To own, or not to own....?

I do not recall who said it, though I have read it in Nietzsche's works: "Arguing over land is like two fleas on the back of a dog arguing over who the dog belongs to..."

And did you know that the Native Americans do not have a word for "owning land"? Remarkable isn't it. I bet the white folks who came first to the US were delighted to learn that. It definitely gave them a certain moral leeway, which is necessary when you want to scam someone, let alone a whole race of people. I mean they thought: "How can I steal from someone who lays no claim on what I want to steal"?

Native Americans were all around North America too, contrary to what people like me, not having learned ever much about Native American history, believe. They didn't occupy a couple of dozen villages. They lived all over North America and were made of many different tribes so the colonizers really outdid themselves in suppressing the natives. Enough with history and politics though. It is certainly not the purpose of this blog to discuss historic injustice done (just remember that the WWII was not the only dark period of humanity- sadly there were even worse in my opinion).

Do we own anything? The question can extend to both the realms of secular and spiritual things. There are two types of ownership we could say similar and different in ways. There is physical ownership which refers to earthly possessions such as a house, a car, a baseball bat. There is then spiritual ownership which refers to the feeling of owning spiritual and emotional objects such as the love of your spouse.

The two kinds of ownership are different foremost in the way that law views them. Secular objects are ascribed to an owner and there are legally binding contracts that uphold the ownership. For example if someone breaks into my car and drive sit without my consent he is considered a burglar. This car belonged to me because I bought it and the paper of its ownership was transfered to me by the manufacturer. The law protects and upholds that agreement between the manufacturer and me the owner. Thus the burglar is breaking the law when he/she takes my car without my prior consent.

I think Rousseau said that : the first man who put a fence around a piece of land and claimed it was his, and was able to convince a number of people of it, was the inventor of society.

Spiritual ownership is different in the sense that the law does not always protect the agreement between the two participants and thus any of the two can brake such a virtual contract at any time with no legal re precautions. There maybe though other ill-effects such as social stigma and a damaged reputation leading to further mistrust of the perpetrator by the rest of the community.

I maintain that both types of ownership are plasmatic and result from the need for physical and emotional stability that humans try to create in their lives. Through marriage, a stable working environment and our circle of friends we try to shelter ourselves. Even with our houses we try to protect ourselves, cover ourselves and establish strong bonds with other individuals. Why? I believe it all happens because of human fear of death.

In a world where the only sure thing is death, we try to create other forms of certainty to ease our fears and insecurities.

This is exactly why many philosophers such as, but not limited to, Bhudda, Epicuros, and the Stoics stressed continuously the importance of releasing ourselves from any form and feeling of ownership and possession in this life.

-Christoff

The power of rhetorics...

.....enough said

-Manolo

Who is a philosopher?

"With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike".

Henry David Thoreau
-Walden- (1854)

So who is a philosopher?

A philosopher is any man who loves wisdom and knowledge. In Greek the word 'philosophia' means "friend of wisdom". Knowledge is often substituted for wisdom in our modern interpretation of the term philosophy. Is that right?

Wisdom is not necessarily defined as knowledge. Wisdom is in my mind more closely associated with scientific providence. It is the accumulation of experience through life, and the successful application of this experience, in addition to factual knowledge and educated estimate, in tackling and solving new problems, or anticipate and prevent future ones.

It is in this sense that wisdom does not absolutely describe a learned individual. The best word to describe such one is 'philomatheis'. Philomatheia is the Greek word for 'friend of learning'. But learning in its strict sense can happen through books too. However, no one would consider a librarian necessarily wise. It is one thing to read books and journals and quite another to absorb knowledge and readily use it in combination with current information to apply it to real situations. This is wisdom.

Philosophy is then for everybody. Everyone who has ever asked 'why are we here?', 'Is there a God?', and the likes of questions given birth to by the mind of a teenager is a philosopher. Philosophy is a necessity much like food and water. To evaluate our life in every stage, to assess who we are and where we are, where we come from and where we are going and how we will get there, are all questions answered by philosophy. Even in order to establish our basic needs and prioritize them we delve into philosophy (Thoreau did it in a great extent in Walden).

In the words of Bertrand Russell:
" To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy , in our age, can still do for those who study it".

John

Maxims from a cynic mind...

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac was a 17th century noted French author and an accomplished nobleman. He was the writer of memoirs and maxims the latter of which has stained his name forever with a reputation of cynicism, bitterness and unscrupulousness. Was La Rochefoucauld (R) any of these? Perhaps all of the above. I maintain though that R was a product of his times and life, a life that left him feeling indeed hurt, disappointed and betrayed (romantically).
Here are some of his maxims that may contain great cynicism but even greater insight in the human soul. (Numbers refer to the Penguin Classics, 1982 edition).

14. "Not only men tend to forget kindness, but the even hate those who have done them kindness".
229. "We have to accept respectfully the harm done us by a person whose benefactions we have enjoyed".
299. "Almost everybody enjoys repaying small obligations, many are grateful for middling ones, but there is scarcely a soul who is not ungrateful for big ones".

Here R notices something that we very often find in Friedrich Nietzsche's (FWN) books too: Kindness puts people gravely in dept and human from their nature are uncomfortable when in dept. There is a sense of lack of power to the person who has been benefited by someone else. What we often call generosity, and admire, is usually a natural drive for display of power by the giver and not necessarily a genuine hand of help to the receiver.

"It is less shameful to be deceived by friends than to be suspicious of them".

This is certainly a Platonic (Socratic) and Stoic sentiment. Since the wrong doer can only harm himself and never the target of his action, it is better to be fooled by friends since it would be shameful to suspect one's friends.

237. "Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad..."
308. "Moderation has been declared a virtue so as to curb the ambition of the great and console lesser folk for their lack of fortune and merit".

Another concept we encounter in FWN's books, especially 'Thus spoke Zarathustra' and 'Beyond Good and Evil'. FWN says that he only respects those who have the power to do evil and chose not too. He contrasts early Christians who didn't have this power, thus were 'good' by need.

157. "The glory of men must always be measured against the means they have used to acquire it".

162. " To know how to put modest talents to the best use is an art that commands admiration, and often wins a wider reputation that real worth".

329. "Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is the way it is done we dislike".

409. "We should often blush at our noblest deeds if the world were to see all their underlying motives".

But is it the motive, or the result of our actions that should determine if we are to be praised, or blamed?

505. " God has put different kinds of talent in man, as he has planted different kinds of trees in nature... Thus the finest pear tree in the world could not bear the commonest apples...".

543. "Before strongly desiring anything we should look carefully into the happiness of its present owner".



John

A note from the contributors...

We have decided to finally join the era of the world wide web (which until recently found offensive as we assumed it was favoring wolves, we world's wolves, or wooowoooowooo). We find the idea of a blog interesting and a great way for you to be part of our often heated discussions. We are eager to get some outside opinions since we usually agree in nothing, being such a diverse group as we are. We got the free spirited lover, the scientific strictly reasonable mind, the emotional-romantic-idealistic type and the utopic liberal. We are a very interesting group indeed.

Before I forget I should say who "we" is. Our names are: John, Christoff, Manolo and JimB. Being dogs and all it is not easy to find access to internet because of our low income but every night we sneak in the high school by which we live and we take advantage of the excellent computer room (along with the delicious canteen, the vending machine, the bathrooms and the printing facilities...especially Christoff). Also living by the school is great because we just happen to spend our morning by the windows of the History class, our noon under the shade of the trees by the philosophy class and our afternoons in the back. The view is not great, but the school canteen-people throw away the left overs of the day. Also the science class meets next to the canteen room so we get a pretty thorough education for free.

We want to share some of the questions we have from all the classes we attend and the conversation we listen to at the playground with all of you. So every now and then (when we get internet) we'll log on and drop a line. Feel free to do the same and comment on our ideas. Its not like we'll bite you if we don't like it (rabid JimB might).

These are some pictures of us when we were kids (back 2 years ago).
JimB is the grey fellow, Christoff has black ears, Manolo is youngest with black eyes (still haven't cleared if it was from a fight over a girl) and me John...I am the handsome guy with the pointy ears, the eyes full of spark, the ivory white coat and the one dark eye full of style, charm and mystery....ok I post this before they see what I wrote.... ha!