We Are Not Flawed

I took an American Philosophy class this semester.  The general theme of the class has been American pragmatism.  Pragmatism is a bit hard to explain so maybe I will explain it in a different post.  A lot of philosophers have twisted it and made it something else, like they do with most everything, but mostly they made it an ambiguous word like all the rest of our words.  Essentially though, pragmatism is considered to be founded by C. S. Peirce and then James and Dewey took it and ran with it.  Between those three men it is impossible to give any one of them credit, they were all amazing.  I personally would claim that no one is an American until they have at least surveyed the thought of these men.  Dewey though probably contributed the most to philosophy and American thought.  He also happens to have been a lot like Thomas Jefferson, especially when it comes to Democratic ideals.  This is not the same Dewey that invented the Dewey Decimal System, just to be clear. 

Basically Dewey was almost perfectly in line with Jefferson, Democratically.  I think Dewey considered Jefferson to be one of his personal heroes.  To these guys Democracy is a moral concept, in its methods, its ends and its foundation.  The problem is, even though we call what we have today a Democracy: It is not.  It has the potential, the ability, but as it is now: It is not a Democracy.  Only in name.  Even Jefferson way back then knew that the move from an agricultural to an industrialized nation was going to topple the Democracy he created.  I think Jefferson though blamed it on industrialization itself whereas Dewey knew it was more than that.  Dewey knew it was the unsettling and disruption of our local communities that was the problem.  For Democracy to work, all citizens must be active in its workings: ALL OF THEM.  We must all do our part.  We must all be well informed, educated, and active in making sure the government does not achieve power over it's people.  The duty of citizens of a democracy is making sure they themselves, the people, have the power over the government.

It should not be difficult for anyone to see, in modern America, that this is not the case.  We the people, do not have the power.  The citizens of this country are not informed, they are not educated and they most certainly are not active in the political process.  If that were the case, these things would not be happening.  I spend a great deal of my time attempting to get people to read books and it is nearly impossible.  They wish to remain ignorant for whatever reason.  This is the biggest issue we face; truly educating Americans.

A discussion was going on in class about this issue.  People almost always get this helpless feeling when they truly consider how far gone and out of control our government is.  While we were discussing this another student made a comment which was something to the affect of, "Oh well, humans are naturally flawed, we are by nature bad."  This was said to make an excuse for the behavior of our politicians, she didn't like it, but believes that is just how it is.  A shrug of shoulders; helplessness.  If you know me at all you know I called her on it.  We are not flawed.  The real flaw is allowing people to do bad things because of the belief that they are flawed by nature.  Raise a child to think something is wrong with it, and guess what, something will be wrong with it.  Tell a child he is stupid his entire childhood and he will grow up believing he is stupid and therefore be stupid.  Raise women to believe they are second to men, and guess what, they are second to men.  We have all been raised, in this Christian culture, to believe that we are all flawed.  It is a lie.

What we are is a collective group, a super organism of human beings, an American society with a whole lot of people with a whole lot of incorrect beliefs.  And since all of our actions directly follow from our beliefs, almost all of our actions are incorrect too.  When our actions are out of line, we must first look to our beliefs. 

This belief that we are all flawed is an enabling belief.  Holding that belief enables people who are doing things to harm others to continue doing those things because everyone turns their head simply believing that that is how it is.  It gets shrugged off, "Oh well, people are inherently bad," but nothing could be further from the truth.  From my perspective this idea, this belief, stems from the two thousand years Christianity has had its lies in our culture telling us we are all born in sin.  It is a lie.  If you believe this lie then you find it easy to just turn your head to atrocities and this is real evil.  I watch people do it every day.

Go look in the mirror.  Are you inherently bad?  I am not.  Do you have children?  Are you going to tell me they are inherently flawed?  Do you have brothers and sisters?  Are they flawed as well?  Inherently?  Try to tell me that I am inherently flawed and you and I will have an issue.  I don't know a single person flawed, not a single one.  I know some people who do some really fucked up stuff, but that is how they were raised.  They were raised to be that way and they too think it is okay because they can just say, "oh well, I was born flawed by nature."  No one ever taught them to open their eyes and see beyond how they were raised.  It is hard to do.  People's beliefs may be flawed, but their inherent human nature is NOT flawed.  Each and every one of us has the ability to be kind, caring, intelligent beings.  Each and every one of us has the ability to be informed, educated, and active in our community.  And people, who do this, do not do evil things to other people.  This in itself proves there is no inherent evil in human beings.

I am not saying that people do not do stupid things.  I am not saying people are not ignorant.  Stupidity and ignorance abound, but it wasn't born in us.  It is not inherent.  Both stupidity and ignorance have a cure.  Those things were created by the culture we live in.  Evil is not an inherent human trait.  The term evil was created by religion.  It invokes fear.  Fear was a tactic to reign in congregations.  Believing that we are evil, on the other hand, is actually quite immoral.  But being stupid and ignorant is not the same thing as starting war merely for profit, wrongly imprisoning people, raping people, murdering innocent people, being outright greedy etc etc.   These things happen as much as they do, quite literally because people have come to accept it to be the way it is, which means we allow it to happen.  These things happen because we fail, as a society, at being democratic.  People unfortunately believe that is just how people are so they turn the other way.  And yes it seems to be so, that people are bad, but only because that is our collective belief.  It is not because we were born that way.  It does not have to be this way. 

The reason our government is out of control is because we collectively allow it to happen.  It is not because human beings are somehow naturally wrong or evil.  Find me an evil baby; find me an evil child that was not raised to be that way.  Find me an adult who, confronted with an upright human, does not lower her eyes in shame.  I was raised in horrible circumstances, I was raised to be an animal, and yet here I stand as an adult and I do not harm anyone in any of my actions.  I am aware of my beliefs and their affect on those around me.  There is nothing wrong with me whatsoever.  I used to harm people but that was what I was taught to do.  I live more Christ like than any Christian I know. 

It is organized religion that tells us we are wrong, dirty, and evil.  What is crazy is that the girl who made that statement in class is just like me in that she can't stand Christianity.  But there she was upholding a Christian belief.  It is difficult to realize just how fully we are indoctrinated by the culture we are raised in.  The unlearning of it requires years of work.  My girl friend was not raised a Christian either, yet as a woman, she has still been raised to be secondary to a man.  She does it quite naturally, without even thinking about it, because that is how she believes it is, that is how she was raised to believe it is.  This girl in my class was not raised Christian and yet there she was talking about how all humans are flawed in their nature.  The beliefs we are taught as children are the most difficult to realize, to become aware of.  Yet awareness is the key.

The biggest part of educating oneself is unlearning what culture and society has taught you to belief.  Being aware of what your beliefs actually are and how they affect the world around you is the baseline of education.  There is a huge difference between making a mistake because you did not know better and purposefully harming another.  When the first happens, we hope to learn from our mistake, when the later happens it is because the rest of us let it happen.  When our government harms other people, including its own citizens, the blame ultimately rests on us.  That is Democracy.  Every time a soldier dies it is our fault.  Every time a police officer assaults a citizen, it is our fault.  Every time a drone kills innocent people, it is our fault.  Every time another terrorist joins the ranks because we are bombing them for oil, it is our fault.  Every time our government takes another freedom from us, it is our fault.  The blame rest nowhere but on our own shoulders.

Until we look in the mirror, take responsibility for our own actions, nothing will change.  It is not because we have a flawed nature.  It is because we do not question our beliefs. 

You see, people are not flawed, people are mostly ignorant.  Not only in beliefs but also ignorant of their potential.  Corporations have infiltrated our government and they did it by keeping the population fat, uneducated, and entertained.  No one is educated so virtually no one sees this, or even thinks it's true.  But it is true. 

The only way to correct this problem is to become fully engaged in the Democratic process.  To become educated.  Not a public or college education, but a real education as to what is going on in life.  A true education is to become aware.  It is our duty as citizens.