I)
It is unthinkable to me that a living being can be compelled to move
by something outside of itself. Influenced, certainly. Threatened,
certainly. But utterly dominated to the extent that it is no longer
separate from that which would control it? This is surely impossible.
Each conscious living being has its own inner-world. Each living
being experiences the world in a way that is shared, but nonetheless
unique to it. We are all intertwined, undoubtedly. But we are not all
One.
We
cannot say, therefore, that it is possible for any outside influence
to dominate us; to make us act in a way that was unavoidable, or
absolute. Any environment allows us some element of choice. To
succeed in any environment requires us to meet it half way. The work
is never done for you. Even in the most perfect conditions
imaginable, you will still need to be driven into action from within
yourself.
If
we generated an economic and political system which was fairer (and
less stupid) than our current grotesque chimera, we would still see
some people meeting life half way and others not doing so. We must
always include the 'chance-element' of individual human will.
We
should strive to understand the influences which shape our character,
and we should try to evolve society into a more equal and moral body.
But this does not mean that we can engineer away all of the toxins of
Man through a mere system change. Many are the social and material
determinists who would say otherwise.
II)
Deterministic theories are often used to take away responsibility
from certain groups in society. The consequences of such thought
might lead to the most supreme elitism: we have the ability to decide
our own destiny, they do not. Are we not then granting certain
generalized sections of society a free pass to be self-pitying and
self-hating? By offering people the chance to fail and deny
responsibility, are we not cultivating failure?
By
maintaining a system which steals away responsibility from anyone
(particularly the poor) we are justifying the woeful institutions
which sustain their conditions. By reducing and simplifying the
experiences of such groups we are not only lazy thinkers, we are
allowing the lazy 'solution' to triumph: “They cannot look after
themselves, so they must spend their lives on welfare. See, we are
doing our part by considering them!” (Middle Class Liberal 1A, The
Book of General Middle Class Liberalisms). Yet we must surely have
realized by now the psychic and spiritual poverty which can exist
regardless of our material conditions.
Even
if welfare pay-outs were to the tune of a million pounds a week I
would oppose them, for they would not be able to fulfil the need to
feel useful and personally responsible for one's own actions - two
necessary conditions for flourishing esteem. They would still deflate
and flatten the human spirit!
For
a person to be governed from above is insult enough. For a person to
be grateful for a subsistence wage is equally upsetting. But for a
person to be forced to suckle from the teet of a faceless
institution, where grown adults are treated like school-children, is
the greatest of insults. And an insult against one individual is an
insult against individualism itself, for true individualism must be a
universal principle to be just. This is why we must consider the
suckling State to be a debilitator, preventing the growth of any
empowering consciousness by drip feeding us just enough to survive.
III)
“If only I had been born into better conditions; a better school, a
better house, with better parents. I too could have been a parasitic
Chief Executive of a parasitic corporation.” If this sentence
sounds familiar to you, then you are surely in the minority!
Advocates of determinism will speak of the most 'successful' members
in a society and use them as examples of how economic and social
factors shape our chances to succeed. These same advocates of
determinism are often, without speaking too generally, of an
egalitarian stripe, and are trying to convince us all that our
position in society is determined, and that 'success' can therefore
be engineered.
Yet
surely it makes more sense, if one is an egalitarian, to see the
so-called winners in the capitalist system as the ultimate losers -
people who were too callous or unimaginative for anything more than
accumulation of power and material wealth; the basest and lowest
desires available to us. Far from being privileged and enviable, the
so-called Great Man or Woman is a soulless slave to their own
desires, one who despoils other people's chances for their own
twisted ideals of self-worth; one who sees no value outside of
monetary gain; the most pitiable and empty creature imaginable, one
whom I struggle to call a complete human or feel even the remotest
love for.
The
fact that there are people from privileged backgrounds who rally
against such privilege, the late Tony Benn being a prime example,
indicates that we can never remove the individual's reaction to their
surroundings from the equation; we can always reject our surroundings
once we are mature enough to do so. As much as we are influenced by
our surroundings so too can we influence them in turn.
To
be successful is not to be a parasite or a dictator or a slavering
monster. To be successful is to be just, to be fair, to be creative
and to love liberty for all. These virtues of character are available
to anyone, and as such any determinist who claims that success is out
of the hands of each individual ought to re-examine their own
criteria.
IV)
Deterministic predictions can be useful in a broad sense. ”If there
is an increase in unemployment, an increase in robbery will follow.”
This is useful to know, especially if you are in a position of
political power. Although it does not mean that the increase in
robbery is due to the actions of people being determined by their
social and material conditions, only that they are choosing a new
means to fulfill their basic needs (there is after all, the
percentage of newly unemployed in the example who did not turn to
robbery). Our choices may be limited by circumstance, this is a sad
and unjust truth, but there are always choices to be made.
Furthermore,
these kinds of predictions often assume that the values people have
absorbed, or chosen, are some kind of fundamental law of reality. An
increase in robbery will follow an increase in unemployment if and
only if the people within a society accept the values of that society
(i.e. acquisition of material wealth, work ethic, shame and praise,
and so forth). I highly doubt a group of newly enlightened zen
buddhists would turn to robbery if they faced unemployment!
Deterministic
predictions are not so useful in a narrower sense. The nearer we
close in on an individual's character, the harder it becomes to make
any form of predictions. To introduce a scientific analogy, gravity
seems all well and good when you are dropping a hat onto a table, but
examine it at a quantum level and it becomes harder, if not
impossible, to predict the motion of its infinitesmal components. The
more complex the prediction, the less likely it is to be fulfilled.
The vaguer and broader the prediction, the more likely it is to be
fulfilled. This could put the determinist on the same par as a
tabloid horoscope if they are not too careful!
V)
Genius! Genius is not predictable. Of necessity, it 'transcends' (or
rather just pushes out) the boundaries. Genius indicates that the
world is not static, and not entirely predictable. It is in flux, and
sometimes it allows an out-and-out genius to flourish and benefit us
all. How many men and women of genius will emerge in the next fifty
years? What will they bring to the narrative of humanity? Who knows!
VI)
To close, let us consider a (possibly) utopian scenario. We can
imagine a state where everyone is free to act so long as they do not
harm the liberty of another, recognising that liberty springs from
society, and society requires equality. In this truly free state, can
it be said that anyone's actions are determined by their environment,
social and material conditions?
Selim
'Selim' Talat
