coberst
02-25-2007, 03:32 PM
Self-Reliance
When I speak of alienation I am speaking about wo/man’s alienation from his or her nature. I am speaking of the fragmentation of the individual. I am speaking of the fact that part of what we are is being defiled and rejected by the manner in which we live in our society.
A general theory of alienation would be a body of knowledge about how human freedom and responsible choice is constricted. Evil is that which makes it impossible for sapiens to realizing their potential; this knowledge would be an expression of what are responsible human powers and how society limits the expression of those powers.
Emerson, considered by many as the top moralist in American history, understood these facts when he stated the important challenge to all wo/men to be self-reliance. He felt that self-reliance was the “keynote of American democracy”. Whatever should limit human self-reliance works against the nature of wo/man. The great challenge to education was to develop a comprehensive theory of the limitations of self-reliance and to teach this to all Americans.
To achieve such a goal demanded that science comprehend what all humans strive for. Emerson was convinced that sapiens strived after meaning and the creation of meaning. The crux of self-reliance then was how to advance the self-creation of human meaning.
Science informs us that greed and destructive behavior are not in our DNA but in the society we create. Evil is created by our natural propensities to use our fellow sapiens to satisfy our search for meaning. Human evil is often proportional to human weakness.
“Weakness for man means shallow and narrow meanings, and lack of critical awareness of who one is, and what he is striving for…By developing his critical reason, man can free himself from a large measure of the evil that exists in his social world…It results from the fear of free choice, from the inability to assume responsibility for unique actions and meanings. On the individual level this means that the weak man is the empty man, the manipulated one, and the manipulator of others—the masochist and the sadist. On the social level it means the frightened scapegoat, the warmonger. On both levels it means clumsy, shallow, uncritical, rigid aesthetics, destructive ways of satisfying one’s striving, ways that take a toll on one’s fellow men.”
Quotes from “Beyond Alienation” by Ernest Becker
When I speak of alienation I am speaking about wo/man’s alienation from his or her nature. I am speaking of the fragmentation of the individual. I am speaking of the fact that part of what we are is being defiled and rejected by the manner in which we live in our society.
A general theory of alienation would be a body of knowledge about how human freedom and responsible choice is constricted. Evil is that which makes it impossible for sapiens to realizing their potential; this knowledge would be an expression of what are responsible human powers and how society limits the expression of those powers.
Emerson, considered by many as the top moralist in American history, understood these facts when he stated the important challenge to all wo/men to be self-reliance. He felt that self-reliance was the “keynote of American democracy”. Whatever should limit human self-reliance works against the nature of wo/man. The great challenge to education was to develop a comprehensive theory of the limitations of self-reliance and to teach this to all Americans.
To achieve such a goal demanded that science comprehend what all humans strive for. Emerson was convinced that sapiens strived after meaning and the creation of meaning. The crux of self-reliance then was how to advance the self-creation of human meaning.
Science informs us that greed and destructive behavior are not in our DNA but in the society we create. Evil is created by our natural propensities to use our fellow sapiens to satisfy our search for meaning. Human evil is often proportional to human weakness.
“Weakness for man means shallow and narrow meanings, and lack of critical awareness of who one is, and what he is striving for…By developing his critical reason, man can free himself from a large measure of the evil that exists in his social world…It results from the fear of free choice, from the inability to assume responsibility for unique actions and meanings. On the individual level this means that the weak man is the empty man, the manipulated one, and the manipulator of others—the masochist and the sadist. On the social level it means the frightened scapegoat, the warmonger. On both levels it means clumsy, shallow, uncritical, rigid aesthetics, destructive ways of satisfying one’s striving, ways that take a toll on one’s fellow men.”
Quotes from “Beyond Alienation” by Ernest Becker