Yeah you pookie. That is precisely what it does mean. When you talk about people being this or that, you are talking about the nature of the person. The pioneers of the mind, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau all had a lot to say about human beings in the state of nature. Not a single one of them would disagree with your first sentance. People are self-centered. I mention Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau because all three, to some extent, are Columbuses of our modern political landscape. What was acted out in the American and French Revolutions had been thought out beforehand in the writings of these men. It was through these men that human beings discovered that they were free and equal, thus that they had rights, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. Revolutions came based on this information because the platform that kings and nobles stood on, high over the rest of the people, had been shaken at the very foundation. Monarchs could not rule, as civil society must now have a foundation of new truths. On a very diluted level, that people are self centered, is one of those truths. Inherent selfishness follows from the fact that i) there is at any given time a finite amount of resources with which men may live, ii) there is no single strength that can overpower the strength of a collective iii) men are at constant war for resources. Because of a fear of loss, and a paranoia of others, it is in the best interest of a human being to enact certain unwritten laws with every other one. Since these laws are in the best interest of the individual, and every individual can agree on those laws, every individual logically must necessarily value every other individual as they value themselves. Since the state of nature sees men at war with eachother, the value of the individual must be infinite. Otherwise there would be no struggle. You wouldn't mind when I raped you, as I would be free to do so. Another important point is that of equality. If all men were not equal, then the laws that we agree on would not necessarily apply to everyone. However the great thinkers that formed our opinions on the matter say we are all equal. It is another of my favorite writers that put the words more eloquently than I. "Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time are either psychopaths or montebanks." Goethe If all men are not equal then surely you'll agree that utter belief in one's self is a hysterical belief. Thus, the second thing that we've got to deal with is the trinity of cliches surrounding equality. First, that all men are equal, not physically or intellectually, but "in the eyes of God" (or by nature of birth for the athiest). This, of course, is by no means the case. None of the Christian faiths reaches that we are equally loved by God; on the contrary, we have it from scripture that Christ loved some of his disciples more than others. Nor does any Christian religion maintain that grace is given in equal amounts to all men. Catholic doctrine, more optimistic than Lutheranism or Calvinism, teaches that everyone is given sufficient grace to save himself. The Reformers, who were determinists, did not grant even that minimum. The Marquis de Sade and St. Jean Vianney or Pastor von Bodelschwingh were obviously not "equal in the eyes of God". Otherwise, Christianity would make no sense; the sinner would equal the saint; bad would be the same as good. I don't know if I have to mention why men are not equal by nature of birth. Our physical differences are obvious. Our intellectual differences even more so. There is bound to be someone thinking that by nature of birth means because we're all born we're all equal. They've confused the cliche. I'll touch on what they're thinking later. Second, all men are equal before the law. At times this equality is practical. It can serve as an administrative expedient to save money and the strain of long investigations. But some questions stand out. Is it desirable? Is it just? Should it be adhered to? A child of four that has committed murder should obviously be treated differently from a thirty year old. The egalitarian will accept this but will hasten to add that all men or women at age thirty should be punished alike. Yet courts take circumstances into consideration. Hardly to be seen is a justice that will not grant considerable mercy on the beggar that steals a loaf of bread to survive. Third, all men are equal in opportunity. In the narrow sense of the term it can never be achieved, and never should be attempted. For in employing labour we must discriminate between skilled and the inexperienced, the industrious and the lazy, the dull and the smart, and so on. Unfortunately the trend in many labour unions is to protest against such discrimination and to insist on indiscriminate wages and employment security. It would be far wiser to demand the abolition of unjust discrimination, arbitrary discrimination without solid factual foundation. Just discrimination, or preference based on merit, is conspicuously absent in a sanctified process that has great influence in our society - political elections. Whether it is a genuinely democratic election in the West or a plebiscitary comedy in the East, the one man one vote principle is an axiom now. The voter's knowledge, experience, merit, sex, wealth, military record, standing in his community, do not count. All that counts is the vegitative principle of age. The 21 year old semiliterateprostitute and the sixty five year old professor are politically equal as citizens. Even with these glaring problems, we say we're all equal, we're all free, and therefore we're all invalueable to one another as we are to ourselves. This complete belief in the self is hysterical, as it eliminates freedom. It requires the use of force. Such universal belief in the self is only possible in total slavery. Since nature is not biased against even gross inequalities, force must be used to establish equality. Imagine yourself as the teacher you'll soon be in front of an average class of students, with the normal variety of talents, interests, and inclinations for hard work. One day the principle demands that all students get a B in a certain subject. The C,D, or F students would be forced to work harder, so much so that they'd collapse. At the other end, the A students would have to be restrained - given drugs or locked in a room with porn or simply knocked the fuck out. In sum, force would have to be use on all. Yet the use of force limits and in most cases destroys the freedom, that we ought to cherish, completely. But we've been bred to believe that we are equal, and our nature as humans says that every other person is as valueable as the one in the mirror. Fuck that. What say you? - Rumples scratching the surface
OMFG! Is there a reader's digest condensed version of this post? This is way fucken too long... I mean what are you? Stephen King?
You speak of people as a whole Rumples. And people are dumb animals. I speak of individuals. Do tou think Paris Hilton values a bum as much as she values herself?
Paris Hilton would not value the bum. But then, that would be Paris viewing people. Individuals are proximate. People aren't.
Then patience woman! Save your lets fucks for the dudes that'll pop one. Take wiggertrainer over there. He'll love it.
Please! We're talking Chesterton here. CHESTERTON! "It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and supersititious belief ..." I apologize, I was inaccurate in my mark. What say you on the validity of the last part of the quote?
"Lastly, this truth is yet again true in the case of the common modern attempts to diminish or to explain away the divinity of Christ. The thing may be true or not; that I shal deal with before I end. But if the divinity is true it is certainly terribly revolutionary. That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; but that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents for ever. Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point -- and does not break. In this indeed I apporach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss; and I apologise in advance if any of my phrases fall wrong or seem irreverent touching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkiers have justly feared to approach. But in that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It is written, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of the heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And not let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay, (the matter grows too difficult for human speech,) but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist. " Orthodoxy chapter 8. Read the book.
Yes I said fuck me...this osf fuck posts odd shit but its a bit long to even start to read......so dude? Sum it up in ten or less words PLEASE.
