Thanks to Bob Galloway for the reply below. Bob is a graduate of Webster U. St. Louis with a major in writing as a profession. However, he did a significant amount of philosophy while at Webster and I had the delightful privilege to have him in several classes.
Bob Galloway robertcgalloway@yahoo.com
First off, you raise an issue I myself am greatly concerned with in my interests and studies in existentialism: individual freedom, responsibility, equality of opportunity vs. equality and justice for all. I side with you, but only after I have studied what is meant by the "individual" in your individualism. Immediately, what I expect the cb-ers to say is that individualism is that of the maverick entrepreneur, the precursor to global capitalism who is inculpable to a large degree and romanticized as some primordial ideal of the pre-governed frontier. In a word, libertarianism.
Well, that is a pragmatic way to look at it if you have signed your life away to a few words that sound good, in my view. But to me pragmatism is unthinking, blind movement for the sake of movement alone and leads to the fatalistic embrace of the catastrophic theory for social change when placed in action and pushed on the slippery slope as we philosophers so love to do. What is meant in yours and the existentialists' view by individual takes into consideration that of probability in real situation and context. Concretely stating what the individual is, as is here meant in your view, necessarily simply put as such (but to be sufficiently put as well as understood is a much more arduous task): the autonomy that is fundamental to a being-in-the-world (including natural inborn differences and environmental differences of the temporality one is thrown into by birth), which on the basic level, Heidegger says, is summed up in one word: care.
We concernfully absorb the world we are thrown into on the basic level, with no structural or normative anachronistic operants to latch on to, but rather, chosen projects and relationships wherein we develop and shape our values. Humans are fundamentally free to choose their action, seizing whatever opportunity we select.
But, parting ways with the pragmatic maverick view, the autonomy of the individual exists inextricably with responsibility (this world we are thrown into unfortunately has the values already formed and hence the structures in place).
The values and structures of the world, therefore, place the focus on environmental development of the individual. In so doing, the natural or inborn inclinations of a being (not all of which are immediately realized at birth or one moment of time) are left out of the concern. This is where I think the views of justice and democratic equality are rooted in some blanket hand-out of means to forcing the playing field to levelness. For instance, this view holds that all beings are better viewed as ends in themselves as opposed to means toward ends. This sends the natural inclinations one may have even further back into the foray for values. These two values overlap where they each would likely say that they respect the differences of others. I'm afraid it is more than apparent to me that only one side insists on going beyond saying that they respect those differences while the other would cripple those who would otherwise realize much of their potential were there no blanket hand-outs.
This may be too simply stated to be understood here, but that is where conversation becomes imperative; exchange with the other within the structure we each know as world but perhaps cannot see from within our daily routine of self-propulsion.
The justicians and pragmatic egalitarians would sooner stand outside the structure and yell at it without realizing that it is a flat picture they are yelling at, not an individual moving toward objective truth. So, to make your issue more attractive, Bob, I would start by defining this "individual," lest you continue to be taken for a libertarian who somehow acts charitably on a significant level, because I know everyone knows what opportunity means.
The alternatives to the justicians (coin coin) are very interesting to me, particularly now that I work where material values are equated with liberation. I work as a College Preparatory English Writing Tutor in three classes of disadvantaged youth from the inner-city. We get papers typically professing encounters with bullet-ridden, fresh corpses in their neighborhoods, small riot attacks on one or two people, and the fatalistic embrace of money via drug trafficking. The teacher who I assist, Tim Layton (who was a long-time co-worker with your sons at Cary's Imo's shop who is getting married this weekend!) decided to pick at their value systems a bit to see if they have found their individual.
We gave them an article written by a liberal black journalist from the Washington Post. The article was highly critical of the widespread, age-old black past-time of basketball, asserting that it's absurd that only a few make it to the level they all aspire to and not without over concern with conceding to the white man's world (i.e. Michael Jordan making advertisements galore and giving only a few hand-outs back to the black community). The message in the article we pushed is that there are other avenues conducive to advancement, but that the normative view of basketball that results in an image of a stupid brawn-over-brains starts from within the person. Of course, we were met with replies like, "Man, I'll smack that guy if he said that about Michael Jordan (that he is a sell out)!" But some of them may have been shaken from the everydayness that it is so easy to flow along with.
This exposes a seeming rampant misplacement of care, as the author pointed out; if more of them approached other endeavors with the same poetic grace and enthusiasm, more of them would visibly aspire to a higher level of achievement in the main. We were not saying, "so stop playing basketball, here's a billion dollars in the IT industry!": that would encroach on their individual in it's very forcefulness. What we were saying in our showing this piece to them was you are all responsible at a fundamental level for your actions, so why not concede to the world you're born into on a sincere, non-sell-out level. Just look at this author who has never sold out and writes with urban style and exuberant criticism.
The leaders of my program still try to motivate them with the material goods, although short-term investments in mercurial deeds like basketball they seem to discourage.
Bob Galloway
===========================
Bob Corbett responds to Bob Galloway
Galloway writes:
First off, you raise an issue I myself am greatly concerned with in my interests and studies in existentialism: individual freedom, responsibility, equality of opportunity vs. equality and justice for all. I side with you, but only after I have studied what is meant by the "individual" in your individualism. Immediately, what I expect the cb-ers to say is that individualism is that of the maverick entrepreneur, the precursor to global capitalism who is inculpable to a large degree and romanticized as some primordial ideal of the pre-governed frontier. In a word, libertarianism.
.. delete some text.
Concretely stating what the individual is, as is here meant in your view, necessarily simply put as such (but to be sufficiently put as well as understood is a much more arduous task): the autonomy that is fundamental to a being-in-the-world (including natural inborn differences and environmental differences of the temporality one is thrown into by birth), which on the basic level, Heidegger says, is summed up in one word: care.
We concernfully absorb the world we are thrown into on the basic level, with no structural or normative anachronistic operants to latch on to, but rather, chosen projects and relationships wherein we develop and shape our values. Humans are fundamentally free to choose their action, seizing whatever opportunity we select.
But, parting ways with the pragmatic maverick view, the autonomy of the individual exists inextricably with responsibility (this world we are thrown into unfortunately has the values already formed and hence the structures in place).
The values and structures of the world, therefore, place the focus on environmental development of the individual. In so doing, the natural or inborn inclinations of a being (not all of which are immediately realized at birth or one moment of time) are left out of the concern.
==================================================
Corbett replies:
I find your description quite accurate for me, and not surprising since you and I come from the same text. However, I do want to note a few things:
==================================
Galloway continues:
This is where I think the views of justice and democratic equality are rooted in some blanket hand-out of means to forcing the playing field to levelness. For instance, this view holds that all beings are better viewed as ends in themselves as opposed to means toward ends. This sends the natural inclinations one may have even further back into the foray for values.
=====================================
Corbett replies:
Here, Bob, I think we begin to diverge in reality. Here you are mixing Heidegger with Kant. No matter, the issues is not WHOSE ideas influence us, but what the ideas say about living. Justice, democracy, equality, ends-in-themselves -- they have to do with choices we make. Even the notion of being an end-in-itself is quite difficult. This is supposedly, for Kant, a fact of experience. Humans are the beings who choose, who create their own meanings. But that fact of experience is challenged on two fronts:
Most thinkers would object that Kant exaggerates this freedom, and thus this autonomy. If so, then we have the GRAVE difficulty of deciding when is a human an end-in-itself and when not, since out moral behavior is tied to the FACTUAL state of the person's behavior.
As you are quite aware, we live in a time when human beings are increasingly viewed as not responsible for ANYTHING which we hold as unacceptable behavior. There are, not more, any bad people, only people with bad parents and bad economic situations and victims of capitalists. Evil is in the social system, not the person.
Except for capitalists and government officials and people on the right wing, who are, of course, not victims of their history, but pure evil since they are not people of the left.
=========================================
Galloway continues:
These two values overlap where they each would likely say that they respect the differences of others. I'm afraid it is more than apparent to me that only one side insists on going beyond saying that they respect those differences while the other would cripple those who would otherwise realize much of their potential were there no blanket hand-outs.
This may be too simply stated to be understood here, but that is where conversation becomes imperative; exchange with the other within the structure we each know as world but perhaps cannot see from within our daily routine of self-propulsion.
The justicians and pragmatic egalitarians would sooner stand outside the structure and yell at it without realizing that it is a flat picture they are yelling at, not an individual moving toward objective truth. So, to make your issue more attractive, Bob, I would start by defining this "individual," lest you continue to be taken for a libertarian who somehow acts charitably on a significant level, because I know everyone knows what opportunity means.
The alternatives to the justicians (coin coin) are very interesting to me, particularly now that I work where material values are equated with liberation.
=================================
Corbett responds:
This is simply fascinating. This is what worries me greatly. Value since the Utilitarians is more and more measured in material terms. John Dewey once even asserted it was the America dollar, the soundest of all measures -- about 1910. As you recall, the great dogma of John Stuart Mill was the greatest good for the greatest number, and the measure of good was the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. Nietzsche asks a phenomenal question: "What if the maximization of pleasure in FACT requires the maximization of pain?" What if the two are symbiotically related phenomena? This is a question of fact. Mill's dictum unquestioningly assumes that there is no necessary relationship between the quantity of one and the other. It is an open an empirical question. One of the least known (and most reviled) of Camus' works is a posthumously published work, A Happy Death. It is about a character (Camus -- but that's not the character's name), who seems Existentialist authenticity. What gets in the way is the need to earn a living. Work, on this view, limits freedom; one must deal with society to have the necessities of life. The main character's best friend is crippled and rich. The rich friend understands and agrees with the main character's analysis. Given his own terribly limited life, he proposes to the Camus figure to murder him and he would then leave him his wealth and he would be in an economic situation to be free to be authentic. The Camus figure does it, it all comes off well, he gets the money, a lovely villa in the French countryside, the beautiful lover, good wines and all. But he does not get authenticity. He gets boredom. Is there a relationship between happiness and struggle, between pleasure and pain? Is the answer to that the same for every person, are do different people have different needs?
There are a zillion questions here. I haven't worked out many of these things. I do know that what the popular view of our culture is as to the meaning of happiness and pleasure is simply a bloody bore to me. My world would include good wines, and I often dream, like the Camus-character, that a MODEST economic security would make many happiness-creating things available to me. On the other hand, a life of economic struggle has given me some strong sense of direction and meaning in my life as well.
To what extent is this flirtation with struggle a romantic justification of tolerating my own need to struggle economically all my own life (i.e. to what extent is in Sartrean bad faith) and to what extent is it a serious challenge to the definition of the good life as happily ever aftering?
Bob Corbett
Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu
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