Machiavelli, an eminent humanist with regard to political science at the time, wrote The Prince with the intent to guide those in power on the fine points of enforcing and maintaining their said power. For example, he says that “it is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both,” as a feared ruler can coerce his subjects while kind ones will be ingratiated by subjects. During the Italian Renaissance, various groups of individuals came to power, notably the de’ Medici family (especially Giovanni, Lorenzo, Cosimo de’ Medici), a wealthy family of bankers who gained so much power in Florence as to practically rule the city through the entire Quattrocento. These commercial urban elites demonstrate an increasingly tightening bond between Italian politics and economics at the time. In a political sense, Italian humanistic ideas affected the public as to promote feelings of nationalism and individual acceptance into society, easing the transition into a period of New Monarchies.

The Italian Renaissance also dramatically influenced the development of education. The development of the printing press in the 1450s by Johann Gutenberg had instantaneous effects regarding the spread of knowledge. Instead of traditional, arbitrary classes with no method of organization, Renaissance humanism set emphasis on the achievement of the individual—that is, pupils were arranged by level of accomplishment and overall knowledge as opposed to a confused clutter of students. As in classical Greco-Roman education, systematized schools would teach appropriate audiences relevant knowledge. Now, the vernacular of the region would be taught as well as the universal Latin, and the importance of expression and application instead of plain absorption of knowledge was highlighted. More importantly, students learned morality and social duty to the world so as to shape character and personality. In 1528, Castiglione published Book of the Courtier, thus creating a guide accentuating manners and etiquette. In school, students learned of the quality of virtu, which every individual should strive for and gain as a result of outstanding personal achievement. This further underlines the growing individuality that Renaissance Italians experienced.

Finally, the exploration of literature during the Italian Renaissance affected individual thought as well. Early writers such as Petrarch, named the “first man of letters,” believed literature to be a kind of philosophical calling in which one questioned the doubts of man. Writers no longer worried themselves over the technical subjects of the Middle Ages; they moved on to a higher degree of internal and personal thought. For example, Boccaccio’s Decameron ostensibly seems to entertain, but the stories hold deeper wisdom and morality regarding human behavior. Various writers also began writing in the vernacular, the common language, such as Dante in the Divine Comedy. A new field of criticism came about at around this time, textual criticism, the most famous instance of which Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation of Constantine a forgery. These all tie together to impart a renewed sense of Italian human being and singularity, with deep personal meanings conveyed through assorted literature.

Italian Renaissance humanism was conveyed in numerous ways, all expressing the central idea of individual roles in society. Politics, education, and literature all had major impacts on this chief idea. The return to the use of ancient Greco-Roman classics demonstrates the return of the “glorious” philosophies of Greece and Rome, which in turn shaped Italian humanistic individuality with lasting effects for centuries to come.

If we navigate this discussion along the steady road of practical, rational thinking alone, we will eventually find the fertile ground between nihilism and liberalism, where an easy answer to this problem is available. Morality is indeed something that is constructed. Good boys and bad girls are thus called by of their level of compliance with the social rules that they find themselves in. This varies so much between cultures that it seems natural to concede that morality is completely subjective. Maybe the only true universal law is the law of nature, and, as is well said, Mother Nature can be a real bitch. Out in the jungle there is no such thing as the Geneva Conventions. White flags are nonsensical. It is a brutal vista, but it is one that has lead to us. We constructed this social device, morality. We are nature and we created it.

Man, the Creator

Human beings create things. That is as natural a phenomenon as photosynthesis. Roads and space stations, science and art, they all spring from this central nervous system that we have, furnished and honed from millennia of evolutionary engineering. So, why can’t morality be the same? We can –and do- create our morality (sometimes adding fanciful stories about talking snakes and divinely burning bushes in the process). It is a structure that is designed to allow us to flourish.

Maybe, ultimately, everything is anarchy. The survival-of-the-fittest law of nature might be the only real morality. But the irony of an anarchistic world is that it is the non-anarchists who do the best. The pure idea of morality may vary in its implementations, but ultimately its core objective is to promote surviving and flourishing, through cooperation. It is a prerequisite foundation for society and human progress. Surely we do not have to surrender our rational sensibilities to theistic leaps of faith in order to value morality or to deny its value completely because we have developed a modern science that tells us that we are no more than mammals with tools.   

Maybe the way that we are wired gives us this drive to seek out some superseding power beyond us to give our existence affirmation. Or maybe it is just the central Judeo-Christian idea that has been too deeply ingrained in our sub consciousness. Perhaps that’s why we have people incessantly reducing this type of discussion to a dichotomy. Our meaning of existence has become attached to superstition, and so when we wake up from the superstition, we find that we have to turn to nihilistic depravity or some New Age comfort to make internal ends meet. Ultimately, at the risk of flirting with a diluted nihilism, and I believe I speak on Mother Nature’s behalf, the Universe does not give a monkey’s Big Bang about us. And that is all the more reason for us to help each other out, I submit.

Matt West

Spring 2007

A Sartrean Ethics?

In his renowned essay, Existentialism and Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre outlines his account of the fundamental state of man in this world. His philosophy and resulting effort towards a criterion for action largely rely on the consequences and implications of a human being’s existence in this world, as interpreted by Sartre himself. For Sartre, the unavoidable consequences of man’s condition boil down to an immense responsibility for his own actions and in the end, for those of all humankind. From his formulation of man’s situation, it is reasonably evident from his employment of moral language, although by no means especially clear, that Sartre’s existential doctrines endeavor to establish some type of ethical theory by which man may live. Although Sartre presents us with some fantastic philosophical insights, in the end we shall see how Sartre’s notion of man’s fundamentally free state is incompatible with the development of an ethical theory.

From his denial of the existence of God and his ensuing rejection of any fundamental human nature or pre-determined moral doctrine, Sartre ultimately concludes that man is radically free. Because of this freedom, man is “condemned to be free”, or to choose the projects, or undertakings, of his life and justify them via this choice.1 No objective entity exists to offer man guidance in making these choices. Therefore, in order for man to give meaning to his life on earth, he must authentically choose for himself, exclusive of any sort of rejection of his fundamentally free condition. In short, man defines himself by his actions. Due to the absence of any external guide to action, man “is responsible for everything he does” and as we will later see, for all humanity.2 He can present no legitimate excuse for his actions, nor can he refer to any pre-determined moral doctrine with which to validate them. It is in this sense that Sartre intends for us to understand abandonment and despair, namely that the only person who can choose is oneself and this is disconcerting because it forces us to repeatedly make one choice among endless choices and accept responsibility for those choices and their consequences.

However, none of this is to say that man is an isolated creature acting in a vacuum. His situation in this world and transcendence, or manifestations of his freedom, is unavoidably affected by the fact that all other humans experience the same abandonment and condemnation that he does; he and his fellow inhabitants are all forced to be free and have no luxury of looking to any objective moral dogma to justify their actions. But the most wearisome and anguish-producing aspect of man’s condition is that when he chooses, he chooses for all men in a sense and is thus responsible not only for himself, but for humanity as well.3 When humans choose, they are fashioning an image of themselves as the sum of the best choices, best in the sense that those choices were the final decision made by one forced to decide among myriad possibilities of action. This image is one of a human as the chooser thinks humans should be, and an action within the image is the action one person thinks all humans should perform when confronted with the same situation in which the original action was performed. When one chooses an action, there exists an implied ought in the action stating that this action is valuable and accordingly should have been chosen, otherwise it would not have been chosen. One’s picture of a human as he or she should be is ultimately the person that he or she is, or has thus far chosen to be. Therefore, when we choose we choose the good and we could not have chosen anything other than the good, for the good itself is realized in the act of choosing.

At first glance, it might seem reasonable to conclude that Sartre may envision something like one person observing the actions of another, realizing that person would not have chosen what he or she chose unless it was what that person considered good. So then, the observer curtails his or her actions to that of the observed person. This however is not without problems, as it would constitute a rejection of one’s freedom to act apart from a guide by trying to resign the freedom to another, or in short, bad faith. Also implied here is the existence of something good that is good in itself, previous any choice, and this also does not bode well with Sartrean philosophy. Emulating another’s actions may be acceptable for Sartre if one legitimately chose the same action as another, meaning that one need not be completely unique to be free. Nevertheless, it may in fact be the case that what Sartre means by this responsibility towards humanity is something we must take into account each time we choose. If we effort to view our greatest responsibility(according to Sartre) as the groundwork for an ethical system, then the great responsibility we have towards humanity must be considered before one takes action, and the actor must perform the act only if that act is consistent with the image of man that the actor wishes to show the world. It is important to remember that the entailed oughts, or value prescriptions, in a human’s action spring only from the action, and is therefore not representative of any objective, pre-supposed guide of how man is to live. In other words, there is no pre-existing good apart from action.

A man’s action and its subsequent value are inexorably recognized by others in the world and in this sense humans are universal legislators as choosers of certain actions and ultimately of essences for themselves. Sartre develops this fact into an idea dubbed reciprocal freedom. This is an idea we must consider prior to acting, and it proposes that because other free people exist in this world, we all are obligated to treat each other as free. Before one chooses, a man must realize that others are as free as he is and that other’s perceptions of him undoubtedly influence his choices and his own perception of how he is viewed in the eyes of others. For instance, if I fail to acknowledge the innate freedom of another, I am simply refusing to admit the reality (facticity) of another’s free condition and his or her resultant free perception of myself. Second, if it is apparent that I do not treat another as free and thus in a sense try to manage the other person, this person is apt to develop a negative perception of me. This perception would surely be contrary to my own perception of myself and would freely interpret or label me in a negative light, which thereby restricts my own freedom to perceive myself in the way I prefer. Now I obviously would wish for others to view me as free, so that I may remain authentic. Because man is unable to refer to any universal human nature, he is an entirely creative being, restricted only by other’s freedom to label him. Although we cannot avoid a small measure of this labeling, permitting oneself to be completely branded by others is a denial of one’s freedom to interpret one’s self and ultimately, bad faith.

A human is the sum of his or her choices, and through these choices, humans attempt to construct a legacy not only of themselves, but also of how man should be. Because man is surrounded and affected by others, each man must act with the whole of humanity in consideration, recognizing before he acts that when he doe

The 1St Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The part relevant to this discussion is, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Note that despite the fact that the tem “separation of church and state” is often used in association with first amendment that it appears not ware with in it. The phase is a actually based on a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Baptist church addressing their concerns of about the possibility of a state religion being established in the U.S. like the Church of England in Britain.

The problem is that there are those that want to eliminate all public religious observances and references. They try to use the establishment clause to achieve their goal.

The clause in question called says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. What is meant by this is that there is to be no legally established official religion of the United States like the  Church of England in Britain. In essence the idea is that the United States government and by way of the 14th Amendment the state and local governments must legally and officially be neutral on religion.

However these people are not trying to force government neutrality on religion but hostility. This rakes many forms but they include many violations of the free exercise clause which immediately follows the establishment clause and states “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” referring to religion. Include a public high school valedictorian being threatened with jail by a judge if she mentioned God or prayed in her speech. This also violates the next clause in the 1St Amendment which states “or abridging the freedom of speech”

What these people are actually trying to do is legally (by judges) establish the atheistic religion of Secular Humanism as the official state religion because if you ban references to God and religions observances from public functions in you are declaring the official government religion to be Atheistic Secular Humanism.

            Sartre does a great job in relating Existentialism to humanism.  He does this by relating Existentialism to many human emotions.  Sartre explains each emotion in great detail as to why it pertains to an Existentialist.  He also does a good job in defending the Existentialist mentality.  His approach to defend the mentality is to try to bring more understanding to it.  After bringing you to his line of thought, he can explain how the mentality actually isn’t as grim as it is perceived.   However, his argument that everyone’s best decision for themselves is the best decision for everyone else is weak.  This is mainly due to the fact that we have already seen instances in history when this is false (Holocaust?).  Sartre’s argument in that humans define their existence, while good, is biased.  The logic he uses is based off of Existentialist thinking, therefore, anyone who disagrees with an Existentialist won’t agree with the line of thinking or the conclusion.

            I really like Sartre’s main thesis.  This is because it accurately describes the main principles of Existentialism in a plain form.  I am also an Existentialist and find it comforting that someone can actually describe our line of thinking.  However, I strongly dislike his belief in that what’s best for one person is best for everyone.  I believe there has been enough in history to show that this is false by Sartre’s time.  I believe it would have been more mature to have just stated the contradiction – if everyone had their own morals, what happens when they clash? – and accepted it as a problem that Existentialism has.  It is better to accept imperfection than to try and cover it up.  Finally, I really like his point that we define our own essence as I have lived by that moral almost my entire life.

In this article we consider two perspectives, the Humanistic and the existential.

The Humanistic perspective

This perspective views human nature as basically “good’. It pays less attention to unconscious processes and past causes, while emphasizing the present conscious processes. It places strong emphasis on people’s inherent capacity for responsible self-direction.

In using the concept of self as a unifying theme, humanistic psychologists emphasize the importance of individuality. Carl Rogers ( 1902-1987) a humanist, developed the most systematic formulation of the self -concept, based largely on his pioneering research into the nature of the psychotherapeutic process. His propositions can be summarized as follows:

a) Each individual exists in a private world of experience of which the I, me, or myself is the center.

b) The most basic striving of an individual is toward the maintenance, enhancement, and actualization of the self, and his or her inner tendencies are towards health, ad wholeness under normal conditions.

c) A perceived threat of the self is followed by a defense, including a tightening of perception and behavior and the introduction of self-defense mechanisms.

The humanistic psychologist emphasis that values and the process of choice are key in guiding behavior and achieving meaningful and fulfilling lives. Each of us is responsible in developing values and a sense of our own identity based on our experiences, rather than blindly accepting the value of others.

We deny our own experiences and lose touch with our own feelings if we fail to do so. According to this view, psychopathology is essentially the blocking or distortion of personal growth and the natural tendency toward physical and mental health.

The Existential Perspective

This perspective is similar to that of the humanist in its emphasis on the uniqueness of each individual, the quest for values and meaning, and the existence for freedom for self direction and self-fulfillment.

Existentialist however takes a less opportunistic view on human beings placing more emphasis on their irrational tendencies and the difficulties inherent in self fulfillment. To the existentialist,  living is much more of a “confrontation” than to the humanist.

Existential are more concerned with the inner experiences of an individual in his or her attempts to understand and deal with the deepest human problems. Their belief lies under the  following main themes:

a) Existence and essence- our existence is a given, but what we make of it is up to us. Our essence is created by our choices, because our choices reflect the values on which we base and order our lives.

b) Meaning and Value- The will to meaning is a basic human tendency to find satisfying values and guide one’s life by them

c) Existential anxiety and the encounter with nothingness- Nonbeing or nothingness in its final form is death, the inescapable fate of each human being. The awareness of our inevitable death and its implications for our living can lead to existential anxiety, over whether we are living meaningful and fulfilling lives.

As can be seen the existential psychologist is more concerned in establishing values and acquiring a level of spiritual maturity worthy of the freedom and dignity bestowed by one’s humanness. Abnormal behavior is therefore deemed as the product of a failure to deal constructively with existential despair and frustration.

The Renaissance was a distinct age from the Middle Ages. This is shown in the Revival of Classical ideas and way of thinking, the release of the ignorance blinding the people of the Middle Ages, and the pursuit of new knowledge that the writers, artists, doctors, and everyone involved in the Renaissance shared. The people in the Middle Ages finally began studying the geniuses of the Classical Age, something that had not been done for a thousand years, at least what was left of their work after the barbarians of the Middle Ages did all they could to destroy it. They also stopped being ignorant to the possibilities of a life, they began to realize there was a life outside Christianity and trying to reach salvation.

            One thing that made the Renaissance separate from the Middle Ages is the study and revival of the Classics. Wassace K. Ferguson said that “there was a great revival or rebirth of literature and the arts, after a thousand years of cultural sterility”. He says this about the Renaissance happening 1000 years after Rome’s fall when knowledge was actually pursued. Also in the Renaissance people began to consider themselves individual people rather than only a member of a larger group, a race, family, corporation . This is how people in the Classical Era lived; they considered themselves separate from each other as the Romans considered themselves different then the barbarians of the north. Another thing about the Renaissance is that knowledge was once again not only pursued by the church. In the Middle Ages all the people who could write were monks, learning in their secluded monasteries far away from civilization. Any average person that pursued knowledge was deemed a heretic and most likely killed. This all changed with the weakening of the Catholic Church and the rise and pursuit of knowledge.

            A large separation of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages was the ignorance of the Medieval people. Medieval people knew only their faith and their simple lives. Their Christian lives forced them to live only for heaven, and spend their lives trying to get to heaven. This changed when writers and preachers decided this was wrong and started spreading the word of new sects of Christianity and ways of living that allows a person to live their life rather than only use it as a gateway to the afterlife.

            The Renaissance also began the start of pursuit of new knowledge. They began to realize that this life is not only for getting to heaven or hell. They wanted to know new things about the human body and pursue knowledge of every aspect of human life and life on earth. Sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci, a Renaissance artist, show skeletons and muscular diagrams, this is the first time for a long time people thought about the human body and what it contains, which is good for knowledge. Also in the 14th and 15th centuries 49 universities were founded all over Europe, compared to 20 in the 12th and 13th centuries. This is more than twice as many in the 14th and 15th centuries than the two preceding them. This shows a larger pursuit for knowledge by average people.

            The Renaissance saw a new era of human life. It saw the revival of Classical Literature and Arts. It saw people not being as ignorant obsessed as they were in the Middle Ages, and also the pursuit of new knowledge on top of the studying of the Ancient Literature and Art. It was the transition period between the barbaric Middle Ages and the Modern Age. 

There is probably no more controversial question in the field of sex than this. A few years ago every Christian would have given an unqualified yes, but that was before the sexual revolution and before doctors declared that the practice is not harmful to health. No longer can a father honestly warn his son that it will cause “brain damage, weakness, baldness, blindness, epilepsy, or insanity.” Some still refer to it as “self-abuse” and sinful behavior”; others advocate it as a necessary relief to the single man and a help for the married man whose wife is pregnant or whose business forces him to be away from home for long periods of time.

To show the influence of humanism on people’s decisions, it is interesting to note that in a survey of twenty-five Christian doctors, 72 percent approved masturbation and 28 percent felt it is wrong. By contrast, among pastors (whose graduate-school training was in seminary and undergraduate education often in a Christian college) only 13 percent approved self-manipulation and 83 percent considered it wrong. In most cases, ministers are not uninformed on the subject; they probably have to cope with it in the counseling room more than doctors. Certainly they deal with it among single men through their camp and youth programs. Among those who took the survey, 52 percent of the men and 84 percent of women declared they had never or seldom practiced masturbation; 17 percent of men and 4 percent of women indicated they had practiced masturbation freqeuently or regularly. Many of these stated specifically they no longer did so since becoming a Christian.

Unfortunately the Bible is silent on this subject; therefore it is dangerous to be dogmatic. But here are some reasons why Christians (if possible) should avoid this practice:

• Fantasizing and lustful thinking are usually involved in masturbation, and the Bible clearly condems such thoughts (Matthew 5:28).

• Sexual expression was designed by God to be performed jointly by two people of the opposite sex, resulting in a necessary and healthy dependence on each other for the experience. Masturbation frustrates that designed dependence.

• Guilt is a nearly universal aftermath of masturbation unless one has been brainwashed by the humanistic philosophy that does not believe in a God-given conscience or, in many cases, right and wrong. Such guilt interferes with spiritual growth and produces defeat in single young people particularly. To them it is usually a self-discipline hurdle they must scale in order to grow in Christ and walk in the Spirit.

• It violates 1 Corinthians 7:9: “For it is better to marry than to burn.” If a young man practices masturbation, it tends to nullify a necessary and important motivation for marriage. There are already enough social, educational, and financial demotivators on young men now; they don’t need this one.

• It creates a habit before marriage that can easily be resorted to afterward as a cop-out when a husband and wife have conflicts that make coitus difficult.

• It defrauds a wife (1 Corinthians 7:3-5). No married man should relieve his mounting desire for his wife except through coitus. She will feel unloved and insecure, and many little problems will unnecessarily be magnified by this artificial draining of his sex drive. This becomes increasingly true as a couple reach middle age.

Image by Poster Boy NYC via Flickr

But nowadays when Julian Assange tried to use them he was proscuted by government because hegave people what they should know.

Image via Wikipedia

Me being an ordinary citizen of a democratic country has now been fed up with all these ongoings.

If showing people what they need to watch is a crime then every media of every country should be proscuted.

Some recentsurveys stated that most of the people think that Julian is being proscuted for what he has not done. I am not writing this article to critisize any thing, I am writing what an ordinary citizen of a democratic country is thinking.

documents and videos leaked by WikiLeaks has showed that humanity has died.

It is good to know that some people are still fighting to heal humanity Julian is one of them. If you want to contribute your littel which canbe a part of a beginning of new era.

I was watching A Knight’s Tale the other day, and something in it got me thinking. The scene involved William Thatcher (Heath Ledger) and Chaucer (Paul Bettany), where Chaucer offers to write a fake title of nobility for William. And of course the audience supports this, because, after all, the title is the only thing standing between William and a fortune to be earned jousting. Sure, he’s breaking the law, but who is being harmed? The peasants have their entertainment, the nobles their sport, and William earns a living. Why then is it such a big deal to have forged the title?

On one hand, it isn’t. After all, the title is little more than a piece of paper.

But on the other hand, it’s a deception of the highest degree. After all, the title is declaring something about William. He is noble. He is pure. His bloodline has a sense of honor, dignity, and perfection about it that ought to cement its place in history. He is to be held to a higher standard than the common people, and as such, will be rewarded higher. Biblically, he has received ten talents.

We of course, as modern people, are inclined to lean towards the former of these ideas, at least in the way we live our lives. After all, “All men are created equal,” aren’t they? Not according to the tenets of anything modern. Humanism, Darwinism, and many more all claim that we are nothing more than competitively evolving creatures. If that’s the case, it’s nonsense to suppose that we were created, and as such, there can be no equality. Eventually, someone is going to reign supreme. If that’s the case, then titles of nobility are more important than ever! How else will we know which bloodlines have the most beneficial genes?

But suppose the opposite is true, and all men are created, and equally so. What then? The natural implication is to say that there is no nobility, there is only equality crushed beneath the weight of circumstances. But that smacks of communism (if we support the freeing of human potential) or capitalism (if we deny the weight of circumstances).

In that case, doesn’t the issue become what we are to make of circumstances? If there are those bound by limitations, and those freed of them, doesn’t that mean that there will naturally be a lack of equality? Some will succeed and some will fail. It cannot be that human beings are locked into roles without change, so it is foolish to argue that nobility in that instance becomes a means of suppressing the poor (as communism claims). Because in that case, nobility has become synonymous with tyrannical power, in which case nobility could no longer holds any sway.

What possibility does that then leave? Only this: that nobility is an attribute only definable in the context of individual actions. We are who we choose to be, not who we are defined by society as. Nobility is an elevation of the spirit, the mind, and the body. Titles of nobility allow us to recognize, as a society, those individuals who personify these attributes. The point at which they become lost occurs in one of two ways. Either the “noble” become so corrupt as to eliminate the substance of their nobility, or society convinces itself of their uniformity. In both cases, it is the failing of society that has allowed the corruption of titles. By refusing to weed out the less noble, and so become judges, the corrupted nobility flourishes in false grandeur. And by refusing to acknowledge the superior, a culture begins to pander to the least of their people. This restricts progress, and eliminates would can amount to additional motivation.

Both of these fates stem from a decided lack of nobility and accountability. It is the surest sign of an nation’s downfall when they refuse to acknowledge either weakness or strength.

America was built upon both. But the corruption at the top, where the noble would naturally preside, has so deeply entrenched itself that the noble can no longer be discerned from the impure. And the bottom has become so weighed down by the laziness and government intervention in self-improvement that there is no longer any need to be noble.

I’ve never been one to argue for revolution, nor am I now. But if America is to remain the efficiently advanced society it is has historically been, it must achieve a revolution in terms of its nobility. Perhaps I’m simply idealistic to think that titles could accomplish anything. But even if they can’t, at least we could achieve some of that necessary nobility to die with grace.