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THE MAN AND HIS SOCIAL FORM OF LIFE

The previous (No 12 (38)) RPhG issue’s article “Ethics: Scientific Knowledge, Rationale and Normativity” focused on the innovative philosophical interpretation of one of the fundamental notions in the life of human society, namely, the role and place of ethics in social medium. This article is meant to develop the theory behind the view expressed and make an attempt to outline some practical recommendations based on the investigation of the ethical aspects of social relations in their historical development.

It is ethics as a theory of morals that has historically evolved into a phenomenon of human culture with a claim to become universal and systemic. The outstanding philosophers of the past viewed ethics as a characteristic of an individual determining his conduct in society and tried persistently to put ethical principles into social practice. As social relations developed and grew more complex, it became clear that no society can function normally without certain moral and ethical norms. Such norms were formulated as widely known maxims like “Do as you would be done by”. Some of them were canonised by different religions, but no set of rules or recommendations can possibly embrace all the aspects of human existence (even if one is set to observe them), therefore man’s sapience has always been and still is the main condition for the rational organisation of a society.

Unfortunately little attention is given to questions concerning the interrelation of ethics and social medium in present-day philosophical studies. Moreover so, those who believe that the regulation of human relations should be through the mutual adaptation of people to these or those specific social conditions rather than on morality and ethics are becoming more and more insistent. We believe that this can put down to the absence of the scientific approach to the problem in question, which calls for a comprehensive consideration of all the aspects of the social form of human life.

Great successes have been scored in studying the living nature. It has become possible to use genetic engineering to impart these or those features to plants and animals. The human organism has also been studied profoundly. However, we can hardly hope that biology will soon be able to develop a method for “growing” an honest government official.

Generally, every man has the right to take part in the entire set of social matters or activities provided though that the society is organised in a just and fair way. If this does not happen, it means that justice is transgressed, and freedom too is deficient without justice. But people differ in terms of their level of thinking and some of them are just not prepared for freedom, therefore they will understand freedom itself in their own way and seek to restrict the others, more capable members of the society. To deny these, supposedly ordinary people the right to participate in the organisation of social life would be unfair. Not trying to resolve this contradiction, mankind is failing to perform its natural mission which is to provide decent functioning of the sapient and, thus, all other forms of life on Earth. So far man has been “ruling” the nature in such a way that gives rise to a speculation about his imperfection. At the same time, the achievements in the field of material culture point to the highest potential of human thought. Here we have a paradox which is a big problem for philosophy as it concerns social knowledge. But philosophy usually prefers to avoid the scientific approach to cognizing the social culture of existence and for that matter it has been doing it for an unjustifiably long time.

Incidentally, today science is not “in favorem” with a considerable part of the people and not only in our country. The shameful “process versus Charles Darwin”, TV channels bursting out with mystics, the interference of religion into all spheres of life – all this speaks of militant ignorance that has engulfed the world and is actively encouraged by the powers that be. Apart from that, such a context is the result of the actual absence of scientific knowledge about the social form of human life. Can it not be something to which we should put down the revival of the religious outlook in Russia and the rapid growth of outrage on the part of our officialdom?

Without scientifically-grounded benchmarks or the frame of reference, the processes of forming social relations are becoming more and more distant, paling into the realm of total ignorance. In it, the most adaptable for survival are those individuals who do not give a cuss over carrying the burden of ethical norms and at the same time are ready to seek power to rule over other people through fair means or foul.

We can and we must speak about this situation with social relations as unjust, unfair or inhumane. We can object, criticize or even act to defy it or disagree with it. In those countries which we are used to calling democratic, such forms of protest gradually lead to a certain change for the better: the separation of powers, the free press, and democratic procedures reduce significantly the possibility of arbitrariness on the part of those in power. But this is not sufficient because the principle of forming government institutions remains the same: those pursuing personal egoistic ends keep on seeking power (and they get it more often than not). The ends they seek are either the satisfaction of their material needs or ambitions, rather than concern for other people or the organisation of a fair society.

Throughout the long history of humanity, there appeared people with highly developed thinking capacity; they were magnanimous and kind towards others. Showing their genuine moral conduct, they stirred people and annoyed rulers. It is sooner owing to such people that not only some progress in social relations was made but also such notions as “good morals”, “justice” and “conscience” came to exist at all. But some isolated manifestations of humaneness do not matter much faced up against the elemental force of a mass of primitively thinking people. Those singletons were most often misunderstood, repressed and destroyed time and again. Such an attitude towards clever, honest and moral people is rather typical and begins to show early in the groups of children or teenagers. In other words, the people who could be very useful for organising a just and fair society cause irritation and dislike with most men in the street. This is where the strength of democratic procedures really ends: people tend to elect “nice guys”, those who are like them rather than the clever and wise (because they do not know what to expect from them). Such a vectorial difference of micro processes in thinking and macro processes in social relations has always been one of the most important problems in any community. To what can we put down those negative attitudes to him who as a sapiens was given more intellect by evolution, i.e. the greatest gift-feature which boosts the interest in life and the wish to make it better? Up to now science has not paid heed to marking out the traits of human thinking between which the misbalance is often most felt as a factor of the interspecies struggle for survival. It would seem that man’s social life is the very precious thing acquired by evolution which gives him an edge for survival and therefore social organisation should be encouraged and improved by all the members of a society. However all attempts to put an end to the dissociation of both individuals and communities as a whole have failed so far. Endless wars, interstate and religious confrontations as well as revolutions that not only continue to take place parallel with the accumulation of more cultural achievements but on the contrary assume increasingly alarming forms and scope, are the vivid evidence of the aforesaid. So what we actually have is a long-lasting crisis in the culture of human relations.

The organisation of world economy also calls for philosophical conceptualisation. And the most important thing here is the measure to which this or that state has guaranteed creature comforts to its people. The content of this social parameter of human life consists in that a man, as a creative entity, should be able to realise fully his intellectual potential given to him by Nature. Today’s philosophy pays practically no attention to this extremely important aspect of social relations. In the meantime, we can say that the entire human history has been nothing but an endless struggle of man for guaranteed sustenance, his own and that of his children. This struggle calls for man’s maximum effort and the mobilisation of all his abilities. Conflicts between individuals as well as communities are inevitable here. The peculiarities of thinking of every man consist in the individual power of a living organism which begins to show in a society in an incredible multitude of behavioural lines. But is it really possible for a man, living in an enormous community, to provide a dignified decent life for himself and his family through his individual effort? The need of a human being to live in a society gave rise to intellect together with its socially important features such as conscience, morality and wisdom which are come together under the name of “humaneness”. But the intellect, just as the man himself, is the product of living nature. It is natural to assume here that humaneness too, as a qualitative characteristic of intellect, is developing, going through its own stages of evolution. The social form of life of an individual is exactly the medium in which the evolution of this characteristic takes place.

The social form of life requires organisation. Therefore sooner or later a community is bound to face the question of power. Various methods have been used in the course of the entire human history to deal with the problem as to who is to rule, run or govern the society. It was often the case that power was just seized by those who were stronger: the founders of many monarchical dynasties do not differ much from the leaders of robbery gangs. Sometimes power was inherited by succession. But in this case, it became necessary each time to provide reasons as to why a man who has not shown himself in any way at all, or just a child for that matter, becomes a ruler. It was religion that came to help the usurpers which just put down the absurdity of the situation to God’s will. Then the Enlightenment gave rise to democratic procedures, which was mankind’s gigantic breakthrough in the social sphere. But as we said earlier, democracy too is not ideal.

So the question “Who has the right to rule, to be the head of state?” stayed open. But the answer is natural – “the one who is wisest!” Correct, excellent! But wait a sec! It is a blunder, sheer ignorance – this is what our “social science” says.

Indeed, this discipline postulates something totally different. Every state has a rather simple algorithm of usurping power: kings, monarchs, presidents as well as vast sums of money, fraud, murders and an unbridled spending and waste of social health and other assets. Is there any room or need for reason or wisdom here? What is really needed is a screen to cover this up a bit, namely: ideology and confessional support. This does involve some spending – which is, of course, a prerogative of those in power, but the money to be spent should certainly come from a public rather than private purse. Those who rule never pay, but are always paid instead, for everything. If they receive little – no problem, they will just raise taxes. And this is no story-telling: it is common knowledge that the Roman senate even went so far as to sell the ‘throne’ of an emperor. If the sources of government income in a state run dry, it arranges for pogroms and the physical destruction of people in order to get hold of their property. Wars also spawn from such lie of the land in a state.

This factor of social progress is only a package of circumstances: the ignorance (low level of thinking and knowledge) of bureaucrats in authority and the natural right of man to guaranteed creature comforts. If we take the development of human thinking from the subjective to the absolute: wisdom, humaneness... (RPhG No 12 (38)) for an axiom, all the existing bodies of government then, even if they are legitimate, are false from the perspective of scientific ethics.

Lies rule the world. The human race lives in the world of lies, but the “greatest lie” is when a man lies to himself. The fear of the dispensation of those in power as they can do whatever they want with impunity makes him go against the nature of humaneness. The fear to lose what they have - be it even false as it is – i.e. their achieved level of existence based on the principle of self-guaranteed creature comforts, makes people suffer once they understand their actual thrall. Diseases, alcohol, off-putting or back-alley pleasures and surrogate art – all this is a heavy weight mankind has to carry on. Many cannot put up with it and then bad thoughts about the uselessness of such life come to their mind, but this is all personal for no one but them to care about. Those who rule do not need such thoughts. Everything is well where they are. So the main thing is to have the system on your side, i.e. when “those you depend on and thus indispensable” are all lined up. It is called corruption, of course, scientifically speaking, or “sitting pretty”, speaking the everyday earthly language.

The main point is that we have no right to reprove anyone. All those who are not in power are equally not to blame for they have neither mechanisms, nor knowledge to gain strength for building a different, just and fair life. The organisation of such a life will be a consequence of the understanding of the essence of the social form of mankind’s existence where a system of governance based on the natural hierarchy of thinking rather than the power of a ruler will rule. Then the moral power of a man, being a part of the governance system, will turn into the power of humaneness capable of modernising the social form of life just by modifying the system of government. Such a look at one’s own life, commitment and confidence in the acquired knowledge will allow us to understand at last what actually is going on and how to exclude everything negative from our life.

This is what we wish you all, dear readers, in the year 2010, excluding, of course, those who are in power of all types (as they do not need it for they have everything).

Arnold Kazmin,