The present era marks a reversal of the right relation between the individual and society. Modern ideologies put the individual as a reviewer of social institutions, established beliefs, beliefs and customs. They treat her as a rational judge, those centuries-old and community-generated conventions in advance, recognising her as empty, unjustified and ready to be "exposed". For modern-day universality and consolidation of opinions data, e.g. in the authoritarian or tradition, can even prove their untrueness. specified an ingenuity approach of the individual over the seriousness of the institutions that review it gives emergence to absurdity, leading to a shift in rationality. In all thought to find the truth, the proven tools of the community review a single mind, filled with limitations.
21st century – Paraclet's descent
The fact that this trend is seen in the instincts of fresh generations does not request to prove to anyone. The “spirit of time” in many belief brought with the 21st century a sobering up that brightly showed the falseness of all the concepts, doctrines and even something much more elementary... All social institutions and instincts stored by civilization as far as the memory of a man assisted by a historical workshop reaches. The conviction of the backwardness of everything that was thought unmoved a fewer decades ago, hits mass culture and “the life of everyday ideas”, utilizing the word coined by Darius Karłowicz. Dissemination of access to information, massaging of sciences, and above all, advancement in the sense of the planet would – along this line of reasoning – completely disdate existing views. The revolutionary spirit suggests that today's man on the basis of his peculiar experiences, standing in dispute with the views and habits determining the life of societies from the past, can exposure their falseness, limitedness... Even unwarranted.
This phenomenon is akin on the level of the relation between the individual and the community. "Progressors" say that in order to accomplish rationality, our 21st century should break with universal and lasting tendencies. In this way they translate their creativity beyond the authority of a centuries-old coherent tradition. In the same way modern draw the relation of an individual – society. The more conviction is lost, the more common the word is, the more false it seems to them. A popular paradigm of noncomformism makes us believe that marriage, family, religion... all are a form of collective insanity to which people adapt due to its universality and the force of society. In implementing the pattern of conduct rooted in the community, there should so be no right. By word, for 20 centuries, the greater part of mankind gave in to absurd actions, put religion in confounded superstitions. Finally, all this madness is to be stopped by the genius of the individual: both a single century, who considers all the principles of the erstwhile centuries and a single man, mocking all erstwhile universal truth.
Ferdydurkea case survey
This trend was expressed in a metaphorical manner, as well as in a literal way, by Witold Gombrowicz in Ferdydurke. Reading this reading, advanced school students insisting that nothing is about it are wrong. In it, the author presents collective and prevailing patterns of action and belief as empty forms: unjustly duplicated under force from people watching us. The man described by Gombrowicz is simply a slave to the convention, proceeding 1 way or another solely due to the fact that society expects him to do so. According to Gombrowicz, collective behaviour is simply a form of universal insanity. They do not contain grain, rationality, or rightness.
This approach is rather clear in the description of the school environment. Author Ferdydurke He presented in the fresh a dispute between 2 groups of school youth: boys and boys. The leaders of the 2 packages, “Miętus” and “Syphon”, symbolize the gap between idealistic teenagers, trying to find values worthy of cultivation and common rabbles erstwhile young. The leader of the second ‘Miętus’, like any ‘rebellious boy’, is fascinated by breaking rules and profanity. Siphon, who is the head of the boys, strives to aim for the school’s activities and to replicate exemplary attitudes. The author suggests that there is no erring and correct in this split. All its participants stand on 1 side or the another due to the convention, the “form” of which dictatorships are subjected. So they replicate any patterns by entering canons without meaning.
The emptyness of existing norms and common beliefs is further illustrated by the Polish language lesson scene, well recorded in Polish culture. A teacher named “Bladaczka” powerfully tells the students that Slovak was a actual virtuoso of lyricism, a large master of the pen. But the only thing he has to propose is the phrase "the large poet was." erstwhile voices cast out of the hall questioning the illustriousness of the prophet, the teacher can in no way justify his greatness. It transmits empty slogans, conventions, behind which there is in fact no crucial content. A cult for worship. The scene is dripping with absurd and grotesque, just as youths usage school Latin... unusual tradition, anachronism without justification, which was not given up in time.
In summary: Ferdydurke Gombrowicz convinces about the void created by civilization of institutions. The widely established beliefs and behaviors show as a duplication of meaningless actions under the force of the congregation that is watching us. In fact, however, nothing truly crucial stands for general standards. Similarly, the author refers to Polishness in Trans-Atlantic, indicating it as a used, anachronistic form that must be abandoned. Gormbrowicz's texts are a good reflection of the contemporary relation to heritage and cultural heritage, yet social institutions left behind by erstwhile centuries. Modernity tells us that they are either unjustified and empty, or that they are a form of universal psychosis that restrained humanity until their arrival.
Today's reasoning patterns propose that recognizing the voidness of collective behaviour and habits lies within the competence of the individual. Vivisection of number cult, with a flagship example of LGBT movements, explains this phenomenon well. The "Niebinary", "non-heterosexual" individuals present discover that the division of sex roles, the pattern of building relationships that all human communities have been fond of for thousands of years, is limited and imperfect. Especially active representatives of advancement say that surviving in a way contrary to these eternal principles is possible or attractive. In fact, the deviation from the norm is now not so much a law as a trend, a fashion, or even a origin of nobility. Whosoever deviates from—it would seem—well-designed and hardened paths, would truly be a wise man, dealing with the influence of superstition.
The liberal reality of Western democracy is yet a phenomenon from cognitive to political level. As the individual became a reliable verifier of universal social views in the visions of modern worshipers, so it became a reviewer of the full political system. This phenomenon is based on respect for the top-down and inviolable "human rights". It is the satisfaction of claims, the ability to carry out individual plans and visions, that is, according to the contemporary people, the justice of the system. If a peculiar individual feels that the strategy imposes restrictions on him, it restricts his freedom, it means that he is incorrect to be and must be destroyed. By the death conviction of the tolerant Western world.
The designation of the superiority of reason over centuries-established truths and methods of action can be collectively described as utopia individual autonomy. This word is justified in that modernity suggests that an individual freed from the limitations imposed on its creativity by the community is ready to independently know the various truths, or at least a better knowing of the nature of the world. However, in all process known to us to lead to accurate cognition of reality, the individual must adapt to established and universal standards. The peculiar head is subject to common judgment. But before we go further, let us make an crucial distinction.
The problem is not that the individual is looking for opportunities to improve what he finds. And she's predestined. But the real improvement of the planet is always “on the shoulders of giants.” A good author knows a lot more workshops than he does his own, and a good scientist... Exactly. We will look at what can be said about the utopia of individual autonomy from the position of technological methodology.
Scientific methodology: Oppression of creativity or the essential framework of action
The only way a discipline investigator can present to the technological planet the results of his investigation and its conclusions is to print a study on the experimentation in a specialized journal. This process is subject to many requirements. This discipline differs from the publicist's that before reporting from the experiments of a peculiar scientist reaches the pages of specified a writing, he undergoes an accurate review to find how much he meets methodological standards. The survey itself described in the text, before it occurs in the technological world, must conform to common standards of action called the method. It is simply a set of principles, scanned standards of conduct that let to verify whether the experience, and so the conclusions based on it, is carried out reliably and whether it can be correct at all. For example, in a intellectual survey to prove the affirmative effect of caffeine on the cognitive apparatus, it will be essential to compare the correct performance of the thought task under the influence of placebo and coffee. If this is not included in the experiment, it will not be taken seriously for a moment.
Referring to this pattern of action to the subject of the article: technological methodology is based on an outstanding depersonalisation of conclusions and thinking. The principles established by the preceding researchers, with proven effectiveness and superiority, become standards that must be respected in order to “be counted in the planet of experts”. Otherwise, discipline would be filled with complete chaos and uncertainty, until it would become a publicistic ellipse of interest as a consequence of the breakdown. At best – think tank.
Meanwhile, the mechanics of the creation of the technological method has much to do with the process of creating permanent and universal institutions that have for centuries laid down the principles of the lives of people of most cultures. Although diverse civilizations so far disagree from 1 another in customs, languages, etc., almost all have developed marriages as more or less, but nevertheless lasting relationships between men and women. They were all given a peculiar dimension, surrounding the wedding with an elaborate ritual. Similarly, it is hard to find a state and a culture that would not worship God, any absolute or force ruling the world. Most of the communities we know have besides developed a political organization: primarily a state one, although tribal 1 cannot be forgotten. It seems absurd that ancient Egypt, the chosen nation or the Chinese, forming the foundations of their moral systems, have come to specified akin conclusions, regardless of geographical location and time, convinced that people combine into male-female couples or build structures of political power... or in the absence of any legitimate motivation.
Observing this “methodology of life” the human thought described as common sense. The concept becomes more clear erstwhile we quote the English word: common sense. This expression can virtually be translated as “a common sense”. We talk about common sense and its usage most frequently erstwhile we observe a behaviour that is far from ordinary, stating that a individual lacks it. The essence of this word is to observe that the vast majority of people follow certain proven patterns of action. Since a man, with marginal apostasy, lives in a certain way, it naturally seems that this is not a work of chance, but a question of human nature. And besides that any behaviour is better suited to her and leads to better results. A extremist departure from these patterns is at best risky and may prove tragic. There was large emphasis on this aspect from conservative political thinkers, stressing that the universality of even household institutions suggests that it is the rule of life which God himself has set for human societies. Finally, we can experience whether acting in a key commonly regarded as common sense will lead our life to ruin and decay, or alternatively to a satisfactory pursuit of temporal life.
Just as circumstantial methods of technological action as a consequence of the experiences of researchers gained the advantage over others and created the canon, specified circumstantial ways of being proved to be better suited to humanity, which led to their codification in sacred laws, spiritual rites, or customs. However, the modern "scientistic world" proposes that we ignore all the authority that comes from the cultural and temporal universality of these phenomena. This is accompanied by the presumption that since the dawn of past we have functioned in fumes of complete madness, until the present age, having experienced enlightenment, has broken with the oppressive past. At the same time, however, erstwhile he himself needs correct and realistic observations in science, he willingly submits to the individual reason of the established convention.
Another problem encountered by the utopia of individual autonomy is that the individual is subject to a much greater number of intellectual limitations than the community, which undermines the very foundation of the concept which gives it greater rationality. First of all, the reason of a peculiar man is much more dominated by the circumstantial events he experiences, and their reception solely from his own perspective. The collective is not restricted by this very close staff, as it benefits from the shared experience of all its members. While in the same situation the individual cannot be rich and poor, moral and corrupt, mandatory and lazy, the public has access to both 1 and the other. Thus, the rules applied to the conduct of its members may emergence above a peculiar perspective, which, in a abrupt confrontation with changed circumstances, may prove to be harmful to an unprepared individual. Consider, for example, the variability of times. If a individual was based solely on the experience of life in years of peace, he would most likely put social priorities at the bottom of the list of social priorities to defend himself and care for the state of his army. As you can see from a 1000 examples, this attitude does not bode for a bright future. But who relys on the widely known wisdom expressed in maxim Si vis pacem, para bellumHe can sleep peacefully.
The practice of surviving very powerfully shows that this individual remains more cognitively limited. announcement that all the most crucial decisions are made as a consequence of consultations. Those designed to weigh on the destiny of the war struggles fall into the staff. The moves of political authorities always find a certain body, we ourselves address a household or a friend in order to remedy a problem. In this way, we shift the position from which we look at events to have their fuller image and not fall victim to our own limitations. all 2 heads is not one, we say.
Human Nature: rationality or madness
Quoted currents, suggesting that an individual may be a rational judge, rejecting tyranny of insanity, which ruled over humanity for centuries and dominates most lives, fall into irrationality themselves. For if a single individual can easy see the absurdity of certain ways, why are they not at all capable of doing so? The assumptions of the followers of the utopia of individual autonomy make them convinced that individuals building old societies differed in their nature from those of the present. They lived in a strategy that profoundly impaired life, subjecting man to pathological principles. The costs of operating in specified a reality must undoubtedly be crucial and the deficiency of "liberation" from their burden-bearing effects. However, it turns out that a number of our ancestors were completely incapable of realizing their own misery. In short, they were irrational individuals, acting in general against their own harm.
Enlighteners came to a akin view. The banner philosophers of this era recognized that until the coming breakthrough with them people did not actually usage reason. Its common usage was to completely redesign the known reality. As promised by these thinkers, man was to quit his mention to religion or imagination in explaining the reality observed. These metaphysical interpretations of the planet were to be replaced by calculated, accurate rationality. The conclusion they made was: with the fresh times in the planet there will be complete order, happiness and order. A modern man would always make the right decisions and choose what is beneficial and useful to him.
Today, we, the generations who were expected to be outside this enlightened boundary, can snort laughing erstwhile reading akin meditations. Do people liberated from conventional social systems and, as the thinkers of the described era claimed, "students" choose in the free marketplace of the 21st century what is beneficial to their health, intellect, what develops them? Has man abandoned self-destructive behaviour and become the base of cool rationality? Answers to these questions can be found very rapidly in 2 ways. All you gotta do is go to the first psychology institute to survey the common beliefs and cognitive errors of people, to see how “outstanding rationality” of the present. But why go to besides much trouble? You can check the popularity of drugs, obesity rates...
If the Enlighteners and their supporters thought they had fought off superstitions, present we must admit that fresh ones were created to replace them. In turn, the top achievements of the intellect of the people of old went into oblivion. In fact, the nature of man in the span of the ages has not changed by a pit. It is always suspended somewhere between rationality and irrationalism, and only the will of the individual can prompt it to 1 or the another direction.
Chesterton's termination and barrier
British thinker Gilbert Keith Chesterton coined a category that was named Chesterton's barrier after his death. In synthetic form, it presents what I tried to convey in the above text. The past of Chesterton's barrier is rather simple. Imagine us moving along the road and encountering a random fence. It is placed across the path, so that the another side can only be reached through the gate. However, we are not faced with any threat that might justify specified a barrier. So the thought is to teardrop it down. In the end, it affects passersby, and its usefulness seems small.
According to the British Conservative, removing the barrier is not a peculiarly wise idea. Before we proceed to dismantling, we should know why the barrier was placed. Then, erstwhile we have reached it, we should verify how much it remains. If not, we can actually remove the fence. If not, we can avoid harm.
Chesterton's speech is simply a metaphor that speaks about the pursuit of different currents to redesign society, its rights, institutions or customs. due to the fact that people, as Chesterton suggests, do not put fences across the road for no reason. I think we can all agree on that. With building the above mentioned is precisely the same. Today, however, they do not verify the structures built by ancestors. For that, they construct ideologies that say they were masochists strayed in the fog of their own illusions... And out of this darkness of superstition, Aristotle bows low with Plato and Mark Aurelius.
The text was published in the 26th issue of National Policy.
