HUMAN BEING IV
My dearest Khalid,
HUMAN BEING AND HUMAN BECOMING
(A Brief Philosophic Discourse)
I have not yet received any comments about the last three lectures
on the topic of Man, of his Being and of his Becoming. The theme certainly
covers a very wide scope of deliberations, and we can only deal with particular
aspects at a time. For
now, I have selected the problems pertaining to the ideological
day-to-day conceptions about Man, Mankind, Human, Humankind, Human Being.
If we take an eagle's eye view of Plato's doctrine of ideas, then we can grasp the problem concerning the essence of the "human being" at its grassroots; also in the sense of Marx, we can then become radical, that is, we can then root out this "evil of all evils". The Platonic doctrine of "ideas" is closely related to his doctrine of the "soul".
Before embarking on this spiritual adventure, it is important to note that in the Greek patriarchal slave "society", the philosophers had a tremendous ideological barrier: because the upper classes were not working, and because work itself was something fit only for the underdogs, for the "speaking tools", hence physical "labour" was not reflected conceptually in the superstructure.
None of the Greek philosophers could reflect intellectually the process of production or "production" itself; they did not occupy themselves with the activity of cognition or of recognition; they did not analyse the subjective factor as an active factor. Thus, subjectivity, in their sense, Being, in our sense, Becoming, was passive.
Metexis & Parousia
For this reason, subjectivity, thinking, intellectual reflection, was just a "taking for granted", a vision, a seeing of a vision, purely receptive. This is also where the concept Theory comes from; firstly from Zeus or Theos, and then from Vision. In this sense, a thinker, or a human who thinks, is a visionary. Nowadays the concept "vision" is experiencing its second Renaissance in global realpolitik. Of course, in our sense, the slave owners and their ideologues were "labouring" intellectually, even rationally. They were laying the foundations for future Intellectual Labour and Rational Thought.
Fiat Lux !
Now, in a Platonic sense, if Man leaves the cave of ignorance, what does he see? He sees the real things, real Being: the IDEAS. Man does not "produce" anything, least of all, ideas. Thus, Man does not think, he participates, from below to the top, in the ideaness, in the ideakind of the things, this Plato calls metexis ; on the other hand, the ideas, flowing from the top to the bottom, present themselves in the things, in Man; this Plato calls parousia .
Here already it is clear that "human beings" do not think;
the ideas think; in fact, the Greatest Thinker is the Idea of the Idea,
the summum bonum, the Logos, the Divine Being.
So you can already imagine what idea-logos,
ideology, is all about; furthermore, as visionary, you can
also see, can participate,
in the Idea of Man, in Mankind.
What does all this imply? Especially in the definition of "Man" or the "Human Being", across the ages, as understood by Western Philosophy, Culture and Civilization?
The Idea of Man
Basically, in an ideological sense, the current Idea of Man does not differ in any way from the Platonic definition. We are all human beings. Khalid is a human being. George is a human being. Iris is a human being. What does this mean? Firstly, it means that Khalid, George and Iris are beyond all salvation, that they believe that they are Platonic idealists. All three of them are convinced that they belong to the Universal, to the species, to homo sapiens sapiens, to the human race.
In Platonic idealism, "Human Being" is the general, the universal of all members of the human race, of the species Man; it is the Idea of Man. According to this Idea of Man, although the three individuals are created, are produced and reproduced by their parents, only by means of the Idea of Man, I can recognize them, I can call them "human beings", and not cats, because they have no cattishness or catkind in them. Also, for this very reason, they call themselves "human beings". So far, so good! Fine!
The "Human Whisper"
Mankind is the genus, the species Man; it is not the individual, it is the general, the universal. These genuses, these universals, are the Ideas; these are the only realities in Khalid, George and Iris; their reality is their Mankind, their Human Being, the Idea of Them.
The Idea of Mankind or Human Being makes all "human beings", all individuals, all members of the species, into that what generally everybody calls a human being or what they believe they are. The individual participates in the mankind, in the manness of the Idea of Man, and this Idea enters the individual, as we will see later, as Soul, and whispers to him in his right ear: Now you are a human being!
Who Am I ?
Real Being, for Plato, is the Idea. Hence a real human being is the Idea of a Human Being. When I say: I am a Human Being, in a Platonic sense, I say: I am the Idea of a Human Being; I am part of the Idea of the Idea; I am part of, I participate in the Divine, in the Divine Being.
Question: Who Am I?
Answer: I am Divine, I am the
Idea of a Human Being !
Here it is obvious how surreptitiously idealism, religion and Christianity have crept into the very obscure corners of our "soul".
This divine element, this participation in humankind or mankind, this presence of the Divine Idea of Mankind or Humankind in us, this is our Soul.
Plotin has perfected this Idea; Christianity had imprinted this soul in the totality of Western Culture and Civilization. Today still, when we speak of "human beings", in a Freudian-Jung sense, pre-consciously, unconsciously or subconsciously, we spit out this idealist venom which has been implanted in the very epicentre of our existence.
We have no idea, not the foggiest notion, how idealist, how religious, how Christian we are, although openly we declare just the opposite; and a few seconds later, filled to the brim with ideology, we ramble about the future of mankind, and about the sweet loving human beings who as our neighbours live in the next block.
The Fons Et Origo
Believe it or not, know it or not, this is exactly where our fantastic Idea of a Human Being comes from, and with it we are bamboozled, used and abused, perused and pertused, everyday.
Well, Khalid, I think you enjoyed this philosophic chapter of our fireside chat on the human being, awaiting your first comments, next time much more, more plus.
Franz.