Week 12

Civil Disobedience

"An unjust law is no law at all"- St. Augustine



There was a school of thought, which still has many adherents, that defended the existence of a link between "justice" and "divinity"; therefore, what is right is what is not against the "natural law". This argument provides the basis to object in conscience to all that, according to the understanding of some people, is unnatural (in this context, euthanasia or abortion would be considered as a rejection of the sovereignty of God). This line of thought has been, and is today, a dangerous assimilation between "justice" and "religion" in which the most fundamentalist doctrines are based.

For the opposite point of view, only what is "legal" is right, and therefore, there is neither disobedience nor conscientious objection to a particular law, although it may seem unnatural.

 In my opinion, we can and must disobey unjust laws, because the health of democracy depends on it. What we have to fear is the day when there not be unjust laws, because it would mean that we all would be under the yoke of the only thought. In addition, disobedience has always played an important role in society, as disobedience to the laws of racial exclusion in the U.S. during the years 40 and 50.

Martin Luther King appealed to the ideas of St. Augustine who said, "An unjust law is no law at all". However, for St. Augustine, all human law derives from natural law, and if in any case a law is contrary to natural law, it is no longer law, but corruption of law. The problem is figure out what does the "natural law" mean, especially for agnostics and atheists. We must be careful when interpreting these concepts because any person could claim the right to disobey a particular law with the excuse of being unfair according to his-her scale of values, his-her personal interest or simply his-her whim.

Civil disobedience, which was applied in many countries and times throughout history, consists in consciously breaking the law, not to gain advantage or personal interest, but to change the transgressed rule into other more in line with general interests.

I was in Peru when the Amazonian indigenous people declared themselves in rebellion and civil disobedience. They started the uprising of the people under the motto "The forest is our mother, our mother is not on sale, we defend our mother" in protest against a government that did not heed their demands. The Government was privatizing and plundering the natural resources in the region putting in danger the Peruvian Amazon and violating the laws and international treaties that protect indigenous people. Through this civil disobedience, there were achieved major changes in national legislation in order to safeguard the rights of indigenous people, while they were recognized as important political actors with the right to be involved in the development of national legislation and measures, especially when they can have social, cultural and environmental consequences for their community.

Week 11

Collectivism and Individualism 
 "I am not a Marxist"

Karl Heinrich Marx (German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. 1818-1883)

  

The ideas of John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx have been the basis of the two great economic and social currents of the twentieth century, liberalism and socialism, respectively. Mill's philosophical conception puts particular emphasis on the individual over the interests of the state and the society, and any power can exert actions against the will of the individual, except if it harms to third parties. Freedom proposed by Mill did not put brakes on human development, and politically and economically, it was interpreted as the right to excel without limits. For Karl Marx, this concept of freedom focuses on the individual and personal interest, in the freedom to dominate and exploit others to gain power and wealth, because those who take over the means of production (because their freedom permits to do it) have the ability to command and dominate the weaker.

From Mill's theories comes the idea of ​​free market where private industry has the right to extend its branches without the meddling of government and society. The growth of the individual is a natural human instinct, but Mill made ​​it clear "as long as it does not harm others", and this is not reflected when we see how the wealth-poverty gap is extending around the world. From Marx's theories arises socialism, where social being determines consciousness of men and justifies an egalitarian society in which a dominant group does not undermine the chances of others. It is important the collective consciousness around the individual, while it does not fall into oligarchies that put arbitrary limits.

Although the interpretations that emerged from these conceptions of freedom became antagonists, both Mill and Marx defended the individual freedom, civil rights, religious tolerance, equal rights, the abolition of privileges, free elections, private property, etc. The originating status of liberalism was clearly humanistic, concerned about individual liberties of every human being to carry out their life plan, but the subsequent manipulation placed it dangerously close to its antithesis. Today, liberalism is associated with certain factors which may even endanger those old ideals, because liberalists defend the absurd idea of it is justified, and even it is admirable, a despotic and totalitarian political regime as long as it keeps multi-million dollar trade relationships. Apparently, the only real freedom is market freedom. If there are suppression of civil rights or aberrant Human Rights violations, everyone looks away. This "false liberalism" is merciless with the idea of the state as something bad, like a perverse structure that systematically violates the rights and potential of people. Marx's theories have a great philosophical value, but they were reduced to mere power struggles that led to an economic and political doctrine, naive and unworkable, as communism, which inevitably becomes in a tyrannical and inhuman system where there is no room for non-Communists who have only one option: either compromise or death.

Both Marxism and liberalism destroy human solidarity. The key to the welfare of a country is not class solidarity, but solidarity among all individuals. It is necessary to bring closer as far as possible the interests of all, produce wealth and, above all, make available all necessary means to have a decent life, but respecting aspects of human nature as the desire for improvement, individual distinctions, certain grade of individualism, ambition, competition, etc, while they do not come into conflict with the collective interest.

Week 9

A Noble Truth: Desire causes suffering

“Desire nothing, give up all desires and be happy”.

Swami Sivananda (1854 – 1934)

If we analyze each of our sufferings, we realize that there is always a desire unfulfilled.   From the moment the desire is in our minds, the thirst for satisfaction arises, but this satisfaction is ephemeral and resurfaces to demand more of the same. The consumerist policy creates desires. The commercial strategies and tactics of consumerism are constantly offering something desirable to the people. Sometimes are useful things, but in most cases they are completely useless but associated with social or personal "status" that makes one see himself- herself more important in the eyes of others. We are the product of a society that consumes us while we consume its products, where the identities are exchanged for false needs.

 Simultaneously or alternatively, we want everything but we cannot achieve it. Sometimes when we get something, there is not enough for us, or we lose it, or we suffer the feeling of dissatisfaction because of the end of our craving. Intellectually we know that it is impossible to have it everything but we feel bad because what dominates us is what we want and not the intellectual side. The desire to own things without limits imprisons us in a suffering that makes us vulnerable and kills the desire of being who one is. Then, we desire more things to compensate our emptiness creating a vicious cycle that never ends ...

 However, given the ephemeral nature of life, why we also have to renounce to the ephemeral? Not all the unfulfilled desires crumble us, some affect us more than others depending on the importance we have given them, and this depends much on our psychological structure. Every plan of life can be seen as ephemeral and doomed to suffering, but can we aspire to anything more?

Week 8

Philosophy and Religion

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it".

Andre Gide (French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature-1859-1961)

    The existence of God is an issue that concerns philosophy and religion. Both try to answer the same questions about the meaning of life, death, fate ... etc, but in different ways.

The philosophy addresses these issues from a rational point of view, and it is open to criticism and change through the advancement of human knowledge. God, from the philosophical point of view, is the possible existence of a first principle using the reason to raise the hypothesis of an omnipotent being. Religion simply takes this hypothesis as dogma, there is no debate about the existence of God, and it assumes its true without having reached this conclusion by reason. Religion responds directly to the most important human questions without allowing changes, and faith is all we have as answers to our questions.

Philosophy has doubts, religion asserts.  Philosophy arises from criticism, religion from dogma. The principles accepted by faith do not allow criticism, and philosophical analysis criticizes everything, therefore philosophy and religion are incompatible unless there is reasonable faith.