There
is much talk of men being the primary subject. Or more specifically,
white, relatively young, European or North American males are the
subject and the rest of us are but a variation to this ideal of human
being. There is currently endless literature on this, to the point
that my topic almost feels redundant. Yet this still needs to be
stressed. Why? Because of the same reason that all the rest of
literature is written about this and that is to bring the issue to
light, to de-normalise it.
I’m
not saying that every white man has an easy life and that all is
handed to them, of course not. It’s not about privilege, it’s
about identity. When your culture, gender, appearance and so on, is
not the norm, you start to question your validity as a human being,
thus hindering your progress. The plant does not question whether it
is a rose or a lily… it just grows.
We
can’t. We create and accept cages all around us. Cages that cut our
roots and make us silent and insecure. The first of these cages is
that of our appearance. We fall into the trap of being “different”
and step by step, day by day, we carve wounds into our personal being
to the point of running the risk of never actualising the potential
of the beautiful thing we might have been. We hope one day someone
will notice the gift we carry inside of us and that belief will
elevate us to heights of acceptance, of success, of happiness.
But
it seems that an actualised life is only reserved for a few. That
only certain people can walk this Earth feeling worthy, feeling error
free. I have noticed that Europeans and North Americans already have
more self-entitlement than people from other origins (South Americans
for example). Only these people can relax their defences to the point
that they don’t have to worry about being persecuted and being
belittled. Once that is out of the way they can think! They can think
of the world and of self-development! Whereas the rest have to think
on whether their existence is remotely ok.
Why
has most of Philosophy been written by white European males? Answer:
it hasn’t. Philosophy as a subject is a very ancient discipline
that has existed all over the world. The Philosophy we study in the
Western world is the edited Philosophy of the Western world (apply
the same principle with most if not all subjects). It is not THE
Philosophy, just the current trends of the latest European thought.
The thought of men of privilege who never had to fight starvation or
persecution and thus were able to sit and think, and investigate
themselves and our Universe. But do not misunderstand me please, I do
not see this as a bad thing at all. I think this should be the goal
of a society; to develop itself to the point where its people can
dedicate themselves to contemplation, to art, to investigation,
without the struggle to survive another day.
There
are still millions in our world who live in a daily struggle to
survive, to feed themselves, to look after their children whilst in a
war zone. There are still millions of girls and women who cannot
access the most basic education, there are still people who are so
ignorant of themselves and their own history that they take a
nationality as a thing of pride, but do not want to take any moral
responsibility for the things that that nation has done.
The
reason why it is important to realise these things is that once we
become aware that the wealth and power of nations is built upon the
blood and sweat of others, and not because of some divine
entitlement, we begin to grow some kind of empathy for other nations,
for other people. Only through understanding each other can we become
complete people and start doing something better for this otherwise
ridiculous world.
Eliza Veretilo
