Dear Friends,
It seems to me, for any philosophy to have merit, it must recognize as a precondition, the innate, existential, and transcendental nature of the individual. The individual is the atom of society, we are the building blocks of any philosophical system involving us, which is the reason any system is thought up in the first place. It is in the mind of an individual that the idea of society, social justice, the social contract or any other concept of humanity originates. To say that the mind that created a system, about that mind, is irrelevant in that system of itself… is to say a bird can fly in a vacuum. Yet there are those who deny the individual, instead investing the individual’s value in the community, tribe, party, sect, group, race, or hair color. Which is the path to chaos and the gate to Utopia.
For any system that involves human beings to be actually rational… it must accept the innate value of the individual. How can a philosophical system about people discount our individual worth? Any system that does, is one that eschews focus for blur, clarity for pixelization and accuracy for simplicity. Whenever a thing is simplified it looses accuracy. It is then of less value in predicting an outcome than one that uses a more focused means of discerning that which it seeks to understand. Innate value is the individual pixel of society, party, tribe, etc… we are the reason any system was invented. A rational system about humanity, that doesn’t take into account humanity, is one that falls far short of rationality and logic, becoming more of a religion or faith.
The existential quality of the individual is the foundation of everything we know and can be. In the end you and I are individuals. We are not a group, we are not a tribe, and we are not a hair style, we are each unique and invaluable, in and of ourselves. Our accomplishments are ours, not those of others, we did the work, we sweated, we thirsted and we hungered, not others who watched. Everything in existence is of the individual, by the individual, and for the individual. Some will argue, it was Athens that came together to build the Acropolis… That it was a city state effort. No, that was Pericles, an individual, exploiting other individuals, to build an edifice to his magnificence. Moreover, the contribution of each worker in the creation of the Acropolis was individual in experience and share.
Accepting the transcendental nature of the individual is to realize that there is a spark of divinity in everyone. The very ability to reason is a way in which we are made in his image. Our ability to reason is unique in the animal kingdom. We alone have it. True, dogs have reason of a sort, but their existence is in the moment, and maybe if a car ride is offered they anticipate it, but still live that anticipation in the moment. Human beings have the ability to live in the past, present or future. We can take discomfort in the future or past and make it suffering in the present. We can reason that a tree will fall so we cut it to prevent it’s uncontrolled fall from doing damage. We imagine everything we have into being with our very minds. Making us an imperfect image of God… giving us a spark of divinity.
Those systems that ignore the individual worth of the human being, and instead investing that value in the group always, empirically, creates suffering on a munificent scale. It does seem counter intuitive that strictly utilitarian systems, focused on the advancement of the greater good, always result in famine, economic collapse, hopelessness, tyranny and oppression. History is unambiguous on this point. To discount historical example is to discount the scientific method itself, since the scientific method is based on empirical, reproducible, and recordable observations of reality. So again, we are confronted with the cold reality that the individual has intrinsic worth and is the atomus of civilization, this cannot be denied… but most importantly, we all have a spark of divinity within us.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
