Brother Sun and Sister Moon
By Richard Girard
“Homo Sum: Humani nil alienum a me puto; I am a human being: I consider nothing that pertains to human beings to be alien to myself...” Publius Terentius Afer (Terrence), Roman Playwright, c. 195-159 B.C. Chremes, The Self-Avenger [Heauton timorumenos], Act 1, Scene 1.
There are times when I am almost hopelessly confused by the comments I receive about the articles I write.
Case in point: my recent article at OpEdNews.com, “The Forty Percent Solution,” published January 18, 2009. The comments of William Whitten objecting to my (in his opinion) limiting the influence of the “power elites” to the Republicans. His underlying political theory seems to smack of those of the John Birch Society, and other libertarian/conspiracy oriented groups. Mr. Whitten further assumes the basis of his theory is already known to everyone when he makes his comments.
As Perry Mason used to say, “Objection, your Honor. This is incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and goes to matters not in evidence before this court.”
I’ve always wanted to say that.
First of all, I do not limit the influence of this nation's power elites in my article to the Republicans—as a careful reading of my article will show; although I used the GOP as the primary example because it has increasingly dominated our political discourse since January 20, 1981. The Democrats have their own share of guilt in our current mess, allowing themselves to be influenced by the power elites far more than is good for the country or themselves. Most Democratic politicians have mutated into one of three forms: Republican light, frightened invertebrates, or some combination of both. This is because a Republican dominated Supreme Court has somehow—in my opinion, beyond every rule of logic—equated money with free speech. This makes money, not policy, the most important part of our electoral system.
Second, Mr. Whitten makes no comment about the second (and far more important) contention of that sentence: that “the power elites that... (they) ...represent have no interest in extending rights to other citizens.”
Mr. Whitten, I must ask—because of your failure to take notice of the second part of my statement—in all seriousness, if you have any interest in extending equal rights to other citizens? Or is your political philosophy such that you believe that no one deserves any rights except those they can seize and hold with their own hands? Your comments make me uncertain in this regard.
Mr. Whitten, your use of such terms such as “sovereign individual” and “Hegelian dialectic,” lead me to ask if you are some form of anarcho-capitalist libertarian, influenced by Mises, Hayek, and the rest of the Austrian School of Economics? I cannot be certain of this assumption, because while you have made more than fourteen hundred comments on OpEdNews.com, you have never published a single article, or even a diary entry.
Mr. Whitten, please take the time to define your beliefs and terminology in some public manner other than oblique references and comments to other people's articles. An article, or series of articles, written by yourself, with statements of definitions and principles, is necessary to engage in a proper dialogue concerning political philosophy. I deeply appreciated your comment on the recent reissue of my article “Madness” (OpEdNews.com January 29, 2009). I believe only through honest dialogue and the give and take of candid discussion and argument (or as the Greeks named it two-and-a-half millennium ago dialectic), involving both praise and criticism; may we both learn to respect and inform one another.
With that in mind, let me take a swing at defining the terms you used, which I mentioned above: “sovereign individual,” and “Hegelian dialectic.”
The phrase “sovereign individual” is—in my humble opinion—a delusional contradiction in terms, unless you are a reigning monarch. As citizens of the United States, we are all free (more or less, together with certain commiserate responsibilities), but we are not individually sovereign. We are all subject to the laws of our nation, state, or local government; sharing both the benefits (roads, police and fire departments, water and sewer systems) and obligations (taxes and fees, jury duty, voting) that are required for that government to work. A sovereign—by the very nature of his state—is above any law he does not acquiesce to, i.e., King John and the Magna Charta. In the United States, it is the People of the Nation—as a whole—who are sovereign, not individuals. This is exemplified by the first seven words of our Constitution, “We the People of the United States...”
Hegelian Dialectic? This is a term I have not heard in more than twenty years. I had to go back to some philosophy texts to make sure I understood the underlying concepts. Let me share my rediscovery of these concepts with you.
Dialectic is the practice of searching for the truth through the logical, critical questioning of our own or others experience or knowledge. The concept of dialectic goes back to the Sophists of ancient Greece, who taught it as a method of argument in the courts.
The Platonist school considered dialectic to be the most important method for the testing and discovery of knowledge, and Socrates was the undisputed master of its use. This is highly appropriate for a system of philosophy which is known for its broad Ideas and generalizations.
The Aristotelian school considered dialectic a tool only to be used for developing knowledge, not for its testing. This use of dialectic is very appropriate for a system of philosophy that prefers to base itself on Categorization and specifics.
These two schools fought for dominance in Western Philosophy until the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment in the Seventeenth Century. Then René Descartes, with his “scientific method,” stated that a philosopher's (including the 'natural philosopher,' or scientist) proper guide to reason, is to doubt everything in a systematic manner until you arrive at clear, simple ideas that are beyond doubt (This was the idea behind his maxim: Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am). Wide spread acceptance of this concept (the start of empiricism) left little room for the dialectic, or the generalizations of the Platonist school.
The next development in the use of the dialectic in philosophy arrived with Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant redefined the use of logic—as used by Aristotle and his disciples—into transcendental and general forms, of which dialectic was a part of the general form. In doing this, Kant completed the divorce between dialectic and science that Aristotle and Descartes had begun.
Kant considered general logic, and dialectic, to be the logic of illusion or appearance, which does nothing to establish a doctrine of probability. It is useful in those instances where the illusion of appearance, resting on our subjective experience, imposes this illusion on our objective experience. This leads us, as human beings, into the realm of the “hyperphysical” (to use Mortimer Adler's term), and a natural and unavoidable use of dialectic. This is because the mind seeks answers, even if they do not exist. The hyperphysical is not the metaphysical, but rather a subjective area involving our physical world, establishing how an object exists as Kant's “thing in itself,” when there is no demonstrable method using transcendental (or a priori) methods. (Kant gives me a headache. Not that what he wrote is unimportant, it's just reading him is like wading through knee-deep mud.)
Now we come back to Hegel. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) saved the poor dialectic from an existence limited to courtrooms, debate societies, and obscurity by systematizing its use. In fact, he made the dialectic the center of his system of knowledge.
For Hegel, the dialectic moves in the realms of truth and ideas, not probabilities and illusions. The thesis or concept generates an antithesis or opposing concept, which in turn creates a synthesis: a new and higher level of truth. This in turn takes the dialectic beyond the limits of human thought to its highest level. Indeed, it is the essence of matter putting itself forth as Hegel's Idea of the Absolute Mind (or Absolute Spirit; Hegel uses the word geist, which in German can mean either mind or spirit).
In Hegel's philosophy, the principles of the dialectic are the principles of change: it is part of the evolution from the lower to the higher, and from the experience of the parts to the integration of the whole.
Both Kierkegaard and Sartre, among other idealist philosophers, were influenced by Hegel. But the person most heavily influenced was Karl Marx, who took the dialectic idealism of Hegel, and turned it inside out to create his theory of dialectic materialism. Marx based his economic and political philosophy not upon the conflict of ideas, but on the conflict of material, historical forces.
With all that said, I do not see where Mr. Whitten has his problem with the “Hegelian Dialectic?” I have no dog in this fight. I do not, per se, subscribe to any particular school of philosophy—Lao Tzu, Buddha, Kung-fu Tze (Confucius), Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Jesus, Aurelius, Maimonides, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Jefferson, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Emerson, Nietzsche, Freud, James; all of them have interesting viewpoints, but none of them have my life experience, or my perspective.
It is within these individuals' diverse philosophies, and ways of viewing and interpreting the world, which I find some part of what I feel is “the truth.” To ascribe to any limited mortal mind the ability to discern Absolute Truth is folly. While we might conceive of ideas like eternity and infinity, we cannot experience those actual states of existence. Such ideas are guesswork: sometimes inspired, sometimes not.
What we can do is discover the wonder and diversity of the human experience. “I am a human being,” as the playwright Terrence wrote twenty-two centuries ago, “I consider nothing that pertains to human beings to be alien to myself.”
It is in the act of becoming more human, and of accepting the diverse ways that humanity—at its best—attempts that transformation, where we will find our essential truths.
There is greatness in all of us, in every human being.
It is not something which will make us rich or famous, powerful or feared. It is that spark of humanity which drives us beyond our immediate hopes and fears, into engaging with the rest of humankind on an ever expanding basis; until our worlds’ become ever more inclusive and caring. It is when we realize that our Brother Suns and Sister Moons do not orbit around us, but engage in an intricate dance both independent of and entwined with our own life's orbit. Then our world begins to be bathed in a glow of light, and truth, and love from those other celestial beings who surround us.
What a wonderful thought.
