SELFISHNESS, LINGUISTICS & AA
This is bitsy and has many gaps. But I would really like to know your thoughts.
Selfishness
The 16th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes came up with the theory of ‘the natural condition of mankind’, which has been pretty well accepted today.
He first takes us to a beginning state where everyone is in an equal position with the same education, environment and physical attributes.
He claims that there are two basic natural conditions of people. The first premise is that everything we do is based on selfishness. Even our most altruistic acts will come back to selfish psychological need to feel good about helping someone or doing the ‘right’ thing. The second stems from the first. Because we are selfish we know that others are selfish. This creates an insatiable fear of others. We need to protect our selves from others. We do this by trying to gain power -be it land, money, position- to buffer ourselves from others. This fear of others creates an unquenchable need for power. Therefore there will always be a need for dominance and conflict with people.
AA
Selfishness
The 16th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes came up with the theory of ‘the natural condition of mankind’, which has been pretty well accepted today.
He first takes us to a beginning state where everyone is in an equal position with the same education, environment and physical attributes.
He claims that there are two basic natural conditions of people. The first premise is that everything we do is based on selfishness. Even our most altruistic acts will come back to selfish psychological need to feel good about helping someone or doing the ‘right’ thing. The second stems from the first. Because we are selfish we know that others are selfish. This creates an insatiable fear of others. We need to protect our selves from others. We do this by trying to gain power -be it land, money, position- to buffer ourselves from others. This fear of others creates an unquenchable need for power. Therefore there will always be a need for dominance and conflict with people.
AA
Alcoholics anonymous have helped of millions of people around the world many kinds of addictions. It is based on a 12 step program. The first three steps state that: 1) I have a problem 2) I am the problem 3) I must give up everything I know and give over my problem to a higher power.
Linguistics
Linguists believe that language is what separates us from all the other creatures in this planet. Some even believe that of we did not have language we could not think. We would have no concept of structure, no mechanism to order and sort our emotions and no way to consider past and future. Revolutionary linguist and American Foreign policy commentator, Noam Chomsky believes that all languages of the world are basically the same; there is very little difference in the structure of language. They are based on a code of nouns, verbs, tenses etc.
Conclusion
Language has a structure and it is not objective. It is a structure of dominance and competition. When an object is labeled within a language it has become defined and limited. The name of the object excludes all other objects. It subjectifies the object. It limits the object. It has power of the object. Theology provides a good example for this. Because the concept of God is so hard to pin down, words are used to describe God and God’s characteristics. Often these words over take what the author was attempting to communicate and become more important that the object itself. Definitions of God become more than God and at the same time limit concepts of God.
Like an alcoholic, this world is addicted. It is addicted to consumption and consumerism. We must understand that it is our fault and we can’t fix it by using the systems we have now. They don’t work. We need to forget everything we know and think we know. Hobbes’s theory on the state of man still holds on to one thing, our system of communication, our language process. Perhaps if there was a new form of communication, which would in turn, create a new way of thinking and new types of relationships- Then the initial premise that mankind is selfish and fearful could be denied.
Relationships not based upon exclusivisim and power, but on something else, something that won’t destroy each other and our world. I have no idea what the new structure would look like or how it would work. But it could be a start.
