals today are simply the morals of the past altered to fit the needs of our current situation, and all of the worlds different sets of morals and values only comes from that societies needs at any given time (basically the argument fr folways and values). In other words, in our country we are given the liesure to either kill or not kill infants, and therefore we have an argument about abortion in our country, whereas in a society where the infant mortality rate is extremely high the killing of a child is considered one of the greatest offenses that one can commit. So overall, all of our morals and ethics do come from the utility of those morals or ethics for any given time period. And after a time, these morals and ethics are tested in the world in which we find ourselves, and if it seems that these things are working fine than things will go on normally, without any change. But even in times of normal calm our morals and ethics are constantly being tested, over and over again, until one day we may find that these morals and ethics we have no longer work for our world. They either pain us in some way, or lead us to a conclusion that we find to be false given the other supposed morals and ethics that we constrain ourselves with. Eventually, enough people feel the pains of the old system on their current lives that they cause a moral upheaval of sorts, and cause the morals of the past to become better suited to the current world that they find themselves in. This is basically taking Khun's view on Scientific Revolutions and applying it to social and moral standards. I do not necessarily feel that these morals or standards are any better than the old ones based on some instrinsic property of goodness that morals may have more or less of, instead I feel that these new moral standards are better suited to the world in which we live and our existence with other beings within that world. I feel that this possibly helps to fix some of the problems of cultural relativism that seem to plague me at least. For instance, given that cultural relativism is correct we cannot ever make any sort of moral judgement on another culture, so for instance the practice of genocide could not truley be frowned upon, becuase given the structure of their society it makes perfect sense for genocide to occur. But if we take it that you can judge something based on its utility to a society as a whole at any give time, we can see that genocide would in general hurt people overall and would not help them in the world today. But this also leads to its own problems, for instance doesn't this view of utility imply that there must be some set of morals that is better suited to pleasing more of the people more of the time than the others, and therefore there must be smoe absolute truth of the matter that makes one better than the other. And for that matter, what does this mean for murder, or stealing. When you boil matters down to ethical problems that involve less complex systems, such as ethics on a personal level, this view of utility gets skewered, because at times you would need to take into accoutn the good of the many, which may not necessarily be good for you. Perhaps the answer is an ethical system completely based around the single individual, so for instance instead of looking at the greater good you strive for the good of yourself (which at times may in fact be the same as the greater good for the many). Overall, even given all of the particulars, I feel that given enough time the basic morals and ethics of a culture may begin to resemble one another. This is simply because things will evolve and change given situations, and as we begin to encounter more and more problems on a global scale the pains of each of our individual moral standards will shift with the lessons we will have learned from greater social conflict. And over time I do feel that cultrual standards of morality and ethics must change to be similar, although not necessarily the same throughout. There will still be some things that will not change over completely, and there will of course be the problem of the history of any culture. For instance, a culture born out of a Catholic tradition will look at moral problems today with a different view than those cultures born from a Confuscian or Buddhist view. But still, given enough time these differences I feel will become too small to truley matter. Eventually the outer complexities of our morals and ethics will be grinded down by the experiences of time, leaving all of us with the same smooth, circular rock. But this still does not make any one rock better than the other, or even that the shape and smoothness of our rocks is the correct state of our rocks. Any way that our morals turn out is equally valid, it is just that one is better suited for our world than others. For isntance, we can think of this in the same way as a geometric puzzle involving different shapes being pushed into a box with different shaped holes cut out into it. Each of the shapes triangle, square, circle, and rhombus exist and each are equally shapes, and each are equally valid as shapes. If someone asked you to name a shape you would not be more correct in saying circle than saying square, it is simply just the one shape name that you chose to call out. But if you were trying to fit a shape into the box through a hole, you can be more correct with one shape than another, and thus these shapes (although they are still all equally valid and correct) become differentiated by how well they fit to the hole. This is what I mean by us finding a moral standard that is the best suited to our existence as human beings on the Earth. Even though each set of morals we could come up with is valid, some will have to be better suited to our world.
Although I feel this is a good explanation of what I've come to believe about relativism (at least on moral relativism), it still leads me to just more questions and more problems. What about individuality, or culture for that matter? If we eventually all have the same set of morals and values, what will occur in society? Will the cultures that we seem to find so important today simply fade away, or will we just create new cultural identities and do this whole business of grinding away the excess of our morals and values until we must recreate our identities once again? And is coming towards a single understanding even progress? I mean, if we think of people as we existed as Hunter-Gatherers there was no culture or society, it was simply clans of people living together. But does this mean that we had no culture, or is this just a simplification of the very idea of culture? Do fancy arts and flags make a culture, or is it somethins more simple, such as just living in a similar fashion to those around you? And still back to the problem of individualism. In a world of people who all feel that same way about moral and ethical issues what happens to individuality. Even if it becomes a widely held view that individuality is one of the most important things fro a person, to what extent can someone be individual if we all have the same morals and values?
I think the solution to this problem is by saying that there is a difference between individual morals and cultural or group morals. For instance, you may have no problem with killing someone but it is essential that killing is frowned upon in a group for the group to function. So there is a split between your individual morals, which I feel would have absolutely no right or wrong way to act, and group morals which would require a certain type of action for a society to function correctly. In this way, we would still allow for the cultures of the world to eventually come to an understanding of a correct way of living in the world, while still allowing for individuals to come to their own conclusions about these things. But even that leads to a whole other slew of problems, which just get more and more complex as it goes on.....
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| So today in my philosophy class we began to discuss the idea of History as a philosophical concept. The very nature of the history of something can be debated and discussed, and also the way to view History and past events, and whether or not it is worth it for someone to even study the history of any given field. For some reason today's lecture really got my brain stirring, and I began to think about what History even was.
Many people would say that History is a stringing together of our past. It is written records of the people and civilizations that came before us, and without our history the world would be vastly different than it is today. For example, many would argue that without a Newton we would have no Calculus, and therefore no modern mathematics or astronomy or physics. Others would state that without the Founding Fathers the History of the World and Democracy would have been vastly different, and in fact democracy as we know it today may not have resurfaced as a world power for a long time. In Philosophy, some would argue that without Descartes or Plato the face of the art of philosophy would be unrecognizable to what we today call Philosophy. But I don't think that is necessarily true.
In my mind the basic flow of history is a natural consequence of the universe going from less random to more random. In other words all of the major movements in any given field come about as a natural consequence of that field branching out into more and more subcategories, and in fact our world today is the way it is simply because of the randomness of our universe increasing. So American Democracy, Existentialism, The Theory of Relativity, The Epistemological model of knowledge, all would have occurred eventually in history. The only difference is when in the time-line they would have appeared, but I do believe that they all eventually would have shown themselves and become as important as they are today.
It seems to me, at least at this stage in my life, that the universe moves forward and becomes more and more random and insane and eventually the randomness will cause a catastrophe, and then the whole cycle will begin again. I don't know if I would necessarily call this "entropy" such that is present in a chemical system, but I would certainly think that it is similar.
If we take what David Lewis said about alternate Universes to be true (That each and every choice on a truth table exists, but each exists within its own universe alternate to our own) than I believe that we would find many of these alternate universes to be quite similar to ours, at least in the broad strokes of history. Although you may find many that are completely opposite to ours, I think that many contingent alternate universes may exist alongside ours, and many of them may not be as different and strange as many of us would believe, because our histories and our thoughts and our theories and the important movements in our societies and sciences and philosophy may be extremely similar, with the only difference being when they came about or who wrote what.
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| By the absolute idiocy of those around me. I can't even watch the news without some kid trying to engage me in a political debate, one of which I almost always win. Don't fucking talk to me about the economy kiddies. Taxing the rich won't do shit, it will only make the poor poorer and the rich a little bit less rich. You can't hope to stop big business and still keep an economy strong, the only people that fucking employ those without High School Educations generally are big businesses like Wal-Mart and Target. And everyone wants to talk about change. What kind of change do you think is really going to happen, some kind of radical shift to the left that will make everything better? What the fuck can Obama possibly hope to make better? He's gonna give you money for college? he's gonna give money for universal health care? He's gonna give money to public education? I honestly want ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE of where a government run ANYTHING has worked out better than a privately run one. Social Security? Can't say thats worked. Urban housing? Sure as hell hasn't worked. The War on Drugs? Nope, hasn't done shit, in fact drugs are more potent and easier to come by today than they ever were in the past. And you think public health care is gonna make things better? Why the fuck do people work their asses off to become doctors? ITS SURE AS FUCK NOT TO HELP PEOPLE. Its to make money you idiots. If we make it so that a doctor gets paid by the government instead of by a private industry, they are going to make much less money, and thus the incentive to become a doctor will decrease. Not only that, but the quality of care you recieve would drop as well. Why do you think certain hospitals are ranked better than others? BECAUSE THEY HAVE BETTER DOCTORS, AND THEREFORE MAKE MORE MONEY. If you get rid of money from the equation, you get rid of the driving force behind inovation in medicine.
Think about it. You work your ass off in school, you get perfect grades, you get into the best universities, and you finally become a doctor. And you become really really good. And you finally get to work in a hospital, and you get paid the same amount as some idiot who is a terrible doctor. Where is the incentive to work hard if you don't get anything in return? There is none. And as much as people might want to think its common human decency and pride that drives good work, its really money and recognition. And if your not gettting any, than you won't do shit. I know I certaintly wouldn't.
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| Today was the worst day ever haha. Holy fucking shit.
10,000 degree's. Water leaking all over the basement, which I now have to clean. Than, tonight work, than going to my dad's to move more shit.
Things could be so much easier.
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