… with gentle acts of kindness.
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
- Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
Seeking Human Kindness
… with gentle acts of kindness.
Inspired by Alexander Pope (1688–1744)’s quote, “The proper study of Mankind is Man.” The titled responsion is a bifucation of every hu-man with acts of kindness.
Begging to differ, we could, and perhaps should, focus on kindness instead of humanity. One approach emphasizes acts over definitions. The danger is placing fictions over facts but this would be a false dichotomy of fictive imaging. I have pointed out the danger, which manifests in the minds of ideologues, tyrants and even well-intentioned revolutionists. Pause for a moment and think, is there a difference between a revolutionary and a revolutionist? The revolutionist seems to be coupled closer to the identity of the agitator, whereas the revolutionary applies more to ideas. I realize that this is not much more than a simple heuristic and to be quite honest I am too lazy to look up the definitions right now. Or is it because I know in advance that the definitions are irrelevant. We need The narrative we tell ourselves limits the function of asociality.
About Facing The Face of Indifference
Inspired by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)’s quote, “The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”. The titled responsion is liberating. Justice, on the other hand is another story.
The history of the world is the history of human freedom, the progress of which is a product of the consciousness of freedom. As history unfolds, people will experience a series of changes that will shape their lives and the future of the planet, or so this counterfactual goes. Does this logic ring true with your intuitions? Your truth function?
It is easy to see how different peoples have made their freedom more or less on their own by making choices but how much of these choices are not choices at all? How much is cultural determination a factor, which falls under an environmental influence and IS the point of entry into the debate about cultural evolution. This includes things as basic as wearing clothes, there is a cultural influence and an functional environmental influence as anyone who is cold can attest to. In some cases, the history of the world is also about the choices we make as populations, describing this group-think is the body of knowledge and dogma that moves the masses.
In the course of time, human beings have changed the earth in innumerable ways. A few examples include the discovery of gold, which allowed the rich to become even richer, the development of gunpowder, which allowed the poor to have access to guns and even to participate in the war. And, if you think about it, you may even notice that some of the most amazing inventions of recent times were brought into existence by human beings. The simplicity of this statement is rather apparent. I mean amazement is linguist invention, a felt expression of conscious creatures looking to better themselves through the predictive nature of technology. So we are getting more complicated, giving our thought and epistemology more depth, context and means of propagation.
In other words, human beings have given birth to everything that has happened and will happen in the world. There is no doubt that it would be hard to imagine any past time in which all the inventions were created without any help. All things not occurring in nature naturally are products of the decisions of human beings and so this is the perpetual curse of Prometheus. Gift or burden? Technology is our burden progress is the result, in other words, a civilized society is what we gain. We lose our unique place in biodiversity. Elevated if you will to progenitors of our future, co-creators of our own heaven on this planet. The psychological deficiency that we seem to gloss over is the loss of fidelity and half-life of a eudaimonic existence.
So, in the history of the world, there is no limit to the amount of freedom that human beings can achieve. It’s this racheting forward of freedom that Hegel is referring to and it’s a very powerful philosophical framework. As we move forward into the future, we will see that freedom will become ever more important. In fact, it is one of the cornerstones of the new millennium. What does freedom mean to you?
The history of the world is about the consciousness of freedom. And, as this consciousness of freedom becomes increasingly important, the amount of freedom available will become ever more important as well. But, before this happens, we will have to go through a period of decline.
It is this process that we have to deal with, because only then can the consciousness of freedom be developed. Corrective proportions are self governed and cultural. I would say that the approach is facing the reality of our existence, past, present and future. This three-part dialected, which is ultimately only about the past and future is a gift of a present that we can all continually improve. We have to learn to accept what has happened in the past and then determine whether or not it’s relevent to our futures.
History is always about the progress of the consciousness of freedom and with that admission I am clearly a Hegelian of sorts. Now I don’t want to box myself into one particular corner of the continent, the philosophical allusion is infact just that; an allusion. References to a European cultural of intellect and tradition.
Free individuals should also learn how to work together and should develop their consciousness. And, this is something that we cannot do without a healthy cultural mechanism. We seem to be sickly with a perversion of political identity. For instance, Conservative sensibilities should prioritize conserving resources for future prosperity and not exploiting our resources to maintain unsustainable lifestyles. Liberal sensibilities, on the other hand, have to be that voice of reason that advocates for freedom of all conscious creatures. Fundamentally this is how the two systems should work. And by work, I mean together, sometimes challenging each other in healthy dialectic and in other times deliberately working together towards a common goal, a teleology if you will.
As the history of the world continues, we will be able to see that the free people have lost much of the freedom that they once enjoyed and I do anticipate that this will continue. The holdouts, the romantics of yesteryear are the ones that need to be educated. This is coming from a self-proclaimed romantic of sorts. How is this possible you might ask? And to that question, I would say that my romantic tendencies are sui generis with a consumptive model that is sustainable for the future. Anchored in the classics and education the forme of poetic imagining that I am advocating for is liberating in itself.
The planksip writer’s cooperative is sponsoring a re-writing of this article (1,000 words) with $1,000 CAD in prize money for the best article as voted by your peers in the planksip writer’s cooperative. Judged by your peers, your chance to join a community of creative thinkers and win over $750,000 CAD in prize money is your entry point into becoming a planksip journalist.
We want to change the way people engage. The planksip organic platform is dedicated to supporting your voice as an writer and a thought leader. Join today, membership matters!
