|
Musings on a Humanistic Humanity
Tomes have been written for and against religions, dogma,
and their associated rituals. My intellectual journey in
this essay is to avoid following the beaten track, which
has already been journeyed by brilliant philosophers,
metaphysicians, and theologians. Each one stating their
positions in terms of arguing for accepting or rejecting a
certain school of thought. I should also add the goal of
this essay is not create another school of thought, a new
religion, or even a new philosophy, but simply to empower
– or shine the torch in a direction – which will
enable fellow humans exercise their intellectual faculties
to see the world, their relationships to objects, fellow
sentient life, and other symbols which have been created,
in a pristine manner that is free of past experience. So
readers who expect me to criticize dogmatic religion
(since at an individual level I reject it), or praise it
will be disappointed. Also, I will avoid falling into the
trap of quoting great men or women to support my ideas,
and to attack opposing schools of thought. Because by
doing this, I will only be letting down myself – my goal
– of looking at things “as is” since I will not be
exercising my own intellectual faculties independently
without prejudice. This means shedding the burden of past
memory, which I have acquired through my conditioning by
my environment around me, from the time I perceived that I
existed.
We have come a long way as humans evolving physically,
culturally, psychologically, theologically,
technologically, and in many other ways. By evolution I
suggest that it was an improvement over the previous
condition or stage. For example, the computers with their
powerful chips of the present or an evolution – or an
improvement – over what existed 20 years ago. However,
the evolution of humanity seems to have problems – it is
not my personal opinion, but what is shown by history –
in some areas which we never seem to come out of. The
ingredients of these problems can be easily discovered if
one were to carefully observe by exercising the
intellectual faculties. This means you have to see through
your mind and not your eyes. In fact like your eyes the
mind can be put to work with great effect by the art of
focusing (central vision) and intuition (peripheral
vision) – i.e., to pick an issue from several other
issues arising in subliminal thought and focus on one
issue at a time in a calm and thoughtful manner that is
free of passion and emotion.
Let us begin with human nature, perhaps it should be
termed the mind-thought process, since those appear to be
the manifestation of human nature. The human mind is like
a receptacle. It always wants to be filled by matter
produced by thought. When you are awake it is natural to
think of something: next project, problem on hand,
lascivious excursions, depressive thoughts, happy
thoughts, among other things. It loves pleasure created by
the physical senses or a passion for a metaphysical
ideology. I will focus on the latter. The latter can range
anything from a hobby to a political or religious
ideology. Again delving into the latter, the human mind
seeks comfort in ideology of some kind: political theory,
dogma, motto, commandments, etc. It makes the individual,
physical organism feel secure and wants all the rest of
humanity to feel the same way by forcing it to experience
the “experience” what that organism may derive through
certain means and practices acquired through tradition or
chosen by free-will. For instance, there are people of
different hues and shades who claim that their version of
a certain truth or dogma is the correct one and the rest
is false. In other words, everyone has some kind of truth
or dogma they adhere to based on tradition, culture, or
independent inquiry. At this point, it becomes
self-evident that every one has an intrinsic nature, which
makes them cling to something deeply in a sacred way. The
mind refuses to be an empty receptacle or vessel, leave
alone a magnetic storage device whose contents can be
recorded and erased at will with no residual traces. The
latter is even more difficult to achieve and very few
individuals are able to attain that insight to look
through the fog of “conditioning” they have been
through from the time of their childhood. Another way to
look at it is in the hypothetical sense: if, for example,
a bunch of 2 year olds are left by themselves and raised
by robots which provide nourishment, practical knowledge,
and security, but not indoctrination relating to theology
or teleology, what would be the state of these minds? I
would assume that such an experiment may give an idea of
human nature in a scientific manner as to how it generates
dogmas, myths, and other things what the rationalists may
tend to call nonsense. I do not propose that we conduct
such an experiment, which goes against ethics, but at
least parents in some of the countries, which have freer
societies can practice it. That is children are free of
any kind of indoctrination. -- indoctrination meaning
providing knowledge in a persuasive manner, almost
bordering on coercion, without providing the tools to
analyze it, and if necessary, reject it – so that
humanity can evolve humanistically. This is further
explained in the latter paragraphs.
Having presented evidence through deduction that the
mind is like a receptacle which needs matter, I suggest
the following be explored to accommodate the variability
of human nature across different nations, cultures, and
religions, so that humanity can celebrate its basic
essence through life by evolving into a higher, humanistic
plane that has been largely absent through human history.
1. Empower humanity to cultivate the act of exercising the
mind – similar to that of exercising the muscle for good
physical health. That is, the ability to observe one’s
mind and realize how it reacts in various circumstances
due to the conditioning of tradition, culture, and
instilled prejudices. Through patience, reason, and
compassion break-out of this vicious cycle and embrace the
sea of humanity as a single entity by realizing it too is
comprised of individuals which mirror the self in terms of
aspirations, fear, love, and security.
2. Humanity as a whole should resist any kind of
dictatorship from an individual, a state-enforced
ideology, a fear-inducing theology, and all authority
which nurtures itself through division of humanity.
3. The individual at the personal level is his/her own
authority. S/he leads a life founded on truth, love,
compassion, and liberty ensuring that no harm is caused to
the self, nor to the humanity at large. Liberty meaning
the freedom to fulfill physical and psychological needs
which every human requires to lead a good life, by
accepting the fact that pleasure, pain, sickness,
suffering, and death are part of life. In fact, it is
essential that every one of those be treated on equal
footing in a rational way, rather than resort to escape
mechanisms of various kinds to escape the inevitable.
4. The human mind by nature seeks teachers of wisdom and
all types of ideologies and dogmas developed along the
path of evolution. Humanity should ensure that individual
humans have the liberty to go to teachers of wisdom to
obtain succor to solve their intellectual and spiritual
problems. It is also recommended that teachers provide the
intellectual tools to their students to challenge their
own teaching, and if need be to reject it. However,
teachers should not go in search of students to enforce
their ideology, or dogma, or whatever idea through
physical threats, psychological coercion, persuasion, and
through platitudes, since this is likely to be the root of
all future conflict.
5. Humanity as a whole should arrive at a consensus as to
what system will serve it, other co-living life forms, and
the environment the best, without sacrificing individual
freedom. At an utopian level such a system should strive
to overcome nationalistic, religious-tic, ethnic-tic,
language-istic, and all other human-created barriers to
facilitate the forming of a true global village, which
celebrates the common heritage of humanity through mutual
respect, tolerance, and lack of prejudice.
Finally, the thoughts presented in this essay need to
questioned, challenged, refined iteratively, or replaced
with something better if necessary. i.e., with the idea of
creating an environment or pre-supposed condition to
enable humanity to evolve into a higher moral plane for
the good of one and all.
-EH
The End
|
