There is no purpose of life...and all people are equal in pursuing it
Let’s have a look at this bearing in mind the quip, that socialists are supposed to believe “there is no god, and Karl Marx is his prophet”.
First of all we must recognise that the 'purpose of life' raises problems that are linguistic, political and social. I shall first outline the linguistic problems, and then look at the social and political problems, which are indeed interrelated.
The 'purpose of life' might be general, such as the 'purpose for which there is life', or the purpose for an individual to stay alive. But I think it must also be a social concept, where life is seen as a social activity, and where some people might achieve this purposes more than others.
Let us consider this linguistic issue - where some languages might have to use different phrases for different interpretations - and let us look at the first interpretation. Now life came into being at some stage, and perhaps finds a suitable and stable form after fits and starts. But when survival requires conscious pursuits, the 'purpose' is for example more likely to be sex than the survival of the species. But this involves interaction between two individuals, when in fact wider interaction is required. Such wider interaction will include such things as the desire to protect. To my mind, this is the key element of love, but clearly it may be more general than that.
So I have suggested both sex and love as things focussed upon when the real goal is the survival of the species. So perhaps we can say that the purpose of life is those activities we directly pursue, because we have been evolved to pursue these activities to ensure the survival of the species.
So we can see a circularity: the purpose of life is love, and the purpose of love is life. Likewise for other things we may have mentioned or have still to mention.
Well, I am going to try and tease this circularity by re-introducing a model of socialism that I presented in last fortnight’s issue, see opposite:
Note the three stages of green: from the outermost, the untamed environment, culture (the outer maroon) creates a ‘semi-tamed’ environment. From this technology and skills, the pink, create the tamed environment, including health and education, which permits our socialist society, represented by the ‘inner circle’.
( The red is of course just ornament :] )
So is socialism the purpose of life: is life for socialism? Not at all, socialism is for life. Here there is no circularity. But as I have suggested, the purpose of life is those activities we directly pursue, because we have been evolved to pursue these activities to ensure the survival of the species. And, circularity or not, this lies firmly in the outer maroon, outside and indeed pre-dating any knowledge or technology (pre-Eve?)
So the purpose of socialism should be a fair opportunity for members of society to pursue such a purpose of life – not to destroy it in the name of progress.
By Martin Prior
