How accepting our flaws can help us to become better people.
What can a better understanding of human nature teach us about enlightenment?
There is a wonderful website – RSA – The Royal Society for
the encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce, which at first blush
seems like a weird combination of things to be encouraging. They recently
changed their motto to Encouraging a 21st Century Enlightenment.
To support this change, they created a wonderfully philosophic
video about the need to reassert the ethical dimension of Humanism. In other words, we need to not just ask about
how to progress, but whether any given advance is moral or not. How do we
determine what is right and what is wrong?
To do this we need to have a better understanding of who we
are as humans, who we need to be, and more importantly, who we should aspire to
be. To even begin that exploration, we need to have a better understanding of
human nature. It is only when we understand and accept our instincts that we
are able to transcend them instead of being controlled by them.
Most enlightened individuals realize that while
individualism is on the whole a good thing, when taken to an extreme, it is bad
not just for the individual, but to the society in which they live, meaning the
rest of us. What we should be striving
for is a more enlightened self-aware socially embedded model of autonomy. We
aren’t individuals going it alone. We are individuals who are mutually
dependent on each other and so we ought to act in such a way that benefits not
only ourselves, but the communities in which we live, because that benefits us
as well.
The difficulty is that this requires us to balance our needs as
individuals with the needs of our communities and the needs of the global
society in which we now live. We humans are notoriously bad at finding a good
balance. For me, Humanism is a reminder that I have a moral obligation to find
that balance. Being a good person means not being selfish, but not subjugating
myself to others either.
So, what do you think of this video? Anything you would like
to add or comment on?
Love this, Jennifer! I especially love, "For me, Humanism is a reminder that I have a moral obligation to find that balance."
ReplyDeleteExactly! Thank You :)