Sacred Life?
I -
In nature there are moons, stars, planets, comets, meteors, gas clouds,
black holes, great expanses of empty space. When we observe this vast cosmos,
separated from us by distance beyond our imagination, what can we infer from
it, what can we draw out of it? Nothing!
'Order', you may say, yet what do stones and suns know of order? Our
mortal reality: A life, brief in the scope of this immense cosmic theatre, then
death - and that is that. Once you are dead you are gone, vanishing out of
existence. Your personality crumbles, you are broken down, you do not awaken.
We are dragged into this world whether we like it or not, we act, and then we
perish. A good life, a bad life, all is equal in death and all is forgotten,
eventually. You leave with nothing, there is no chance of another go, there is
no path to eternity, you will not continue on in some other form. You may
desire permanence, eternal order and the security of some sacred soul - no such
thing is available to us. We are fleeting and slight, our capacities are
limited, we know things only through the filter of our fleshy bodies.
II -
The sacredness of life is the result of one thing - personal preference.
There is no logical reason for life to resume. Logic is, after all,
supposed to exist before and after humanity, to be true in all possible worlds,
above and beyond the preferences of individuals. What could such a cold master
care for warmly-beating hearts!
Rationality, the ability to make choices free from emotional impulse,
how does this grant value to life? For some are more rational than others; the
scientist more so than your dear old nana; the civilized scholar more so than a
tribesmen, someone with a more powerful brain over one with a less powerful -
yet still would you call the one more deserving of life than the other. The
ability to make such rational choices, from where does it give value to
life, and how do we measure rationality outside of human beings, with human
tools and measures.
This raises a question: 'If there is no meaning to discover outside of
human creation then all choices are equally futile, and the ability to make
very good choices through rational thinking is of no greater value than to be
purely driven by some other force. Everything will eventually crumble away, and
anything you do is of no significance to the cold universe.'
Not quite so, our personal preferences can always grant rational
choice meaning. We do not discover the meaning of rationality inside of
rationality, we discover it through our own feeling, belief, or trust in it. To
put it another way, you can convince someone through rational argument of
something, and maybe discover something along the way, but this will only work
if the other person has chosen or is able to think rationally.
III -
We all suffer, some very much more so than others. There is no one who
does not suffer; be it boredom, physical pain, lovelessness, whatever. This
suffering has been explained in many ways. Sometimes it is sacred and has at
the end of it a reward. Then there are those who frame it in some different
kind of meaning, turning to fate for comfort (it could not have been any other
way and it was not just a random act of chaos - thus my suffering is eased by
understanding it).
At the opposite end of the spectrum is pleasure. Pleasure is preferable
to suffering, yet neither state provides meaning, and thus sanctity, to
life. A more materially rich life of higher sensory pleasure does not
automatically make the meaning-seeker that much wiser. The absence of suffering
is no foundation to the discovery of 'hidden truths', or meaningful lives. If
it was, the level of 'profoundness' would increase the richer a civilization
became. We have the greatest eye for physical nature in our scientific culture,
but does the ability to make precise discoveries tell us anything about
life, the universe and everything, or are we just imposing our own views upon
it after the discovery.
And how do we ever know for sure, for absolutely certain? What does it
feel like to have absolute knowledge of something, for I know not.
IV -
The imagery of a path, leading to enlightenment or a furthering of our
lives is to me a horrible piece of imagery, and poorly constructed. A path runs
from one point to another. All the way along the path, on either side of it, is
ground. Wherever the path eventually leads to, it is surrounded by ground,
ordinary, dull, ground. It just serves to highlight the absurd nature of our
thinking: We have to go somewhere, we have to ascend somewhere, we have to
evolve toward something. No, we are on a geoid called Earth, and all
paths lead round in a circle.
Lines move directly forward. They appeal so much to us, being quite
straight forward to navigate (walk along it - it is as simple as that). If the
path leads directly forward, it must begin somewhere, and end somewhere. Where
else can it end but infinite perfection, beyond mere humanity. Forwardness
within time, progress and advance, seems to be a universal amongst the
civlized. It creates goals and objectives, and these create truimphs and
prizes. What suffering is caused by this focus on something direct and
rewarding. Imagine if we just were.
V -
Here I will now make a positive argument for the sanctity of all life
- the rot is no pleasant sight to the eyes. The casualties, the suffering, the
maimed, these are not beautiful. It is the shallowest impulses within that make
us turn away from death in disgust, the appearance of it that effects us more
than anything. This very same vanity wants us to see life flourish, be vibrant
and attractive. Appearances are more important than we give them credit for and
we cannot brush the realities of death and suffering away by raising a plastic
facade around our environment. The stink of death and decay will always waft
through any shield we hold up against it.
VI -
If the human being is sacred only because of our whims, the personal
preferences of individuals, then whether or not we grant these same dignities
to anything - be it a stone, a plant, or an animal - is equally valid,
and dependent on nothing more than our vanity. It is to this that I appeal to
you then, reader. In vanity consider your fellow life forms, for it is not even
in our self-interest to be selfish, cruel and murderous. When more people agree
that life is sacred then do not, we shall have sanctity of life, and the only
philosophy we need to wield to uphold these principles is an absence of
any higher principles to give us meaning.
We can aim lower and make our world better on the back of shallow whims.
By St.Zagarus
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open topic' Issue 39
