In our society we go throughout life devoted to missions, a group or a single purpose that makes us impact the world and our society. Some of these missions fall under titles like research i.e. sociology, philosophies, psychology, and religions. These missions are built on two themes, faith and understanding. This paper will analyze and shed some light on the second theme understanding, while dispelling false truths about the former faith. This will divulge ways on how to understand and how understanding can impact our cultural and social world.
First and foremost this paper is not being generated out of a political agenda or an organized social movement. This is not a result of a frustrated and bleeding heart liberal mind. It is not a new wave anti-government or anti-establishment document_ This is not a call for absolute acceptance. Now, what this is, is a call to fight the ethnocentric mindset, superficiality,
and narrow-mindedness of society. I'm talking about a style of philosophy that penetrates all aspect levels from the personal inter mind to the global world and beyond. If one utilizes all aspects of research and complexities of explanation along with constantly using the synthesis process a mature level of understanding will emerge. This new style of philosophy I call obviously Understanding Philosophy, or in paraphrase form
UN-PHIL.
To start off, we have to define what understanding is? For this writer, my definition is directly influenced by my devotion to t-truth or individual perspectives if you will. Understanding is following a line of questioning that leads to knowledge of a phenomena or aspect of our world. It is maintaining the path towards knowing. It is also acknowledging the complexities and striving to look through them. For those that like it in dictionary form hear it is!
Understanding: To learn with minimal bias, to suspend judgment until all facts are in, to be open to all possibilities, to be aware, to utilize all fields of research and points of view as a theses to manufacture your own truth, to acknowledge that things are complex and to sift through them, to be willing to question in a calm and peaceful manner free from antagonistic attitudes, or to seek knowledge of a given phenomena or element.
Understanding is a type of philosophy. It is a philosophy that utilizes all philosophies. With that stated, when I say philosophies I mean all line of questioning whether it be organized and quantitative like the sciences, or free from structural boundaries and that has a qualitative sentiment like traditional philosophy. You see, if an individual is a scholar, say in psychology and they want to explain what an individuals behavior or action the scholar is bound by the theories and terminology of psychology. Is this understanding? Yes, but a narrow view at that. Psychology is understanding but only on the micro level. The same can be said about sociology, but sociology has a macro view of explanation. Un-Phil encompasses all line of questioning both on the macro and micro level.
To give some imagery of the degrees of understanding think of an onion with its several layers. First, you have the inter-core and grows out from there. Each layer would represent a field of research.
The following is a list of fields of study listed from the core to the outer reaches of understanding. This list is based on one who looks at themselves and then turned outward to society and beyond to philosophy and the metaphysics.
Chemistry: is a field of research that can explain how we as humans act and react to the stimuli that inhabits the Earth both on the inter-body and the outer environment.
Biology: is a field of research that can explain why we act and react to the world and how we impact the world on a cellular level.
Psychology: is a field of research that explains the inter-mind and how it impacts our views of the world both on the conscious and the subconscious level.
Sociology: is a field of research that explains our place in society and how we impact each other. It reveals the manifest and latent function of people and there actions.
Traditional philosophy and metaphysics: It assesses questions to give value, meaning, and guidance for the philosopher. It seeks to unravel the complexities of our world.
How is faith a possible direct threat to an understanding mind?
Faith whether it be structural like the religions or just you're everyday hope is a possible threat to an understanding mind. You see faith is glorified hope and a belief that everything will be ok and someone will work things out. Faith can be a reason to sit on your lazy ass and not seek out reasons why things happen, or in other words faith could be a higher form of pacifism or laziness.
Don't get me wrong, faith does have social significants and serves a function. Faith exists as a spiritual crutch. What I mean is faith exists to give us a sense of inter-peace. It calms the soul and the nerves. People rely on faith to get them through the day a sort of mental relax. You see, every one can use a force that gives you interpeace and mental stability. Faith is a force that we rely on to protect us from what we cannot control. For some people faith is a false sense of security. This is true based on the physical level. For example some have faith in our police to protect them. You see the cops can't be everywhere all the time thus giving the person a false sense of security. Faith only gives us peace of mind. Even looking at the Websters dictionary Faith is defined as
Faith: … unquestioning belief … Complete trust or confidence (Websters New World Dictionary and Thesaurus Copy Right 1996)
Focusing on the Unquestioning Belief what can be said with regards to understanding and the human mind? Humans are thinking biological beings, to suppress "thinking" or in otherwards not utilize our rationality is to be a animal. This means you are doomed to mediocrity. To use your questioning and reasoning part of your mined is to use your God given talent as thinking beings. We are unique as thinking beings. Why suppress the very thing that makes us unique?
Example
You see, having faith in anything means that you believe it is infallible and does not need to be questioned. Faith can be very harmful to the human mind and it's society that it inhabits. It can make you do heinous acts such as murder people in the name of your faith.
Examples of faith gone wrong
Nazi Fascism
Islamic radicals and Jihad
Waco and the Branch Davidians
The Heavens-gate Cult
Faith also can be turned inside out to be used as a political tool to serve as a superficial and stereotypical image of a society and culture. The people that utilize faith in this way are people that have hope or faith in the society that they are analyzing stays as the stereotypical image that they portray.
Examples
The social views of what Punks and Punk Rock is
Ronald Reagan's view of hippies to gain politically
The Christian view of witches and the Wicca religion
The belief that Fahrenheit 911 is true without seeing the response documentary Fahrenhype 911
If a person subscribes to the false image that is portrayed by an entity without questioning the motivations or validity, then the person normally assumes that the entities portrayal is accurate. This will lead to assumptions. In some instances, assumptions are the precursor to stereotypes and stereotyping. So it is said that to understand is to assume nothing with regards to any event or person.
Example
Assuming every politician is corrupt
Assuming every person that rides the "short bus" are stupid or has low intelligence
Some times adhering to a prescribed belief can give some one blinders or tunnel vision if you will.
It was Gods will that's why . . . happened.
You see believing in a force that controls everything destroys the freedom to explore other alternatives of explanation. I have to get something completely clear that this is put forth to expand freedom of explanation, and not to be anti-God. It is to say that believing that a force that is all controlling is unhealthy because it leads to close-mindedness towards other forms of explanation. Understanding people seek multiple ways of explanation through looking at the complexities and degrees of explanation.
Example
Believing in the creation story v.s. an evolutional theory
There is another degree of explanation that is the degree of personal experience. You see personal experience has a lot of bearing on what we think, feel, and what we understand to be true (personal understanding) and True (irefutable fact).
Example
The belief in the paranormal that is UFO's, Ghost, Lock Ness Monster, Big Foot, Angels, and even God gives limited understanding to the ones that never experience them. You see you have to experience one or all of these phenomena to give any believer or non-believer more insight and a deeper understanding.
For another example, even something like addiction and the addictive personality. This writer, to be honest, has limited understanding of what it is, how it persist, and the mental feeling of a addicted person. I can only venture a guess and put options on the table of what it is and how it persist because I have no addiction. I have truly limited understanding.
You see personal experience gives you a more concrete truth. In other words if you believe that something is true and you experience it for yourself your truth will start to become more concrete and will turn to Truth.
Note (t-truth= personal view or a synthesis of our interpretation of the events, T-truth= facts that are irrefutable)
Understanding:
To learn with minimal bias, to suspend judgment until all facts are in, to be open to all possibilities, to be aware, to seek knowledge of a given phenomena or element, to fight superficiality, to resist
Blog Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
Playing (Music): PUNK ass Thinking
Current mood: awake
Added on: 28/06/2006 17:28:35
|
