On-Topic: The Case for Community

[Kulindahr]

My reading of Kulindahr's contribution suggests the polar opposite with him arguing for the protection of the human rights of the individual human person, mentored through a community which supports the birth right of all human beings to contribute to the common good enabling all to be served when need arises.

Homo sapiens' purposes can be achieved only in the context of a collectivity; that is within its society where it expresses its individual nature of being itself. Man is not simply an individual but also a social animal sharing a common purpose, or aspirations with other human beings as a result of sharing a common human nature.

The Common good is not something determined by the personal choices, and preferences of each person, rather it is founded upon who we are as human beings understanding that each of us benefits when contributing something of our energies, time and excess wealth for the benefit of all which inevitably will include one self when our moment of need arrives.

Quoting Thomas Aquinas' employment of Greek philosophical ideas, said: “Because all human beings share in the nature of the species, every human being is naturally a friend to every human being; and this is openly shown in the fact that one human being guides, and aids, in misfortune, another who is taking the wrong road.”

Reality readily informs us that greed, and obsessive self interest will often reveal the easy willingness of not a few people to feather their own nest at the expense of others whose trust they abuse.

Ah, Thomas! Occasionally, when you stopped being a slavish mimic of Aristotle, you did come up with some gems!

Between this and Mitchymo's comments, I have an inkling that there's a foundation in there somewhere. But I'm not certain it's going to be as clear as for self-ownership (which, btw, a baby has in full: whose will but the baby's moves the baby's eyes, or fingers, or feet?).

I hope I'm not as stymied as was Descartes, who, after seeing the truth cogito, ergo sum, had to cheat in order to move beyond into morals and obligations.

 

[Kulindahr]

Even on a local or tribal level community involves some degree of coercion as discipline iin some form is applied to those who dissent or stray. The downside of community is a sacrifice of material progress. The tribal communities which seem to be the model for community, make very little and very slow progress.
If you favor common purpose and community on a national level, would you not agree that diversity, muticuralism, and immigration are detrimental to the achieving and maintenance
of the common purpose? Would we not be better served by a return to the goals of assimilation and "from many, one "?

We would be better served by functioning in accordance with the nature of our species.

 

[kallipolis]

Ah, Thomas! Occasionally, when you stopped being a slavish mimic of Aristotle, you did come up with some gems!

Between this and Mitchymo's comments, I have an inkling that there's a foundation in there somewhere. But I'm not certain it's going to be as clear as for self-ownership (which, btw, a baby has in full: whose will but the baby's moves the baby's eyes, or fingers, or feet?).

I hope I'm not as stymied as was Descartes, who, after seeing the truth cogito, ergo sum, had to cheat in order to move beyond into morals and obligations.

We can bandy self ownership around for ever, and a day and still agree, to disagree that each of us will define this term according to our very personal experiences, and understandings of man's responsibility to himself, and to the community. Your experiences in the United States will differ from mine, and that of others whose cultures and economies function to reflect our respective history, and the aspirations of peoples whose dreams are moulded through their growth experiences.

Aquinas was certainly inspired by Aristotle, but never slavishly so.

 

[Kulindahr]

No, and no based upon my own experiences.

To believe otherwise is to assume that our common ancestors were somehow defective, and that a darker skin pigmentation is a barrier to the evolution of the human species. Science has proved, and continues to prove that appearances are deceptive.

Not merely that, but there's an implicit assumption that war is beneficial to the species. I might buy that, if war were still carried out by individuals fighting individuals they could see and literally reach out and touch -- the strongest win, and propagate, and biologically that's a benefit.

If community is a reality of our species as much as individual rights, then we have to be capable of having a universal community. If we can't do that, perhaps we should cash it in as a species and hope another will come along that can -- or at least wait until one comes along to show us how.

But as self-ownership is a property not of being human but of being sentient and self-aware, community should ultimately extend across species lines. This is not merely a human question.

 

[kallipolis]

Not merely that, but there's an implicit assumption that war is beneficial to the species. I might buy that, if war were still carried out by individuals fighting individuals they could see and literally reach out and touch -- the strongest win, and propagate, and biologically that's a benefit.

If community is a reality of our species as much as individual rights, then we have to be capable of having a universal community. If we can't do that, perhaps we should cash it in as a species and hope another will come along that can -- or at least wait until one comes along to show us how.

But as self-ownership is a property not of being human but of being sentient and self-aware, community should ultimately extend across species lines. This is not merely a human question.

Being sentient, and self aware is also being human.

There is an existing human community which communicates, and functions on a macro, and micro level through person, to person relationships, and contacts further evidenced by a variety of international organisations that cross international frontiers via television, radio, Internet and telephone communication this apart from social, and political communities which function to draw nations closer together.

War is the exception, not the rule and is a constant reminder to all of us that peaceful co-existence is the ideal, which all human life should be striving to create ensuring that violence never knocks on our door, or takes root in our neighbourhood.

The survival of the fittest is not determined by brute strength, rather by wise choices that reflect the will of homo sapiens to recognise that sharing our excess, with those in lack is beneficial for the human race whereas, war has a habit of dividing people along tribal lines that hark back to our primitive distant past.

 

[Benvolio]

What in the world are you reading???

"Coercion"? "Less individual freedom"?

I'd say your reading is 90% your own ideology reacting to things you see, in a knee-jerk, unthinking fashion. Your response here shows you're doing what the literary community, when interpreting a piece of writing, calls "eisegesis", importing meaning that isn't there.

If you'd go back and read a lot of the past threads in this board, you'll find I'm the biggest advocate of individual liberty around. You'll also find that I like to address fundamentals down below the level of mere observed phenomena or ideology. That's what I'm doing in this question: I'm not advocating anything, I'm asking a "theoretical" question (so many would say, but those "theoreticals" are more practical than the great majority of what people regard as "practical"), namely, that many people regard community as an extremely important aspect of humanity, one which should guide us politically -- so, does it have a foundation in first principles?

I don't care at this point what effects or results or implications might be, I'm looking for some truth about the human condition.

It seemed to me that you have been arguing in favor of community and expanded obligations on a national level. I would disagree with the concept of analyzing community as a political guide on the basis of philosophy or first principles. If you wish to explore it philosophically, I suggest William James.

 

[kallipolis]

It seemed to me that you have been arguing in favor of community and expanded obligations on a national level. I would disagree with the concept of analyzing community as a political guide on the basis of philosophy or first principles. If you wish to explore it philosophically, I suggest William James.

William James might might well have been reading your posts on this site, so to speak when he wrote:

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

 

[Benvolio]

No, and no based upon my own experiences.

To believe otherwise is to assume that our common ancestors were somehow defective, and that a darker skin pigmentation is a barrier to the evolution of the human species. Science has proved, and continues to prove that appearances are deceptive.

The point is that diversity, multiculturalism and a constant large scale influx of people from outside our culture virtually insure that we will not have a common purpose or a common agreement about how to reach it. I said nothing about race, and I am much more concerned abou cultural differences.

 

[kallipolis]

The point is that diversity, multiculturalism and a constant large scale influx of people from outside our culture virtually insure that we will not have a common purpose or a common agreement about how to reach it. I said nothing about race, and I am much more concerned abou cultural differences.

Your camouflage is less than effective, and does not conceal your often repeated racial inferences reflecting your prejudices.

Cultural differences is just code for racial differences; and well you understand this less than subtle attempt to hide behind your carefully chosen words.

 

[pat grimshaw]

kallipolis, are you judging Benvolio who acknowledges there are differences in races?

 

[Benvolio]

Your camouflage is less than effective, and does not conceal your often repeated racial inferences reflecting your prejudices.

Cultural differences is just code for racial differences; and well you understand this less than subtle attempt to hide behind your carefully chosen words.

Nonsense. Culture and race are not the same in the English language. We are talking here about "common purpose", which is a function of culture.

 

[Kulindahr]

It seemed to me that you have been arguing in favor of community and expanded obligations on a national level. I would disagree with the concept of analyzing community as a political guide on the basis of philosophy or first principles. If you wish to explore it philosophically, I suggest William James.

Sounds like you aren't interested in truth.

James? You mean like when he said that community depends on the efforts of individuals, but that the efforts of individuals are meaningless without community? That's a fair expression of why I'm asking the question here -- it's a common proposition, but what is its foundation?

 

[Kulindahr]

The point is that diversity, multiculturalism and a constant large scale influx of people from outside our culture virtually insure that we will not have a common purpose or a common agreement about how to reach it. I said nothing about race, and I am much more concerned abou cultural differences.

They worried about that problem when so many Irish arrived so fast; before that they worried when so many Germans arrived so fast.

Both of those immigrant groups demonstrated that community is a strong force for progress and success. Both founded institutions that were just Irish or just German -- but not for the reason that they wanted to remain separate, rather because they were rejected by the majority. Those institutions have mostly disappeared, leaving behind traditions that the rest of the country has adopted or warmed to, traditions that have become part of the stew pot, the diversity that forms our common American culture. Now we have Hispanics coming at an alarming rate, but one proportionally smaller than either the Irish or the German influx -- and so far they're following the same pattern as the previous waves of immigrants.

Remember that before WW II, a huge number of Americans were recent immigrants. What made them -- and the country -- successful over the next generation was at least as much community as individualism. No one had to give them lectures on the benefits to the individual of working together; they just understood it.

But what's the foundation of that understanding? Is it genetic, instinctual? or is there a rational basis it can be demonstrated from as well?

 

[pat grimshaw]

…those institutions have mostly disappeared, leaving behind traditions that the rest of the country has adopted or warmed to…

That's a lovely fantasy, Kulindahr.

 

[andysayshi]

But what's the foundation of that understanding? Is it genetic, instinctual? or is there a rational basis it can be demonstrated from as well?

In Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene", he proposes that our attachment to community is indeed genetically driven. Millennia of evolution have naturally selected communal lifeforms as the strongest: from humans to all known apes, from a pride of lions to a herd of elephants, even a hive of bees or nest of ants. In a community, we have a united strength for protection from predators, the ability to share food and workloads, to specialise at tasks for wider efficiency, and to protect the young and the weak.

Dawkins suggests that this need for community was encoded into our genes in the very early development of complex lifeforms, natural selection preferring the stronger community based species above others, and that it continues within most beings today.

This doesn't conflict with his overall hypothesis of "the selfish gene". Dawkins contends that our genes, at their base level, are driven by the one selfish imperative: to replicate, and thus continue to live. But, the apparently altruistic desire to join a community and work for all is not specifically altruism: the underlying motivation is that the genes are most protected and most likely to survive within a community structure. While we, as complex beings, can be generous, brave, protective or nurturing to other beings, it is BECAUSE such actions protect our genetic future that we are driven to do so.

 

[Kulindahr]

In Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene", he proposes that our attachment to community is indeed genetically driven. Millennia of evolution have naturally selected communal lifeforms as the strongest: from humans to all known apes, from a pride of lions to a herd of elephants, even a hive of bees or nest of ants. In a community, we have a united strength for protection from predators, the ability to share food and workloads, to specialise at tasks for wider efficiency, and to protect the young and the weak.

Dawkins suggests that this need for community was encoded into our genes in the very early development of complex lifeforms, natural selection preferring the stronger community based species above others, and that it continues within most beings today.

This doesn't conflict with his overall hypothesis of "the selfish gene". Dawkins contends that our genes, at their base level, are driven by the one selfish imperative: to replicate, and thus continue to live. But, the apparently altruistic desire to join a community and work for all is not specifically altruism: the underlying motivation is that the genes are most protected and most likely to survive within a community structure. While we, as complex beings, can be generous, brave, protective or nurturing to other beings, it is BECAUSE such actions protect our genetic future that we are driven to do so.

This was made very graphic tonight on a TV where two elk moved in between wolves and a limping, injured elk. The photographer was astounded; he'd never seen such a thing. The wolves seemed surprised, too -- they stopped, then left.

But can a case be made from this for levels of community in human society? I keep feeling there's something just in reach and I can't snag it . . . .

 

[kallipolis]

kallipolis, are you judging Benvolio who acknowledges there are differences in races?

Merely noting his racial profiling, when he is referencing immigrants.

 

[kallipolis]

Nonsense. Culture and race are not the same in the English language. We are talking here about "common purpose", which is a function of culture.

Really? Thanks, for the lesson.

You have been specifically referring to cultural differences, code for racial differences.

 

[Kulindahr]

I can accept the self ownership basis for rights. But such basis only exists within humanity. That there are rights at all, is due to social development. What good is a right, if it cannot be exercised.

That there are rights at all is due to self-ownership; that they are meaningful between people is due to social development.

I think we're getting somewhere here . . . . To play John Stuart Mill, rights exist by themselves, yet their utility comes not from the individual, but from community. The two extreme conditions are the test: in a society without community, where no one has respect for anyone else, rights are useless (have no utility), and in a society of just one, they are also useless, because meaningless.

I don't mean that in the sense of being permitted rights, but in the sense that without community, no right can be understood to be anything other than an absolute natural freedom. If you are the only person on the moon for example, you don't need any rights, its pure freedom.

Interesting: a man alone has no need of rights, because he has absolute freedom; only the man in society needs his rights, because others might act as though they have absolute freedom -- and it is community that gives the rights utility.

That's sounding similar to James, with community thriving because of individual impetus or drive, but individual impetus being possible only because of community.

Absolute freedom is an interesting concept: if I have it, I can actually do things I really have no "right" to, because there's no one whose self-ownership I might possibly violate. On a desert island I could fuck the wet sand, burn down a tree, stomp on animals, crucify birds, because without others as a reference point, there is no morality on a level of rights -- there may well be a morality that tells me not to do these things because I am abusing nature, but unless my actions result in my own severe harm or death, I'm not limited.

Rights exist not simply because they represent the ultimate freedom for individuals, but because they define the parameters of the community.

My first impulse was to correct the first phrase, but I'm not quite sure what you're driving at there. Rights existence arises from self-ownership; does your "because" mean to indicate that there is a purpose for rights? That would seem to fall back on an argument from design, after the fashion of Aristotle's "final cause", i.e. the goal or purpose of something.

Nor am I clear on how you mean they "define the parameters of the community". I see individual rights as defining parameters by establishing foundation morality, by the old adage that my right to swing my fist ends just before your nose begins, and by the implied contract that if I want my rights honored, I'm obligated to honor the rights of all others. But I suspect that isn't what you're driving at here.

If you stick another person on the moon, the first guy will no longer (rightfully) have pure freedom, since he now has to accomodate the freedoms of the other. Historically, such situations where two seperate entities come together, have always panned out in pretty much the same way, a holding onto absolute freedom, at the expense of the other (or bloodshed put simply), failing to accomodate. Rights are simply just the understanding at a community level of how far our individual (inherent) rights should extend.

Let's go with the small desert island -- we could get away with a million people on the moon before their freedom started to be limited.

I'm going to introduce a colonial-period usage of a term to help out here, to try to keep a distinction clear: rights are what we have inherently, and can't actually be limited for the reason that they're inherent; liberties are what we have in relation to society. For example, properly speaking a repeat rapist has the right to carry a gun around, but as a society we have said that he is not at liberty, i.e. does not have the liberty, to do so.

So your statement above comes out like this:

Liberties are simply just the understanding at a community level of how far our individual (inherent) rights should extend.

And your awkward wording makes me think of Thomas Jefferson, in deference to whose thought I will make another amendment:

Liberties are simply the just understanding at a community level of how far our individual (inherent) rights should extend.


I recall a professor once saying that the Founding Fathers, based on English usage, meant different things by "freedoms", "rights", and "liberties", but I never paid it serious attention before. I'm not certain I'm using the terms as they did, but thanks to your words above we now have:

freedoms -- ability to act on any choice or impulse without hindrance
rights -- spheres in which individuals may act, due to their self-ownership
liberties -- the exercise of rights as limited by just agreement of society

Feel free to suggest different wording, to make these more clear.

If you look at marriage, which you mentioned in the OP Kuli, you say that marriage is a right, because it is the exercise of self ownership by two individuals. But, there need be no marriage at all, for the expression of what that marriage represents, to exist. Marriage doesn't need to be recognised at a level stemming from self ownership, but at a level stemming from community acceptance, since any marriage is not simply a declaration between two persons, but a declaration to the community.

You're addressing the interaction of interpersonal contract with community. Maybe there's a gem in here....

In terms of rights, marriage is merely a contract made between two people to 'entangle' their self-ownership in a very personal fashion. Community enters in -- let's go back to the desert island, where our two stranded mariners have decided to get married; when it's just them, all it means is that they have given a certain definition to their life together that they didn't have before (note: this means they have formed a specific type of community... a matter I'll leave for later)... but now a boat of ten other people washes up, and they aren't alone. Marriage at that point becomes a contract with society, wherein and whereby the community recognizes and honors the contract the two have made.

So there are two rights involved in marriage: the right of forming one, which rests on freedom of association, and the right to have it recognized. The latter entails getting society to agree that what the two have decided does in fact constitute marriage -- the fight happening in the U.S. right now, where gays have the first right, as it is inherent; what is being denied is the second right, the right to have their decision recognized and honored. In other words, they have the right, but not the liberty.

I just got a whole different perspective on the whole gay marriage issue.....

Its not acceptable for example, for a 40yr old man and his 20yr old daughter to say to government, 'we are married, now accept it'. The effects of rights need to be mindful of the impact on community.

This would make for a great on-the-beach philosophical go-around. What's really involved here isn't the rights of the twp people, or even of the people around them -- the society -- because none of them is likely to be harmed in any fashion by such a marriage. The rights at issue in the prohibition of such closely related people to marry are the rights of people who don't even exist yet! It's a matter of the right not even so much of their offspring, as of future generations down the line.

That some around them might say "Yuck!" at such a marriage is irrelevant; if every marriage that bothered someone's sensibilities was banned, . . . .

<wait for it>

we'd solve the population problem in twenty years.

We already know that community SHOULD be mindful of individual rights also, and sadly that is not always the case, but we mustn't fall into the trap of believing that individuals are more important, because ultimately, community is.

So you're a Vulcan?

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few -- or of the one."
-Commander Spock

The problem, as I'm sure Benvolio would observe, is that great evil can be done with that as a weapon.

I guess i'm at the point where i believe although we base rights on the concept of self ownership, we only do so at a community level. We can't just determine what our own inherent rights are, we need others to concur, otherwise they are not rights, but desires. So yea, community is as much important as self ownership is.

Interesting -- I'm reminded of the approach to the Bible of the ancient Fathers, who operated on the principle that while every Christian is entitled and even duty-bound to read the Bible, establishing the meaning was done at a community level. You've made a point here that deserves a lot more thought than I can give it with Bammer tugging at my pants to tell me I should be asleep.

I think the paragraph can be reworked using the concept of liberties to make it clearer, but unless I dream it (wouldn't be the first time I've dreamed philosophy), it's not happening in this house tonight.


p.s. --
LOL I never thought, when I started this thread, that I'd get into defining terms like this! I should have; it's inevitable when one tries to think clearly.

 

[kallipolis]

That there are rights at all is due to self-ownership; that they are meaningful between people is due to social development.

I think we're getting somewhere here . . . . To play John Stuart Mill, rights exist by themselves, yet their utility comes not from the individual, but from community. The two extreme conditions are the test: in a society without community, where no one has respect for anyone else, rights are useless (have no utility), and in a society of just one, they are also useless, because meaningless.

That's it in a nutshell.