Maija Kūle
Rethinking the Role of Humanities: freedom, individuality de facto and de jure,
new humanistic vision.
Theses for international conference - 2011.
The most important problem of the world today is to preclude inhuman
ideologies and further a body of ideas more appropriate to man’s freedom and human
values. Freeing the fettered man is one of the hardest tasks European culture has been
trying to achieve for centuries. The problem of the cultivation of human free
personality is in the sphere of the humanities because social sciences mostly serve
different ideologies.
However, the problem of what is to be done to develop man’s ability to
withstand manipulations remains in the periphery. There is a tendency in the
educational system, universities in Latvia included, to diminish the role of the
humanities and philosophy. The embracement of total pluralism that currently is being
cultivated, and to which the intellectual life in Latvia is subordinated, gradually might
become unhealthy, undemocratic and thoughtless. University professional study
programmes avoid the subjects of philosophy, ethics and logic. General humanitarian
subjects are not considered corresponding to the tendencies of modern social life.
What comes to the fore: narrow professionalism, pragmatism, formalism,
disinterestedness in people, rush for wealth, innovations and technological excellence.
Just like the most powerful weapon of European thinking – criticism, freedom
as value and life orientation also undergoes changes. Those who live in politically
free, democratic states take political freedom for granted and think that they are
avoiding manipulations. Freedom is not to be fought for, it seems as something given.
It means more the formal conditions of life than the wish to free oneself. In
democratic systems the individual is free in very many spheres of political
manifestations. However, the other side of the achieved freedom comes into view, the
one foreseen by Hegel: freedom and absolute horror, loss of interrelation between
freedom and responsibility.
If in the centre of freedom is individual, his/her freedom (as it is understood in
the classical life form) should be justified and moral. But individualization now does
not have the same meaning it had a hundred years ago. It means transforming man’s
identity from given to task. However freedom is no longer perceived as a task, but as
a phenomenon to use for his/her pleasure. Society is not taken to be opposed to the
individual fighting to free him/herself from its paws, the idea is that one is forming
the other: individuals are forming society and society is forming individuals.
However, as Jean-Paul Sartre said, it is not enough to be born an aristocrat, one
should live as one. Humanities and philosophy explain the art of living. Paraphrasing
it we might say: it is not enough to be born in a politically free society, one’s life style
should be saturated with responsible freedom.
It must be admitted that there is a deep chasm between an individual de jure (in
the legal, social meaning) and the possibility of becoming one de facto, namely, to
make one’s own independent decisions in life, to be free from manipulations. To
bridge this chasm one should be an independent individual and a citizen at the same
time. However, as was pointed out by Alex de Tocqueville at the very outset of
capitalism, the individual is the citizen’s worst enemy. The individual’s attitude to
collective undertakings and common ideas is usually skeptical. The only thing he
expects the public power to do is to ensure security, welfare and possibilities for the
implementation of his/her own ideas. It is difficult to turn individualized persons into
citizens without the help of Humanities.
How can the feeling of the free individuality be merged together with the
political role of the citizen? At present the theme of citizenship (what will the
citizenship of the European Union be like, what is world citizenship) in intellectual
and political debates is a much more widely discussed problem than the question of
man’s freedom. In Latvia due to the post Soviet situation man’s citizenship is in the
focus of attention, not citizenship for the free man. Slogans on the formation of a civic
society are heard everywhere. Alongside with the formation of a civic society
legitimization of the present power and inclusion in the politico-economical processes
are expected. It is hard to assume that the ideologists should expect a civic society that
would deny them.
The philosophical thought in Europe has been saturated with the idea of
emancipation. This idea was prominent on the political scene in the sixties and
seventies of the XX century (Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre). Everybody, the
philosophers thought, whom they put the emancipation hat on could feel happy:
working class, women, students and immigrants.
However, the emancipation idea itself soon underwent emancipation, namely,
freed itself from itself that creating scandals, not freedom. Now it is born anew not as
an idea about freeing from the old type society, but as a question: how within the
framework of an individuality can two things be combined: one’s selfness de jure –
on the basis of what in Europe is provided by law and rights and de facto – one’s self
in conformity with one’s existential experience. Part of Europe’s contemporary
philosophy is still averting people from joining a community with stories about loss of
freedom. Another part is afraid of arbitrariness coming from unbridled individual
freedom manifesting itself in the negation of life, drug addiction, crimes and egoism.
Society is an "enemy" of individual autonomy (existentialists are to great extent
right in this respect). However, in our day society is also a precondition of it. Social
philosophers [for example, Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens] are of the opinion that
now this precondition is more important than the attitude towards society as towards
an enemy. People seem to be united through work, profession and business. In fact,
however, all are much more united in existentially intimate feelings that are actually
experienced by each one alone: fear, worries, self-care, the problem of death and the
sense of living. Richard Sennett admits that only existential experiences can bring
people closer together, that being the only remaining method of forming
communities.[ Richard Sennett. The Fall of Public Man: On the Social Psychology of
Capitalism. – New York: Vintage books, 1978]. Fear brings closer together than a
common commercial enterprise. But this existential experience is described and
analysed at the Humanities, not at the social and economic sciences.
Life which is not based on human values, reflective human sciences, is
forming lonely, aggressive and naked Ego that is looking for love and help without
admitting it. Ego is lost in the self. Only humanities and philosophy can return Self in
the Ego.
The scholars in the humanities and philosophy will have to deliberate more
about decline of humanities in society, venturing also to question the current
European values, understanding of freedom, individuality de facto and de jure. It has
a global significance. Famous Chinese-American philosopher Tu Weiming writes: "It
is imperative for intellectuals, [..] to tap all the spiritual resources available to the
global community in order to formulate a humanistic vision which can transcend
anthropocentrism, instrumental rationality, and aggressive individualism without
losing sight of the liberating ideas and practices of the Enlightenment, a movement,
an ideal, and a mentality" [Tu Weiming. The Spiritual Turn in Philosophy//
Rethinking the Role of philosophy in the Global Age, series IIID, South East Asia,
Vol. 7, 2009, p. 112]. The task consists in vigorously catching up with the changes
and rethinking the role of Humanities and philosophy.