One Thing I've Learnt: Art, In Its Any Form, Is Essential To Life. Sometimes We Find Our Piece Of Art

Value v. Progress

Quite recently I wrote about how society is not getting better and just now I realized how easily that can be argued--not because it would be wrong but because of the pride society takes in itself.

There is a popular idea that is thought to be new, however it has always been the human approach to its communities: newer societies are better than the old ones (there are views, contrary to this but let us not discuss nostalgia now). It comes from the observation that new orders are set up because the old ones are mended or upgraded. But is it true?

It is, but only in the most technological sense. Society, as a means of something, as a very functional tool evolves into a better means, into something more functional. The structure enables us to do much more things and the new order, the new society can effectively react to many new issues. But it would be a folly to call the advancements good or bad.

Equality for women, the abolition of slavery and child labor, education--these are all huge steps forward but they do not necessarily fall into the category of good or bad because these things are progress and not values. Mind you that in retrospect it is always represented that old times were evil, when the oppressed suffered and died, when in fact the oppressed could sometimes be content and happy and feel satisfied--surely not because of the riches bestowed upon them but although their lives were hard it was not unavoidably a life they wished they never lived.

The difference between progress and value is not transparent because both are highly desirable. Still, they are not the same, although at times they may mix.

Progress is when something is being made. In sociological questions it may be assumed that progress is infinite, as there cannot be an ultimate society. It may be hard to accept, even so, almost impossible to accept because every step is very rewarding and needs to be served as an end in itself. So sometimes we are under the illusion that this or that change in the community will perfect the whole thing. Equality is the eventual goal and when that is achieved, we are done. However it just depicts how short-sighted we may be. Looking at history, putting ourselves in perspective, it seems like the greatest delusion to say that we would finish the work. For the people, who organized themselves into the first society, it must have seemed like agriculture is the greatest human feat, as it brings about a supply never before seen. And then the same happened with every new societal invention, its creators were so touched by their own grandeur that I imagine some of them almost cried. However, looking at those things today we just shrug and call it primitive. Even so, about agriculture we would say it is necessary for human existence but we would never take the extra step of saying agriculture is a value. Certainly it is in economic terms but it does not have a higher, abstract form. It is all about function.

In contrast with progress, value is an end. To be tender toward people, to save somebody, to sacrifice something, these can sometimes serve progress, but they are also satisfactory in themselves. And it also teaches a good lesson about the people of the past: everybody, throughout history, had the potential to live equally valuable lives or fill their lives with equal measures of value, as opposed to the social progress, which goes stage after stage.

So society does not convey an absolute value, however tempting to compliment ourselves with it. Societies can be advanced and complex and functional but goodness or badness remains in the life of the individual.

Some things we do are as reasonable as dropping salt to our eyes.

When I was sixteen I read The Great Gatsby, and oh - Oh! I said, how it flows, how does this gorgeous iambic pentameter work its way through the valves of my arteries? ‘Within and without’ runs in my blood. Everything sounds like money to me. I wandered lonely as a cloud, only, no, old sport, I don’t wander, I plan. I lift weights like Benjamin Franklin. I gaze out, out, out, I am the poet. I am the huntsman. I lie in wait. I have for years. Sometimes I forget about The Bell Jar, but I remember The Iron Giant. Let me tell you, I’ve watched that movie every year of my life since I was seven years old, and I fell in love with the robot from a children’s story book to the big screen. I have since studied Metamorphoses and watched the hawk fly through the rain, but choking to death on my own breath? A touchy subject. What does F. Scott Fitzgerald have to say for himself when his wife’s journals lay strewn across his back catalogue? Where was Ted Hughes when Sylvia Plath collapsed in the kitchen? Boasting about his own work, or belittling hers? In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on their list of ‘The 50 greatest British writers since 1945’. Where is Sylvia Plath? Where is Zelda Fitzgerald? Where are the women? Where are the gentle hands, the voices that clink like coins, where are the dangerous curves, where is the soaring fire of our generation? Show me your nails, filed to claws. Give me your ragged hearts, give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, give me your words. I want to hear your voices, louder and more insistent than ever before. I want The Times to write a new list. I need to hear the murmurs of agreement of every lecturer in the Arts and Humanities department of each university as they turn it over in their hands. To see a split between every gender so even that no one remembers where the line is, where the line ever was. This wave’s classic writers are gone, so bare your teeth and show me your fighting stance.

we are still behind the yellow wallpaper | ishani jasmin (via ishanijasmin)

So beautiful, so complicated, so problematic...

A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain

F. Scott Fitzgerald (via hippyness)

wow, my tumblr turned 1 today! it's been a very beautiful and often uneventful year. despite all the controversies, i've closed a great year. thanks to the anonymous readers, the random likers, and most of all, my dearest 13 followers :) it's been superb. 

a wonderful event in the life of a truly wonderful YouTuber :)

I’ve been a Christian my entire life, but wasn’t baptized as a child. That changed last night, and I feel incredibly blessed and humbled.

How have we got here?

A guy sat next to me in Maths class and we discussed how he ended up at studying to be a mechanical engineer. His conclusion was: "This career is chosen by many errant people." He originally planned to be a psychologist just couldn't get into the uni. I didn't even try any other institution apart from this one. We're both a little lost here but only for the moment.

I hope I'll have something closer to my heart to do in the next semester :)

A Question of Morality

Do we do things because they are the moral things to do or do we do them to achieve certain ends? I faced this question in a debate I had with my church's youth group's sort of leader. It was of course a peaceful debate--diplomatically ignoring my views eventually--but this question has been living inside me ever since.

I took a Kantian standpoint and argued in favor of the categorical imperative, whereas my opponent said that, the moral thing is to act to earn God's divine gifts in Heaven. And even though it seemed pretty obvious to me, in the past one week ambiguity has begun to cloud my confidence on this matter.

The heavenly gifts we earn for living a righteous life are quite naturally stimulating and indeed worth living that life for but I thought, that it is not the highest we can get. In my opinion--the one which I had then--acting out completely because of wanting to do the right thing is the most moral way of thinking. Only for the rightness of that action, not for avoiding guilt, or actually finding pleasure in it, or anything of sort.

Using Kant's reasoning however, would actually mean embracing the opposing view, not mine. Kant actually found God in morals this way. His categorical imperative suggests a certain joy felt over the moral act, properly proportionate to how moral the act was. Although he found a problem in this: say--and this is my example--you commit a crime but you have cleaned up after yourself well enough. Still, a clever detective somehow gets to you and you are persecuted. However, when being tried, you find a way to get away by adding just one more lie, that could clearly undo the validity of any evidence they have against you. Now you are faced wih the dilemma, that either you add just one more lie and get away, or act morally and confess. It is problematic to imagine a situation, where a criminal in the midst of trial starts to think about morality but let's accept it for the sake of the thought experiment. Now before moving any further, I add another crucial detail: because of the severety of your crime and the local laws, if you testify guilty, you will be executed on the scene without any delay. So now, acting immorally will just get you life, in which you can try to make up for the wrongs you've done and do probably some even more moral things, than confessing now. On the contrary, in the present state, the only justifiable action is testifying guilty. But this morality, thinking in earthly matters, is completely vain. It earns you nothing, neither for the community, and though everyone will agree, that at least you did the right thing when you confessed of your crime, you will still be marked as overall immoral, and above these, you will not have a chance to feel any joy over your moral act. Impending death, brought forth only by a moral act, which serves only the abstract morality itself, can take away this kind of joy...

In the case above, according to Kant, the only acceptable choice is the moral one. But without a sort of moral joy felt over it and any service implemented through this, it certainly becomes difficult to find any point in it. On the contrary, no matter the contingencies, such as one's lack of time for joy, you should still choose the moral decision.

Now this is a place, where Kant found God. After your moral act, you can have joy over it even after you are dead, in case there is life after death. In case there is Heaven, and it is accessible to you--well, anyone can say a prayer a be saved even right before death--this final moral act of yours, will prove to be not in vain and you will have a chance to have that sort of moral joy in the proper proportion.

No, no one has to agree with Kant. I know, I haven't seen into the depths he has or the depths there are to this question. But--without solidly stating, that this is the right way to think about this question--this is a possible answer, that put some things into new light for me. It's good to get it off my chest :)

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sick as frick |-/