Descartes big thing was discarding everything that he couldn’t verify as an immutable truth and then starting from there. First premise; cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. He believed that a strong philosophy, like anything built to last, would not stand without a firm foundation.
Philosophies are fun to play with. They come and go and like tattered flags their loose strings drift across your vision and you have fun grasping at them. Sometimes you pull on one that is firmly entrenched in its banner and you can follow it to its source. Other ones aren’t so strong and when you pull the flag unravels and you’re left with a useless thread.
The beauty of Descartes is that you can come back to his idea of a first premise. There must be a philosophical foundation. And it is applicable to anything before and after Descartes.
(What is my point? Do I have one?)
The world today is a banner made up of the cheapest flags. Everything seems to be unraveling. Nothing but loose threads. We’ve lost a useful first premise.
Logic and free thought — the cogitatio that must lead to the sum — is absent.
But here it is. I firmly believe in the Cartesian cogitatio of being. And once I think, once I realize that I AM… I develop an idea of what is good for me and what is bad for me. Shortly thereafter (or even before) I am aware of other people who are all thinking and being. It comes as no surprise then, that almost every major belief system has at its heart some variation of the Golden Rule — do unto others as I would have done unto me.
The Golden Rule isn’t just some hokey hippy dippy claptrap. It makes LOGICAL sense! If I think and exist and am able to perceive the existence of others then I develop empathy. I cannot live alone, I depend on these people around me. They have power to help or hurt me. So I realize that they are made up of what I’m made up of. What hurts me, most likely hurts them. Cogito ergo sum - Do unto others - quid pro quo.
But we’ve lost that. Maybe not you. Maybe not I. But WE as a SOCIETY have lost that. We cynically scoff at the Golden Rule in the name of personal gain. “Do unto others whatever I can get away with” is the perverse darwinistic mantra of the corporate oligarchy in which we live. And they feed it to the masses as they do unto them unspeakable things. Because the propaganda says, “hey, just do it. Tomorrow, you may get to do unto others and get away with it.”
- I think therefore I am.
- I feel therefore I am human.
- I know what feels good and what hurts.
- I want better therefore I treat those around me better.
Doesn’t really seem that hard. Just need to lift the obfuscating veil. There is nothing behind that curtain. It’s that simple.
via Tumblr http://ift.tt/1wb9H11
