I wished to explore the idea of uniqueness, the individual, the self and the myriad of differences between one self and another. What is it about persons that makes them them, given that we are all made mostly out of the same materials as each other, the dust from long gone stars according to Prof Brian Cox.
Personhood, a catch all term that encompasses not only physical traits, but has psychical implications as well as societal, is not easily defined. Rights are bestowed on persons at a certain age, so we must then already recognise that a person is a development from one starting point through stages into other definable states, and on maybe to a state where it becomes justifiable to take those rights away for some purpose and for some reason. Is a new born baby a person, is a foetus, is a human that has dementia? See an earlier post for the ship of Theseus argument (https://pinkfloydpsw.blog/2017/06/01/locke-on-the-person/).
We could look at Peter Singer’s view of how young human mammals are maybe not persons until they have developed to be different than every other human mammal of the same age, but that’s a controversial approach that I suspect he just used to illustrate further contentions rather than something that might inform a eugenics program of the ethical conditions it then involves. Classrooms are full of people examining ideas that do not actually work in any practical sense, and it is important to do this work.
Personhood, we might speculate, is developed as a reaction to the experiences of circumstances, meaning we are formed in every way by everything we take in through the senses, no matter how minute. I grew up in a family, the middle one of three, all male, and it is likely that this had an impact on who I am as a person but it is unlikely that this forms the entirety of my growth as a person since I am demonstrably different to either of my brothers. One was intellectual and argumentative in a somewhat awkward but playful and intriguing way, ever willing to dispute all things. Sometimes I believed only for the purpose of enjoying the dispute, yet he could be quite affable, and was often humorous. The other is a much more serious sort, passionately obstinate in his objections to all things he thinks ‘ought’, he is often, from my perspective at least, rather difficult and firmly fixed in his thinking.
I spent years not talking to either of them but for very different reasons. I won’t leave myself out of any criticisms, though it is impossible to be objective about yourself, but also it’s hard not to recognise when others point it out so much.. I am an over-thinker with an inherent mean streak, and I have no ability to be subtle, and I’m not patient. I think these are likely to be traits that others find difficult when dealing with me. I also have an honesty about me that I cannot get past, I’m dreadful at deceiving people and I can’t hide any emotions, this has proven to be no asset in regard of my employment trajectory for sure because the boss usually wants his ass kissed more than he wants told the truth.
I got married once, I think that changed the person I was, and within a few years I got divorced and I changed again, hopefully for the better (my wallet is poorer but my life is richer if that makes sense?). If a person changes over time are they even the same person, what if they change their mind? It’s tempting to think that a person is only the sum of what has happened to them, but that cannot be true either can it? Some people have a torrid time and come out of it a better person, some face a harsh reality with strength and dignity while others wilt. A courageous man can have a cowardly brother, a smart guy can have dumb relations, a sportsperson can come from a family of lazy fatties. We keep the idea of transcending both genetics and environment as a possibility of life, without this hope we think we might be machine like, or predetermined in a stifling way. It does not suit the self to think that the self is limited by barriers, we can all dream big even if only some ever hit big.
We recognise in people that they each have a unique version of how they believe the world should be configured, and it would be a mistake to surmise that all the persons within any voluntarily joined group would be aligned on subjects other than the reason of the group. Say like to think that everyone that has a boat likes to fish, or that everyone that plays chess is an intellectual, it is just as wrong to believe that everyone on the left is in favour of mass immigration from any place and everyone on the right wants boats sunk. We might call that perspective the ‘ought‘, meaning what should to be the case so that we could be content. Each person has their own ought. We can explore a wide range of single issues, but highlight only general alignment in groups. Everything from the perspective of…..
Drax, the character from the North Water, to whom authority is merely a man made structural affect of recognising, between gentlemen, that each of them is too weak to take what they desire so must rely on false beliefs codified in laws, and the effect of their wealth, to change the behaviour of others, to subdue the masses that outnumber them. His theory is that he does not, nor needs to, recognise the authority of anyone because authority is merely a historically repeated falsehood, he explains this in the series. Opportunism is his strategy, and courage his ally, he makes his immediate world what he wants it to be when and if he can. He is blessed to be without conscience, probably thinking that conscience is a weakness that society puts upon a person in their social conditioning, rather than it being a component part of the self it is a learned behaviour (I guess).
To the other end of the scale where we find the duty bound peasant, the cap doffer, the forelock tugger, he who lives within the rules of the wealthy and works overly hard for crumbs from the table in the form of recognition and praise, never questioning a structure that promotes some persons and impoverishes others. He does not see it as a falsehood, it’s of course easier to ignore that structure is man made if some narrative of rights and betterment is woven in to describe unjustifiable inequality within a framework where there is a deity and that deity has picked the best of us to have all, then display their benevolence toward subjects.
In the word “subjects” we find “subject” which indicates rules applied by powerful individuals are applied to some people, and we mean “subjugated”, defeated, subordinated, forced to bear a set of conditions formed by a stronger force. For our peasant the subjugating force is their recognition of the validity of a twin postulates, that there is a divine being that all authority is derived from, and that some people are just born better than others. For Drax, our man who is free of these notions, the idea of being a subject is abhorrent, he is a man free in his own mind who will not be subjugated by any other man. Drax sees all men as equals and no rules as valid. He is the centre of his own moral world.
I have a lot of respect for Drax, and some contempt for the peasant, this is because I also have difficulty accepting unjustified historical structural authority derived from deities interpreted by men and the power of the wallets of other men (I often think the second condition is the result of the first). I can’t help but recognise that the cohesion of a society is reliant on the peasant, and the Drax character represents only the possibility of turmoil. So my natural anarchist position is a paradox. I wonder did Plato or Mill factor folks like these extreme examples into their thinking?
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