CHAPTER 5
Delicate Co-Existence:
The Human Love/Hate
Condition
Snell and Gail Putney write:
“The age of cultural innocence is passing:
the American is beginning to recognize the
patterns to which he conforms.”
Psychiatrist R. D. Laing writes:
“They are playing a game. They are
playing at not playing a game. If I show
them I see they are, I shall break the
rules and they will punish me. I must play
their game, of not seeing I see the game.”
History
• Philosophers have studied history to discern if
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there are patterns that can reveal hidden
implications or “messages”
Is history making progress?
Is history leading to something?
If so, is history leading to doom or a better
future?
Is the Western civilization fated to disintegrate
like most other historical societies?
Is it possible to benefit from the “lessons of
history”?
Theater of the Absurd
• The philosophy of history asks two central
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questions, although each leads logically to
countless others: (1) Does human history have
meaning? (2) Can we learn from history?
“Nature and history do not agree with our
conceptions of good and bad; they define good
as that which survives, and bad as that which
goes under; and the universe has no prejudice
in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan.” -Will Durant/Ariel Durant
The Meaning of History
• Deuteronomic Historians
• Saint Augustine
• Friedrich Hegel
• Karl Marx
• A Feminist Reappraisal of history
• Edward Gibson
• Darwin
A Feminist Reappraisal of History
• “All history has been written by men, and their
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selection of events, interpretations, values and
attitudes, and even their words and style, have
reflected a masculine point of view that has
shaped their reconstruction and presentation of
the past.”
Marija Gimbutas, The Gods and Goddesses of
Old Europe; The Language of the Goddess; The
Civilization of the Goddess
• Humanity’s first great spiritual image was the
Mother Goddess
Toynbee’s Organismic
Interpretation of History
• Peace and contentment
• Disillusionment and suffering
• Salvaging of values
• Period of creativity
• Peace and contentment
The Plight of Western Civilization
• Western civilization is not yet dead and buried,
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not quite.
When a civilization becomes materialistic and
“sensate” in its values, then it is in trouble
Nationalism is a necessary but passing
phenomenon
Disintegration of a civilization is not the ultimate
tragedy we may think it to be
The Roots of Violence
• First, human history is largely a story of
war
• Second, human societies live almost
entirely by myth, including myths of war
• The deepest roots of violence are
evolutionary?
Can We Learn from History?
• Be careful how we interpret history
• Understand others
• Understand ourselves
• Discover that empathy with living
creatures is normal and is perhaps the
most distinctive quality that makes us
human
G.W.F. Hegel
“Reason: Substance of the Universe”
• “The real is rational, and the rational is real”
• “Reason is the substance of the universe. . . . Te
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design of the world is absolutely rational.”
Hegel believed that he was the first thinker in all
of history to have seen and properly located the
essence of what is real in the Universe, namely,
the mind of God
The mind of God is the essence of what is real
Reflections…
• What is the goal of “the philosophy of history”?
• Does history of meaning? And, if so, what is that
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meaning?
What are the sources of meaning?
How could we go about gathering evidence to
find our if history has meaning?
How would you respond to these questions?
Laws Conscience
• Every society is burdened with more than
just one set of rules that represent
different values and concerns
• Which set of rules is best? Is any set of
rules best?
Conflicting Loyalties
• Fundamental tension in society between
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individual freedom and the structure of law and
order
Fundamental tension in society between the
various forms of individual structure of law and
order and individual freedom
The American people are “no longer innocent,
but not yet wise.” --Charles Osgood
Good Laws & Bad Laws
• No matter how strongly one advocates
lawful obedience to the state and its laws,
it is inevitable that some laws will turn out
to be bad ones
• Unless laws are periodically challenged,
they don’t get improved
Loyalty to Higher Authority
• Western (Judeo-Christian) legal tradition takes
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the form of a hierarchy of laws – a sort of
jurisdictional totem pole – with a clear order of
precedence
Loyalty to an institution considered to have
divine authority over the state
Loyalty to “God’s law” as personally understood
– by revelation, spiritual knowledge, conscience
Obedience to the Rule of Law
• Laws must be obeyed, for if each person
were permitted to decide which laws were
good and which were bad, social chaos
would necessarily result
The Personal Dilemma
• To obey or not to obey
• Saint Paul
• Martin Luther
• Hinduism
• The Milgram Experiment
• Joseph Klausner
• Socrates
Henry David Thoreau
“I will breathe after my own
fashion.”
• “My purpose in going to Walden Pond was
not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there,
but to transact some private business with
fewest obstacles…”
• “Private business?”
• “That government is best which governs
not at all…I was not born to be forced. I
will breathe after my own fashion.”
Reflections…
• “Our Western experience has been an
ongoing conflict of loyalties.” From your
point of view, how do you assess this
conflict? How much have you been
victimized by it? By conviction and
temperament, which way do you tend to
leap in your allegiance: toward the
mandate of personal conscience of the
necessities of a lawfully ordered society?
Lifestyles
• Acculturation – the process by which individuals
are gradually conditioned to accept the ideas
and values of the culture they are born into.
Once conditioned, an individual no longer
perceives himself or herself simply as human but
identifies with an ethnic, social, political,
economic, or religious subunit and feels that her
or his primary allegiance is to the role
appropriate to that subunit.
The Bonds of Culture
• Our social roles, along with their
supportive functions, also become our
prisons. We assume the carefully defined
roles that society has constructed for us,
and enormous pressures are brought to
bear upon us to stay with the confines of
those roles.
Prisoners
• Professor Zimbardo’s halted experiment
• How easily we accept the impersonal rules
of order as substitutes for human
understanding, how conditioned we
become to respond to dominant symbols
of authority
Alternatives to Remaining Prisoners
• We recognize the cultural patterns that
have shaped our existence
• We are involved in a cataclysmic increase
in cultural interaction
• We have new insight into the dynamics of
our inner world
Cultural Relativity
• In any society, specific BTF-patterns (behavior,
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thought, feeling) are considered “normal” not
merely because the majority adheres to the, but
also because they are meaningful and functional
(Ex. Dobu and Zuni)
“Normal” behavior supports and enhances unity
“Insanity in individuals is something rare--but in
groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the
rule.” --Friedrich Nietzsche
Personal Alienation
• What happens to you and me as we try to
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adjust to a cultural eclecticism?
“Our culture is fragmented, so we too become
fragmented”
Identify with a single isolated strand of culture
Join a truth-group
Experience “psychosis”
Conform to nonconformity
Humankind’s Most
Dangerous Myth
• The Concept of Race
– 1. Race is a myth
– 2. Racial classifications are just one of many ways we
organize information
– 3. Race Myths are expressions of us-them mentality
Diogenes the Cynic
• The Hound-Dog Philosopher
• “I am a citizen of the world”
Reflections…
• This chapter suggests that freedom has
been imposed upon us whether we wish it
or are ready for it. Do you agree?
Politics
• Political philosophy attempts to answer
the most basic questions about
government and its functions
We are Political Animals
• Aristotle said human beings are political
animals
• “The world has always been inhabited by
humans beings who have always had the
same passions.” --Machiavelli
What Form of Government is
Best?
• Alexander Pope
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Thomas Aquinas
• Machiavelli
• Hobbes
• Mill
Alexander Pope
• Alexander Pope said that only a fool would
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argue over what form of government is best
Political philosophy is the study of which forms
of government are best
Plato
• Plato, “Unless either philosophers become kings or those
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whom we now call our kings and rulers take to the
pursuit of philosophy . . . There can be no cessation of
troubles for our states, nor, I fancy, for the human race
either.”
State consists of three kinds of people
– 1. Those controlled by sensuous appetites (craftsmen, artisans
and farmers)
– 2. Those who live by courage and discipline (solders, police
officers)
– 3. Those who live by reason (the rulers of the state)
• According to Plato’s “myth of the metals,” the first (and
lowest ranking class) have brass souls, the second (and
intermediate class) have silver souls, and the third
Aristotle
• Aristotle, “Whereas it [the city-state] comes into being
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for the sake of life, it exists for the sake of the good life”
The purpose of the state is to foster the kind of
environment in which individuals could attain the good
life
• Eudaimonia
• Aristotle rejects both an autocratic monarchy and
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democracy; the former leads to the tyranny of the
minority, the latter to the tyranny of the majority
The ideal state is one that is lead by the noblest, ablest
and best-trained individuals
Thomas Aquinas
• Arguably the greatest thinker in the history of the
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Catholic Church
Agreed with Aristotle that the purpose of the state is to
foster conditions in which individuals can achieve
personal fulfillment
Argues that the state must be subservient to the Church
Just as the soul is the master of the body, the Church is
the master of the state
Three kinds of law
– 1. Human Law
– 2. Natural Law
– 3. Divine Law
Machiavelli
• Father of political science
• Author of The Prince
• The best way to maintain rule is through
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ruthless oppression and the myths of religion
Political systems are the result of irrational
human nature
Dominant value in successful state is not justice;
rather it is power
Hobbes
• Published Leviathan
• State of Nature
• In a state of nature, life would be “solitary,
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poor, nasty brutish, and short”
Individuals give up personal liberty to enter a
covenant with others
Covenant is called the “Social Contract”
Only under the authority of an absolute
sovereign can law develop
John Stuart Mill
• The purpose of the state is to create conditions that will
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produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number
of people
Principle ingredient of happiness is individual freedom
“All restraint, qua restraint, is evil”
“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows
little of that.”
Mill feared public opinion--the tyranny of the majority
Published Subjection of Women where he argued in
favor of women’s rights
Three Contemporary WorldSystems
• Democracy
• Communism
• Theocracy
Nelson Mandela
The Long Road to Freedom
• On May 10, 1994, after years of
imprisonment for protesting social
injustice, Mandela became the first
democratically-elected president of South
Africa
• Apartheid
Reflections
• If you had been living in South Africa
during the years of apartheid, how would
you have personally adjusted to the racist
laws then in effect?
Ethics
• Several distinct criteria are commonly
used for making moral judgments
• What is moral or immoral?
• Whom (and what) we should care about?
Sin and/or Virtue
• Gibran writes: “Last night I invented a
new pleasure, and as I was giving it the
first trial, an angel and a devil came
rushing toward my house. They met at my
door and fought with each other over my
newly created pleasure; the one crying ‘It
is a sin!’ – the other, ‘It is a virtue!’”
Debatable & Nondebatable
Value Judgments
• Type I – value statements of personal
taste and temperament and are not
debatable
• Type II – value statements that lend
themselves to rational analysis and
empirical investigation and are, therefore,
debatable
The Morality of Ethics/
The Ethics of Morality
• Bank employee
• Manhunt
• “The best genes”
• Frontier village
• “Haggling over price”
• The William Brown
• Arkansas donor
Three Ethical Questions
• Who actually makes an ethical decision?
• What criteria should I use in making a
relevant and meaningful ethical decision?
• To whom (or what) do my moral
obligations apply?
Who Really Makes Decisions?
• Authoritarian decisions
• Autonomous decisions
• What is humanity’s task?
What Makes a Decision
Right or Wrong?
• What criteria should I use in making a
relevant and meaningful ethical decision?
• The formalist
• The relativist
• The contextualist
Whom (and what) Should
I Care About?
• How large should we (I) draw the circle of
ethical concern?
The Dalai Lama
Courage and Compassion
• “This, then, is my true religion, my simple
faith. In this sense, there is no need for
temple or church, for mosque or
synagogue, no need for complicated
philosophy, doctrine, or dogma. Our own
heart, our own mind, is the temple. The
doctrine is compassion.”
Reflections…
• Are you an “issue maker”? That is, are you
prone to creating issues when it might be
easier to solve problems? Or, are you
essentially a pragmatic problem-solver?
Can you give examples from your own
experience of persons or personalities who
are especially visible for the making of
petty issues?