in my readings of the enlightenment, I read quite a bit
about the “laws of nature” and how we ought to conform
to the “laws of nature”…(the Chinese are big on this also)
the question becomes, what are the “laws of nature”?
the “laws of nature” are the “laws” or rules that nature follows…
gravity for example, is a “law of nature” as is evolution,
and already, we follow these “laws of nature”…we must, must
conform to evolution and gravity and any other law/rule of nature
we face…in fact, this is the point of a “law of nature” we cannot
escape them…just as human beings cannot escape our animal
nature, we must eat and sleep and drink and fornicate…
we are simply following our already built in rules/laws of actions…
for example, try to stop your breathing… hold your breath…
and all that will happen is you pass out and you start breathing again,
or try to stop your heart from beating, can’t or stop your liver from working,
you just can’t… these are laws/rules we must obey, we have no choice…
so these “laws of nature” exist in us, within us and we have no choice…
we are determined for we have no choice…determinism rules at this level…
but we have free will in other areas…and this is important…
we are free to act in several other area’s…my behavior or actions
toward you or anyone is set by free will, I have a choice…we have freedom
of actions in many areas…
but in both cases of determinism and free will, we are the agents of actions…
in some cases, we have no choice as in certain “laws of nature”, gravity and evolution
and in other cases, we are free to act as we will…
now to revert to my language, determinism is the lower agency of the human
being, we must act or be in a certain way, we have no choice… we must breath
and our heart must beat, we have no choice…freedom of choice however is
the higher functions of the human being…the “law of nature” that determines
us doesn’t determine our higher actions… it is important to understand that
within us lies the “laws of nature” but we have freedom of action in certain cases…
and if we make a choice, we are using our higher function of freedom, we are using
our higher level of being human…so what does this mean?
this is simply pointing out that we can create with our own choices and our
own freedoms, a much better, a much more human earth…Jean-Paul Sartre
once wrote, that “hell is other people” well that doesn’t need to be true…
we can also create paradise without any resort to “utopia”…
we create heaven and hell by our actions toward others…
the boss who is a dick, (I have one of those right now) has made
a choice of being a dick… he doesn’t have to be, he is freely acting…
he is making a choice… and in doing so, making my life very difficult,
but to be clear, he is not being determined to be an asshole, he is making a
choice and he doesn’t need to do that… “hell is other people”
but this doesn’t need to be true… we hold, in our hands,
whither we live in hell or heaven… we choose…
there is a young bagger who is lazy and useless and has lied to my face…
so needless to say, I don’t really care for him…he thinks I am a dick for wanting
him to do his job… a conflict of perception…he is 18 and he does 18 year
old things like not doing his job and thinking a job is fun and games…
and for him, it is just fun and games, he doesn’t need to do this…
whereas I am 40 years older then he is and I take the job seriously,
(even if I truly hate my job like I really hate my job, I still take it seriously)
he has made a choice of working and I made a choice of working and if
you are going to make a choice of working, then you need to work, that is why
it is called work…I expect him and anyone else who is a bagger to actually do
their job as I do my job to the best of my abilities… the conflict that arises is
because of our different understanding of what it is to work…
if he even did the minimal amount of work, I wouldn’t care what he did…
he thinks I am making his life hell, I’ve heard this from other baggers,
“hell is other people”…but because he is so lazy he is making tons more
work for everyone else and that is what I object to… he is creating more
work for everyone…trying to get his to do his job is a losing cause
because that is not important to him, his work ethic is here and my work
ethic is there and thus conflict arises…(I am not the only person with a
problem with this bagger) I cannot create heaven for this kid because that
means he is doing even less then he is doing now, which isn’t really possible,
or I just leave him alone and nothing gets done and my job is even harder then
it already is…if I let him go, I work that much harder… so the choice
is do I let him be and allow him his freedom to do to whatever and let him have
his heaven but make my life hard and difficult, certainly not heaven…
and this choice is typical of choices we have every single day…
we can make people life much easier or much harder but again
context is what makes the difference…mistreating a child because
you were mistreated as a child is making a person life hell for no reason,
as opposed to trying to get someone to do the job there were hired for…
the kid fails to understand what is involved and what happens when he
doesn’t do his job but because he is young, he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter
to him if stuff gets done or not whereas for me, it does matter because
it will my job harder or easier depending…lack of understanding,
failure to understand why it is so important to do his job, this is
the failure of this kid…he simply doesn’t understand…
and conflicts arise from this, one understand and one doesn’t,
and conflict arises… and this conflict creates the “hell of other people”
we have different perspective on matter and conflict arises…
Kropotkin